Yes Sega started as an American company that exported arcade machines to Japan but it's been thoroughly under Japanese management and based in Japan for 90% of the company's life.
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Yes Sega started as an American company that exported arcade machines to Japan but it's been thoroughly under Japanese management and based in Japan for 90% of the company's life.
It launched as Fantasy Life 2 (then renamed as Fantasy Life Online afterwards) but I remember reading that it was basically the same game as on 3DS in terms of content?
Indeed.
Remember when Bandai gave Hino the chance to make Gundam? And the end result was a TV series that was cut short and a pair of PSP games that sold poorly.
Hahahahahaha, no. Ni no Kuni 2 doesn't deserve that. Pinning the blame on US doesn't even makes sense, as the game didn't set Japan in fire either. Ni No Kuni is just an IP that L5 is desperately trying to make into a seller because that's the only thing they can get a contract(aka money) now. The movie bombed, the next game(Which is mobile) does seems decent but competition is fierce. If it fails, I don't see Bamco funding NNK3.
Not really. Yo-Kai Watch 4, Snack World and I think even Katrielle were all more successful than NNK2 in Japan(where Level 5 isn't sharing the money with anyone) and the NNK remaster(and film for that matter) bombed. There's no real indication that trying to make NNK the next big thing makes any more sense than trying to make Fantasy Life the next big thing.
In general though going in with the mindset that they need "the next big thing" is probably going to harm, not help, them. A competent release strategy for the Yo-Kai Watch 4 game outside of Japan probably would seen it be a success, without needing the backing of the anime/merch.
Yikes.Yes.
Not even the only reference, mind you. Quickly looking at the OT, for instance:
. https://www.resetera.com/threads/sn...h-cracker-jack-keychains.170000/post-29155699
They still relied on their games to be huge multimedia kids franchises like Yokai Watch, they only expected to be a hit, or bust.
Is it true what i read on thsi thread that Megaton Musashi is a toys to life? Cause that worked great with Snack World. Also, i would say that there was something... wrong when playing first Ni no Kuni knowing they're the same team that made Dragon Quest VIII, so i was surprised that they dared to make the sequel without the Ghibli style they used on the first one, oh and that the movie fucking bombed.
As a i said, all eggs in the same basket: wanting all to be big multimedia franchises.
Yokai's success was a lightning in the bottle, these numbers were never going to be sustainable. And L5 knew that. It's difficult to keep IPs aimed at kids relevant over a long period of time, since kids simply grow out of it fast and you'll always have to convince new kids to like what you are offering. So, instead of trying to carefully manage their IPs, Level 5 has always chosen the milking route: get as much money out of an IP before it eventually crashes and burns.
This approach worked good enough for a long time because they've always been great at finding new successful IPs to replace the IPs that were fading away. However, that's where they struggled lately - Snackworld flopped, they didn't get their Inazuma reboot out of the door and neither Megaton Musashi (which frankly doesn't look very apppealing either).
regardless of the state of level 5's catalog... the american office was tiny. there was some confirmation about its size two (?) e3's ago when they held a local layton event at a cafe to promote the last game on 3ds, it was some minimal investment to start out with hopes of setting up a stronger localization/publishing team in the long run. it didn't really come to fruition and the additional investment probably needed didn't seem to follow either. even from a promotions/marketing stand point the american office set up wasn't as strong as it needed to be to sustain itself.
i'd imagine expense wise they'd be better off licensing games for western release.
i'd imagine expense wise they'd be better off licensing games for western release.
Anyone could buy L5(If Hino wants of course, as it's his privately owned company), but for what purpose? Sure they can create multimedia IP's, but does that approach fits into your company(It does fits Bamco)?Their child focused IP's (Little Battlers, Inazuma, Yokai) are literally "dead" IP's.
But at this moment, Yokai Watch is a MMF, and all the aprts need to be even. The games must drive anime views, and toys sales, in every direction. If one fails, then the franchise is failing because there are more parties involved than the GameStop selling copies of the games.
It's like the reasoning why Scott Pilgrim vs The World game was deemed a failure and thus pulled out of digital game stores. It was tied to the movie (not comics) and the movie is a comercial flop, so thus, the game is a flop.
Sure, and I think it makes more sense to do that in Japan where they have a lot more control and better connections. Outside of Japan one of the issues they have had, which has held game releases back, is that they don't have the cache or connections to get major networks to pick up the cartoons/anime straight off the bat.
It'd be a really stupid option if that's the case, since the movie flopped big time and the mobile MMO looks like exactly the kind of thing that fans of the series don't want.
I've said it once, I've said it twice, and I'll say it again here: Hino needs to swallow his pride and start getting his company to sign contract work again.
I don't think it is? At least I haven't found any reference to that. The game seems to be a action game where you can customize your mech.
It is supposed to be another one of those multimedia franchises with anime, manga, toys and stuff like a lot of their other franchises though.
Yeah, I found this out the hard way when I tried a couple of their games on the basis of loving DQ8.
they are private. The company is owned by the person running it to the ground, unless he fires himself, it cannot be saved.
Thanks for answering my question. It doesn't seem like they will be able to survive on their own very long so I wonder what other Japanese company might consider acquiring them, Perhaps Nintendo, Sony, Kadokawa, Square, or Namco. Whoever does acquire the company needs push out the owner though.
At the rate that their Ips are performing, I'll doubt anyone wants to buy them. These companies haven't even form a partnership with them, I think that tells you if they have any intention of doing an acquisition.
I'd say it's an average game that missed the mark of what the fans wanted. It basically lost a lot of what made the previous game good, while not fixing the issues the first game had. It's not all bad, but there are better recommendations for similar games.
You're reaaaaally trying to downplay how bad their sales have been everywhere for the past 2 years after Ni no Kuni 2? We really doing that?
We really just trying to dismiss all this as "people don't want to acknowledge they still make good games" when it's literally brand mismanagement, corporate incompetence, and an inability to strategize and capitalize on their franchises?
The Media Create thread probably is also responsible for Level-5 failing, lmao
Thanks for the compilation. I'll add this one about Inazuma Eleven GO 3: Galaxy:
OK That definitely hurts.
They had a long running partnership with Nintendo that they tossed away to chase after mobile, because presumably they thought Switch was unlikely to succeed. They're far from the only company to make that assumption, but it has probably hit them much worse, because they gambled on mobile instead of PS4 like Capcom et al. did.
On paper, Level-5 doesn't have the kind of IPs that PS4 owners go for outside of the one, but that problem was magnified since Ni no Kuni was never a particularly big series for them in Japan. The kids market is what they primarily trade in, for better and for worse.
That was the past I meant now. Three years have passed since the Switch came out. They haven't found a substantial partner.
Nintendo still distributed and promoted L5's self published 3DS and Switch games in America and Europe so the relationship wasn't completely severed. I expect that would've ended with YW4 though unless it had some degree of exclusivity (timed, physical, etc).
It still blows my mind how L5 squandered Fantasy Life's early success. They had the makings of a solid franchise there but completely fumbled it.
It still blows my mind how L5 squandered Fantasy Life's early success. They had the makings of a solid franchise there but completely fumbled it.
Those IP's still have brand recognition even if they've been tarnished. Companies can be bought out, stripped of their IP and dissolved.
The pivot of the entire company to mixed-media franchises made the view Fantasy Life a middling product success, instead of a franchise potential giant like Yokai Watch or Snack World (they tried).
Sure, it's just a big missed opportunity though. Even if they had evolved FL into a crossmedia franchise after the fact (a la Layton) you'd think something more than the cursed mobile sequel might've made sense. I mean FL was the 3rd largest franchise debut in L5's history after all, only behind Layton and YW. It's crazy to me that Hino and co. looked at that and thought "nah".
Wait... Yokai Watch 4 isn't coming stateside due to this?
This sucks. Level 5 is every bit on par with any other JRPG studio even if sales don't reflect that. I was hoping that Nintendo would publish their games.
He owns Level 5. Like others have said, Level 5 is private. Someone can't just buy it just because they have money.
Only if he sells or when they face bankruptcy and need to sell off assets or IPs to dissolve and settle their debt.
I feel like someone will still pick it up (Nintendo, Bandai Namco, etc).Wait... Yokai Watch 4 isn't coming stateside due to this?
This sucks. Level 5 is every bit on par with any other JRPG studio even if sales don't reflect that. I was hoping that Nintendo would publish their games.
Isn't Yokai Watch 4 multiplatform? I doubt they'll get help from any of the big 3 to publish due to that.Wait... Yokai Watch 4 isn't coming stateside due to this?
This sucks. Level 5 is every bit on par with any other JRPG studio even if sales don't reflect that. I was hoping that Nintendo would publish their games.
Their best alternative is probably Namco.
Even then, before saying this or that should buy level 5, the main question is: how far in debt they are? Any company that buys them would probably assume that debt and I don't know if the IP are enough to compensate for that. They were big, were being the key word here, but the work requiered to bring them back to shape may not be worth it.
Nintendo might pick it up as an exclusive. Not like the overseas PS4 market is booming for kids JRPGs anyway, this is being sold directly to the Pokécrowd.
Fantasy Life IP is the biggest missed opportunity of past gen Level 5, if they didn't see the potential then no wonder they keep making awful business decisions.
Similar to what we're seeing with Disgaea 6, we might wind up seeing more de facto Switch exclusives for localization efforts outside of Japan with the PS4 market drying up for games with no PS5 SKU on the way any time soon.
It was their 3rd biggest original IP debut after Professor Layton and Yokai Watch actually. Hino totally fumbled it.