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Media Create Sales: Nov 30-Dec 6, 2009
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
gkrykewy said:
- Wii was never getting many third party games
- Months have been passing and japanese third parties keep announcing games for DS/PS3/360/PSP
- The latest few third party games are not selling that great
Basically this:
Now seriously, the Wii (hardware) will be in troube if NSMB Wii can't keep the hardware up during the first half of the year because the only "big" (>100k sellers) third party games announced are a multiplatform game (Sengoku Basara 3) and an on-rails first person shooter (Resident Evil: DSC).
Even 360 probably has a better announced third party lineup thanks to multiplatform games shared with PS3.
Cosmonaut X
Member
TunaLover said:
A bit of both, I think. The series itself has declined from its historic heights, and I would largely blame the pubs for that as they spread it too wide, too thin and too quick. However, I think there is a very strong argument that - beyond the hardcore Tales base who seem to buy it anywhere - the series does seem to perform stronger on PlayStation platforms, for whatever reason. After sluggish showings for the series on the 360, DS and Wii - and pending a remarkable turnaround for ToG that puts it over the 200k for its opening week - I think Namco would be wise to rein in development and focus on the PSP and PS3 for future installments, as it seems the userbase there is more receptive.
Not surprised about TOG.
Like I mentioned before (and got grilled for it).
1. Third Party
2. Already have an installment on the Wii.
equals failure 90 percent (obvious there are some exceptions) of the time. Degree of failure increases as previous installments increases.
Its freakin uncanny. Be happy that there wasn't already a Musou on the wii cause SW3 probably would have sound like 50K if it was the case.
Like I mentioned before (and got grilled for it).
1. Third Party
2. Already have an installment on the Wii.
equals failure 90 percent (obvious there are some exceptions) of the time. Degree of failure increases as previous installments increases.
Its freakin uncanny. Be happy that there wasn't already a Musou on the wii cause SW3 probably would have sound like 50K if it was the case.
I think Spiegel has had that post ready for about the last 4 months.
Seriously though, bad start for ToG, but let's see how it sells for the first week before completely burying it...there is still a wide range of outcomes depending on the weekend. If it follows ToS:KoR, then its going to do about 140K first week which would be a disaster. If it follows Vesperia PS3 it would do closer to 180K which isn't completely horrible and if it follows Tales of Versus it would do 195K which is ok.
Seriously though, bad start for ToG, but let's see how it sells for the first week before completely burying it...there is still a wide range of outcomes depending on the weekend. If it follows ToS:KoR, then its going to do about 140K first week which would be a disaster. If it follows Vesperia PS3 it would do closer to 180K which isn't completely horrible and if it follows Tales of Versus it would do 195K which is ok.
Why are we lamenting the less-than-stellar sales of an RPG franchise that doesn't deserve those sales anyway? Get that Tales shit off my console, I say. The games are terrible and it seems the RPG players are starting to realize this.
I am still very, very bitter for buying that piece of shit Symphonia at full price, due to positive impressions from others. Never again.
Cosmonaut X
Member
schuelma said:
That was the point I'd tried to make further upthread - that although the series is heavily frontloaded in terms of first day/first week, there is still a reasonable variation in percentages and it is possible we'll see somewhere in the region of 180k+ for first week IF it tracks like some of the installments. I think it's worth holding back a little before proclaiming doom, as it may still come in at the high end of recent Tales games, even if it doesn't exceed Vesperia PS3.
schuelma said:
- Team Symphonia is surely doing a game with the Vesperia engine. So PS3/360
- PSP will get TotW:RM3. Cheaper to make and more profitable
schuelma said:
That's not true :/
I dislike the wii (as a dated hardware) but can appreciate its gems. Last games I've bought are NSMBWii and RE: DSC and I'm loving both.
Spiegel said:
I suppose if ToG sells 175K LTD the Destiny team could move over to PSP.
But yeah on TotW:RM..its sometimes hard to escape the pattern of tests and spinoffs..even if it succeeds you usually just get more!
JoshuaJSlone
Member
It's not like the series has been on an upward slope and XIII is an aberration. It peaked with VII and VIII, and things are basically lower the further you go on either side.AMoreHumbleSquare said:
schuelma said:
Well, there are different ways of looking at successful sales of spinoffs, especially from a developer/publisher point of view. While the Radiant Mythology games and Tales of Versus did really well in terms of sales, it does not automatically mean Tales Studio will go "Wow we always wanted to make a PSP Tales game, since people bought that games, it's time to start now!". Instead, they could just as easily be going "Well if we can keep outsourcing fanservice spinoffs on the PSP, and they sell so well, let's keep doing that."
Considering we've seen THREE of these spinoffs over the years, it's pretty clear that the intention is to keep building on the PSP as a platform for the fanservice titles (crossovers between the other Tales games), build the main RPGs are developed for other platforms.
Now, if ALL the Tales games on console and DS stayed at ~200k and declining, while the PSP games continued selling 300+k, then sure I can see them having no choice but to move the series to the PSP. But that's not the case. With ToV PS3's performance, I think as far as the Vesperia team is concerned, they are most likely already in development for the next HD Tales game for the PS3.
Furthermore, considering how they have already invested significant experience and development infrastructure on the DS and Wii internally, I doubt they will drop them immediately to work on a PSP game. Even with sales of ~250k LTD for each title, there's no reason why they wouldn't continue to make additional entries on the DS and the Wii for the near future.
They just probably won't have as much effort and budget put into them as compared to a scenario where ToH and ToG did really well. If that happened then I would expect the next DS and Wii Tales to be even more of a leap, simply because the fanbase was receptive. Since the PS3 fanbase was so receptive to ToV, I do expect the next HD Tales to get a substantially larger push by Namco to try and centralize the fanbase on one platform at least.
duckroll said:
Thanks ducky, makes sense.
Yeah, if dev costs are contained now and the porting is easy, PS3/360 for the Symphonia team seems like a very reasonable avenue. (though I imagine a same day release for both platforms would decimate the 360 version).
Third parties need to invest in fewer wii projects and produce higher quality arcady titles. Taiko Drum Master was a hit. I think Sega will do well with Monkey Ball and the Balance Board.farnham said:
Third parties need to release more cell shading titles, or colorful titles a la Nintendo/Sega.
At last wii owners are spoiled by Nintendo titles accessibility and simple yet expertly crafted refinement: third parties need to put much more focus on the design of their titles.
That's a lot of things to learn, and they are not there yet.
About PES Wii on a side note, I feel bad for Greyhound. I can't think of a more innovative game regarding controls this gen: the gameplay is exceptional, yet no one cares. How can 3rd parties invest in core gamers offerings on this system, if even their most brilliant efforts are overlooked?
farnham said:
No one really knows but it's not Tales Studio. Tales Studio staff are "supervising" the project and overseeing the implementation of the Tales battle system. But the producer said in an interview that the actual development staff is made up of a team of "up and coming developers" who seem to be "promising", whatever that means.
It looks nothing like mainline 2D Tales games outside of the battles anyway. The field and sprite graphics are pretty low quality and don't really compare well to any recent 2D Tales game.
Great week for Nintendo.
Mario provided a really good boost to Wii sales. PS3 did good too, if sales continue to grow next week in the 60-70k range FFXIII could push sales higher than expected (200k+ territory) but we'll see.
On the software side MW2 did nicely on the two platform combined, ToG not so much but I guess the Tales of brand just isn't big anymore, it's not Wii fault (not completely at least
).
The whole Namco is going downhill really quickly, they have virutally no more big names in their sleeve. Tekken, Soul Calibur, Ridge Racer, Tales of....are all shadows of their former pasts and they have not created new important IPs either, so Namco seems really fucked atm.
Mario provided a really good boost to Wii sales. PS3 did good too, if sales continue to grow next week in the 60-70k range FFXIII could push sales higher than expected (200k+ territory) but we'll see.
On the software side MW2 did nicely on the two platform combined, ToG not so much but I guess the Tales of brand just isn't big anymore, it's not Wii fault (not completely at least
).The whole Namco is going downhill really quickly, they have virutally no more big names in their sleeve. Tekken, Soul Calibur, Ridge Racer, Tales of....are all shadows of their former pasts and they have not created new important IPs either, so Namco seems really fucked atm.
More Graces talk..sinobi seemed to speculate that being so close to FF13 might be hurting it. I think that might be true to a small extent, but I think that is or will be more than balanced by Graces releasing in by far the busiest time of the year for the Wii- you are going to have more patrons than at any other time of year in the Wii aisle, so all in all I think FF13 is negligible and releasing in December was still sound.
I wouldn't knock Tales of Graces first day sales by any means. They're rather strong in fact. By the reactions I've seen, before actually seeing the numbers, you guys are acting like it only sold 30,000 units or something. Also, are hardware bundles taken into consideration as well? Doesn't seem so. I'd wait to see first week numbers before knocking it. I'm predicting at least 300,000 units LTD on this one.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii, The Samurair Warriors release/bundle, and Tales of Graces release/bundle should push some decent overall Wii sales over the holiday and I expect all those games to share success on this push, while other games like Mario Kart and Monster Hunter 3 get small pushes as well.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii, The Samurair Warriors release/bundle, and Tales of Graces release/bundle should push some decent overall Wii sales over the holiday and I expect all those games to share success on this push, while other games like Mario Kart and Monster Hunter 3 get small pushes as well.
Cosmonaut X
Member
marc^o^ said:
I think the poor scheduling of the first couple of PES releases on the Wii had a big impact, as did the drastic change in approach (great as it is) and while the 2008 edition had a strong ad campaign here in the UK that seemed to generate decent sales, despite the strikes against it, subsequent releases have had no advertising to speak off and are just snuck on to shelves.
Another point worth considering is that direct sequels to Wii games - Taiko 2, Boom Blox 2, Deca Sports 2, PES etc. etc. - with no apparent difference beyond added content or a bit more polish (and retailing at the same price) seem to have a tough time matching their predecessors. I'm really not sure quite what to make of it, but I've speculated before that the audience is either simply not prepared to buy yearly installments and demand a great deal more from sequels than would normally be expected, or publishers are unable to explain to them why they should.
Nintendo sidestepped this issue with Wii Fit Plus by clearly marketing it as an upgrade of sorts, and by keeping the price extremely low.
But costs of a new mainline Tales game on an HD console have to be considered as well. A mainline HD Tales game selling a bit better than a mainline Tales game on Wii may actually be less profitable for Namco given development costs. It may make sense to keep the series on the Wii and accept the trade- off of lesser sales but greater profits.
radcliff said:
I think a new HD Tales is a sure bet after Vesperia PS3. I'm no expert, but I would guess the cost would be much less now that the engine is up and running. I think the question is where the Destiny team will go now..stay on Wii or maybe move to PSP?