Father_Brain
Banned
Because people saw "Phantasy Star + handheld" and expected it to do something within respectable distance of PSP numbers, without realizing that it was a fundamentally different type of game with more limited appeal.
Media Create Sales: Week 9, 2013 (Feb 25 - Mar 03)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
Because people saw "Phantasy Star + handheld" and expected it to do something within respectable distance of PSP numbers, without realizing that it was a fundamentally different type of game with more limited appeal.
This is not true about sales threads at all. The big hits and surprise hits generate a lot of discussion too. AC 3ds being an absolute beast has been a constant discussion point and games like SK and that Run for the Money 3ds game have generated a lot of discussion. Its too easy to say these threads aren't about real sales discussions outside of something bombing because there are two big bombs on the market right now (the Vita and the Wii U). Of course these two systems and their software sales will cause a lot of discussion.
yellowjacket25
Member
3DS shot up to 215k after its price drop. Its not really an apples to apples comparison though. 3DS was selling around 30k even before that and its price drop was twice as large as the Vitas drop. Basically it was a more popular handheld, that got double the price drop. Im not sure how anyone could expect the Vita to match that. Vita's biggest sales problem is that it is compared to the 3DS which it will never be able to compete with.
Have a Nice Day
Member
can we have Dynasty Warriors launch numbers compared with previous entries?
Hero of Legend
Member
Agreed. Hell just put Victory on 3DS (you might be suggesting just that anyway. XD).
With the big one on 3DS and bringing in that fanbase, you'd think the clones would come with it, ala PSP. Phantasy Star Portable/Victory and God Eater 2 should've followed MH to 3DS.
There's always God Eater 2 Burst and whenever Phantasy Star Portable 3/Victory shows up.
What's worrying is that Sega has nothing in JP for 3DS, Miku was the last or Rhythm Thief were, what are you thinking Sega?
Shining series I'd say is likely to move to 3DS more than Vita, but again, Sega's put their eggs on Vita for some weird reason.
Glass Rebel
Member
I blame the terrible anime.
MoogleWizard
Member
Thanks. Well, that puts it into perspective. If 3DS was doing bad, I don't know what Vita's situation should be called.
Then again, if memory card prices are as ridiculous in Japan as they are in the west, then Sony don't deserve any better sales. That the system's Achilles heel when it comes to cost IMO.
Ah, yeah, I forgot One Piece and I also left out Steins;Gate. They both have that same problem you mentioned, though, in that neither are Vita exclusive.
Father_Brain
Banned
No, its biggest sales problem is that it's tracking behind Dreamcast, while selling significantly less software (even if one assumes a high DD:retail sales ratio), and with no notable exclusive software announced beyond SS/ToHR tomorrow.
yellowjacket25
Member
Lets put it this way. Go through this thread and count how many people even mentioned this weeks top selling game.
airmangataosenai
Member
Good numbers all around, Vita relaunched a bit higher than my high-end prediction which is kind of nuts. Senran Kagura also hits a high mark for a premiere in the series, also a first for the Vita. Good signs of life all around, lets see if it can maintain respectable sales.
Sammy Samusu
Member
I'm talking about God Eater 2, thought that was abvious, sorry. The original was a huge success, no doubt!
But now PSP is dying and PSV is dead. I think Namco questioned themselves too, the game went through a media blackout for many, maaany months.
As for Valhalla Knights, pure garbage, and it would bomb on PSP, PSV or 3DS, it's a non-factor. And maybe you are right about Victory, to be honest, I'm not familiar with news/rumors surrounding that game.
ringwaldhaze
Neo Member
To be fair, it is a Musou game.
michaelius
Banned
Vita is really alive this week and Wii U went up just a little
I wonder if that was due to huge number of lovers of dead platforms in shops or some minor sale or event
Well, to be fair, if it *is* statistical noise, that does suggest that the drop may have levelled off somewhere around here, which is good news after a fashion (Or, well, not-as-bad-as-it-could-be news)
Hero of Legend
Member
Somehow I see Magi having legs. Where was Toriko when we last saw it? Same with Grandpa Danger and Gon?
I'm not denying that there is a vein of negativity that runs through sales threads but its a disservice to the quality of the discussion that happens in these threads to suggest that people aren't actually interested in sales but just in ragging on poor selling games and systems.
Which strikes me as... odd, really. I mean, they're not really all that different from the contemporary adventures, other than occasional references to how Luke has just been met recently and whatnot. It's not like the 'early days'-ness is particularly represented in the storylines.
Given that, I'm more inclined to believe general fatigue instead.
I think it's become apparent that aside from a few guaranteed products (MH, Pokémon, Mario Kart) Japan sales-age is like licking your finger, walking out of your home in North America and trying to gauge the wind direction in Akihabara.
OmegaTreeFish
Banned
well maybe they feel the Vita is the hardware that suits there games the best. Then its the hope that if they make the content, more people will buy Vitas and then their games.
If everyone just went by what was simple most likely to sell and not factor in what hardware suits the game the best then no one would ever make anything for anything but the very most popular system. New systems wouldn't have any games at all.
I hope more devs take a chance on it but just do a sensible job with it. Dont over shoot your budget. Plenty of games have been profitable on Vita, just maybe not as profitable as it might have been on another system but then maybe the game would have suffered for that.
Its kinda odd that we at GAF hate it when companies like EA try to turn loved franchises into a more popular franchise by trying to make it sell to as many people as possible and water down the game to do so (such as dead space) and then mock the devs that try and put games out on a system where they might have made more money on a different one but the game clearly suits the system they made it for. You can just use a lower budget and not need to sell a million copies to have a success.
I applaud any dev that takes the system into consideration to how it suits their game. Prof. Layton is perfect on DS because of the stylus and duel screens. Res Evil would have been much more suited to Vita than DS (duel sticks) and so forth.
I hope SS sells well. I have no idea if it will and wont pretend to KNOW its going to succeed or fail. I will watch the outcome with great interest. However there seem to be more and more indie devs getting interest in making games for the system and I at least hope this brings it a healthy life. Its not going to have 3DS success, thats pretty obvious but I think it can have its place.
I also don't believe Sony will kill it. Sony have never really seemed to do that. Plus they need it to integrate with PS4 to keep up / have one over the competition.
I don´t think a 19k yen pricepoint wasn´t feasible after more than a year on market it´s just a 1k yen difference, that a more successfuly system can hold a certain price and sell well is a completely different matter. I think more than anything their pride got inbetween this little step into complete price parity.
Hopefully they can somehow manage to sustain sales over 15k moving forward.
yellowjacket25
Member
I don't mean to put everyone in the same boat. There are some who have some insightful things to say, and are more interested in the industry then the certain death or success of certain consoles. It can just be hard to find sometimes in the midst of the noise.
I can agree with that but even a lot of the discussion that comes out of poor sales is more positive than negative. With the truly craptastic sales of the Wii U and Vita just about every frequent poster in MC threads has become a dilettante expert on how to run Nintendo and Sony. That's not so much negative or ragging on a system as it is just ridiculous and funny.
Hero of Legend
Member
You bring up some very excellent points.
Each platform is different and have their own strengths and weaknesses and can benefit games in their own way. Never thought of it like that before! :O
Well said.
michaelius
Banned
See that's why one smart guy once said that there are:
Lies, damned lies, and statistics
Like the so called vita sales no software myth. Look at release schedule for Vita and find me which release should have sold much more ?
You can't sell what doesn't exist which drives the total number down.
All charts launch-aligned.
This is the week that 3DS hit one million units sold. Wii hit that number at its sixth week.
Note, since this draws only from the top 10 it does not represent smaller titles.
e.g., software sales of zero are assumed if the console has no games in the top 10.
Tally of the number of titles for that platform in the top 20 for each week.
I can't find the top 20 for PS3's second week. It has been assumed as zero.
Feel free to criticize or point out mistakes.
Well, at least it didn't drop...
That people didn't take time to discuss about how DW8 opened worse than DW7 is an argument to support your statement that people only talk about bad sales in the MC thread?
I guess people were too busy focusing on the bad sales of Senran Kagura.
airmangataosenai
Member
Pretty much this, there never really was a true bomb on the Vita, the system was kneecapped by a lack of support. Now that we're looking at a stable series of releases in March it will be interesting to see how it performs up until April. If it can maintain above 30k or better next week then I'd say that the system is still salvageable.
Not sure what to make of Vita's hardware sales. It might hit a base higher than sub 10k, but with the lack of games in April, I don't know. Animal Crossing's doing awesome, Dragon Ball did well, and Professor Layton did meh. We'll see Taisen UX in about a week, with Luigi's Mansion 2, so the 3DS has the month (and the year) covered.
There's a difference in saying that the Vita will drop (which is reasonable) a bit and saying it'll go to 25k or less next week already. Also, people saying that SS can sustain a bump are right too... Persona 4 Golden, a enhanced port made the sales bump, so why can't this game not do the same?
I know I'm comparing the two, no need to say that, I'm just saying that the game has a chance of being good and reasonate with the japanese market/have legs.
That's fucking stupid.
Father_Brain
Banned
Fair point. The poor software sales are primarily a symptom of the third-party support/hardware sales vicious cycle that Vita is trapped in, but if SS fails, there's no readily apparent way to break out of it.
Shining Ark means shit to God Eater. Two different games, two different fanbases. Seriously, what the hell are you talking about. There's already a userbase for God Eater on PSP. Seeing it is releasing on Vita as well, they are hoping for them to move there.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
TBF Persona 4 was a big game from a much bigger franchise with an anime that came out out recently. The closest comparison would SK and we saw the results of that this week combined with the price drop. I don't think SS will have that much of an effect (it's a MH clone, that's a new IP, it's not like the Vita doesn't have those nor does that make it a syatem selling game).
I think it would be more reasonable to see how the system does without any new releases and see if it can sustain higher sales than what it was doing pre-pricecut. I think it should have higher weekly sales after the new releases due to the lower price.
Ragnarok Odyssey is the only other Hunting Action game currently available for the Vita, and it's now a year old.
BishopLamont
Banned
After 13 weeks PL vs AA: 3,235 / 288,269
After 13 weeks PL: MOM: 2,569 / 287,271
Heated battle!
Doze HSG numbers :3
With SS releasing tomorrow, it will have the entire week to amass sales for the next MC! :O Can't wait to see how it fares.
EDIT: Damn, looking at the expectations for next week, it does seem bleak for the new IP :/
I stand corrected. 4 days? Yeah, i guess it wont do much
With SS releasing tomorrow, it will have the entire week to amass sales for the next MC! :O Can't wait to see how it fares.
EDIT: Damn, looking at the expectations for next week, it does seem bleak for the new IP :/
I stand corrected. 4 days? Yeah, i guess it wont do much
OmegaTreeFish
Banned
The term "sex sells" has always meant all things encompasing it. Anything sexy and anything that might give the idea of sex and have people acting sexy.
So having a game with a bunch of women looking sexy (never seen the game so don't know if true) does actually fit the term "sex sells".
That's not true.
There's EDF, PSO2, Lords of Arcana, etc. There's lots of Hunting Action games on Vita. (BTW, I hate the term Monster Hunter clone, it's so stupid... there's millions of games of the same type, why not call it by the genre?)
BTW, Ragnarok Odyssey did 100k numbers. And it's not really that good game. How can't Soul Sacrifice get more than that, when it's a much better game and being much more advertised in Japan and everywhere??
Makes sense. I stand corrected.
Apologies if this has been addressed already, but:
The difference between the hardware sales of Vita and other systems is context. The Dreamcast scenario was declared by circumstances. Sega could not continue on acting like it had been, so it had to change.
Sony should be capable of trying to prop up Vita for some time. Of course, they might decide it isn't worth it, and every company does have its limits.
The real problem Vita faces, I think, is competition. Not only does Vita had a powerful direct competitor (3DS), but the 3DS has powerful competitors (Mobage, smartphone). Vita has to look attractive to developers with all of those around it.
The difference between the hardware sales of Vita and other systems is context. The Dreamcast scenario was declared by circumstances. Sega could not continue on acting like it had been, so it had to change.
Sony should be capable of trying to prop up Vita for some time. Of course, they might decide it isn't worth it, and every company does have its limits.
The real problem Vita faces, I think, is competition. Not only does Vita had a powerful direct competitor (3DS), but the 3DS has powerful competitors (Mobage, smartphone). Vita has to look attractive to developers with all of those around it.
michaelius
Banned
I think SS is much less important than most people assume it is - neither bomba (unless it's really huge like 50k lifetime) nor big success (250-300k) will matter much in the big picture - titles that Vita will receive for May, June, and Q3 will be lot more important.
Another holidays like 2012 one with single minor game would sink any chances system has.
That's also good point- Sony has much deeper pockets than Sega at that time and much more to lose if they discontinued system (it would sink peoples faith in PS4).
Also Sega didn't have the backbone of DD system at that time - with PSN in place you can release games with much smaller budgets and sell them at much better profit margins while mantaining much better sales legs of without the need for reprints and fightning for space in shops.