Phoenician_Viking
Banned
Not for the Vita. The only platform up YOY.
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Media Create Sales: Week 25, 2014 (Jun 16 - Jun 22)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
Not for the Vita. The only platform up YOY.
Sammy Samusu
Member
Final Fantasy VII Remake
Vita's sales are up YOY, but it's not a particularly impressive feat given the poor sales the platform has gone through. It's also no where near enough to counteract the decline experienced by pretty much everything else.
I'm sure Sony is thrilled.
Sales of the Vita are up because it was selling like shit. This year it is just selling like slightly better shit.
can you blame em when PS4 has no worthwhile games for the market?
It was still the second best selling console last year
It'll probably be the second best selling console this year as well. Again, that's more horrible sales across the board than the Vita necessarily doing well.
Last year the exception was the 3DS, but even that was down YoY compared to 2012 and it is clear that it is falling this year as well.
What has to happen is a trend needs to be established to build up the market. So far no one has started that trend. I don't think XV is completely non-existant, but I also don't think it is coming in 2015. So we can't say "this will be the game to start the trend to sell systems". If you want to convince me of the future health of the PS4 in Japan, I will need to know who will start the trend. If you and others are right, that it will be XV, then I fear it will be too late. I don't think a system can remain alive while selling less than 10,000 a week for two years. I also don't think SE is crazy enough to be the trend-setter, because they will effectively be harming the health of their franchise to improve the health of someone else's console. Can you imagine it, they launch the game while there is less than a million consoles, they (in an absolutely unheard of miracle by the grace of the PlayStation goddess herself) have an amazing 60% attach rate, and (with a second miracle) sell half a million consoles over 2 weeks. And the stockholders are mad because they shrunk the market. Sure, it will help Sony, but what does SE get out of this arrangement?
As to targeting the west, building for PS4 is IMO the very definition of targeting the west. Building for a system Japanese actually have, actually want, if you were planning on selling to Japanese would make much more sense.
So, who's going to sacrifice their product to grow Sony's? (Don't say Konami and Capcom, they have clearly transitioned to being predominately concerned with western growth at the expense of Japanese, I freely admit they are on board with the PS4, even if they are still a year away from having anything)
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
What? While it fell a bit from last year domestically, it´s mostly because of scheduling. There are 3 movies at 700$ million WW. Movie industry is always up and down depending on scheduling. Movies are selling really well WW.
I couldn't care less about the PS4. I care about the general state of "core" gaming. If the entire market goes, so too will go the developers. Given that I greatly enjoy Japanese sensibilities when it comes to video game development, at least in the games that are localized to English, that leaves me upset about the general state of their market.
I do not like smartphone gaming. It's vapid, shallow, and boring. I don't want a future where smartphones have damaged the quality of game development. Sadly, that's already happened with major Japanese companies like Capcom and even Square-Enix (who are being short sighted and foolish, imo).
There's something to be said for tightening up the belt and refocusing on the core user, but the traditional market is faltering to the point that it threatens even the largest and most successful companies, Nintendo for instance. I don't wand Flappy Mario and Pokemon Crush Saga. I would rather play indie PC trash all day than buy even one more waste of money on a smartphone.
My hope is this generation of kids will grow tired of shitty cellphone games and start to yearn for more complex, engaging video games, at least enough of them to continue to fuel the development industry. Otherwise, we'll be looking at a PC only future. And while I've enjoyed PC gaming for over 20 years and will continue to do so, variety is a good thing.
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
How many people work at Platinum? I did not think they were this big of a studio.
I agree to some extent. But it seems that FFXV will get direct sequels like 13 did with 13-2 and Lightning Returns, which could lead them to simply sacrifice the games sales performance in Japan to get the ball rolling. The reason ist that it would take years for PS4 to reach favourable userbase, even a low benchmark like 3 million would take years without the helpof heavy hitters like Final Fantasy.
Single titles dont save systems whatever that means for the system. A barrage of good titles do or at least titles people are buying. At this point Im not really sure what to coin a success for PS4 in japan
So glad to see them get more work.
Its interesting how they have made their reputation on making 'hardcore' games that are very Japanese (as in games that I would only expect to be made in Japan) when a lot of other devs are trying to chase the west.
Right. Hardware is nothing without software. Companies have become so shortsighted chasing the elusive smartphone dollar, so fearful of the general economic climate, so fractionalized in the console wars that they are unwilling to take the smallest risk, the slightest loss on the type of launch year games required to sell hardware. They're leaving the job entirely to the console holder, failing to see that it's variety that sells hardware, not just Nintendo, not just Sony.
I remember the days when I bought a newly launched SNES with a brand new copy of Final Fantasy IV. That was a good day. And I know I may never see it again, at least not with Square Enix's help.
It takes money to make money. The commercial market is not without risk. The video game business is not a risk-free venture. You can't play it like the stock market, only investing in index funds. If these companies can't see that, then they're going to fall victim to something, whether it's smart phones or indie developers or Kickstarter or something else.
Immaculate
Banned
ugh i hate how people still come in here every week and act like its an accomplishment. Its still selling like shit
No that's just mobile.
I have never believed in one game starting a trend, a system is healthy when it had a healthy amount of games covering all the bases.
I don't like to make sales fiction, but to draw a scenario that I find likely.
Why can't I say Capcom or Konami? There are a vital point for any future scenario of better PS4 sales. For Capcom I'm sure there is a RE whatever coming for consoles not too far away. That will do nicely in Japan (no PSX by far, but will animate things). Metal Gear Solid V is other game that I think will help people move to PS4 next year, even if it has PS3 version. Metal Gear fans are stable and I'm sure they share western ideas about having the game at the best fidelity. Bloodborne could do decently as well.
The key here is that all these names have international reach, so it doesn't matter Japan is not too hot for them. Games are selling in next-gen consoles overseas, that's a fact. So it´s not like they are sacrificing for the sake of Sony, they are releasing their high profile projects in the platforms they can sell the most, and thanks to that they will also move units in Japan.
Besides that, I expect some more focused effort from SCE in Japan -a Minna no Golf for example- and I expect another Yakuza for PS4 at the end of next year. And I expect the niche studios to start transitioning to PS4 as well -Compile is already doing it with Neptunia, Nippon Ichi too for PS4...- For the end of 2015, PS3 will be history in Japan with every possible "heavy hitter" already in the market (Persona 5), and the traditional studios will be putting their efforts in PS4/One in a similar fashion to last gen (Wii U if Nintendo manages someway to give a big push to sales for themselves). And then, in 2016, Final Fantasy, a new Tales, more info of KH 3, that will normalize PS4 situation and send it on track to follow PS3 steps.
So there it is, a nice fairy tale. I'm sure it can be easily countered by some other scenario, but who cares? it´s sales fiction, I don't know how it´s going to be and it may depends of factors that are yet unknown. I just believe that no matter how depressing it´s the actual scenario for consoles in Japan, it's can't be that bad as sub 10k for every console for the rest of generation. That's not a contraction scenario, that's cataclysmic.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
This gif accurately represents the WiiU.
This is after 3 weeks of its biggest exclusive dropping.
and the dedicated Japanese console industry
This is after 3 weeks of its biggest exclusive dropping.
That would save Japan.
Orniletter
Banned
Wait for Smash.
You're looking at revenue. We're looking at profits, which is the most important sign of health and long term growth.
Well the Activision game seems to be a digital game and out this fall, so who knows how big that one actually is. So its not like they got 2 full games on their plate
That's like twice what I thought (in my mind they were like 80-90 people). It kind of surprises me that they're able to stay afloat with so many employees considering their game sales rank from decent to bomba.
Yagami_Sama
Member
Yo-Kai watch still in God Mode.
I hope Wii U keep on selling above 10k.
I hope Wii U keep on selling above 10k.
This gif accurately represents the WiiU.
and the dedicated Japanese console industry
This is after 3 weeks of its biggest exclusive dropping.
If that's the Wii U what's the PS4? It's going to drop below the PS3 soon.
Others foot the bill for their games usually iirc.
Sega paid for Bayonetta, Konami for Metal Gear Rising, Nintendo for W101 and Bayonetta 2, Microsoft for Scalebound etc. They are guns for hire basically.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
And which games are those? Your talking about what 4-5 games? I'm talking about the rest of the market. Compare 3rd party support of the psp now compare that that to the PS3. Now compare 3rd party support of the Vita. It doesn't require rocket science to realise the PS4 will receive significantly less third party support. That's going to effect the sales no matter how you look at it. Even without said mainline games psp greatly outsold the PS3. Precisely how big of an effect do you think those games even have?
A large chunk of that support has gone you can't pretend that it hasn't.
200 including contractors: http://www.edge-online.com/news/ina...the-company-like-youre-in-danger-of-starving/
Korra is a downloadable title to note, but I get the impression they run pretty light on each individual product to keep the budgets down and keep signing contracts, so they have to sign a ton of work to stay afloat.
randomengine
Banned
So what if what is happening in Japan with mobile, happened in the West? Could we be looking at an implosion of the dedicated gamer space?
The problem is that the Japanese market is all risk and no reward right now. These companies aren't just hedging their bets - they've been through the last generation and lost out big time, forced to shift to handhelds because ballooning costs and changing tastes have made console development all but impossible to justify.
And now the handheld market is also dwindling and budgets are rising there too. The generation-on-generation customer loss between the DS+PSP to 3DS+Vita is catastrophic. The only option, like it or not, is smartphones.
On the bolded, I would have agreed with this until about 2-3 years ago when most Japanese publishers stopped focusing on the West and instead just reigned in their output and started focusing more on mobiles for the local market and online f2p games for mainland Asia.
Those 4-5 games will move consoles, the rest of the market will follow, again I know it will sell less than PS3, but it will still be successful and w'o a doubt beat WiiU.
SEGA paid for Bayonetta? I didn't know that. I did know about the rest.
That won't happen since lifestyle in the West is quite different than there in Japan. There people don't have as much free time to just sit and play some games as we have, public transport is a lot more popular, and there are other factors that affect it.
I'd say that the PC market has a bigger chance of hurting the dedicated gaming market than mobile (with MOBAs being incredibly popular and running on toasters, for exaample). I'm sure we all have friends that were casual console players but now just play LoL or something similar.
Still I don't think that'd be enough to make the dedicated console market implode.
What "rest of the market"? Frankly a lot of the studios that propelled the PS3 can't afford to simply wait around for the PS4 to be successful. Given that the PS3 had only 1 real million seller and yet achieved 10 million sales, should speak volumes to how much it was propelled by the numerous B tier studios with 50,000-250,000 selling games. Studios that will be found exclusively on iOS by the time the PS4 has a shot of crossing streams with the Wii U.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
This has to be a joke by now.
Did the PS4 just get its biggest exclusive released a couple of weeks ago aka FFXV.
I mean pretty much everything is doing bad bud I highlighted WiiU simply because MK8 just released.
If you think FfXV is going to save PS4 in Japan, then I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you.
He is not saying that. He compared Mario Kart with Final Fantasy because those brands were the top selling games on the previous consoles they released, the Wii and the PS3.
Colonel Mustard
Banned
Yeah, the Wii U should definitely be selling more than 10K.
It is not, Smash will sell more consoles than MK8 did, a whole lot more.