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[gerg]

It's obviously not something we can measure, but I think the computational weakness of the Wii really is a significant element in pushing most teen-male demographic games off of the system -- these games are more likely than others to be computationally and graphically intensive and to be sold on the basis of these factors, which makes releasing them on the Wii in a form that this market "respects" difficult.

I'm curious as to what series or licenses attract an audience because of their "graphically intensive" nature. I say this because the popularity of the DS, at first sight and especially in regards to RPGs, would suggest that the most major Japanese franchises do not sell on the basis of graphics. However, examining the DS's library more closely you see that Monster Hunter, Metal Gear, and a Gran Turismo-alike are yet to make an appearance, and that might suggest that these games do, indeed, attract a fanbase because of their graphics.

If this is true, then, the idea that a hypothetical Monster Hunter 3 on the PS3 would sell in similar numbers to the Wii version, if not more, doesn't seem so contentious. Of course, Monster Hunter is popular mainly of its multiplayer capabilities, but it wouldn't surprise me if the next priority down the ladder is its visuals.

Edit: Phantasy Star 0 also sold less well compared to its PSP counterpart, but I know less about those two titles. I also presumed that that was down to the audience for certain types of multiplayer games being on the PSP, although that audience might overlap quite a bit with an audience eager for higher-end graphics.

 

[Bebpo]

Bebpo, do you really think there is that much overlap in the audiences? Given that Tales fans are THAT "core"--the same 200-300k show up for every iteration--does it matter when you release it? How many are going to be dissuaded from picking it up because of another release?

Yes, I think there is that much of an overlap. Almost no one of the "core" Tales fans on this board or other boards or anywhere from what I'm seeing is playing and talking about the game, because what is the point when you are switching over to FFXIII in less than 7 days? We're not all skipping it because it's a bad game or because it's on Wii. We're skipping it because we just don't have time to play it before FFXIII.

Don't forget that most of Tales fans are female, especially the ones Graces is aimed at (same group DestinyR was aimed at) and FFXIII is pushing the girl angle more than usual this time around, so that's even more sales taken from Graces.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

That's a pretty nice and thorough explanation and it makes sense. I'd like to ask you what you think of a TOG port to PSP? Surely with Tales game selling so well on PSP and with Wii -> PSP port seeming to be a common enough occurrence these days, do you think it makes business sense to do it at all? I personally think that if they were to do that they could sell an extra 200k copies of the game while at the same time Namco could say that they have given the PSP a mainline Tales game.

Well, ports of mainline Tales to PSP are nothing new. Eternia in 2005, Phantasia in 2006, Destiny 2 in 2007, and Rebirth in 2008. The last two didn't do nearly as well as the first two, but by that time PSP had started to get original content in the Radiant Mythology games.

 

[schuelma]

Bebpo, do you really think there is that much overlap in the audiences? Given that Tales fans are THAT "core"--the same 200-300k show up for every iteration--does it matter when you release it? How many are going to be dissuaded from picking it up because of another release?

I'm not saying it's not true in part, but in the past we see some Tales games doing well against other major RPG releases.

Yeah. I still think any negative impact should be counterbalanced by the general uptick in Wii interest right now- December is a huge month for the Wii and I imagine Graces should be able to benefit somewhat.

 

[Bebpo]

But there is always an uptick of system sales December. It's the reason they release a Tales in December every year! If a good chunk of the Tales games you compare Graces sales to are released in December as well, you can nix that off as a factor altogether.

 

[schuelma]

But there is always an uptick of system sales December. It's the reason they release a Tales in December every year! If a good chunk of the Tales games you compare Graces sales to are released in December as well, you can nix that off as a factor altogether.

True, but right now I'm looking at more at the Symphonia spinoff, Vesperia and VS to get an idea of where things will fall.


Also, December seems to benefit Nintendo platforms more than Sony.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

But there is always an uptick of system sales December. It's the reason they release a Tales in December every year! If a good chunk of the Tales games you compare Graces sales to are released in December as well, you can nix that off as a factor altogether.

Well, that gets a bit tricky. The December Tales do seem to have slightly better legs. But is it that they're December releases, or that the last few have been DS games? PS2 had two Tales in December (I'm going to count November 30), but not until 2005 and 2006, at which point holiday bumpage wasn't a big deal for the system.

 

[duckroll]

That's a pretty nice and thorough explanation and it makes sense. I'd like to ask you what you think of a TOG port to PSP? Surely with Tales game selling so well on PSP and with Wii -> PSP port seeming to be a common enough occurrence these days, do you think it makes business sense to do it at all? I personally think that if they were to do that they could sell an extra 200k copies of the game while at the same time Namco could say that they have given the PSP a mainline Tales game.

The thing is, PSP ports of previous mainline Tales games have not exactly sold gangbusters either. What seems to sell really well on the PSP are fanservice type games which also happen to be good for portable play. The RM games are dungeon crawlers essentially, with crossover characters from all the Tales games. Tales of Versus is a fighting game. There is no real solid evidence that a mainline Tales game on the PSP will particularly sell a shitload, but that's not to say it can't happen. As far as a port of Graces goes, I honestly don't know. I haven't played Graces, so I'm not in a position to say how easily it would port to the PSP, but I would also think that it's not something particularly high on their agenda at the moment.

 

[Nirolak]

The thing is, PSP ports of previous mainline Tales games have not exactly sold gangbusters either. What seems to sell really well on the PSP are fanservice type games which also happen to be good for portable play. The RM games are dungeon crawlers essentially, with crossover characters from all the Tales games. Tales of Versus is a fighting game. There is no real solid evidence that a mainline Tales game on the PSP will particularly sell a shitload, but that's not to say it can't happen. As far as a port of Graces goes, I honestly don't know. I haven't played Graces, so I'm not in a position to say how easily it would port to the PSP, but I would also think that it's not something particularly high on their agenda at the moment.

On a related note, while Tales games don't exactly sell amazingly well outside of Japan, if they do want some Western sales, putting a mainline title on the PSP seems like it would be the opposite of helpful.

However, since they never seem to bring Tales spin-offs outside of Japan, it does make quite a nice system for them from that perspective as well.

 

[duckroll]

On a related note, while Tales games don't exactly sell amazingly well outside of Japan, if they do want some Western sales, putting a mainline title on the PSP seems like it would be the opposite of helpful.

Considering how awesome Bamco USA is about actually releasing Tales games, it doesn't look like it matters what platform they put it on. :lol

 

[7Th]

I think that Bebpo is spot-on this time. My sister is a core "Tales of..." fan that replayed both ToW games at least three times each, and even she would pass on Graces if FFXIII was a week away.

 

[Nirolak]

Considering how awesome Bamco USA is about actually releasing Tales games, it doesn't look like it matters what platform they put it on. :lol

However Namco USA has done an absolutely fantastic job of squandering all of Namco's multi-million selling franchises, though that is a discussion for another thread.

 

[donny2112]

My core point was simply this: a system with a highly diverse user base, consisting of men and women of virtually all ages, is not an ideal platform for a game that very strongly focuses on a single one of these demographics.

When using Nintendo's numbers, you need to use Nintendo's numbers. The split was for users of the system.

With Wii having twice the users per system as PS3, having half that userbase being male still puts the Wii back at userbase difference levels for males using the system. Demographic discussions are mostly anecdotal, unproveable, theory based discussions, which is why they don't make good fodder for sales-age threads.

Well, with that out of the way, we're back to third-parties actively building a userbase for their games on other systems and not the market leader. Lost cause for Wii in Japan for awhile now. Maybe Wii 2 might help correct that *ahem* oversight.

 

[MechaX]

However Namco USA has done an absolutely fantastic job of squandering all of Namco's multi-million selling franchises, though that is a discussion for another thread.

Namco is the only "big" company that I know of that has all of its worldwide branches making... odd business decisions.

On a somewhat related note, where in the world is the next Ace Combat game Namco? I mean, didn't the 360 version sell somewhat well considering it's on a dead system in the region?

 

[schuelma]

Well, with that out of the way, we're back to third-parties actively building a userbase for their games on other systems and not the market leader. Lost cause for Wii in Japan for awhile now. Maybe Wii 2 might help correct that *ahem* oversight.

I don't know if you can blame that for Graces, if it indeed under performs. Wii had a Symphonia spinoff, the GC had the original, and its not like Namco hasn't spread the systems to alll other systems.

 

[Linkhero1]

Let's say what Bebpo said is true, wouldn't Grace eventually sell 200-300k in it's life time? The core fans are still there, but will probably hold off buying it until some time next year.

 

[Nirolak]

Well, with that out of the way, we're back to third-parties actively building a userbase for their games on other systems and not the market leader. Lost cause for Wii in Japan for awhile now. Maybe Wii 2 might help correct that *ahem* oversight.

Though, considering how Sony's fortunes turned around once they started focusing some attention on Japan again, isn't it likely that Sony will start moneyhatting everything out the gate next generation? They might even be willing to do some Microsoft-esque moneyhats, where they would be fine with the game showing up on the Xbox 720 as well (for Western sales of certain titles) as long as it shows up on the PS4 instead of say the Nintendo DS2.

It might also be hard to get Japanese developers to spend HD budgets on Wii 2 games if they're unsure about them selling.

Unless Nintendo takes some serious action starting before the generation even begins, I'm having some issues seeing the Wii 2 getting more third party support than the Wii is. And to get that support, Nintendo might even have to do a bidding war against Sony, which seems to be the least Nintedo-like action I can think of.

 

[schuelma]

Let's say what Bebpo said is true, wouldn't Grace eventually sell 200-300k in it's life time? The core fans are still there, but will probably hold off buying it until some time next year.

I think it will sell 200K easily. But in terms of the audience holding off until later, they would just buy a used copy.

 

[Linkhero1]

I think it will sell 200K easily. But in terms of the audience holding off until later, they would just buy a used copy.

I could have sworn they don't sell used games in Japan. I guess I might be thinking of something else.

Edit: I think I'm confusing this with something else lol

 

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I agree it'll sell about 200-250k ltd. But I think if it wasn't SE's time to shine the game would've easily done 350k ltd or more.

Let's say what Bebpo said is true, wouldn't Grace eventually sell 200-300k in it's life time? The core fans are still there, but will probably hold off buying it until some time next year.

No, because they'd be buying it used for cheaper and those don't count in sales charts.

Or the game could bomb and hit bargain bins for $20-40 new and it'd probably move a healthy amount of copies, though a ton of people will still just get it for even cheaper used in that situation.

 

[Linkhero1]

No, because they'd be buying it used for cheaper and those don't count in sales charts.

Or the game could bomb and hit bargain bins for $20-40 new and it'd probably move a healthy amount of copies, though a ton of people will still just get it for even cheaper used in that situation.

Kind of sad. If Namco only released it a few weeks earlier it would have done much better.

 

[Bebpo]

Namco is the only "big" company that I know of that has all of its worldwide branches making... odd business decisions.

On a somewhat related note, where in the world is the next Ace Combat game Namco? I mean, didn't the 360 version sell somewhat well considering it's on a dead system in the region?

PSP with 4p coop?

 

[schuelma]

I think we've effectively ran this thing into the ground given we have a number from one day.

We need predictions to start and we can talk about FF13

 

[Nirolak]

I think we've effectively ran this thing into the ground given we have a number from one day.

We need predictions to start and we can talk about FF13

Oh, I did have one last question before we switch topics. Do we know when the next major Wii game is coming out? I was wondering about that when I was making a post earlier and was blanking out on the answer.

 

[schuelma]

Oh, I did have one last question before we switch topics. Do we know when the next major Wii game is coming out? I was wondering about that when I was making a post earlier and was blanking out on the answer.

If by major you mean something that could conceivably do 200K, Darkside Chronicles comes out 1/14.

After that...absolutely nothing. Q1 looks just as barren as last year. Good thing Nintendo learned their lesson from 2009!

 

[Nirolak]

If by major you mean something that could conceivably do 200K, Darkside Chronicles comes out 1/14.

After that...absolutely nothing. Q1 looks just as barren as last year. Good thing Nintendo learned their lesson from 2009!

Well I uh, guess that would explain why I was blanking out. Thanks.

 

[Linkhero1]

Could someone please post first day number for Final Fantasy games from past few years? I haven't really followed Final Fantasy, but it would be interesting to compare past games.

 

[Nirolak]

Could someone please post first day number for Final Fantasy games from past few years? I haven't really followed Final Fantasy, but it would be interesting to compare past games.

I think these are first week numbers as opposed to first day, but someone posted these earlier in the thread:

Famitsu Final Fantasy series debut history:
Final Fantasy V - 476,000 (12/1992)
Final Fantasy VI - 1,209,992 (4/1994)
Final Fantasy VII - 2,034,879 (1/1997)
Final Fantasy VIII - 2,504,044 (2/1999)
Final Fantasy IX - 1,954,421 (7/2000)
Final Fantasy X - 1,749,737 (7/2001)
Final Fantasy XI Online - 63,958 (5/2002)
Final Fantasy X-2 - 1,472,914 (3/2003)
Final Fantasy XII - 1,840,397 (3/2006)

Sorry I dont have the earlier FFs. FAmitsu did cover all of them though.

 

[Linkhero1]

I think these are first week numbers as opposed to first day, but someone posted these earlier in the thread:

Thanks, these are good enough.

 

[LINK.AGE76]

It's as if Nintendo just said "It's enough for the Wii. Next fall we're releasing WiiHD/2 with Zelda and Metroid."

 

[Bebpo]

For FFXIII I really feel like duckroll it's going to be undershipped and cap the game's overall sales sadly. Retailers don't want to overstock because PS3 games don't move that many units and FF is the one that will move the units and so yeah...

I think it'll ship 1 million day1 and sell most of that. Probably 900kish. Then it'll restock HOPEFULLY by day 3 and do another 300-400k for 1.2-1.3 first weekend. Then maybe 1.7 ltd imo.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

The thing is, PSP ports of previous mainline Tales games have not exactly sold gangbusters either.

Eternia + Eternia BEST is actually still ahead of the first Radiant Mythology and Versus, though Versus has a shot of pulling ahead. The following three ports didn't even do half that well, though.

On a related note, while Tales games don't exactly sell amazingly well outside of Japan, if they do want some Western sales, putting a mainline title on the PSP seems like it would be the opposite of helpful.

However, since they never seem to bring Tales spin-offs outside of Japan, it does make quite a nice system for them from that perspective as well.

Good points, though I think the first Radiant Mythology did get localized.

 

[Chris1964]

Prediction League:
- what to predict next week? picking up the discussion from before, ff13 1st day, ff13 1st week, PS3 hard, Wii hard...do we really need anything else? Take into account that given ff13 numbers will be on the million side, any differences on lesser numbers else will be meaningless (as in it won't really matter how correct you get a 150k figure...its all about getting right the one at ~1000k).

Add and NSMB Wii just for fun. 51st week is always the biggest week of the year and this particular game will do huge numbers.

 

[duckroll]

I support the challenge of this being a Wii/PS3 battle for the next prediction exercise.

FFXIII First Week, NSMB Wii Second Week, PS3 hardware, Wii hardware.

To make the entire exercise more exciting meaningful, I'm going to suggest multipliers. FFXIII = 1x, NSMBW = 1.5x, PS3 = 10x, Wii = 10x. This means that any differences from the final number for NSMBW will be multipled by 1.5, and differences from both hardware will be multiplied by 10. This should put all 4 predictions on equal footing in terms of value. Otherwise it would make the numbers outside of FFXIII almost worthless.

 

[Bel Marduk]

Does anyone know if HW bundle are included for first day sales in Famitsu/MC? Or is it just FW? Or do they not count them at all?

 

[V_Arnold]

For FFXIII I really feel like duckroll it's going to be undershipped and cap the game's overall sales sadly. Retailers don't want to overstock because PS3 games don't move that many units and FF is the one that will move the units and so yeah...

I think it'll ship 1 million day1 and sell most of that. Probably 900kish. Then it'll restock HOPEFULLY by day 3 and do another 300-400k for 1.2-1.3 first weekend. Then maybe 1.7 ltd imo.

You cant realistically predict that a game sells for 1,3 mill in the first week, and then another 400,000 in the whole "lifetime". Legs aside, that would mean awfully bad second and third weeks.

My prediction: 700k first day, and full sellout of the shipment (1 mill? 1,1 mill?) in the first week. LTD-wise, 2 million.

 

[V_Arnold]

Oh, and for the predictions:

FFXIII First Week, NSMB Wii Second Week, PS3 hardware, Wii hardware.

[FFXIII First Week] 1,100,000
[NSMB Wii Second Week] 400,000
[PS3] 175,000
[Wii] 110,000

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

I support the challenge of this being a Wii/PS3 battle for the next prediction exercise.

FFXIII First Week, NSMB Wii Second Week, PS3 hardware, Wii hardware.

To make the entire exercise more exciting meaningful, I'm going to suggest multipliers. FFXIII = 1x, NSMBW = 1.5x, PS3 = 10x, Wii = 10x. This means that any differences from the final number for NSMBW will be multipled by 1.5, and differences from both hardware will be multiplied by 10. This should put all 4 predictions on equal footing in terms of value. Otherwise it would make the numbers outside of FFXIII almost worthless

It'd be NSMB 3rd week but being the game it is, wouldn't surprise anyone putting bigger numbers on week 3 than week 2.

Now multipliers, not sure, it'd kinda ruin FFXIII spotlight wouldn't it? (PS3 and Wii should do >100k, so 10x would be like predicting >1000k on each). I think having PS3, Wii and NSMB is enough to have some stuff that can affect overall predictions by not much (like 20% weight), but giving them more weight will overshadow predicting FFXIII right (by your multipliers it could be like 60% of the predictions weight).

Not sure if I explained it right but I mean:
FF 1st day + FF 1st week = lets say 2m
NSMB + Wii + PS3 = over 500k most likely
NSMB, Wii and PS3 weight would be 20% of the predictions.

Using multipliers:
FF stays the same, 2m
NSMBx1,5 + Wiix10 + PS3x10 = over 3m easily
FF would be just 40% of the predictions weight.

Anyway, I think FF day 1, FF week 1, NSMB week 3, PS3 and Wii would be okay.

Oh, and for the predictions:

We aren't done yet, sir

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

You cant realistically predict that a game sells for 1,3 mill in the first week, and then another 400,000 in the whole "lifetime". Legs aside, that would mean awfully bad second and third weeks.

Selling 400K after a 1.3 million first week would be better legs than X and XII, and just slightly worse than X-2. I don't see why launching at a certain time of year is going to change the front-loaded nature of the series that much.

 

[Parl]

I support the challenge of this being a Wii/PS3 battle for the next prediction exercise.

FFXIII First Week, NSMB Wii Second Week, PS3 hardware, Wii hardware.

To make the entire exercise more exciting meaningful, I'm going to suggest multipliers. FFXIII = 1x, NSMBW = 1.5x, PS3 = 10x, Wii = 10x. This means that any differences from the final number for NSMBW will be multipled by 1.5, and differences from both hardware will be multiplied by 10. This should put all 4 predictions on equal footing in terms of value. Otherwise it would make the numbers outside of FFXIII almost worthless.

Why don't you just go with percentage difference between actual and prediction? That's how the NPD predictions points system works.

 

[onken]

I support the challenge of this being a Wii/PS3 battle for the next prediction exercise.

FFXIII First Week, NSMB Wii Second Week, PS3 hardware, Wii hardware.

To make the entire exercise more exciting meaningful, I'm going to suggest multipliers. FFXIII = 1x, NSMBW = 1.5x, PS3 = 10x, Wii = 10x. This means that any differences from the final number for NSMBW will be multipled by 1.5, and differences from both hardware will be multiplied by 10. This should put all 4 predictions on equal footing in terms of value. Otherwise it would make the numbers outside of FFXIII almost worthless.

If you'd suggested this before NSMB then maybe, doing it now would just be confusing and pointless.

 

[duckroll]

Anyway, I think FF day 1, FF week 1, NSMB week 3, PS3 and Wii would be okay.

Oh I see, if we add FF day 1 into the mix, then yeah I think we have enough numbers to make it interesting.

 

[BishopLamont]

Tales sales are pretty weird, ports and spin offs on systems with lower userbase sell more then main games on systems with higher userbase. The only solution is to make a new Tales that's multiplatform for every system, would be highest selling Tales ever.

We'll see the new tales for PSP IMO and to a less likely extent the PS3/360 (Versus came out too recent for the PS3 to be likely).

 

[V_Arnold]

Selling 400K after a 1.3 million first week would be better legs than X and XII, and just slightly worse than X-2. I don't see why launching at a certain time of year is going to change the front-loaded nature of the series that much.

Well, for example, the platform can change the front-loaded nature of the series. Why? Because PS3 is a desert if we are looking for JRPG's (new jrpg's especially). And Final Fantasy XIII, budget, production- and marketingwise, stands out in this season from all the competitors. So, what I think is based on the PS3's game library and FFXIII finally coming out:

The game will most likely be a title which people are considering to buy when they get a new PlayStation 3 for the next few months. And december is quite a moving month, so after the first week, the FFXIII should be dropping to like 80-100k (which I predict that would not happen), and then it would half or go 1/3rd of the previous weeks to get to the "final" LTD number with 400k. And virtually it should stop selling after a few weeks.

In the PlayStation 2-era, while Final Fantasy was still one of the biggest JRPG names, with only DQ being more successful, considering the JRPG market, the games itself never really had a luxury of being the only new game in the market with the highest production value for several weeks, in one of the year's most important month.

 

[kswiston]

Probably going to be way off again, but:

PREDICTIONS:

Final Fantasy XIII [PS3]: First Day: 1,000,000 First Week: 1,275,000
New Super Mario Bros [Wii]: Third Week: 295k
PS3 Hardware: 185,000
Wii Hardware: 145,000

EDIT: Revised FFXIII numbers down slightly. Revised NSMB WIII and Wii number slightly up.

 

[donny2112]

You cant realistically predict that a game sells for 1,3 mill in the first week, and then another 400,000 in the whole "lifetime". Legs aside, that would mean awfully bad second and third weeks.

As JoshuaJSlone said, that's par (or better) for the course when it comes to Final Fantasy mainline games.

Well, for example, the platform can change the front-loaded nature of the series.

PS3 has typically been more front-loaded for PS2 main games than the PS2 was.

The game will most likely be a title which people are considering to buy when they get a new PlayStation 3 for the next few months.

The used market is huge in Japan, and jRPGs are notorious for hitting the used circuit hard and fast.

Edit:
Predictions:
FFXIII:
1st day: 950K
1st week: 1221K
NSMB - 370K
PS3 - 185K
WII - 180K

Do we even have hardware or NSMBWii numbers for this week?

 

[schuelma]

So another day and and no Famitsu leak.

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

So another day and and no Famitsu leak.

Thankfully Famitsu gives out Top30 + hard later, and we are still getting first day sell through (just way later), but if the normal Famitsu leak doesn't come back, we're going to lose seeing new games debuting outside top30 (unless sinobi specifically mentions them...) :/


There's green light for predictions anyway, here goes the usual notice:

Predictions for the week 12/14-12/20

[PS3] Final Fantasy XIII (Square-Enix) - 1st day -
[PS3] Final Fantasy XIII (Square-Enix) - 1st week -
[WII] New Super Mario Bros Wii (Nintendo) - 3rd week -
PS3 Hardware -
WII Hardware -

I'm taking the ones posted before this post don't worry. No need for formatting or order, deadline in like 96 hours from the time of this point (when Famitsu puts tries to put the top10 for the previous week in their website)

 

[duckroll]

What's the deadline for the predictions?

 

[schuelma]

What's the deadline for the predictions?

Roughly speaking I think its before the Wed. morning Famitsu leaks (or if its like this past week, more like Wednesday night).


Edit- for perspective on the Wii's number, in 2007 it did 232K and last year it did 131K.