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Media Create Sales: Week 18, 2014 (Apr 28 - May 04)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
Yeah, GREE and DeNA time have passed. It's all about LINE in Japan now.
http://linecorp.com/en/press/2014/0508737
When you get your mobile success you should actually milk it dry as much as you can because you never know how long it'll last.
More releases isn't really the reason Symphonia sold so much more than any other Tales game in the west. In the US alone it sold over 400k. That's more than every PS1 and PS2 Tales game combined.
I think Graces Wii was more a victim of timing than anything. I believe it started localization but then Namco Bandai put the entire franchise on hold. Sadly Graces Wii in 2010 probably would've well outsold what Graces f did.
clay_ghost
Member
sörine;111752917 said:
It will also possibly change where TOX and future tales goes to.
I doubt that, Namco still looks at Japanese sales only when choosing platforms.
I feel DeNA and GREE got nailed hard by failing to manage the feature phone -> smartphone transition.Yeah, GREE and DeNA time have passed. It's all about LINE in Japan now.
http://linecorp.com/en/press/2014/0508737
When you get your mobile success you should actually milk it dry as much as you can because you never know how long it'll last.
When people started wanting light games instead of non-games they didn't know what to do.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Japanese market is whats important to Tales and neither Symphonia or Graces did well, especially the latter which sold on par with Vesperia on 360.
Tales of Xillia , from what we heard 7 months ago was 700k in Jp and 300k in the West. So clearly JP is key but theres also a sizeable audience in the West.
Namco beating around the bush and not putting Tales on PS3 was one os the stupidest things I've seen this gen. It took them 4 years to realise and two games flopping and subsequently being ported to PS3. Such incompetence.
Tales of Xillia , from what we heard 7 months ago was 700k in Jp and 300k in the West. So clearly JP is key but theres also a sizeable audience in the West.
Namco beating around the bush and not putting Tales on PS3 was one os the stupidest things I've seen this gen. It took them 4 years to realise and two games flopping and subsequently being ported to PS3. Such incompetence.
sörine;111753682 said:
Yeah, it's no wonder they focused so much on the PS3 after Grace f.
Which makes the no Tales of 3DS very puzzling (but yeah, they just don't wanna hear about any platform not made by Sony), other than that Tales of the World port.
Kinda curious how this one will sell by the way. Real afraid the game will be crap, will bomb, and Baba will go 'see?! No userbase for Tales of on 3DS!!".
By the way, I wonder what the hell was the deal with that Nihon Falcom game that was rumoured a few months (years) ago? Guess they probably didn't bother at all, even before they realised their userbased actually followed them on Vita (good thing for them, they deserve it).
Xillia really is a huge success story in the west. It's behind Symphonia but it's also selling way better than any other Tales ever has here.
It's not really all rosy for the west though as Graces f flopped while Abyss 3DS and Symphonia Chronicles sold mediocre at best. It'll be interesting to see how Xillia 2, Hearts R and Zestiria perform overseas and see if Xillia was a Symphonia style one off or if there's any sustained growth for the franchise.
sörine;111752917 said:
Well, some other guy told me there were hardware bundles + a bigger marketing budget. I didn't knew it.
Graces Wii would probably have outsold the PS3 version. But tbh, Graces is not that good. If you're a Tales fan the game is OK because the battle system is great. But presentation, art style and story aren't that good. It's a game I'd only recommend to people that have already played other entries and would be able to enjoy the battle system while ignoring most other stuff.
sörine;111754600 said:
Well, Tales of Xillia is succesful here because Bamco is doing things right both pre and post release. They're being quite active when it comes to social media, PSN sales and all that. I want to think Xillia is the start of better times for the franchise.
I still maintain Symphonia Chronicles probably would've sold better on 3DS than it has PS3, both in Japan and in the west. Namco's biggest mistake though was never doing a Mothership Tales on PSP. I think that could've been huge in Japan and possibly done better than even the PS3 games. For whatever reason it just seems like Namco's hesitant on really fully embracing handhelds for the mainline games. The only time they everreally tried was with Hearts DS and it sort of tanked comparably.
As for Falcom I thought they'd said LOH series would be coming to 3DS but there was speculation as to if that meant they'd do it themselves or license it out to another publisher?
PhantomOfTheKnight
Member
sörine;111755344 said:
Wasn't the Falcom 3DS dealio confirmed to just be murmurings from investors?
Symphonia wasn't bundled in America and I can't imagine the European bundle quantity was anything but very limited. Graces might not be the best Tales but I bet it's better than DONTW at least and that game sold okay on Wii.
I do get the feeling there's some sustained growth for the franchise in the west now though. Namco's western PR has gotten a lot smarter and really engaged with the fanbase and it seems like there's good energy there. My guess is Xillia 2 and Zestiria will both do well even if they don't match Xillia's heights.
Were they? That'd make more sense I guess, I can see why investors would want Falcom to do some 3DS ports.
sörine;111755344 said:
Yeah, would've loved Symphonia on 3DS... but then again, still waiting on Abyss on the eShop, so yeah. My Tales of expectations are pretty low atm. Unless Nintendo comes and fund the entire thing, they aren't going to move from PS consoles anytime soon, other than the odd spin-off here and there.
Surprised they never made a PSP Tales. Would've made much more sense than those weird port on Vita (I really hope they don't have huge expectations for the one they announced for the West recently).
sörine;111754600 said:
Why do you say Abyss 3D and Symphonia HD did mediocre? Namco was happy with both NA and EU sales (and NA sales of Graces F, though in another interview they mentioned it could've done more if they marketed it better). Abyss 3D sold about the same as the PS2 release in US or a little more I think LTD (42k). It was a cheap port.
Symphonia HD also sold 42k in NPD in its first month (and it came out the last week of February). Pretty good for a Tales collection.
I still don't get why Bamco thought it was a good idea to release Graces the week before FFXIII.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Thats not what hurt it. The Tales fanbase are dedicated. Simply put, the Tales fanbase were not on the Wii. They were on the PS3.
That's simplistic. You want to build up a fanbase on a particular console, you need to keep on releasing games for it.
The Tales fanbase moved to PS3 because that's where all the Tales releases are.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Why build a fan base on one platform when the fan base you built before, (quite large) are already on a different platform.
The Tales fan base were on PS3 before it even got a Tales game since it was the expected platform and had a tested rpg fan base.
But there wasn't a single Tales game on the PS3 before ToV PS3. It still managed to outsell both ToV 360 and ToG Wii significantly. They clearly didn't "move" to the PS3. They were already there.
You don't think releasing it a week before the most anticipated RPG of the generation ate into its sales at all?
Fair enough. But I also feel that they basically locked into the range of 400-600K on the PS3 because the series has become a PS3 exclusive.
And I'm not sure the same can be said of the PS3 to PS4 transition 'forecasting' a couple of years ahead.
Magicpaint
Member
It's not like a Tales game hasn't been positioned close to a big Square-Enix title before though. Tales of Rebirth was only a couple of weeks after Dragon Quest VIII (!) and Tales of the Abyss -- like Graces a week before FFXIII -- was released just a week before Kingdom Hearts 2.
Well, to be fair, ToV PS3 released a few months before ToG Wii, that did set some kind of precedent and might have kept fans from buying Graces Wii knowing that Namco might port it to PS3 later on (which they did).
Obviously it's not the only reason and focusing on the Playstation platforms was the right choice but it might have been a factor in Graces Wii selling as badly as it did (on top of being released really close to FF XIII).
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
Wasn't ToG Wii terribly buggy? I thought that was the reason behind most of ToG's issues... the PS3 port had those issues fixed on launch.
Yeah it also had a bug, the only way to fix it was to send your disc back to Namco so they would give an updated version or something.
If you're suggesting they'd get more by making it multiplat, it's not going to matter much in Japan. Though maybe a Vita version of Zestiria could do a decent amount, but they seem content in just making one version of a game at a time.
With next gen consoles, the Tales fanbase will move to PS4 before anything because it's a Sony console.
A theory that has been previously mentioned in these threads is that the Tales audience follows Final Fantasy, since it's the big RPG franchise. I've heard that Tales is big on anime cliches, so I suppose the licensed anime game audience would also influence it. That line of thinking leads the franchise to the PS4 as well. Makes more sense to me that "because it's a Sony console", but what do I know about Tales.
I liked their plan of making exclusives for each console early in last gen's console generation. I realize that Baba's dev team and budget can't be stretched to do so anymore without an infusion of either man power and money, but the way things stand, they live and die on PS3 surviving as a medium.
And the Tales games are pretty much uprezzed PS2 games today, so I can't imagine Bandai-Namco would move Tales to PS4 anytime soon, or expect those fans to do so. Those games need to take a graphical leap before anything else, IMO.
What I mean is that Sony systems usually have a large number of RPG and anime games, and so the audience for those games will continue to migrate to Sony systems.
Stretching the games across multiple platforms is a bad idea because the games are guaranteed to sell best on Sony consoles. Also say they made a Wii U game, they'd just port it later with extra content to PS3/PS4 and it'll sell more just by being available on a Sony console.
And no, the games are not uprezzed PS2 games.
Yeah, GREE and DeNA time have passed. It's all about LINE in Japan now.
http://linecorp.com/en/press/2014/0508737
When you get your mobile success you should actually milk it dry as much as you can because you never know how long it'll last.
Isn't Line more about communication like instant messaging, akin to MSN etc? Games are like the side dishes in its business.
I too am interested in how Agito will play out. Perhaps they can expand on the FNC series through mobile should Agito be successful. But I don't think it will perform better than XV.
Personally speaking though, I want FNC done and over it. It had it's time in the sun.
Agito's not going to be more successful than XV. Maybe more successful than LR.
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
I haven't played the games on PS3, but ToV on 360 was pretty gorgeous for its time. It wasn't just an uprezzed PS2 game...
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
No to the extent of how Graces flopped. The dedicated fan base is larger than that suggesting they weren't present on the Wii.
Exactly. Namco knows this. Baba knows this and fans knows this. Just like Persona and in both cases the franchises are growing in the West.
Personally I think a Vita port will only split sales
I hope Zestiria is Bamco's last PS3 Tales. Game looks decent but if they want to expand on the idea of making a (kinda) open-world game, they'll have it easier with a more powerful console.
And, to be honest, I don't know if the Vita will be able to handle Zestiria. With proper work, it obviously would, Borderlands 2 is working there. But I noticed some harsh framerate drops in Xillia (in busy moments during boss fights, mainly. The slowdown was really noticeable) and that was a game without battle arenas. I'm afraid what could happen in an open-world game on a weaker hardware.
And, if they have to port anything. I'd rather choose them to port Vesperia.
It doesn't matter. I'm sure most fans don't care about it. I'd gladly take a "good looking" Tales of game obviously (or at least a cell-shaded one...) but I don't care if there isn't a big graphical leap.
I'd be satisfied with some extra AA, better textures and a improved lighting engine.
Right now I'm more worried about Zestiria story... I don't know what to think about what we've seen so far :/
I suppose...but Xenoblade was done on the Wii and games like DQ VIII and FF XII were done on the PS2, so it depends on Namco's effort. I haven't played many open world games on the PS3, but I thought Dragon's Dogma had a big enough world, though the game's performance could've been better...
I have more confidence on those games developers graphical expertise than Tales developers, to be honest.
I found Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen playable though. I don't know if performance was improved in that version (which I got via PS+ and I love). I think performance problems are not the worst thing about that game. Story and quest design are the biggest offenders in that game quality.
Gameplay is awesome though
michaelius
Banned
sörine;111760345 said:
They are small company that only works mostly on Sony platforms and PC- they would have to outsource it and it would be most likely port of one of psp games.
http://www.siliconera.com/2014/05/14/playstation-4-bundled-fifa-2014-japan/
I'm afraid to ask, but how does Fifa sell? I have a very large feeling that this won't help PS4 at all.
I'm afraid to ask, but how does Fifa sell? I have a very large feeling that this won't help PS4 at all.
No Yakuza: Ishin...no MGSV: Ground Zeroes...but FIFA14. Of all games, FIFA14. Ok, World Cup 2014 is coming, but...REALLY?
June's selection for the 3DS XL Recommendation promotion is much better, though
Yep, Pokémon Art Academy, which will release on June 19th, is among them.
I did some kick Googling and I found this.
06./00. [PS3] FIFA 14 # <SPT> (Electronic Arts) {2013.10.17} (¥7.665) - 26.170 / NEW (2013 W42)
18./00. [PS4] FIFA 14 <SPT> (Electronic Arts) {2014.02.22} (¥7.665) - 8.808 / NEW (2014 W8
28./00. [PS3] 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil (Electronic Arts) {2014.04.24} - 3.327 / NEW* (2014 W17)
*World Cup has Dengeki data. Other are MC.
Those all are first week sales.
PES sells better there IIRC. Around 250-350k units.
I'd rather bundle Battlefield, Yakuza or MGS.
Wow, really dumb move. They should've gone with Konami and bundle the console with the PS4 of PES 20.... oh.
1st Course
Member
F2P games now available for download on Amazon JP
http://www.gamesinasia.com/amazon-japan-is-giving-away-free-online-games/
http://www.gamesinasia.com/amazon-japan-is-giving-away-free-online-games/
Less than 50k.
Will be totally dependant on what Japanese centric software they launch it with. Right now even allan-bh estimate of 50k is generous.
when will the X1 be released in lovely tier 2 country, Japan?
September, I think.