Nirolak
MoonFrog
I get the confusion you described, but I think I didn't explain my "cold feet" comment well.
Let's talk about HH to mobile.
The "port to premium mobile game" model works well for legacy software, because many of these games are old, so they are out of print or only sold on digita/physical store fronts at prices comparable to what they charge on mobile (think DQ 3DS). This creates no issue with product positioning as quite often this is the only easy way to play the legacy game, and by the time the mobile version releases the games would have depreciated and the audience feels the are buying the same thing either way.
I feel the key issue here for day and date HH/mobile release is how do you not lose the handheld market, who is still willing to pay 40 (now 60 on NSW) dollars a game, when you have a mobile version day and date? Its an issue with product positioning.
Mobile audiences have a threshold on how much they will spend on an upfront purchase. This is why the DQ premium mobile games are 20 dollars and no higher.
Having a cheaper version on mobile day and date is a bad idea because you make the handheld buyers feel they are pay 40 for an possibly inferior "mobile" product, and making the mobile audience pay 40 up front is very difficult. If you do 20 for both, then you could sell this as a purely mobile app, why have extra work for a HH SKU?
Even with variable pricing we can see that it ended up caught in an awkward position where you don't hit the spot for either audience (game quality nonwithstanding).
I mean Lady Layton sorta showed that.
Hence, when i say cold feet, I mean them feeling that they do not want to risk a
new product finding no position like that. They are fine with putting premium games (at 20) due to the low initial, long tail sales. They are fine with HH releases because they want that 40 (60) front loaded sales, and eventually DLC revenue.
Launching a game with a HH and Mobile SKU at once is to enter unknown territory with regards to product positioning. You might end up with neither market buying in, because you are neither here nor there.
I think it makes more sense to port old titles from HH to mobile after the sales potential on HH is exhausted. This allows you to capture both the HH and Mobile audiences without alienating either.
Furthermore, I would question the commitment of SE towards premium app. As Nirolak pointed out, the only two put out is FFXV Pocket and FFD2. The former feels like an attempt to spread the brand of FFXV (esp in Japan who didn't buy that much FFXV). How much money FFXVP makes isnt that important. The latter feels like a last ditch effort to make some money off a mobage that never performed too well.
As for porting mobile to HH, one challenge is that HH had limited online functionality. It is slightly anathema to the "open and play anytime" idea for Japanese mobile games. Remember "always online" isnt an issue in Japan (unlike the west), as doesn't have third world mobile internet. Japanese mobile games are always online as a rule.
Another is that the onl pure HH left in the market is the 3DS. It has pretty poor specs, and a bad screen. Most ported mobile games will probably run badly and look bad on the 3DS, making their appeal limited.
Now the Switch could possible bridge this gap, since it should be able to run all mobile ports easily. However the NSW is also really new, so it takes time. We will have to see what happens going forward.
If Vern is to be believed, maybe some of the games you mentioned for "mobile to HH conversion" is precisely what SE has prepared for the NSW...
