Support NeoGAF

[Vena]

To be more specific, Bravely Default was the new JRPG series from the company that publishes Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and was trying to appeal to people who bought millions of copies of old FF games like FF5 and FF6. It's even full of Final Fantasy jobs and monsters that fit well in the FF universe (or were even actually FF bosses). There's a ton of brand strength behind the game despite the fact it's in theory a new IP. It's kind of like how Destiny is a new IP, but it's built on the formula of Borderlands, built by the developers of Halo, and published by what was then the biggest publisher in the industry. A ton of developers could never have that.

For Legend of Legacy, its sales are so low that it's only a great result for FuRyu. It'd probably be a stronger argument to stay away than it would be to come on board unless you're a company like Idea Factory where that kind of sales volume from a no name publisher seems really attractive.

Ahh I see what you meant.

Yes, now that I think and look at it, BD is a bad example for what I was thinking. I think that FuRyu and LoL, though, are more along the lines of what I am thinking that other studios would do to build an audience. The sales of the title are good for FuRyu but would they not be good for an equally small budget title from another dev/pub in the hopes of long-term growth? There's always the possibility of a title taking off, as well, under the enormity of the 3DS's populace.

Would there be much risk in such a title? Do those risks greatly outweigh the chance at long-term growth?

 

[Nirolak]

Ahh I see what you meant.

Yes, now that I think and look at it, BD is a bad example for what I was thinking. I think that FuRyu and LoL, though, are more along the lines of what I am thinking that other studios would do to build an audience. The sales of the title are good for FuRyu but would they not be good for an equally small budget title from another dev/pub in the hopes of long-term growth? There's always the possibility of a title taking off, as well, under the enormity of the 3DS's populace.

Would there be much risk in such a title? Do those risks greatly outweigh the chance at long-term growth?

That is a good example of a title where the risk is not in the game being unprofitable, but in Opportunity Cost.

Let's say that there were 25 people who worked on Legend of Legacy and that 70K sales covered their costs.

For FuRyu that's great, because their alternative is having 25 people work on a game that sells 5000-1000 copies, so having them sell 70,000 instead is a huge win.

However, over at Square Enix, they can have 25 people try to make the next School Girls Strikers instead, which could end up bringing in the equivalent of selling 1-2 million copies of a 3DS game (or more!) over its lifetime. Having them work on a game that would sell 70K, even if the next entry sold 150K or even 250K, would not at all be worth it for them. This series would also have almost zero impact on their financial results, as they had a revenue of over $1.3 billion this fiscal year.

This is why I used Yokai Watch as a comparison point instead. When you look at the money Yokai Watch brings in, suddenly this comparison becomes a lot less clear. How successful do you need your mobile game to be to earn that much money? There are some that exist, but not a lot, especially once you consider merchandizing.

The reason I use this big comparisons is because it's primarily the biggest publishers working on PS4. Chain Chronicle made over $74 million for Sega in 9 months, and assuredly had a notably small development team. As such, we see Sega investing heavily in mobile and not releasing a lot of handheld games. They still do some, but they're carefully chosen and tend to be games that sell a lot, have significant high margin digital revenue, and/or have good merchandizing/licensing potential in the future.

This is one of the most dramatic elements in terms of deciding publisher behavior. Essentially they have to look at their development resources and say "What is the most valuable thing these people could be working on?" The answer is very rarely going to be something like Legend of Legacy, since if they have a team that small without a good project to work on, they're likely to go experiment in the mobile market instead and try to learn how to succeed there instead.

This is why I said it's a different scenario for a developer like Idea Factory though. Now, obviously Idea Factory's games fit the demographic on the Vita much better, but if they didn't, their Opportunity Cost set-up looks a lot more like that of FuRyu than that of a major publisher.

To bring this to a more tangible example, a lot of people tend to ask why Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 3 doesn't exist. The reason is that the developers are senior staffers on Final Fantasy XIV, and Square Enix feels they generate a whole lot more money doing that than they would making FFTA3 instead. They also presumably feel that contracting a different set of available developers to make the game instead won't have satisfactory results, or that the developers who are capable of doing it would be better contracted to work on something else instead.

Another example of this is when a publisher like EA comes out and says "Dead Space 3 needs to sell 5 million copies to keep going." A lot of people interpret this as "Dead Space 3 needs to sell 5 million copies to be profitable.", but this would be completely incorrect. The real reason for this is that both Battlefield: Hardline and Dead Space 4 would cost an equal amount of money, as they'd be using the exact same staff with very similar development timelines. Since EA feels that Battlefield: Hardline selling 5+ million copies is incredibly likely (and also has great digital revenue to boot), Dead Space 3 had to perform at least that well to be worth continuing instead of just shifting the studio over to help annualize their FPS business. It's just a significantly better business decision in the end, and the staff were interested in and capable of doing it.

 

[duckroll]

Let us have a moment of silence for Mistwalker, a Japanese developer who definitely took the advice of abandoning big consoles titles in favor of smaller portable titles on DS, before abandoning that too to make F2P mobile games.

 

[Nirolak]

Let us have a moment of silence for Mistwalker, a Japanese developer who definitely took the advice of abandoning big consoles titles in favor of smaller portable titles on DS, before abandoning that too to make F2P mobile games.

And that last one worked out really well for them!

A bunch of Japanese developers in those 4Gamer/Famitsu end of year surveys said that Terra Battle was the title that inspired them the most in 2014 as well. All the more incentive to go mobile!

But yeah, it was pretty obvious their skillset wasn't a great match for the market on the DS. It's definitely something that developers need to really consider before switching their strategy.

Simply being on a successful platform is not a recipe for success.

 

[jwhit28]

Let us have a moment of silence for Mistwalker, a Japanese developer who definitely took the advice of abandoning big consoles titles in favor of smaller portable titles on DS, before abandoning that too to make F2P mobile games.

Has there been any talk of what Terra Battle World will be if they reach 2.0 million downloads?

 

[Nirolak]

Has there been any talk of what Terra Battle World will be if they reach 2.0 million downloads?

They updated the text and made some comments over time and my impression is that Sakaguchi basically thinks that with 2 million downloads he will most likely be able to find a publisher that's impressed enough to fund something on a dedicated device, but he doesn't know what that something will be.

Here's the newest text for reference:

"In developing Terra Battle - a mobile game that players can download and play for free-our hope was to fill this project with our dreams. Reaching the two million downloads milestone is but a goal within a bigger goal.
We want to begin developing the console version of Terra Battle while still operating the mobile version that our fans will continue to love.
We may have a long way to go in terms of negotiations and such, but no matter what shape or form the outcome takes, we will strive to bring this dream-inspiring project to life."

 

[Pennywise83]

To be more specific, Bravely Default was the new JRPG series from the company that publishes Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and was trying to appeal to people who bought millions of copies of old FF games like FF5 and FF6. It's even full of Final Fantasy jobs and monsters that fit well in the FF universe (or were even actually FF bosses). There's a ton of brand strength behind the game despite the fact it's in theory a new IP. It's kind of like how Destiny is a new IP, but it's built on the formula of Borderlands, built by the developers of Halo, and published by what was then the biggest publisher in the industry. A ton of developers could never have that.

In fact, BD is a clear example of why companies should have worked more on 3DS. BD sold "only" 320-400k in Japan, and "only" 1m in the West, but it was the best-selling new traditional IP from Square Enix since... Kingdom Hearts? That's something quite unexpected, and surprising if you think. The game started as a FF spin-off (the sequel of The 4 Heroes of Light) but eventually was re-branded, probably because Square Enix though the FF IP might have been toxic on Nintendo handhelds, after overexposition on DS. What is worth noticing, though, is that Square Enix barely advertised the game, and gave it to an external team, instead of developing in-house (so your comparison with Destiny already looks wrong: on the one hand you have a software house that worked on Halo, on the other hand you have a barely known company that worked on... 3D Dot Game Heroes); it wasn't even developed by Matrix, the original developer of DS FF remakes. The game was advertised through demos and initiatives signalling that the developing team itself was following the promotion, and not the marketing department of the publisher. In sum, I cannot see neither brand strength nor high expectations for the game; the game, indeed, went sold-out shortly after the launch (it had unusual legs for being a jRPG).

And that last one worked out really well for them!

A bunch of Japanese developers in those 4Gamer/Famitsu end of year surveys said that Terra Battle was the title that inspired them the most in 2014 as well. All the more incentive to go mobile!

But yeah, it was pretty obvious their skillset wasn't a great match for the market on the DS. It's definitely something that developers need to really consider before switching their strategy.

Simply being on a successful platform is not a recipe for success.

One project succeeded. Will this be enough to allow Mistwalker to create a legacy in the mobile market, or will this be another one-hit wonder as almost always often for small studios?

Also, note that "simply being on a successful platform is not a recipe for success" works on mobile as well. Mistwalker was lucky enough to attract a sizeable userbase to its mobile project, but it's not granted they'll be able to do so in the future (and the likelihood might be lower with respect to dedicated devices where fidelization is typically stronger -that's because customer pays an upfront fee). Indeed, as proving my point, the next step is to find a publisher to work on a dedicated device because, look, it's there where they can build a legacy and a strong IP that might last more than a couple of years.

That is a good example of a title where the risk is not in the game being unprofitable, but in Opportunity Cost.

Let's say that there were 25 people who worked on Legend of Legacy and that 70K sales covered their costs.

For FuRyu that's great, because their alternative is having 25 people work on a game that sells 5000-1000 copies, so having them sell 70,000 instead is a huge win.

However, over at Square Enix, they can have 25 people try to make the next School Girls Strikers instead, which could end up bringing in the equivalent of selling 1-2 million copies of a 3DS game (or more!) over its lifetime. Having them work on a game that would sell 70K, even if the next entry sold 150K or even 250K, would not at all be worth it for them. This series would also have almost zero impact on their financial results, as they had a revenue of over $1.3 billion this fiscal year.

This is why I used Yokai Watch as a comparison point instead. When you look at the money Yokai Watch brings in, suddenly this comparison becomes a lot less clear. How successful do you need your mobile game to be to earn that much money? There are some that exist, but not a lot, especially once you consider merchandizing.

The reason I use this big comparisons is because it's primarily the biggest publishers working on PS4. Chain Chronicle made over $74 million for Sega in 9 months, and assuredly had a notably small development team. As such, we see Sega investing heavily in mobile and not releasing a lot of handheld games. They still do some, but they're carefully chosen and tend to be games that sell a lot, have significant high margin digital revenue, and/or have good merchandizing/licensing potential in the future.

This is one of the most dramatic elements in terms of deciding publisher behavior. Essentially they have to look at their development resources and say "What is the most valuable thing these people could be working on?" The answer is very rarely going to be something like Legend of Legacy, since if they have a team that small without a good project to work on, they're likely to go experiment in the mobile market instead and try to learn how to succeed there instead.

This is why I said it's a different scenario for a developer like Idea Factory though. Now, obviously Idea Factory's games fit the demographic on the Vita much better, but if they didn't, their Opportunity Cost set-up looks a lot more like that of FuRyu than that of a major publisher.

To bring this to a more tangible example, a lot of people tend to ask why Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 3 doesn't exist. The reason is that the developers are senior staffers on Final Fantasy XIV, and Square Enix feels they generate a whole lot more money doing that than they would making FFTA3 instead. They also presumably feel that contracting a different set of available developers to make the game instead won't have satisfactory results, or that the developers who are capable of doing it would be better contracted to work on something else instead.

Another example of this is when a publisher like EA comes out and says "Dead Space 3 needs to sell 5 million copies to keep going." A lot of people interpret this as "Dead Space 3 needs to sell 5 million copies to be profitable.", but this would be completely incorrect. The real reason for this is that both Battlefield: Hardline and Dead Space 4 would cost an equal amount of money, as they'd be using the exact same staff with very similar development timelines. Since EA feels that Battlefield: Hardline selling 5+ million copies is incredibly likely (and also has great digital revenue to boot), Dead Space 3 had to perform at least that well to be worth continuing instead of just shifting the studio over to help annualize their FPS business. It's just a significantly better business decision in the end, and the staff were interested in and capable of doing it.

That is a very naive explanation of what an opportunity cost is. Also, Square Enix keeps producing Theatrhythm games that: a. do not sell that much; b. are the nichest niche in the West; c. did not even work on mobile as shown by the fact that Curtain Call stayed as a 3DS exclusive.

 

[Moor-Angol]

7 Deadly Sins is hard to find ?



not at Ikebukuro Book-Off

 

[Pennywise83]

It seems the game have received a new shipment lately. It was basically disappeared from stores last week.

 

[Chris1964]

YSO predictions

Week 10, 2015 (Mar 2 - Mar 8)

[PS3] Dragon Quest Heroes <90k
[PS4] Dragon Quest Heroes <50k
[3DS] Etrian Mystery Odyssey <70k

 

[ZhugeEX]

YSO predictions

Week 10, 2015 (Mar 2 - Mar 8)

[PS3] Dragon Quest Heroes <90k
[PS4] Dragon Quest Heroes <50k
[3DS] Etrian Mystery Odyssey <70k

These guys are quick to make predictions haha.

 

[Takao]

YSO predictions

Week 10, 2015 (Mar 2 - Mar 8)

[PS3] Dragon Quest Heroes <90k
[PS4] Dragon Quest Heroes <50k
[3DS] Etrian Mystery Odyssey <70k

dat patented musou drop

 

[Busaiku]

What did they expect for 1st week?
Etrian Mystery Dungeon around 70k would be pretty good considering how The Knight of Fafnir did.

 

[Nirolak]

In fact, BD is a clear example of why companies should have worked more on 3DS. BD sold "only" 320-400k in Japan, and "only" 1m in the West

Okay, this is factually incorrect. It did 1 million worldwide, not 1 million in the West: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=863233

, but it was the best-selling new traditional IP from Square Enix since... Kingdom Hearts? That's something quite unexpected, and surprising if you think. The game started as a FF spin-off (the sequel of The 4 Heroes of Light) but eventually was re-branded, probably because Square Enix though the FF IP might have been toxic on Nintendo handhelds, after overexposition on DS. What is worth noticing, though, is that Square Enix barely advertised the game, and gave it to an external team, instead of developing in-house (so your comparison with Destiny already looks wrong: on the one hand you have a software house that worked on Halo, on the other hand you have a barely known company that worked on... 3D Dot Game Heroes); it wasn't even developed by Matrix, the original developer of DS FF remakes. The game was advertised through demos and initiatives signalling that the developing team itself was following the promotion, and not the marketing department of the publisher. In sum, I cannot see neither brand strength nor high expectations for the game; the game, indeed, went sold-out shortly after the launch (it had unusual legs for being a jRPG).

Let's go back and watch the announcement trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPK0yclgAsk

I took a couple images for people who can't reach YouTube:

The trailer consists of a three minute lead in with various staff as the names of Square Enix's biggest games fly in from the background talking about how this is their newest big JRPG series. Their initial attempt was certainly to get people excited for the game on the strength of the Square Enix brand the same way you saw Rockstar try to get people excited for L.A. Noire on the strength of the Rockstar brand.

Obviously Destiny had more going for it, but this was meant to be a demonstration of how much brand power you can assign to a game without actually having a brand. I'll switch to L.A. Noire though, which is the closer analog in that a non-Rockstar studio made the game with some Rockstar assistance, and then it went on to sell 5 million copies in large part thanks to Rockstar's brand and Rockstar drawing comparisons between the game and their other extremely successful open world games.

For Square Enix in particular though I don't feel outsourcing the game is a huge deal for appeal. Dragon Quest is helmed by Yuji Horii and handled by external development studios with the exception of Dragon Quest X. Here we have Asano and (at the time) Yoshida who were Square Enix staff helping to helm this project.

One project succeeded. Will this be enough to allow Mistwalker to create a legacy in the mobile market, or will this be another one-hit wonder as almost always often for small studios?

Also, note that "simply being on a successful platform is not a recipe for success" works on mobile as well. Mistwalker was lucky enough to attract a sizeable userbase to its mobile project, but it's not granted they'll be able to do so in the future (and the likelihood might be lower with respect to dedicated devices where fidelization is typically stronger -that's because customer pays an upfront fee). Indeed, as proving my point, the next step is to find a publisher to work on a dedicated device because, look, it's there where they can build a legacy and a strong IP that might last more than a couple of years.

Yes, the first half was meant to be a joke, hence the exclamation points.

The context of the quote was duckroll pointing out how far Sakaguchi's career spiraled downward after moving off of his primary skillset on consoles. He managed to find a successful game on mobile, but he has a trail of dead franchises and failed games leading up to it. It was a very painful transition.

The second half is me agreeing with duckroll's actual point.

That is a very naive explanation of what an opportunity cost is. Also, Square Enix keeps producing Theatrhythm games that: a. do not sell that much; b. are the nichest niche in the West; c. did not even work on mobile as shown by the fact that Curtain Call stayed as a 3DS exclusive.

I'm sorry, but this is one where I have to drive the screws to you given the number of PM complaints I've been receiving from posters in the thread (including yourself) about certain types of posting.

First, to answer your Theatrhythm question, I'm willing to answer opportunity cost questions on any particular game you want to bring up. For this series, even though the initial sales are low, it serves as a major DLC platform from which to make high margin (70%) revenue from. With Curtain Call, they set up a strong base game, and are now selling DLC songs from just about every series they have except Dragon Quest (because TRQ) and Kingdom Hearts.

I count an astonishing 86 DLC songs listed here already: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Theatrhythm_Final_Fantasy_Curtain_Call#Downloadable_Content

They even explained this business model here, in that this is the last Final Fantasy Theatrhythm game (well, perhaps last 3DS one that is), and that they will just release DLC for it going forward: http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/14/58...fantasy-curtain-call-will-act-as-the-base-for

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call is still planned as the last game in the rhythm-based, spin-off series, but the game will act as a "base" for any additions through downloadable content, producer Ichiro Hazama told Polygon via a translator during a recent interview.

As the Final Fantasy franchise continues to grow, it will gain new characters and more music. According to Hazama, Curtain Call will make it easy to add that extra content.

"We wanted to make it so Curtain Call is like your base," he said, "and then you would add more songs as newer titles joined the roster and be able to accommodate for DLC or things like that and build upon it. But that would be our final form of Theatrhythm that handles the Final Fantasy songs.

"In terms of Final Fantasy songs, we will continue to produce new Final Fantasy titles and with that, there'll be new songs added to the repertoire."

This allows them to get a very high ARPU (average revenue per user) and can make a game with low base sales quite worthwhile.

Now, for the last part, let's revisit this again and where I said I had to use the screws:

That is a very naive explanation of what an opportunity cost is.

I'm perfectly fine with any objections being thrown at my explanation of Opportunity Cost, since it's meant to be a very basic overview and obviously if someone feels I left something out that is important here, I encourage them to say so. I'm certainly willing to hear other viewpoints and that's the reason I even come to this thread, since if I wasn't interested in hearing different opinions, I wouldn't even be here.

However, you have to explain *what that objection is*.

I wrote a 700 word explanation, you wrote a 12 word contentless response. I also had made a whole lot of lengthy posts prior showing I was clearly willing to have a discussion and debate an issue, so there was no reason to assume I'd be flippant to any actual response you had. The complaint I frequently receive is that posters put a lot of effort into posts and receive zero effort rebuttals. As such, I'm requiring you to put out a lengthy response to my description of Opportunity Cost explaining exactly what you feel I'm glossing over followed by at least two examples (with details and argument explaining them) that you feel illustrate the differences between what I said and what you said. It doesn't have to be as lengthy as mine, but it has to sufficiently fit the requirements.

Your reply doesn't have to be incredibly insightful or even necessarily correct, but what I really want is for posters to understand that if you're going to rebut something, you have to put in effort.

Until you do so, you'll be effectively hellbanned from Media Create posts (subject to timing of an awake mod reading the thread) via our friend the soft delete, and I'll restore any posts you made after mine once you make yours. Since you're capable of making arguments, and my criteria are very lenient, I don't expect anything will actually have to be deleted, and I'm perfectly willing to respond to whatever direction you want to take this discussion. You don't have to reply to any posts beyond this one. My only goal is to point out that since you responded to the first one, you need to make an effort of it.

We normally ban people for this type of thing in other threads (the drive-by response to a long post thing), but I try to engage here first instead since I feel the community is pretty reasonable.

 

[Oregano]

@Nirolak: Picking up a point from last page but I don't think you can say Capcom tried to switch to 3DS. Resident Evil 6 was announced(and advertised on TV!) before Revelations released and IIRC Lost Planet 3 was announced before Ex Troopers was released(which was also on PS3). I think even Super Street Fighter IV 3D was outdated at/near release.

I think they tried(wisely) to have a big presence on the 3DS but it definitely wasn't prioritized over home consoles.

 

[test_account]

What did they expect for 1st week?
Etrian Mystery Dungeon around 70k would be pretty good considering how The Knight of Fafnir did.

This:

YSO predictions

Week 9, 2015 (Feb 23 - Feb 29)

[PS3] Dragon Quest Heroes >350k
[PS4] Dragon Quest Heroes >200k
[PS4] Hardware >50k

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=153193349&postcount=445

If i understand correctly, their predictions are kinda broad. With for example Etrian Mystery Dungeon, they expect less than 70k, but it doesnt say how much less.

 

[Nirolak]

@Nirolak: Picking up a point from last page but I don't think you can say Capcom tried to switch to 3DS. Resident Evil 6 was announced(and advertised on TV!) before Revelations released and IIRC Lost Planet 3 was announced before Ex Troopers was released(which was also on PS3). I think even Super Street Fighter IV 3D was outdated at/near release.

I think they tried(wisely) to have a big presence on the 3DS but it definitely wasn't prioritized over home consoles.

Oh sorry, I didn't mean literally switch everything, but to make it their big new business focus.

They've never 100% dropped their old businesses when moving around, but they have frequently changed where their new R&D money is going.

For example they have quite a few f2p console games now, and are moving more heavily into the digital download space as well, but I fully expect RE7 to be a retail game.

By comparison, Capcom basically only has Monster Hunter and Ace Attorney left on 3DS. Even Resident Evil Revelations 2 was released on every other platform except the 3DS and Wii U, despite the history of the first one. It does use Capcom's new digitally focused business model though.

 

[Sammy Samusu]

YSO predictions

Week 10, 2015 (Mar 2 - Mar 8)

[PS3] Dragon Quest Heroes <90k
[PS4] Dragon Quest Heroes <50k
[3DS] Etrian Mystery Odyssey <70k

I think the PS4 version will have legs, a lot of people don't own a PS4 yet, and more incentives are coming in the next few weeks. The first big must buy always have legs.

 

[Oregano]

Oh sorry, I didn't mean literally switch everything, but to make it their big new business focus.

They've never 100% dropped their old businesses when moving around, but they have frequently changed where their new R&D money is going.

For example they have quite a few f2p console games now, and are moving more heavily into the digital download space as well, but I fully expect RE7 to be a retail game.

By comparison, Capcom basically only has Monster Hunter and Ace Attorney left on 3DS. Even Resident Evil Revelations 2 was released on every other platform except the 3DS and Wii U, despite the history of the first one. It does use Capcom's new digitally focused business model though.

Well yeah they had very mixed success. Ex Troopers bombed and Revelations didn't meet expectations. Street Fighter is weird though, because it did very well(especially in Japan) and they didn't follow it up.

I think Capcom's 3DS support was more the result of them merging their DS(Ace Attorney, Nazu Waku whatever) and PSP(Monster Hunter, Resident Evil) support on to the one platform though.

 

[Shahed]

I think the PS4 version will have legs, a lot of people don't own a PS4 yet, and more incentives are coming in the next few weeks. The first big must buy always have legs.

Do you have any examples? At a guess I'd be surprised since I'm not sure if I see a lot of older software doing better on sales chart after platform adoption rates increase. At least bar Mario and Nintendo's evergreen stuff

 

[Nirolak]

Well yeah they had very mixed success. Ex Troopers bombed and Revelations didn't meet expectations. Street Fighter is weird though, because it did very well(especially in Japan) and they didn't follow it up.

I think Capcom's 3DS support was more the result of them merging their DS(Ace Attorney, Nazu Waku whatever) and PSP(Monster Hunter, Resident Evil) support on to the one platform though.

I'd consider that to be betting notably on the platform though, especially looking at the breadth of their line-up. Keep in mind that Capcom is a fairly small company for their publishing tier, yet this was their output.

2011:
-Super Street Fighter IV
-Resident Evil: The Mercenaries
-Nazo Waku Yakata
-Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate
-Mega Man Legends 3 (canceled)

2012:
-Resident Evil: Revelations
-E.X. Troopers

2013:
-Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies
-Monster Hunter 4
-Gaist Crusher

2014:
-Ace Attorney 123 (phone port)
-Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
-Gaist Crusher God

So far for 2015 they only have The Great Ace Attorney announced. They had a five game start with several risks (one never made it to market), followed by two riskier games, then everything gets safe outside of Gaist Crusher which was their attempt at the Level 5 market.

I feel this shows a portrait of significant enthusiasm up front followed by a notable retreat once the risks didn't pan out.

It's not too dissimilar to their other efforts. We saw a lot of Western developed games early on that tapered off to only a couple of titles and now the only ones they still work with are the one studio they bought (unless we want to count Ninja Theory's polishing of DmC).

For major console retail titles, they only seem to have Dead Rising (is this still going?), Street Fighter, and Resident Evil left compared to a much wider gamut before, with the rest focusing on new business models.

 

[Darius]

If betting on western sales for Japan centric titles is that smart remains to be seen, can´t say the userbase will be that much of an advantage for 3rd parties compared to last gen, it´s just more in favour of Sony this time around. Also Japanese titles mostly aren´t that relevant anymore outside of Japan, the focus on western games for the last 6-8 years really didn´t help, by now it´s really more appealing to people that want to dwelve into nostalgia, to relive the past "golden PS1-PS2 days", than really a mass-market, besides established IPs like Final Fantasy and MGS. Winning Eleven and Dynasty Warriors were former big hits and million-sellers in Japan and we´ll likely see further decline for other 3rd party IPs but not necessarily to the same extent.

 

[Oregano]

<snip>
So far for 2015 they only have The Great Ace Attorney announced. They had a five game start with several risks (one never made it to market), followed by two riskier games, then everything gets safe outside of Gaist Crusher which was their attempt at the Level 5 market.

I feel this shows a portrait of significant enthusiasm up front followed by a notable retreat once the risks didn't pan out.

It's not too dissimilar to their other efforts. We saw a lot of Western developed games early on that tapered off to only a couple of titles and now the only ones they still work with are the one studio they bought (unless we want to count Ninja Theory's polishing of DmC).

For major console retail titles, they only seem to have Dead Rising (is this still going?), Street Fighter, and Resident Evil left compared to a much wider gamut before, with the rest focusing on new business models.

Oh, yeah. They definitely slimmed down to what was proven to work but I felt it needed to be qualified a bit. If you look at that first year for instance you have Street Fighter port, low budget Resi spinoff which reuses assets wholesale, (seemingly) low budget minigame thing, Monster Hunter G version reusing assets and the cancelled MML3(which they were planning to sell a demo for).

In that sense it is similar to their western developer push last gen but it was still much more risk averse up front. They obviously wanted to be a main player on 3DS but I think with the exception of Revelations and Monster Hunter they were playing quite safe.

On that note I totally forgot Gaist Crusher was a thing.

Spoiler

As did the target audience!

 

[Nirolak]

Oh, yeah. They definitely slimmed down to what was proven to work but I felt it needed to be qualified a bit. If you look at that first year for instance you have Street Fighter port, low budget Resi spinoff which reuses assets wholesale, (seemingly) low budget minigame thing, Monster Hunter G version reusing assets and the cancelled MML3(which they were planning to sell a demo for).

In that sense it is similar to their western developer push last gen but it was still much more risk averse up front. They obviously wanted to be a main player on 3DS but I think with the exception of Revelations and Monster Hunter they were playing quite safe.

On that note I totally forgot Gaist Crusher was a thing.

Spoiler

As did the target audience!

That I can definitely agree with. Dragon's Dogma likely had a larger budget than all of those games combined.

I do think that's a large part of why they liked 3DS though (and now downloadable, mobile, and f2p), as the cost base is very low and successes generate major potential earnings.

It's taking the quick buck strategy further by also lowering the actual risk taken in attempts to make money.

It makes a lot of sense to ignore Vita and Wii U with this strategy too as those won't have major hits for Capcom, unlike the 3DS where at least on paper you can perform like Yokai Watch, and they cost more to make games for than mobile.

 

[Vena]

That I can definitely agree with. Dragon's Dogma likely had a larger budget than all of those games combined.

I do think that's a large part of why they liked 3DS though (and now downloadable, mobile, and f2p), as the cost base is very low and successes generate major potential earnings.

It's taking the quick buck strategy further by also lowering the actual risk taken in attempts to make money.

Hasn't their SFIV 3DS port actually sold rather decently as well over time?

It seems to me, looking over their 3DS catalog, that they've actually had a decent to great (MH) record as of this handheld generation. The only headline about "disappointment" (not counting Giast, as I have no idea what that game even is/was) that I specifically remember was over Revelations not selling quite as much as Capcom had hoped given its larger budget. There's some ground to question their expectations on this, though, as the 3DS wasn't exactly a home of Resident Evil, tying back to the discussion of audience location.

Of course, I am still rather confused by their decision with regards to Revelations 2... seems like they somewhat squandered the possible franchise growth on the 3DS but perhaps they thought there just wasn't much of if any growth worth pursuing... I'll be interested in seeing some number on Rev 2 when they become available and compare that to Rev 1 on the 3DS.

It makes a lot of sense to ignore Vita and Wii U with this strategy too as those won't have major hits for Capcom, unlike the 3DS where at least on paper you can perform like Yokai Watch, and they cost more to make games for than mobile.

About the only thing that makes sense for the WiiU is another MonHun port from MH4U to MH4WiiU. The overall investment is cheap, outsourced, and, I believe, had decent returns with MH3WiiU.

 

[Nirolak]

Hasn't their SFIV 3DS port actually sold rather decently as well over time?

It seems to me, looking over their 3DS catalog, that they've actually had a decent to great (MH) record as of this handheld generation. The only headline about "disappointment" that I specifically remember was over Revelations not selling quite as much as Capcom had hoped given its larger budget. There's some ground to question their expectations on this, though, as the 3DS wasn't exactly a home of Resident Evil, tying back to the discussion of audience location.

Of course, I am still rather confused by their decision with regards to Revelations 2... seems like they somewhat squandered the possible franchise growth on the 3DS but perhaps they thought there just wasn't much of if any growth worth pursuing... I'll be interested in seeing some number on Rev 2 when they become available and compare that to Rev 1 on the 3DS.

If I had to guess at a reason why they wouldn't follow up Street Fighter, they may have massively overshipped the game and determined there wouldn't be demand anywhere near that for another entry.

About the only thing that makes sense for the WiiU is another MonHun port from MH4U to MH4WiiU. The overall investment is cheap, outsourced, and, I believe, had decent returns with MH3WiiU.

And on this front I suspect it's their risk aversion in general. I mean they signed an exclusivity contract for a slamdunk fighting game.

 

[Oregano]

I think if Revelations 2 was conceived as an episodic game they probably ruled out 3DS before even taking technical considerations into account. DLC/Episodic games weren't supported on 3DS back then and even now aren't really a thing.

 

[Mpl90]

Hasn't their SFIV 3DS port actually sold rather decently as well over time?

It seems to me, looking over their 3DS catalog, that they've actually had a decent to great (MH) record as of this handheld generation. The only headline about "disappointment" that I specifically remember was over Revelations not selling quite as much as Capcom had hoped given its larger budget. There's some ground to question their expectations on this, though, as the 3DS wasn't exactly a home of Resident Evil, tying back to the discussion of audience location.

Of course, I am still rather confused by their decision with regards to Revelations 2... seems like they somewhat squandered the possible franchise growth on the 3DS but perhaps they thought there just wasn't much of if any growth worth pursuing... I'll be interested in seeing some number on Rev 2 when they become available and compare that to Rev 1 on the 3DS.



About the only thing that makes sense for the WiiU is another MonHun port from MH4U to MH4WiiU. The overall investment is cheap, outsourced, and, I believe, had decent returns with MH3WiiU.

Yeah, a comparison between 3DS and PS3 versions of the first Revelations with Revelations 2 could be interesting (and I put that comparison in my latest Comgnet post), but I fear it can't be that fair, considering how Revelations 2 is sold in a different way: episodes first, then retail copies of the game (at a lower price compared to a full-fledged release). And we all know that it's not like we get so many actual digital numbers, overal. It's actually the contrary. And, despite Enterbrain / Famitsu releasing their digital sales estimates, I suppose they will release just sales of the digital SKU of the retail game, sales of single episodes excluded.

 

[Pennywise83]

Okay, this is factually incorrect. It did 1 million worldwide, not 1 million in the West: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=863233

I wrote a wrong thing, I had to say "1m incl. Western sales".

Let's go back and watch the announcement trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPK0yclgAsk
The trailer consists of a three minute lead in with various staff as the names of Square Enix's biggest games fly in from the background talking about how this is their newest big JRPG series. Their initial attempt was certainly to get people excited for the game on the strength of the Square Enix brand the same way you saw Rockstar try to get people excited for L.A. Noire on the strength of the Rockstar brand.

Obviously Destiny had more going for it, but this was meant to be a demonstration of how much brand power you can assign to a game without actually having a brand. I'll switch to L.A. Noire though, which is the closer analog in that a non-Rockstar studio made the game with some Rockstar assistance, and then it went on to sell 5 million copies in large part thanks to Rockstar's brand and Rockstar drawing comparisons between the game and their other extremely successful open world games.

For Square Enix in particular though I don't feel outsourcing the game is a huge deal for appeal. Dragon Quest is helmed by Yuji Horii and handled by external development studios with the exception of Dragon Quest X. Here we have Asano and (at the time) Yoshida who were Square Enix staff helping to helm this project.

To be fair, the announcement was made during a Nintendo conference where many games were presented by developers and producers. SQEX also had a panel after the show where developers played Theathrhythm. The point is, the announcement was the pinnacle of SQEX's promotion for the game, which was basically left to the team (an almost unknown one, since Matrix was used to develop mobile games) through demos. The game wasn't even planned for a Western release to begin with and was severely undershipped during the first days in the market. This screams a lot low expectations.

Yes, the first half was meant to be a joke, hence the exclamation points.

The context of the quote was duckroll pointing out how far Sakaguchi's career spiraled downward after moving off of his primary skillset on consoles. He managed to find a successful game on mobile, but he has a trail of dead franchises and failed games leading up to it. It was a very painful transition.

The second half is me agreeing with duckroll's actual point.

I'm sorry, but this is one where I have to drive the screws to you given the number of PM complaints I've been receiving from posters in the thread (including yourself) about certain types of posting.

First, to answer your Theatrhythm question, I'm willing to answer opportunity cost questions on any particular game you want to bring up. For this series, even though the initial sales are low, it serves as a major DLC platform from which to make high margin (70%) revenue from. With Curtain Call, they set up a strong base game, and are now selling DLC songs from just about every series they have except Dragon Quest (because TRQ) and Kingdom Hearts.

I count an astonishing 86 DLC songs listed here already: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Theatrhythm_Final_Fantasy_Curtain_Call#Downloadable_Content

They even explained this business model here, in that this is the last Final Fantasy Theatrhythm game (well, perhaps last 3DS one that is), and that they will just release DLC for it going forward: http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/14/58...fantasy-curtain-call-will-act-as-the-base-for

This allows them to get a very high ARPU (average revenue per user) and can make a game with low base sales quite worthwhile.

So you're basically confirming that 50-100-150k games can profitably exist on dedicated devices. In any case, you can make the same argument for an hypothetical Theatrhythm FF on mobile phones (well, there's the first one but I don't know whether it has DLCs) but still, the franchise seems now a 3DS exclusive.

Now, for the last part, let's revisit this again and where I said I had to use the screws:

I'm perfectly fine with any objections being thrown at my explanation of Opportunity Cost, since it's meant to be a very basic overview and obviously if someone feels I left something out that is important here, I encourage them to say so. I'm certainly willing to hear other viewpoints and that's the reason I even come to this thread, since if I wasn't interested in hearing different opinions, I wouldn't even be here.

However, you have to explain *what that objection is*.

I wrote a 700 word explanation, you wrote a 12 word contentless response. I also had made a whole lot of lengthy posts prior showing I was clearly willing to have a discussion and debate an issue, so there was no reason to assume I'd be flippant to any actual response you had. The complaint I frequently receive is that posters put a lot of effort into posts and receive zero effort rebuttals. As such, I'm requiring you to put out a lengthy response to my description of Opportunity Cost explaining exactly what you feel I'm glossing over followed by at least two examples (with details and argument explaining them) that you feel illustrate the differences between what I said and what you said. It doesn't have to be as lengthy as mine, but it has to sufficiently fit the requirements.

Your reply doesn't have to be incredibly insightful or even necessarily correct, but what I really want is for posters to understand that if you're going to rebut something, you have to put in effort.

Until you do so, you'll be effectively hellbanned from Media Create posts (subject to timing of an awake mod reading the thread) via our friend the soft delete, and I'll restore any posts you made after mine once you make yours. Since you're capable of making arguments, and my criteria are very lenient, I don't expect anything will actually have to be deleted, and I'm perfectly willing to respond to whatever direction you want to take this discussion. You don't have to reply to any posts beyond this one. My only goal is to point out that since you responded to the first one, you need to make an effort of it.

We normally ban people for this type of thing in other threads (the drive-by response to a long post thing), but I try to engage here first instead since I feel the community is pretty reasonable.

You're right: I had to explain myself on the matter. The fact is, I didn't have time to write much, because there are many things to say. I might reply in the near future if I'm still allowed to post in these threads.

 

[Nirolak]

You're right: I had to explain myself on the matter. The fact is, I didn't have time to write much, because there are many things to say. I might reply in the near future if I'm still allowed to post in these threads.

That's perfectly fine, I just basically want to establish a thread principle that if you don't have time or don't have a response, it's best to wait to reply to a post later or skip over the post in general.

I often wait a day or so and go back later if I feel I will short someone of a response otherwise, or even quoted them over into the next thread.

You don't have to feel rushed to respond either. People obviously get busy and I will be myself soon as well.

So you're basically confirming that 50-100-150k games can profitably exist on dedicated devices. In any case, you can make the same argument for an hypothetical Theatrhythm FF on mobile phones (well, there's the first one but I don't know whether it has DLCs) but still, the franchise seems now a 3DS exclusive.

Yes, I think this is a large reason why we see most rhythm games on dedicated devices sans the very profitable Love Live. High ARPU, low costs.

It's the kind of niche worth investing into since the buyers of the product are similar to mobile whales, but they usually prefer playing on dedicated devices.

Miku games operate on the same principle onw with the astronomical amount of DLC Diva F 2nd is getting. Sega doesn't make a lot of handheld games, but they keep investing here.

I don't feel a game like Legend of Legacy can have that type of DLC structure though and is only worth it to companies who find those sales themselves worthwhile.

To be fair, the announcement was made during a Nintendo conference where many games were presented by developers and producers. SQEX also had a panel after the show where developers played Theathrhythm. The point is, the announcement was the pinnacle of SQEX's promotion for the game, which was basically left to the team (an almost unknown one, since Matrix was used to develop mobile games) through demos. The game wasn't even planned for a Western release to begin with and was severely undershipped during the first days in the market. This screams a lot low expectations.

I do think the expectations were low, but that the brand strength was what helped it sell.

Look at the sales gap between Bravely Default and Legend of Legacy. LoL is a throw back to the days of yore at Square Enix as well (but with SaGa and some related staff), but it sold no where even remotely as much.

If you submit that Bravely Default had minimal advertising, an uninterested publisher, and a no name developer, it was a hurdle BD overcame but LoL overcame vastly less.

 

[ZSaberLink]

I still feel like with RE: Revelations, Capcom reduced its sales potential by releasing so many of these games in the same year, and having RE:6 on the horizon even before Revelation's release.


3DS Resident Evil Revelations 160,575 283,235 Capcom 2012-01-26
PS3 Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City 245,639 336,183 Capcom 2012-04-26
PS3 Resident Evil 6 643,802 847,763 Capcom 2012-10-04

For reference:
PS3 Resident Evil Revelations 114,877 188,851 Capcom 2013-05-23 (now that you're done playing Racoon City & RE6, let's play Revelations on the same platform)

 

[Kyoufu]

I still feel like with RE: Revelations, Capcom reduced its sales potential by releasing so many of these games in the same year, and having RE:6 on the horizon even before Revelation's release.


3DS Resident Evil Revelations 160,575 283,235 Capcom 2012-01-26
PS3 Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City 245,639 336,183 Capcom 2012-04-26
PS3 Resident Evil 6 643,802 847,763 Capcom 2012-10-04

For reference:
PS3 Resident Evil Revelations 114,877 188,851 Capcom 2013-05-23 (now that you're done playing Racoon City & RE6, let's play Revelations on the same platform)

Or maybe RE being on a Nintendo platform is what reduces its sales potential?

 

[Moor-Angol]

I think the PS4 version will have legs, a lot of people don't own a PS4 yet, and more incentives are coming in the next few weeks. The first big must buy always have legs.

why buy a PS4 when I can play it on my PS3 ?

I think your statement will work better for Type 0


Regarding DQH, the bundle (PS4 obviously) sold in Decenber was counted at that time or it will be included into last week? I really didn't understand that

 

[sörine]

I do think the expectations were low, but that the brand strength was what helped it sell.

Look at the sales gap between Bravely Default and Legend of Legacy. LoL is a throw back to the days of yore at Square Enix as well (but with SaGa and some related staff), but it sold no where even remotely as much.

If you submit that Bravely Default had minimal advertising, an uninterested publisher, and a no name developer, it was a hurdle BD overcame but LoL overcame vastly less.

In fairness you should also consider what each game is homaging if you're going to draw this sort of direct comparison between them. All things being equal don't you think a SaGa game would naturally sell vastly less than a FF game? I mean that's how it's gone on every platform we've seen both on (SFC, PS1, PS2, WSC remakes, DS remakes). LOL isn't even undershooting the ratios for most of them either, only the SFC match ups.

 

[Oregano]

I do think the expectations were low, but that the brand strength was what helped it sell.

Look at the sales gap between Bravely Default and Legend of Legacy. LoL is a throw back to the days of yore at Square Enix as well (but with SaGa and some related staff), but it sold no where even remotely as much.

If you submit that Bravely Default had minimal advertising, an uninterested publisher, and a no name developer, it was a hurdle BD overcame but LoL overcame vastly less.

Ehh, that's a bit of a tough call to make when you take into account 4HoL having the FF name, on the DS, following up FF3 and 4 and not selling BD levels.

I think the brand helped but I think there's much more important factors at play. The way the developers released multiple demos and took feedback and then the resulting high quality of the game played a big part in its success. I think crucially the game is/was fulfilling a niche which has been somewhat ignored.

LoL hasn't been as well received and is also entering a redder ocean, BS is releasing in April.

I still feel like with RE: Revelations, Capcom reduced its sales potential by releasing so many of these games in the same year, and having RE:6 on the horizon even before Revelation's release.


3DS Resident Evil Revelations 160,575 283,235 Capcom 2012-01-26
PS3 Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City 245,639 336,183 Capcom 2012-04-26
PS3 Resident Evil 6 643,802 847,763 Capcom 2012-10-04

For reference:
PS3 Resident Evil Revelations 114,877 188,851 Capcom 2013-05-23 (now that you're done playing Racoon City & RE6, let's play Revelations on the same platform)

The fact that I saw a Resident Evil 6 ad on UK TV right before Revelations released still astounds me. It certainly didn't help the game.

 

[test_account]

Regarding DQH, the bundle (PS4 obviously) sold in Decenber was counted at that time or it will be included into last week? I really didn't understand that

Neither Dengeki, Famitsu or Media Create had DQH in their rankings in December 2014, so it shouldnt have been counted then. They will most likely include those bundles in their numbers in this week's number. Anything else would surprise me, but i hope that they make a note of it that they are included to rule out any doubts.

 

[Moor-Angol]

Neither Dengeki, Famitsu or Media Create had DQH in their rankings in December 2014, so it shouldnt have been counted then. They will most likely include those bundles in their numbers in this week's number. Anything else would surprise me, but i hope that they make a note of it that they are included to rule out any doubts.

sorry maybe I explained myself not well, I meant about hardware, not software
or maybe it's me that confused sw with hw cause I remember there was a debate about something concerned to DQH

 

[Nirolak]

In fairness you should also consider what each game is homaging if you're going to draw this sort of direct comparison between them. All things being equal don't you think a SaGa game would naturally sell vastly less than a FF game? I mean that's how it's gone on every platform we've seen both on (SFC, PS1, PS2, WSC remakes, DS remakes). LOL isn't even undershooting the ratios for most of them either, only the SFC match ups.

I feel that if SaGa had this kind of performance, Square Enix would be notably disappointed.

Like I agree there are relative performances to consider, but I think that starts to become a lot less relevant once sales get way down the chain. It's not the 400K to 1.6 million era at this point where we're feasibly capping on what demand might be for this kind of product.

Ehh, that's a bit of a tough call to make when you take into account 4HoL having the FF name, on the DS, following up FF3 and 4 and not selling BD levels.

I think the brand helped but I think there's much more important factors at play. The way the developers released multiple demos and took feedback and then the resulting high quality of the game played a big part in its success. I think crucially the game is/was fulfilling a niche which has been somewhat ignored.

LoL hasn't been as well received and is also entering a redder ocean, BS is releasing in April.

duckroll had a really great note about this when he mentioned that a brand is only as valuable as what people like about it.

FF:4WoL did not offer the kind of core experience people wanted out of an old FF game. It's notably more similar to the NES games than the SNES games, which is an era people weren't dying to go back to, and they had unusual decisions like the heal system that made it unappealing.

Bravely Default on the other hand delivered on what people actually liked about the brand.

I'm a big proponent of considering product quality in these discussions, and I do think the game was also smartly advertised and handled for the budget it had. However, I am skeptical the game would do as well if it was Koei Tecmo or a company like FuRyu releasing it.

I'm also skeptical that the game would be produced in the same manner without Square Enix, but that's a different discussion.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

I still feel like with RE: Revelations, Capcom reduced its sales potential by releasing so many of these games in the same year, and having RE:6 on the horizon even before Revelation's release.


3DS Resident Evil Revelations 160,575 283,235 Capcom 2012-01-26
PS3 Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City 245,639 336,183 Capcom 2012-04-26
PS3 Resident Evil 6 643,802 847,763 Capcom 2012-10-04

For reference:
PS3 Resident Evil Revelations 114,877 188,851 Capcom 2013-05-23 (now that you're done playing Racoon City & RE6, let's play Revelations on the same platform)

Possibly, though the platform choice also didn't help. The RE base is situated on home consoles and RER 2 seems to fix that problem at the very least.

 

[Nirolak]

Actually, you know what, we can also take this the other direction if people prefer.

Let's start with the assumption that you guys are right and that Bravely Default and Legend of Legacy are great arguments to make more 3DS games.

What developers (developers specifically, not publishers in general) should be making what games for 3DS based on this that aren't doing so already, and for any examples, why is this a better decision than what they're currently doing?

 

[nightever]

Neither Dengeki, Famitsu or Media Create had DQH in their rankings in December 2014, so it shouldnt have been counted then. They will most likely include those bundles in their numbers in this week's number. Anything else would surprise me, but i hope that they make a note of it that they are included to rule out any doubts.

None of them count digial sales (in their regular charts). So the bundle numbers won't be included anyway.

 

[Oregano]

I feel that if SaGa had this kind of performance, Square Enix would be notably disappointed.

Like I agree there are relative performances to consider, but I think that starts to become a lot less relevant once sales get way down the chain. It's not the 400K to 1.6 million era at this point where we're feasibly capping on what demand might be for this kind of product.


duckroll had a really great note about this when he mentioned that a brand is only as valuable as what people like about it.

FF:4WoL did not offer the kind of core experience people wanted out of an old FF game. It's notably more similar to the NES games than the SNES games, which is an era people weren't dying to go back to, and they had unusual decisions like the heal system that made it unappealing.

Bravely Default on the other hand delivered on what people actually liked about the brand.

I'm a big proponent of considering product quality in these discussions, and I do think the game was also smartly advertised and handled for the budget it had. However, I am skeptical the game would do as well if it was Koei Tecmo or a company like FuRyu releasing it.

I'm also skeptical that the game would be produced in the same manner without Square Enix, but that's a different discussion.

Personally speaking I would struggle to distinguish that from just generally higher quality. For instance the Brave and Default system is pretty much just the AP system but better.

I definitely agree with your last point though, to use your examples KT or FuRyu wouldn't budget for a game to sell around 200k for starters. I definitely think someone like Capcom or Namco Bandai could have released a similar game and had somewhat similar success but I would still give SE the edge.

EDIT: I think there is an argument that SaGa 2015 would make more sense as a 3DS game than a Vita game but considering it is Unity based it can't be on 3DS and probably won't be staying Vita exclusive.

 

[StoopKid]

why buy a PS4 when I can play it on my PS3 ?

I think your statement will work better for Type 0


Regarding DQH, the bundle (PS4 obviously) sold in Decenber was counted at that time or it will be included into last week? I really didn't understand that

why do people in Japan care about this?

Seems like it doesn't matter in the U.S. and Europe.

 

[Nirolak]

Personally speaking I would struggle to distinguish that from just generally higher quality. For instance the Brave and Default system is pretty much just the AP system but better.

I definitely agree with your last point though, to use your examples KT or FuRyu wouldn't budget for a game to sell around 200k for starters. I definitely think someone like Capcom or Namco Bandai could have released a similar game and had somewhat similar success but I would still give SE the edge.

That is the shift between NES and SNES games to a large extent though.

They offered more depth, more intricate systems, and better production values.

A lot of NES games don't hold up very well today in the same way SNES games do. I feel the first game evoked the older era too much and came off as shallow and unfulfilling.

Like if we look at the sales trends:
Bravely Default: 144,909 FW -> 357,640 LTD
FF: 4WoL: 119,634 FW -> 200,364 LTD

Bravely Default managed a bit more upfront strength than the Final Fantasy branded game (and FF:4WoL's first week is much higher than LoL is likely to ever get), but then the game delivering on what people wanted (and word of that getting around) got it well beyond 4WoL.

I split it apart this way as it's hard to tell a game's quality prior to release and word of mouth, especially given how few review outlets exist in Japan, so what's happening up front is going to be driven heavily by hardcore demand, brand power, and marketing.

Edit:

To give a brand power comparison, this is how a game without existing brand strength started:

Yokai Watch: 52,901 FW -> 1,319,637 LTD

If Bravely Default did nearly three times the first week of either Yokai Watch or Legend of Legacy, and it didn't have strong marketing, what do you feel was helping push that?

If we say it's not brand power and associate it over to making quality games and then giving out a demo, I think that gives us a more general release strategy for games as a whole than a 3DS specific thing.

I'll be out for quite a few hours though, but will try to respond either late tonight or tomorrow.

 

[redblack85]

Comgnet
DQH PS3 837 pti
DQH PS4 357 pti

 

[QaaQer]

I don't think anyone can debate that a cross-gen game would have as much of an impact as a true exclusive. As time goes on I think you'll see Sony and third parties do as much as they can to promote the PS4 versions over PS3.

Are the PS4/X1 and PS3/360 games going to have the same enemies, locations, and gameplay in MGSV? If so, why are people so hyped for a ps3 game?

 

[Oregano]

<snip>
Edit:

To give a brand power comparison, this is how a game without existing brand strength started:

Yokai Watch: 52,901 FW -> 1,319,637 LTD

If Bravely Default did nearly three times the first week of either Yokai Watch or Legend of Legacy, and it didn't have strong marketing, what do you feel was helping push that?

That is all true.

I definitely agree that the SE brand helped but I don't think it was the be all and end all. Because even prerelease BDFF had a number of well received demos which made some level of quality evident and the way they used the demos to take feedback built up goodwill with consumers.

I'm not sure Youkai Watch is a fair comparison for a number of reasons though! Least of all despite both being RPGs they are very different and actually aimed at different audiences.

 

[u_neek]

Comgnet
DQH PS3 837 pti
DQH PS4 357 pti

I know Comgnet is not the best for predicting sales, but I wonder how this compares to Zeatiria and other recently released titles' launch pts?

 

[Kyoufu]

I know Comgnet is not the best for predicting sales, but I wonder how this compares to Zeatiria and other recently released titles' launch pts?

I don't even understand Comgnet. Like, what does a single point equal?

 

[ZhugeEX]

Comgnet
DQH PS3 837 pti
DQH PS4 357 pti

Hmmm. Interestng.

Assuming that the ratio for PS3 and PS4 in other games hold true we could see 500k+ first week. (Adding in PS4 bundle)

I don't even understand Comgnet. Like, what does a single point equal?

1 pre order for their store / 1 sale for their store.

They have around 17 stores I believe. So very very small sample but usually there is a trend seen on Sony console between COMG sales and total nationwide sales.

Certainly not to be used as accurate tracking for whole of Japan but is useful to give an idea of trends and performance of games.