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Yo-kai Watch 4 coming to Playstation 4
- Thread starter Xenosaga
- Start date
What, you didn't see the sense of them buying a damaged company like Comcept and putting them on a gacha that they didn't even bother with the pretense of turning into a multimedia property? 4D chess, people!
Inafune has to be really happy about the situation, at least.
When someone self identifies with a platform holder (in this case, Nintendo), they tend to get a bit confused.
I think, in that particular situation, it was more a friend helping another.
Inafune and Hino worked together before with Bugs vs Tanks and Inafune has gone on record to say he always admired Hino even while he was at Capcom, I suspect as someone who left a corporation to make his own independent studio and can (or at least could) turn multiple IPs into huge multimedia franchises.
With that said Level-5 Comcept and their gacha game is another one in a string of flops for Level-5 as whole, so even if it was for a friend I also can't say it was a smart business decision.
in case anyone was wondering, this came out and flopped on both platforms:
NSW - Yo-kai Watch 4 ++ - 10.333
PS4 - Yo-kai Watch 4 ++ - less than 2.893 (didn't chart in the top 30)
NSW - Yo-kai Watch 4 ++ - 10.333
PS4 - Yo-kai Watch 4 ++ - less than 2.893 (didn't chart in the top 30)
Well, I saw that coming.
Not necessarily "Won't even chart" coming, but I saw it coming.
Gross, total mismanagement of the franchise. The PS4 version was a Hail Mary praying for an expanded audience.
I mean the Switch original did fairly well at over 200k. Yeah it's not the juggernaut it was 5 years ago, but this was one of the most horrific business decisions in terms of where to take a franchise to a "supposed" new audience, likely since THQ's U-Draw on PS3 and 360... and that tanked them.
Its more like they should have done this years ago when sales were declining, not when the series was irrelevant
The series was on 3DS before and I honestly doubt it would have helped.
Wasn't Yokai Watch like huge in Japan?
I remember a few years back that its sales rivaled pokemon or something.
I remember a few years back that its sales rivaled pokemon or something.
Yeah, it was gigantic. You couldn't walk two feet without seeing some kind of YW product around you.
It tried to be everything Pokemon is now when it comes to merchandising and public awareness in the span of a few months to a year. People got sick of it.
This article is several years old, but it still paints an excellent portrait of Level 5's problems with their IP management:
Hino: "YW5 will be PS5 exclusive, baby. Don't worry guys, it'll sell like MHW."
I'm going to bet that none or very few of the people that were "interested" are going to buy the game for PS4 when it launches in the west. As usual, people are just happy the it stopped being exclusive -- not that people will actually buy the game. The sales speak for themselves. All that whining about people digging at Level-5 in this thread and the end results still remained the same.
I'm going to bet that none or very few of the people that were "interested" are going to buy the game for PS4 when it launches in the west. As usual, people are just happy the it stopped being exclusive -- not that people will actually buy the game. The sales speak for themselves. All that whining about people digging at Level-5 in this thread and the end results still remained the same.
Can Jason make a lengthy article about how this franchise crash and burn? From multimillion ip to a mere sub 20k first week in such a short time. Did they release the games too fast so people got tired of them?
As i understand it they released everything too fast. Games every year, multiple anime seasons, loads of ads, all making the series lose steam due to over saturation to the public
With properties aimed at kids you want to milk them for as much as you can because they tend to burn out quick. L5 has just been run poorly with a ton of delays, issues getting mobile titles out, and poor decisions that left them with all of the their big properties dead and nothing announced that seems like it will be big.
To be fair, people who already owned YW4 probably picked up the DLC, so it's probably a bit better than 12k.
Therein lies the other thing.
Switch version was also available as a DLC add-on and it still sold more.
I'll happily buy it on PS4 if that version comes West as I always choose multiplat games on PS4 over my switch though I'll be happy to get any non 3DS version of YW in the West. Own 1 on 3DS but there being 3 versions of 2 and the 3rd version ridiculously expensive to get I just hope somehow all of them get ported to the switch/ps4/whatever so I'll be able to easily play the series in the West :/
I'll be very sad if Level 5 goes under.
To the surprise of no one that was ever paying attention. There was never an audience for the series in Japan on PS4.
No surprise really, anyone could see the audience wasn't there, in addition to Level 5 successfully killing the IP themselves.
can't get more desperate than a once big publisher porting a game to a new platform (when it's super clear to everyone there's no audience for said game on said platform) and selling like 2000 copies at launch.
Let me put this on perspective: Between Pokemon X & Y (2013) and Pokemon Sun and Moon (2016), Yokai Watch cranked out three full generations of core games, more than 600 monsters, nearly a dozen spinoff and crossover games, 214 anime episodes, a mountain of toys and assorted merchandise and three feature films. It's no wonder why the franchise took a pretty steep tumble after that.
Well i guess it depends on do they plan to localize the game. Yokai Watch games used to sell pretty well in Europe on 3DS so Switch/PS4 multiplat for european market makes sense.
I'm not surprised it didn't do well on a platform with no built-in audience. Though I didn't expect under 3000 copies sold. God damn that is a travesty.
Hino needs to be ousted now. He clearly has no clue what he's doing. He foolishly invested in Inafune's company after everyone else realized he was poison.
They did say localization is happening. But knowing their speed, it's going to still be a long time from now.
Hino needs to be ousted now. He clearly has no clue what he's doing. He foolishly invested in Inafune's company after everyone else realized he was poison.
They did say localization is happening. But knowing their speed, it's going to still be a long time from now.
I don't think going multiplat was the horrible business decision. I mean, there's nothing inherent with the PS4 that makes it unsuitable for games like Yokai Watch. Sure there was no built-in audience like there is on Nintendo platforms, but there's nothing wrong with trying to build one. Releasing a dying series on a dying console isn't a winning strategy, but it's not a losing one either. Not inherently, anyway.
The horrible business decisions all relate to the product itself.
That would be a fun thread, especially with their history together.
If this decision means no Nintendo support on publishing the game in the west, then it was a very bad deal.
Also, If they wanted to go multiplat with the series, they could at least have done it day one.
In Europe, Yo-Kai Watch is already dead, or at least in Spain. My little cousin and his classmates were huge fans two years ago and now they don't care. It's not even on television anymore.
Damn... Europe was like the one place aside from Japan where Yokai Watch could go toe to toe with Pokemon.
Even at its peak in popularity in Europe, it was never a rival for Pokémon here. Maybe the TV series and things like stickers and toys, but video games were far behind, even being successful.
Think that here Yo-Kai Watch 1 was at the same time as Pokémon Sun and the release of Pokémon GO.
That depends. I'm not sure if you know, but the stats show that the user base for PlayStation leans toward an older and male demographic (whereas Nintendo is more well-rounded). People who are loyal to PlayStation are usually people who avoid Nintendo platforms because of the "kiddie" image. In that case, YW4 only appeals to a very niche group of loyal PlayStation fans (that actually enjoys cartoon-like games but refuse to support Nintendo) or multi-platform gamers that prefer playing games on the PS4. It is a losing strategy if there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that they can't establish an audience on certain platforms. Even Capcom's low-effort ports on Switch sold more than YW++ on PS4. This is as bad as Yakuza 1+2 on Wii U, and that was on a dying platform.
The product itself isn't bad. It's the marketing and the multi-media approach that fucked everything up. The whole PS4 strategy didn't make much sense this late as well (though it probably wouldn't do well even if it's multi-plat on launch). Anyway, I personally hope this will help wake some people up -- especially the PlayStation fans that make up a ton of bullshit to justify games skipping Switch or other platforms. If anyone is here trying to justify why sub 3k sales is enough for it to be a good business strategy, then I better not hear them whine about how Switch owners are entitled for justifying games that would sell WAY MORE than 3k to be ported to the platform. This whole debacle showed me how much double standard and hypocrisy there are. It disturbs me that there is nothing done to curb this double standard on Era. It's been 2+ years and nothing has changed here.