Father_Brain
Banned
On a related note, what hypothetical Vita baseline might be enough to get the major third parties to reevaluate their support of the platform? I'd say at least 20K, but it'd probably take more than that.
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Media Create Sales: Week 12, 2013 (Mar 18 - Mar 24)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
On a related note, what hypothetical Vita baseline might be enough to get the major third parties to reevaluate their support of the platform? I'd say at least 20K, but it'd probably take more than that.
I think Pikmin 3 and Wii Fit U are done. At this point, they're probably just trying to figure out the best time to release them, along with a price drop, to try to give the system a sustained boost into the holiday. That'd all depend on 1) what other games are coming out in-between release/holiday and when, and 2) how much loss they're willing to take with expected sales in the FY for a price drop. Still think the $1 billion profit discussed by Iwata was irresponsible in light of needing to expand the Wii U userbase more than needing profits right now.
metalslimer
Member
Well publishers interested in more than the niche stuff vita is getting will be looking at WW sales, so yeah it would take a lot more for something major. Vita could probably maintain its current level of ps3/psp/3ds ports with 20k
I believe so too, which is why i think pikmin will be more mid summer and Wii Fit U will be mid-late May
Aquamarine
Member
Okay, but that will be corrected in the next few weeks when the post holiday drought gets reflected in the chart.
Anyway, it's not like I'm disagreeing with you.
I think one thing we haven't really seen with the Wii U yet is what a major game actually does to its sales post launch.
It's kind of a big question mark, and might actually end up being one until Fall, but it's still a question mark.
metalslimer
Member
Your wish is my command.
Wiiu will have some kind of bump before it crosses any more streams so i dont see that happening at least
I think the reality is that developers would much rather support Sony than Nintendo, even in Nintendo's dominant territory. While some of that may be due to ill will or poor relations in the past, it's most likely more due to Nintendo being such a strong competitor when their platforms are successful. When Wii/DS/3DS are doing well, it's off the back of 1st party software which dominates the charts. The same can't be said for other platforms.
Of course, ultimately 3DS will still likely remain a much more attractive platform than Vita, but it seems to me it'd take far less for developers to jump on board for a Sony platform compared to a Nintendo platform based solely off of prohibitive competition from Nintendo's games. 20k/wk is still pretty atrocious but if vita can carve out a niche among a dedicated userbase, I wouldn't be surprised to see developers fairly ready to support that niche despite sales being unimpressive.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Load summer with Pikmin, Wii Fit, Wii Party, Wonderful 101, G&W (west) and Lego City (JP) starting in June and timed with a price drop/SKU value add. Then this fall through the holidays roll out Wind Waker HD, Yarn Yoshi, Mario Kart, Mario Universe, Xenosomething (JP), DQX (west) and whatever other goodies are behind the veil (Retro shooter, Bayo Climax, etc). If that can't move Wii Us, time to kill it and move on.
This is likely what they will try to do but Pikmin, Wii Fit, W101, and whatever else they can scrounge up wont prevent the wii u from being dead until holiday.
If they are in fact sitting on games, it makes me wonder how long they've been doing so. Pikmin, Wii Fit, and G&W were all supposed to be "launch window" but that didn't happen. Imagine if Pikmin and Rayman had actually released some time in February with Wii Fit alongside G&W in March followed by W101 in early April. Would it have made a notable difference? I don't think the system would have been "saved" but it would likely be in much less dire straights than it is at present.
I think it's much more difficult to revive a platform that's been dead for 6-8 months as opposed to one that's been on life support.
Maybe you've collectively decided that Wii U is doing worse than GameCube and on its way to Virtual Boy levels, but I've not collectively decided that Wii U is doing worse than GameCube and on its way to Virtual Boy levels.
...
"collectively"
Fixed. Can't imagine any company ever doing that again when trying to establish a system. Sony's probably even shocked they did it.
Lord_Byron28
Member
I'd say Vita proves the exact opposite. Not to say Vita is even remotely saved but the fact that its been able to have sustained good sales after a surge of new games is a sign that even though the platform was dead in the water for 6+ months it is possible to recover. Granted the Vita will likely return to its dead state in a month or so since it doesn't have any significant titles releasing for a while.
There's brand damage involved where the longer a system is seen as "dead" the greater the number of the people that will write it off altogether in their mind as a viable purchase, regardless of almost any future changes. The longer it's considered "dead" the bigger the change to come would have to be to reverse that mindset, regardless of actual weekly results.
Aquamarine
Member
Lifetime-to-date totals of 6th, 7th and 8th gen consoles, Famitsu:
Successful consoles (so far):
DS - 32,863,795
PS2 - 21,981,648
PSP - 19,378,760
GBA - 15,490,615
Wii - 12,686,481
3DS - 11,026,445
PS3 - 9,016,492
Failed consoles (so far):
GameCube - 4,008,745
Dreamcast - 1,918,164
Wonderswan - 1,750,630
Xbox 360 - 1,594,572
Vita - 1,366,206
Wii U - 839,284
Xbox - 472,552
The Wii U needs at least 2 million FAST to make it out of the "failed consoles" rut.
Lord_Byron28
Member
Edit: nevermind post was edited.
I think your GBA number is missing one of the hardware versions. Pretty sure it was closer to 14-15M total. Japan shipments were just under 17M but that usually includes Asia.
Here's a secret: nintendo has a universal account system in place with Wii U, it's simply not open to the public. Support staff can access it easily and it's tied to you NNID. Control over the account is just being withheld.
why.jpg
Aquamarine
Member
Oh yeah, that's just baseline GBA totals.
I'll add GBASP + GBAM in a moment.
Thanks for catching that.
Add WS+WSC+SC then.
Aquamarine
Member
1,750,630 for the Wonderswan family.
Now that DQX is almost out, does the WiiU truly has only one (1) third party game announced from japanese developers? I can only think about RE:R. Is there anything else I'm forgetting?
And four months into the life of the system only 9 third party games from japanese developers have been announced or released.
This must be some kind of record.
And four months into the life of the system only 9 third party games from japanese developers have been announced or released.
This must be some kind of record.
Canis lupus
Member
Bayonetta 2 off the top of my head.
Calm before the storm.
lol
They need a new Nintendo Direct soon...if they even have anything lined up. Really wonder what's going on behind the scenes with Nintendo and third party relations.
Yup. It is truly unprecedented.
Bayonetta 2 is considered a first party game as long as Nintendo is publishing and (presumably) playing for all of it.
Thank you based Y2Kev.
I hope they both think about how they were posting and come back posting stuff that isn't insane.
metalslimer
Member
Wiiu's 3rd party support Japanese support has significantlty declined from the wii which seems impossible to me. What has gone on with wiiu shocks me much more than what happened with vita because the writing was on the wall for a long time. There were topics on whether sony should even launch a next gen handheld.
This really is quite horrifying.
electroplankton
Banned
Indeed.
Wii had an abysmal third party support, because mainly composed of spin-off, experiments, etc. Some of them did well (DQS, for example) but software houses were not able to establish a userbase because they kept releasing the same shit (Capcom with on-rail shooters, for example). But Wii U is even worse, it's not having anything at all.
Honestly, the third parties have to be waiting to announce something. There's no conceivable way that every Japanese publisher has just decided to ignore the Wii U (especially when it's the counterpart of the main console in Japan at this time, the 3DS).
Edit: Level-5 and Atlus surely have something, considering their past relationships with Nintendo at the very least.
Edit: Level-5 and Atlus surely have something, considering their past relationships with Nintendo at the very least.
Father_Brain
Banned
It's getting pretty late for that. There's still a small chance that support could improve considerably, but it gets smaller with every week that goes by without more third-party announcements for the platform.
metalslimer
Member
There is certainly a conceivable way and that is right now the Wiiu looks like a moneysink. There's no reason to put niche games when there are much better options and the Wiiu userbase is just too small to worry about PS3 ports. You can bet these Vita ports were helped by Sony. Atlus is working on SMTXFE
The 3ds has nothing to do with Wiiu just like the ds had nothing to do with wii. Actually the ds and psp hurt and helped kill the Wii by taking any 3rd party support it could have
Why would third parties care about that? 3DS and Wii U are made by the same company but are very, very different and don't even necessarily appeal to all the same people.
Also I don't think Atlus has much besides SMTxFE. Their HD development in general is light. Level 5 maybe. We could see an Inazuma Eleven on Wii U or something.
I'm guessing Sega has a Sonic and a Mario & Sonic game in the works too. I really doubt every company is just going to ignore the traditional Nintendo audience, especially when Mario Kart rolls around.
metalslimer
Member
Well Im sure Sonic will end up on the platform at some point
Well I guess we'll see the effects of that in over a year. And by that point if 3rd parties are just waiting for nintendo to do something it creates a vicious cycle. At this point who are we expecting to rally behind Wii U in Japan?
frankie_baby
Member
i actually think the psp resurgence was possibly the biggest opportunity nintendo missed with wii, they should've tried everything to attract those psp exclusives for porting over to the wii it surely wouldn't have been too difficult and could easily have solved the wii's later years lack of software
Oh, true. Didn't even notice that. Wii U is getting a bump next week though, so the PSP probably won't overtake it just now, heh.
I wonder if Sony paid the smaller Japanese publishers to not support Nintendo platforms. We've got Marvelous being very successful on the 3DS who then suddenly stopped supporting it, we've got Falcom announcing 3DS support but then quietly dropping it too. I wonder if there's something going on behind the scenes that exceeds these two companies.
Sony's small revenge for Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest, so to speak.
However, Japan's lack of Wii U support doesn't come as a surprise. Most of the bigger publishers are Western focused and are gearing up for next-gen, other developers mainly support handhelds. What's being released on home consoles is mostly stuff geared towards the "hardcore gamers" that traditionally are at home on Sony platforms.
The Wii already wasn't exactly a heaven of Japanese games -- and that console had the advantage of being very cheap to develop for.
Sony's small revenge for Monster Hunter and Dragon Quest, so to speak.
However, Japan's lack of Wii U support doesn't come as a surprise. Most of the bigger publishers are Western focused and are gearing up for next-gen, other developers mainly support handhelds. What's being released on home consoles is mostly stuff geared towards the "hardcore gamers" that traditionally are at home on Sony platforms.
The Wii already wasn't exactly a heaven of Japanese games -- and that console had the advantage of being very cheap to develop for.
metalslimer
Member
Doubtful. They probably just aren't ready to announce more games. It's not like they are showering Vita with support. And Falcom never explicitly announced they would be making anything for 3ds
frankie_baby
Member
thats a little bit conspiracy theory-ish, the case of marvelous is probably much more simple that they just did some sort of moneyhat deal for a bunch of games which of course means they have less resources at present for 3ds game development, they do i believe still have some 3ds games coming though
To me, stronger Japanese support as compared to Western support has always made sense to me- you look at some of the relationships there in terms of Namco helping with Smash or the Atlus collaboration, and it seems like there should be some Wii U games.
But the proof is in the pudding and right now there is nothing there.
But the proof is in the pudding and right now there is nothing there.
metalslimer
Member
Well those collaborations are still there and Im sure companies will continue them, but it seems almost the entire industry has written off the system. What it says is that when Iwata says there are more collabs there better be a shit ton of them
Marvelous? They have very likely have another Rune Factory, Harvest Moon, and Senran Kagura on the way, along with that King of Pirates Inafune game and Dragon Marked for Death. Their support is fine.
Marvelous has certainly other games in development for 3DS, there's nothing to doubt about it. All the other important titles they released did well / very well, it's obvious they have more planned. Just, they can't talk about it yet. With this, I'm not saying Marvelous won't support Vita anymore: another Senran Kagura title will be released on Vita (be it Kagura 2 with 3DS or Shinovi Versus 2 exclusive).