Media Create Sales: Week 23, 2019 (Jun 03 - Jun 09)

fiendcode · Jun 16, 2019

Oregano said:
It's also somewhat important to note that PoPoLoCrois despite being a license(an SIEJ one at that) was both developed and published by the core SoS team. Doraemon is from neither so the "core" fanbase aren't necessarily going to buy in, at least straight away.

Actually Popolocrois was also partially outsourced, but to the actual Popolocrois devs at Epics. It had both dev pedigrees behind it and still sold unimpressively.

Doraemon is outsourced entirely (to a great dev admittedly in Brownies) and published/produced by Bandai Namco. All Marvelous has to do with it is apparently licensing the name, it's about as much a Marvelous SOS game as the 3DS spinoff was a Sony Popolocrois game.

ZSaberLink · Jun 16, 2019

Btw what do people think of DB Heroes performance? It's still slowly selling but it seems a bit underwhelming? I guess since the dB games sold 200-300K on 3ds and a late port of DBXV2 sold 150K+ I was hoping this would at least hit 200K.

Oregano · Jun 16, 2019

fiendcode said:
Actually Popolocrois was also partially outsourced, but to the actual Popolocrois devs at Epics. It had both dev pedigrees behind it and still sold unimpressively.

Doraemon is outsourced entirely (to a great dev admittedly in Brownies) and published/produced by Bandai Namco. All Marvelous has to do with it is apparently licensing the name, it's about as much a Marvelous SOS game as the 3DS spinoff was a Sony Popolocrois game.

True. Also Doraemon lacks the romance elements(and I assume Popolocrois does?).

ZSaberLink said:
Btw what do people think of DB Heroes performance? It's still slowly selling but it seems a bit underwhelming? I guess since the dB games sold 200-300K on 3ds and a late port of DBXV2 sold 150K+ I was hoping this would at least hit 200K.

Releasing after XV2 sold 150k is probably the issue. It's expecting the DB audience on Switch to go from PS3+ level production values to PS2+ level production values.

MysticGon · Jun 16, 2019

Bruno MB said:
YSO are predicting Yo-kai Watch 4 first week sales and they expect a big bomba.

I know they have had more misses than hits lately (it has become tough to predict the Japanese market), but it is interesting to see what other sales agers expect, specially those that live in Japan and can gather more feedback.

Yo-kai Watch 4 (first week sales prediction)

180.000
130.000
130.000
125.000
120.000
117.500
110.000
101.000
100.000
100.000
100.000
96.000
95.000
90.000

Average 113.893

Damn it man...

Pooroomoo · Jun 16, 2019

ZSaberLink said:
Btw what do people think of DB Heroes performance? It's still slowly selling but it seems a bit underwhelming? I guess since the dB games sold 200-300K on 3ds and a late port of DBXV2 sold 150K+ I was hoping this would at least hit 200K.

I distinctly remember that from the very beginning when heroes was announced people were expecting lower sales for this game in comparison to DBXV2 due to the nature of each game. Also, as Oregano said, heroes looks and sounds like it's a 10 years old game or more.

DarkDetective · Jun 16, 2019

114k for YW4 would be a very big oof.

ZSaberLink said:
Btw what do people think of DB Heroes performance? It's still slowly selling but it seems a bit underwhelming? I guess since the dB games sold 200-300K on 3ds and a late port of DBXV2 sold 150K+ I was hoping this would at least hit 200K.

I made a comparison of nine-week legs of all entries in the Dragon Ball Heroes series, and World Mission is indeed underperforming compared to the 3DS entries. Xenoverse is having success and while the install base of the Switch is not as high yet as the install base of the 3DS was in February 2013, I'd say World Mission's sales so far are low indeed. One possible explanation could be the popularity of Dragon Ball: Dokkan Battle on smartphones, causing people not to want/need to play a Dragon Ball Heroes game on a dedicated console at all. In comparison to Ultimate Mission X, World Mission sales are 26.7% lower.

[3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission {2013.02.28} - 184.852 - 90.119 = 94.733 units (105.1% of first week sales)
[3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission 2 {2014.08.07} - 152.076 - 70.832 = 81.244 units (114.4%)
[3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission X {2017.04.27} - 165.295 - 92.809 = 72.486 units (78.1%)
[NSW] Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission {2019.04.04} - 121.099 - 70.990 = 50.109 units (70.6%)

NeonZ · Jun 16, 2019

World Mission also has the oddity of lacking most of the "Universe Mission" content which had been highly advertised and even has tie-in anime specials. It launched already severely outdated regarding the part of Heroes that had been promoted the most.

Oregano · Jun 16, 2019

What I'm really saying is that Ganbarion should have made DB Fusions 2 instead of a terrible One Piece game.

sfortunato · Jun 16, 2019

It's too early to say DBH is underperfoming on Switch. The platform doesn't have the same reach as 3DS among kids as of now so it was expected to sell less. Nevertheless, the game will comfortably pass the 200k milestone at retail.

Avada Kedavra said:
It's predominantly a Story of Seasons game so that's not as relevant. Unless you're suggesting that Doraemon is dragging down its potential.

It's a Doraemon game to begin with and it is marketed as such.

Avada Kedavra said:
Doesn't stop it from looking like the most ambitious Story of Seasons game in nearly two decades. They didn't spare any expenses because it's not mainline. The Doraemon crossover should make up for that.

I think you have never played any Story of Seasons game, do you?

Chris1964 said:
For PS4 games FFVII>>everything else. It's a potential million seller.

Were there any doubts FFVII could reach a million on PS4? FFXV did, even though with discounts, and KHIII didn't get too fare after all.

Avada Kedavra said:
If you want to equate PoPoLoCrois to Doraemon that's on you. That's like saying One Piece: Pirate Warriors and Arslan: The Warriors of Legend should have done the same because they're both Musou spin-offs.

Avada Kedavra said:
Doraemon is the highest-grossing film franchise in Japan history and 4-5m people go see the new movie every year. It's an immensely popular franchise among preschoolers. PopoloCrois is basically nothing in comparison. A performance similar to PopoloCrois is nothing I would ever consider great.

I think you should probably know that popularity in manga&anime doesn't translate 1:1 into popularity in the video game sector---otherwise we would have had Detective Conan selling a million copies already.

Oregano said:
Going by Game Data Library only one Doraemon game has ever sold 100k and that was the Famicom game in 1986. Popolocrois hasn't had a game cross 100k since 2002 but the PSP game(and the SoS game) have outsold every Doraemon game in the same timeframe.

Dorabase games on DS both sold above 100k. The first one even sold 200k!

ILikeFeet · Jun 16, 2019

Bruno MB said:
YSO are predicting Yo-kai Watch 4 first week sales and they expect a big bomba.

I know they have had more misses than hits lately (it has become tough to predict the Japanese market), but it is interesting to see what other sales agers expect, specially those that live in Japan and can gather more feedback.

Yo-kai Watch 4 (first week sales prediction)

180.000
130.000
130.000
125.000
120.000
117.500
110.000
101.000
100.000
100.000
100.000
96.000
95.000
90.000

Average 113.893

a launch like that would cause some serious shake up at Level 5

Oregano · Jun 16, 2019

ILikeFeet said:
a launch like that would cause some serious shake up at Level 5

Obviously they were correct to doubt Switch, time to fast track NNK3 and Megaton Musashi for PS5.

SinCityAssassin · Jun 16, 2019

Oregano said:
Obviously they were correct to doubt Switch, time to fast track NNK3 and Megaton Musashi for PS5.

And then that flops and they move to Stadia.

Myriotes · Jun 16, 2019

DarkDetective said:
I made a comparison of nine-week legs of all entries in the Dragon Ball Heroes series, and World Mission is indeed underperforming compared to the 3DS entries. Xenoverse is having success and while the install base of the Switch is not as high yet as the install base of the 3DS was in February 2013, I'd say World Mission's sales so far are low indeed. One possible explanation could be the popularity of Dragon Ball: Dokkan Battle on smartphones, causing people not to want/need to play a Dragon Ball Heroes game on a dedicated console at all. In comparison to Ultimate Mission X, World Mission sales are 26.7% lower.

[3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission {2013.02.28} - 184.852 - 90.119 = 94.733 units (105.1% of first week sales)
[3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission 2 {2014.08.07} - 152.076 - 70.832 = 81.244 units (114.4%)
[3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission X {2017.04.27} - 165.295 - 92.809 = 72.486 units (78.1%)
[NSW] Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission {2019.04.04} - 121.099 - 70.990 = 50.109 units (70.6%)

It was more expensive than the 3DS titles and price on amazon.jp looks okay, did we have any indications regarding discounts after it launched?

It would also be good to know how fast the other titles were discounted back in the day, might be an explanation for the different performance.

Regarding price: (stolen from Chris, who posted this in Week 14)
[3DS] Dragon Ball Heroes: Ultimate Mission X <TBL> (Bandai Namco Games) {2017.04.27} (¥5.700) - 93.000 / 257.000
[NSW] Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission <TBL> (Bandai Namco Games) {2019.04.04} (¥6.800) - 76.000 / ***.*** <60% sell-through>

Mpl90 · Jun 16, 2019

I don't think retail-supported price discounts would explain the 3DS games' long-term performance, especially considering it's the Japanese market we're talking about. DBH: UM, DBH: UM2 and DBH: UMX were catered to younger users who don't necessairly buy games at launch, and their legs clearly showed how they kept showing up after the launch week.

At the same time, I think it's too soon to call SDBH: WM sales as "disappointing". While there's a drop compared to past entries, it should still be able to reach 200,000+ copies sold in the long, which would be a fine result for the franchise.

Myriotes · Jun 16, 2019

Mpl90 said:
I don't think retail-supported price discounts would explain the 3DS games' long-term performance, especially considering it's the Japanese market we're talking about. DBH: UM, DBH: UM2 and DBH: UMX were catered to younger users who don't necessairly buy games at launch, and their legs clearly showed how they kept showing up after the launch week.

At the same time, I think it's too soon to call SDBH: WM sales as "disappointing". While there's a drop compared to past entries, it should still be able to reach 200,000+ copies sold in the long, which would be a fine result for the franchise.

I'm still quite new to this, so what exactly to you mean by the underlined? Is it meant as a reference to the importance of the used market? If you say that they catered to younger users, would that not be an argument that discounts would have had a strong(er) effect if there were some? (E.g. parent sees the discount and buys a "cheap", discounted game for their kid, sorry if this is stupid somehow)

Retail discounts surely would not be the only factor, but it could have been one of several, or not? (still: if they were some)

ZSaberLink · Jun 16, 2019

Mpl90 said:
I don't think retail-supported price discounts would explain the 3DS games' long-term performance, especially considering it's the Japanese market we're talking about. DBH: UM, DBH: UM2 and DBH: UMX were catered to younger users who don't necessairly buy games at launch, and their legs clearly showed how they kept showing up after the launch week.

At the same time, I think it's too soon to call SDBH: WM sales as "disappointing". While there's a drop compared to past entries, it should still be able to reach 200,000+ copies sold in the long, which would be a fine result for the franchise.

I'm skeptical of it hitting 200K because it has 80K to go and is already selling 1.2K but I guess it's possible with higher Switch sales and holidays.

hiska-kun · Jun 17, 2019

Tsutaya Ranking: Week 24, 2019 (10 Jun - 16 Jun)

01./00. [NSW] Doraemon: Story of Seasons <SLG> (Bandai Namco Games) {2019.06.13} (¥6.100)
02./03. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate <FTG> (Nintendo) {2018.12.07} (¥7.200)
03./02. [NSW] Minecraft <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600)
04./01. [PS4] Rage 2 <ACT> (Bethesda Softworks) {2019.06.06} (¥7.980)
05./06. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980)
06./10. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild <ADV> (Nintendo) {2017.03.03} (¥6.980)
07./04. [NSW] Splatoon 2 <ACT> (Nintendo) {2017.07.21} (¥5.980)
08./07. [NSW] New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.01.11} (¥5.980)
09./05. [PS4] Days Gone <ACT> (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2019.04.26} (¥6.900)
10./08. [NSW] Yoshi's Crafted World <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.03.29} (¥5.980)
11./11. [NSW] Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age <RPG> (Square Enix) {2019.04.25} (¥5.800)
12./16. [NSW] Super Mario Party <ETC> (Nintendo) {2018.10.05} (¥5.980)
13./09. [PS4] Everybody's Golf VR |PlayStation VR| <SPT> (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2019.06.07} (¥3.900)
14./13. [NSW] Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster <RPG> (Square Enix) {2019.04.11} (¥6.800)
15./15. [NSW] Resident Evil: Origins Collection <ADV> (Capcom) {2019.05.23} (¥5.500)
16./12. [PS4] Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice <ADV> (From Software) {2019.03.22} (¥7.600)
17./14. [NSW] Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission <TBL> (Bandai Namco Games) {2019.04.04} (¥6.800)
18./18. [NSW] Pokemon: Let's Go, Pikachu! <RPG> (Pokemon Co.) {2018.11.16} (¥5.980)
19./19. [NSW] Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! <ACT> (Bandai Namco Games) {2018.07.19} (¥6.100)
20./24. [NSW] Pokemon: Let's Go, Eevee! <RPG> (Pokemon Co.) {2018.11.16} (¥5.980)

Top 20

NSW - 16
PS4 - 4

Adventureracing · Jun 17, 2019

Bruno MB said:
YSO are predicting Yo-kai Watch 4 first week sales and they expect a big bomba.

I know they have had more misses than hits lately (it has become tough to predict the Japanese market), but it is interesting to see what other sales agers expect, specially those that live in Japan and can gather more feedback.

Yo-kai Watch 4 (first week sales prediction)

180.000
130.000
130.000
125.000
120.000
117.500
110.000
101.000
100.000
100.000
100.000
96.000
95.000
90.000

Average 113.893

If it ends up selling anything like that YW must be one of the biggest brand implosions of all time. I know brain age and Nintendogs sales massively collapsed but I can't imagine many franchises have went from being a 3+ million seller and one of the biggest games in Japan to the current expectations within a few years. Crazy how quickly they tanked this franchise.

SinCityAssassin · Jun 17, 2019

It would be because L5 never had the forethought to hire more developers for the brand expansions they planned for the last decade. Everything they've planned to do had been delayed to hell and back.

MegaXZero · Jun 17, 2019

Adventureracing said:
If it ends up selling anything like that YW must be one of the biggest brand implosions of all time. I know brain age and Nintendogs sales massively collapsed but I can't imagine many franchises have went from being a 3+ million seller and one of the biggest games in Japan to the current expectations within a few years. Crazy how quickly they tanked this franchise.

Such a cool franchise too. I actually enjoyed some of the anime I watched.

sfortunato · Jun 17, 2019

Adventureracing said:
If it ends up selling anything like that YW must be one of the biggest brand implosions of all time. I know brain age and Nintendogs sales massively collapsed but I can't imagine many franchises have went from being a 3+ million seller and one of the biggest games in Japan to the current expectations within a few years. Crazy how quickly they tanked this franchise.

You'll be surprised by how many kid franchises burnt to the ground in a few entries over the decades. This doesn't excuse Level-5 but the business model towards kids is very erratic and unpredictable. Only a few franchises were able to survive over the years—often rebranding or riding on nostalgia, like Digimon. Only Pokémon were able to keep high level of sales but even there we are far from the 8m units of the first generation.

Yu-gi-oh went from 2.2m with Duel Monster 4 on GB to 400k with Duel Monster 5 on GBA.

Adventureracing · Jun 17, 2019

sfortunato said:
You'll be surprised by how many kid franchises burnt to the ground in a few entries over the decades. This doesn't excuse Level-5 but the business model towards kids is very erratic and unpredictable. Only a few franchises were able to survive over the years—often rebranding or riding on nostalgia, like Digimon. Only Pokémon were able to keep high level of sales but even there we are far from the 8m units of the first generation.

Yu-gi-oh went from 2.2m with Duel Monster 4 on GB to 400k with Duel Monster 5 on GBA.

That's a fair point but so few of them really cracked the big time like YW. It really made it into the big boys club in Japan saleswomen. Even the spinoffs were selling ridiculously well. How many franchises have actually sold as much as YW at its peak? I'm assuming it's a small club.

Alandring · Jun 17, 2019

Bruno MB said:
YSO are predicting Yo-kai Watch 4 first week sales and they expect a big bomba.

I know they have had more misses than hits lately (it has become tough to predict the Japanese market), but it is interesting to see what other sales agers expect, specially those that live in Japan and can gather more feedback.

Yo-kai Watch 4 (first week sales prediction)

180.000
130.000
130.000
125.000
120.000
117.500
110.000
101.000
100.000
100.000
100.000
96.000
95.000
90.000

Average 113.893

My god. But Yo-Kai Watch always had great legs (Yo-Kai Watch 3 opened at 500k and finished at 1.5M), so I hope legs will help to save this game.

Rob2K19 · Jun 17, 2019

You know why I'm here.

Tensaiya Nomura

Tracker said:
29./27. [PS4] Kingdom Hearts III (Square Enix) {2019.01.25} - 856 / 750,575

Superior Tracker said:
27./27. [PS4] Kingdom Hearts III # <RPG> (Square Enix) {2019.01.25} (¥8.800) - 1.057 / 833.828 <80-100%> (-26%)

KH3 getting too close to being off the chart regarding Superior Tracker. I'm starting to get scared.

Mpl90 · Jun 17, 2019

Myriotes said:
I'm still quite new to this, so what exactly to you mean by the underlined? Is it meant as a reference to the importance of the used market? If you say that they catered to younger users, would that not be an argument that discounts would have had a strong(er) effect if there were some? (E.g. parent sees the discount and buys a "cheap", discounted game for their kid, sorry if this is stupid somehow)

Retail discounts surely would not be the only factor, but it could have been one of several, or not? (still: if they were some)

Retailers tend to keep prices up as much as possible. Price cuts are used when they recognise they won't be able to move copies off their shelves as fast as they forecasted (which can potentially be a consequence of used market getting enough low-priced copies of the game): basically, price-cuts are signs of a game not getting enough traction. It's definitely possible price-cuts help a game selling for a longer period of time, but it might be an "hollow" victory, if those legs are the result of massive price cuts.

ZSaberLink The DBH games tend to be very leggy. So far, World Mission's legs pattern is closer to Ultimate Mission X (looking at DarkDetective's post), which means 200k+ sales are still in sight in the long-run. We've also witnessed how several Switch games just keep on selling (even small amounts per week, but they don't stop selling), it wouldn't surprise me in the slighthiest.

P.S. The game sold 1,700 copies last week, not 1,200 :P

sfortunato · Jun 17, 2019

Adventureracing said:
That's a fair point but so few of them really cracked the big time like YW. It really made it into the big boys club in Japan saleswomen. Even the spinoffs were selling ridiculously well. How many franchises have actually sold as much as YW at its peak? I'm assuming it's a small club.

YW was the first actual Pokémon competitor. No other franchise in the same genre/towards the same target has reached such sales.

Chris1964 · Jun 17, 2019

GEO stores: Week 24, 2019 (10 Jun - 16 Jun)

01./00. [NSW] Doraemon: Story of Seasons <SLG> (Bandai Namco Games) {2019.06.13} (¥6.100)
02./03. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate <FTG> (Nintendo) {2018.12.07} (¥7.200)
03./02. [NSW] Minecraft <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600)
04./07. [PS4] Monster Hunter: World [Best Price] <ACT> (Capcom) {2018.08.02} (¥4.990)
05./01. [PS4] Rage 2 <ACT> (Bethesda Softworks) {2019.06.06} (¥7.980)
06./05. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980)
07./04. [PS4] Days Gone <ACT> (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2019.04.26} (¥6.900)
08./09. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild <ADV> (Nintendo) {2017.03.03} (¥6.980)
10./00. [NSW] Yoshi's Crafted World <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.03.29} (¥5.980)

Top 10

NSW - 7
PS4 - 3

"Doraemon: Story of Seasons ranked 1st. It's a collaboration of Story of Seasons series and Doraemon series. First day sales were strong but sales at weekend were also increasing. It is a title that can be expected to be sold for a long time. In addition, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that ranked 2nd and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that ranked 8th, were relayed in Nintendo Direct last week and is speculated that the figures have increased because of the contents of the announcements by Nintendo at E3."

Lelouch0612 · Jun 17, 2019

Chris1964 said:
GEO stores: Week 24, 2019 (10 Jun - 16 Jun)

01./00. [NSW] Doraemon: Story of Seasons <SLG> (Bandai Namco Games) {2019.06.13} (¥6.100)
02./03. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate <FTG> (Nintendo) {2018.12.07} (¥7.200)
03./02. [NSW] Minecraft <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600)
04./07. [PS4] Monster Hunter: World [Best Price] <ACT> (Capcom) {2018.08.02} (¥4.990)
05./01. [PS4] Rage 2 <ACT> (Bethesda Softworks) {2019.06.06} (¥7.980)
06./05. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980)
07./04. [PS4] Days Gone <ACT> (Sony Interactive Entertainment) {2019.04.26} (¥6.900)
08./09. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild <ADV> (Nintendo) {2017.03.03} (¥6.980)
10./00. [NSW] Yoshi's Crafted World <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.03.29} (¥5.980)

Top 10

NSW - 7
PS4 - 3

"Doraemon: Story of Seasons ranked 1st. It's a collaboration of Story of Seasons series and Doraemon series. First day sales were strong but sales at weekend were also increasing. It is a title that can be expected to be sold for a long time. In addition, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that ranked 2nd and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that ranked 8th, were relayed in Nintendo Direct last week and is speculated that the figures have increased because of the contents of the announcements by Nintendo at E3."

We are probably looking at a <80%-100%> sell through ratio for Doraemon then, or at least in the high seventies.

Evergreens seem to have grown WoW so maybe we could see some hardware increase ?

Next weeks are going to be fun. New revisions should be announced right after Obon imo.

Chris1964 · Jun 17, 2019

The problem between Bandai Namco and Switch is that they continue to find success with A and B-tier support on the system and this E3 showed that for some reason there is no serious plan adding it to AA line. Basically they treat it as 3DS 2.

For every 2-3 titles PS4/XB1/PC get every year maybe 1 of them will come as late port 6-12 months later.

Deleted member 1413 · Jun 17, 2019

Chris1964 said:
The problem between Bandai Namco and Switch is that they continue to find success with A and B-tier support on the system and this E3 showed that for some reason there is no serious plan adding it to AA line. Basically they treat it as 3DS 2.

For every 2-3 titles PS4/XB1/PC get every year maybe 1 of them will come as late port 6-12 months later.

Tales of Arise not being planned for switch despite promising a Tales of game at the Switch reveal event and porting Tales of Vesperia is pretty weird.
Not exactly sure why Namco never really committed.

Instro · Jun 17, 2019

Cartridge Games said:
Tales of Arise not being planned for switch despite promising a Tales of game at the Switch reveal event and porting Tales of Vesperia is pretty weird.
Not exactly sure why Namco never really committed.

Could have been a change of plans after MP4 got canned. Or perhaps at the time they didn't realize the new Tales would be such a visual leap forward for the franchise. They could also be announcing it later, maybe as a late port to get more people to double dip.

Chris1964 · Jun 17, 2019

From the most known companies

Marvelous and Konami can be added to these that have started to take Switch more seriously.

Bandai Namco went back many steps.

Capcom, Spike Chunsoft and Falcom continue to ignore it with no sign in sight for change.

Fularu · Jun 17, 2019

Chris1964 said:
From the most known companies

Marvelous and Konami can be added to these that have started to take Switch more seriously.

Bandai Namco went back many steps.

Capcom, Spike Chunsoft and Falcom continue to ignore it with no sign in sight for change.

Falcom is slowly but surely digging its grave

The number of untranslated games has dried up and it can't sustain them for much longer as it is.

With the PlayStation brand shrinking as badly in Japan as it did, the writing is on the wall if they keep going that way. Especially with how lopsided in Switch's favor jrpg sales are in the west

Avada Kedavra · Jun 17, 2019

Fularu said:
Falcom is slowly but surely digging its grave

The number of untranslated games has dried up and it can't sustain them for much longer as it is.

With the PlayStation brand shrinking as badly in Japan as it did, the writing is on the wall if they keep going that way. Especially with how lopsided in Switch's favor jrpg sales are in the west

Another hot take based on nothing. Their financial results are the highest they've ever been so far this fiscal year and each year beats the previous one.

Fularu · Jun 17, 2019

Avada Kedavra said:
Another hot take based on nothing. Their financial results are the highest they've ever been so far this fiscal year and each year beats the previous one.

Thanks to the huge number of localisations. Those are drying up.

It's not hard to follow a line of thoughts and their domestic sales have shrunk by close to 40%. It will shrink even more with a PS5 focus down the line.

Mpl90 · Jun 17, 2019

I won't deny that Tales of Arise missing the system is a blow to Namco's support to the system, but I have a feeling the news is kind of magnifying concerns and criticism about Namco's support as a whole. It's a mix of simultaneous multi-platform releases (including mainline entries in the SRW and SD Gundam series), late ports / current gen games late ports and exclusives.

Having less late ports and more simultaneous releases would be for the best, I doubt anyone would try to argue that; but I still feel Namco's support is not bad at all and an actual improvement over the 3DS, not a mere "3DS 2" as Chris defined it earlier.

Unfortunately, I don't think Namco isn't (currently) releasing ToA on the system due to "not taking the system seriously": the content they got on the system so far and how they went from late ports to the aforementioned mix of releases tell me the opposite...but actual mismanagment of resources / development can bring you to the ToA situation, alongside others.

Chris1964 · Jun 17, 2019

Mpl90 said:
Having less late ports and more simultaneous releases would be for the best, I doubt anyone would try to argue that; but I still feel Namco's support is not bad at all and an actual improvement over the 3DS, not a mere "3DS 2" as Chris defined it earlier.

3DS 2/Vita 2 is the correct term.

ILikeFeet · Jun 17, 2019

Instro said:
Could have been a change of plans after MP4 got canned. Or perhaps at the time they didn't realize the new Tales would be such a visual leap forward for the franchise. They could also be announcing it later, maybe as a late port to get more people to double dip.

I doubt MP4 has any bearing on that. if Bamco are that petty, then they might as well kiss JP sales goodbye

CeroMiedo · Jun 17, 2019

Chris1964 said:
3DS 2/Vita 2 is the correct term.

Tbh I tried to say this in the last two threads, I think, but most just didn't believe it lol

DarkDetective · Jun 17, 2019

I really want to know what kind of tools Falcom is working with. They're such a conservative company that I wouldn't be surprised that simply moving to a modern tool set and engine would help a lot. An engine that makes it much less labor intensive to port games to other platforms would already help them a lot.

Instro · Jun 17, 2019

ILikeFeet said:
I doubt MP4 has any bearing on that. if Bamco are that petty, then they might as well kiss JP sales goodbye

Depends on how ugly the breakup was I suppose, and what kind of arrangements the two companies had made. I mean that leaked Ridge Racer is no one to be seen either.

Also completely possible that they had some other Tales game planned or in the works that got canned in favor of Arise.

passing breeze · Jun 17, 2019

DarkDetective said:
I really want to know what kind of tools Falcom is working with. They're such a conservative company that I wouldn't be surprised that simply moving to a modern tool set and engine would help a lot. An engine that makes it much less labor intensive to port games to other platforms would already help them a lot.

The Cold Steel games are made in Sony's PhyreEngine as far as I know. Not sure about Ys.

Oregano · Jun 17, 2019

The issue is that Tales of Arise is not the outlier. It's following the trend of every other big Bamco game.

It's not so much a blow as the final nail in the coffin.

foxuzamaki · Jun 17, 2019

Fularu said:
Falcom is slowly but surely digging its grave

The number of untranslated games has dried up and it can't sustain them for much longer as it is.

With the PlayStation brand shrinking as badly in Japan as it did, the writing is on the wall if they keep going that way. Especially with how lopsided in Switch's favor jrpg sales are in the west

Another reminder that ys 8 on switch has sold more than PS4+vita combined atleast launch aligned

Mpl90 · Jun 17, 2019

Chris1964 said:
3DS 2/Vita 2 is the correct term.

If by that you mean a fusion of what both systems got, support-wise, I'd say it's a fine definition, after all. I'd add a "+" thanks to the current gen late ports, but that's just me.

Anyways, I don't believe what happened with MP4 had any impact on Tales of Arise's chances of coming to Switch day-and-date, or that it's going to have any impact on what's going on with RR8: again, the former is a case of mismanagement of resources / development pipelines. I'm sure the development team wouldn't dislike to see the game on Switch, especially after looking at how much the game sold on Nintendo's system, but sales results came out too late for development changes to happen timely.

Herb Alpert · Jun 17, 2019

foxuzamaki said:
Another reminder that ys 8 on switch has sold more than PS4+vita combined atleast launch aligned

And yet Ys 9 is a Playstation exclusive lol

Vylder · Jun 17, 2019

Herb Alpert said:
And yet Ys 9 is a Playstation exclusive lol

For now. Ys 8 sold better on Switch as far as I know, would be stupid to release it only on PS4.

Wander_ · Jun 17, 2019

Vylder said:
For now. Ys 8 sold better on Switch as far as I know, would be stupid to release it only on PS4.

ys 8 on switch was published by nis.

Mpl90 · Jun 17, 2019

Herb Alpert said:
And yet Ys 9 is a Playstation exclusive lol

It's Falcom we're talking about; the Switch version happened thanks to NISA. Their development pipelines / tools, as well as their - let's be honest here - loyalty to Sony (not unfounded, given their history / their support in Asian regions) make it difficult to see their games outside of Sony platforms, unless externally licensed.

Fularu · Jun 17, 2019

Wander_ said:
ys 8 on switch was published by nis.

It was ported by NIS too

Falcom had nothin to do with it

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