• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Media Create Sales: Week 17, 2014 (Apr 21 - Apr 27)

DECK'ARD

The Amiga Brotherhood
Fixed. All hail our new items overlord.

P.S. When MK8's week results will come, and Wii U will heavily outsell PS4 (if it happens), I'm expecting so many Donkey Kong pics to be used. Like...

zlCfzR4DPKAJ_rIsjf

The lighting and depth of field in MK really is beautiful.
 
Sony needs to start money hatting stuff. I think I remember reading that they don't want to do that anymore but fuck that BS, SCEJ isn't doing shit with PS4 and the third parties are taking forever with their games. Does a console manufacturer actual plan out their console's game lineup so that console doesn't just sit their on store shelves without any games or do they just through the console out with some half assed launch tikes and hope third parties take care of the rest? Sony had to know that PS4 wasn't going to have any games in Japan for it's first year right?
I just really don't see why they would spend money funding titles specifically for Japan. It just isn't worth it.

Even Beast's Souls or whatever, that Japan Studios is co-developing with From and presumably funding has a good global market to sell to (if it follows the likes of Dark Souls in terms of numbers it should do a good 350K or so NPD).

Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear, Resident Evil, these will come when they come, and there's not much that's worthwhile or plausible for Sony to do to move them along. Throwing money at S-E or Capcom is basically throwing it into a fire.
 
Moneyhatting isn't going to change anything. I think we just have to accept that for a multitude of reasons the console market is just shrinking in Japan. It still goes up and down depending on how extensive a library is making a system more appealing, like we saw with the PS3. But the ceiling is falling. Even as sales of the average PS3 game increased, with more big titles in later years being able to sell over 500k or even up to 800k, FFXIII remains the top selling title, with nothing else being able to get to a million.

Even if Sony moneyhats a bunch of exclusives, that in itself is not going to make people in Japan suddenly go "wow buy consoles, they're so much better than portables or mobile!" The problem with the console market is more complex. Is it possible for there to be a resurgence in interest? Anything is possible I suppose. But it would take more than just one first party moneyhatting a few exclusives. It will take some sort of drastic dynamic shift. Something on the level of Pokemon, Monster Hunter, Wii Sports, Brain Training, etc. It would need to be a cultural phenomenon and not something we can already imagine.

Good points all around. While it would be possible for the PS4 to inch by to the PS3's LTD it isn't super likely. We might see a Vita situation where the hardware doesn't sell all that well but it still manages to push software well enough.

Honestly the only company that I think could revitalize the console market in Japan is oddly enough Nintendo, but only if they take the approach they took with the DS and Wii. Cheap and easily accessible hardware with software that appeals to a wide audience. Sony is focused on the "core" right now, and for good reason. The core market in the west is massive now and their focus on that is doing very well for them. The PS4 is just too expensive and not as accessible to many Japanese gamers as mobile or handhelds are.
 

Mory Dunz

Member
Ah, I see was announced as summer for Japan when it was revealed. I don't know though, the silence on the game makes me think it might be a bit further out. It's not like Nintendo hasn't set dates or windows for games and then delayed them before.

Yeah, I'm starting to worry it's going to get delayed.
 
Yeah, I'm starting to worry it's going to get delayed.

I think an October or November worldwide release would be perfect for the game, since Smash U is "Winter" it will probably end up being a December game. Nintendo is probably going to try to do that "One game a month" thing they did last year again.
 

TheChaos0

Member
I just really don't see why they would spend money funding titles specifically for Japan. It just isn't worth it.

Even Beast's Souls or whatever, that Japan Studios is co-developing with From and presumably funding has a good global market to sell to (if it follows the likes of Dark Souls in terms of numbers it should do a good 350K or so NPD).

Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Metal Gear, Resident Evil, these will come when they come, and there's not much that's worthwhile or plausible for Sony to do to move them along. Throwing money at S-E or Capcom is basically throwing it into a fire.

The only money/assistance they could throw is at making some titles cross gen, to fill the gaps in the release schedule (plug a gaping hole?).

I would imagine smaller developers such as Gust, Nisa and Compile Heart and co will be one of the first to develop exclusively on PS4. They don't particulary care about install base because their games are pretty niche. Their target audience are probably most likely to be an early adopters of PS4 anyway. Their games are not exactly technological marvels and will benefit simply from increases resolution and fps and some esy extra bells and whistles, especially true in Gust's case. Lack of games on PS4 will probably be to their advantage.
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
Right. I suspect it will have a very large opening week, well relatively speaking, but unless it spurs a hardware frenzy there is just no possible way for it to show legs of its predecessors.

It's not going to do miracles but if you take as base most predictions here that it won't sell 1 million unbundled that's a target it will beat.
 

kswiston

Member
It's not going to do miracles but if you take as base most predictions here that it won't sell 1 million unbundled that's a target it will beat.

Considering it will continue to sell for the lifetime of the Wii U (so 2-3 years), I agree that 1 million LTD is reasonable. It will probably be the Smash Bros Melee of the system.
 

Asd202

Member
Moneyhatting isn't going to change anything. I think we just have to accept that for a multitude of reasons the console market is just shrinking in Japan. It still goes up and down depending on how extensive a library is making a system more appealing, like we saw with the PS3. But the ceiling is falling. Even as sales of the average PS3 game increased, with more big titles in later years being able to sell over 500k or even up to 800k, FFXIII remains the top selling title, with nothing else being able to get to a million.

Even if Sony moneyhats a bunch of exclusives, that in itself is not going to make people in Japan suddenly go "wow buy consoles, they're so much better than portables or mobile!" The problem with the console market is more complex. Is it possible for there to be a resurgence in interest? Anything is possible I suppose. But it would take more than just one first party moneyhatting a few exclusives. It will take some sort of drastic dynamic shift. Something on the level of Pokemon, Monster Hunter, Wii Sports, Brain Training, etc. It would need to be a cultural phenomenon and not something we can already imagine.

Yeah I wholeheartedly agree with you here. The thing I can think of that could do that is Sony's VR but that's still up in the air really.
 
http://www.comgnet.com/ranking/

Golden Week Comgnet:

Youkai Watch: 58pt (+33)
Monster Hunter 4: 47 (+9)
Mario Party: 34pt (+7)
Famicom Remix: 17pt (+2)
Style Savvy: 13pt (+4)
Harvest Moon: 12pt (+3)

Launch week comparison:

Mario Party - 293pt (135.419)
Mario Tennis - 226pt (124.377)
Mario Golf - 87pt (?)
 
Doesn't look good for mario golf, was the last one any good sales wise.
Nope, lol. It was also released 10 years ago.

sinobi gave 2 unknown so far numbers

[FCM] Golf <SPT> (Nintendo) {1984.05.01} (¥4.500) - 2.460.000
[FCM] Golf Japan Course |Disc System| <SPT> (Nintendo) {1987.02.21} (¥3.500) - 740.000
[FCM] Golf US Course |Disc System| <SPT> (Nintendo) {1987.06.14} (¥3.500) - 560.000

[FCM] Mario Open Golf <SPT> (Nintendo) {1991.09.20} (¥6.000) - unknown
[N64] Mario Golf <SPT> (Nintendo) {1999.06.11} (¥6.800) - 470.778
[GMB] Mario Golf |GameBoy Color| <SPT> Nintendo) {1999.08.10} (¥3.800) - 219.830
[GMB] Mobile Golf |GameBoy Color| <SPT> (Nintendo) {2001.05.11} (¥5.800) - 38.172
[GCN] Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour <SPT> (Nintendo) {2003.09.05} (¥6.800) - 192.802
[GBA] Mario Golf: Advance Tour <SPT> (Nintendo) {2004.04.22} (¥4.800) - 88.904
[3DS] Mario Golf: World Tour <SPT> (Nintendo) {2014.05.01} (¥4.937) - ???.???
 

starmud

Member
i wonder if the popularity of the funghi game will help touch detective 3 at all... it seems to have a good amount of traction on social media anyway.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Good points all around. While it would be possible for the PS4 to inch by to the PS3's LTD it isn't super likely. We might see a Vita situation where the hardware doesn't sell all that well but it still manages to push software well enough.

Honestly the only company that I think could revitalize the console market in Japan is oddly enough Nintendo, but only if they take the approach they took with the DS and Wii. Cheap and easily accessible hardware with software that appeals to a wide audience. Sony is focused on the "core" right now, and for good reason. The core market in the west is massive now and their focus on that is doing very well for them. The PS4 is just too expensive and not as accessible to many Japanese gamers as mobile or handhelds are.
To me the core issue here is what Nintendo did then relative to where the market is now.

When the DS and Wii came out, Nintendo basically looked at games and correctly determined "Video games are too inaccessible for a large audience of people. If we simplify things such as input control, make some of the games more simplistic, and lower the price, we can attract a large audience." And they ended up doing just that.

However, in 2014, everyone owns a smartphone, so the hardware cost is irrelevant. You can't make an easier interface than no button touch. You can't make games simpler than auto runners, match 3 titles, and tap to win stamina games. And finally, you can't sell games for cheaper than free.

Mobile essentially took what Nintendo offered and brought it to its logical conclusion.

At this point, you're basic option is to offer something slightly more complicated. This is why things like Animal Crossing or Mario or Pokemon do well on 3DS, because they're accessible, but have a but more depth than what you tend to find on phones. Games like Brain Age on the other hand tank as there is zero reason to not just grab a phone game like that if you want one.

The issue Nintendo faces here is that this is a more limited audience in number of people, hence why the 3DS has sold quite a bit less than the DS.

Where console gaming gets into even more trouble (and the Vita as well) is that basically the main appeal of those systems is for audiences that want something even more computationally or control-interface complex than the 3DS can handle. The issue here is that in Japan the genres and types of games that fit that bill aren't popular, so there's almost no demand. Mobile and 3DS don't handle FPS and open world games well? Who cares?

Now if someone could invent a new genre or type of game that was ragingly popular in Japan, and only functioned in consoles, they might have something, but without that I see very little to drive recovery.
 

AniHawk

Member
i think the next step is vr or some sort of headset. in japan that means less space required for gaming (and theoretically no need to have it next to a tv). it's the sort of thing that seems like it belongs in the not-too-distant future like the wii remote originally was, and can speak to imagination more, or at least pique some curiosity despite lacking skill associated with video games. i remember watching a mom try to play excite truck and isntead of turning the controller like you would a steering wheel (like when you drive a car in real life), it was all about overexaggerated movements. i assume she had very rarely, if ever, played a video game before, but it was interesting and new and worth trying out. i think that's something vr can do for the market, even if it's mostly visual.
 

L~A

Member
http://www.comgnet.com/ranking/

Golden Week Comgnet:

Youkai Watch: 58pt (+33)
Monster Hunter 4: 47 (+9)
Mario Party: 34pt (+7)
Famicom Remix: 17pt (+2)
Style Savvy: 13pt (+4)
Harvest Moon: 12pt (+3)

Launch week comparison:

Mario Party - 293pt (135.419)
Mario Tennis - 226pt (124.377)
Mario Golf - 87pt (?)

Looks like Nintendo consoles had a pretty good Golden Week software-wise... now to see Hardware sales.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
Sony needs to start money hatting stuff. I think I remember reading that they don't want to do that anymore but fuck that BS, SCEJ isn't doing shit with PS4 and the third parties are taking forever with their games. Does a console manufacturer actual plan out their console's game lineup so that console doesn't just sit their on store shelves without any games or do they just through the console out with some half assed launch tikes and hope third parties take care of the rest? Sony had to know that PS4 wasn't going to have any games in Japan for it's first year right?

Even if they moneyhat now, games still take years to make. I'm sure Sony knew the JP lineup was slim, but they're focused on the Western market now.

It's probably foolish to expect some sort of big resurgence for consoles. The market's changed a lot since 2006, and even with the PS3 being $600 and PS4 being $400, the price difference alone isn't going to close the gap. I'm not counting on the PS4 to beat the PS3, but I hope we see a similar type of support for it. At least Tales, Yakuza, Souls, FF, KH, Gust games, etc. will be on it. Some people complain about the lack of output from JP devs on consoles on PS3, but I think the output is/was still pretty good despite a larger mobile focus, so more of the same wouldn't be bad IMO.
 

BriBri

Member
Nationwide, I think Youkai will rank higher, but who knows, it's being given away with every 3DS XL sold.
Youkai Watch is now #2 on the eShop charts so I guess the free downloads are counting there (AC:NL has also re-charted) which is sure to affect its retail sales (I still expect an amazing Golden Week however).
 

L~A

Member
Do we know when Media Create is releasing their numbers this week? Due to GW, I presume they'll be delayed, right?
 

hiska-kun

Member
Do we know when Media Create is releasing their numbers this week? Due to GW, I presume they'll be delayed, right?

No, usual time.

Today is the last holiday day in Japan. So usually Golden Week is held on week 18, and the following week 19 is the week of drops. But since this year, monday 5th and tuesday 6th are public holidays, i guess the drop won't be as big as other years. And a harder drop will happen on week 20.
 

L~A

Member
No, usual time.

Today is the last holiday day in Japan. So usually Golden Week is held on week 18, and the following week 19 is the week of drops. But since this year, monday 5th and tuesday 6th are public holidays, i guess the drop won't be as big as other years. And a harder drop will happen on week 20.

Ah ok, thanks. But I wonder, when did they compile the data then, since Monday and Tuesday are holidays?

And yeah, GW is a spread on two weeks this year, so post-GW week drop won't be too hard. Curious to see how 3DS sales will be holding, with the new promotion.

By the way, I believe there's no major game coming out in May for the 3DS... nothing really important until June 5 with Persona Q. Guess Youkai Watch won't have much of a competition :p
 

Road

Member
Ah ok, thanks. But I wonder, when did they compile the data then, since Monday and Tuesday are holidays?

Most of the process is automatic, and many people still work on holidays anyway.

4Gamer has a warning they will only updated May 8th. This means a 2 to 26 hour delay.

Famitsu didn't say anything.

---

Random, but if you're the person who asked and happens to be reading this, here's the link for PS1 sales: https://sites.google.com/site/japanltdrank/show?platform=PS1

Just change the name after "platform=" to (almost) any of the older systems too. You can find their three letter code in the home page.
 

L~A

Member
Most of the process is automatic, and many people still work on holidays anyway.

4Gamer has a warning they will only updated May 8th. This means a 2 to 26 hour delay.

Famitsu didn't say anything.

Ah, thanks a lot for the info. I was sure Golden Week was THE week where nobody in Japan was working, so I didn't know.

I remember MC being a bit late last year (a couple of hours), but then again maybe it was another week. Not that I'd be craving for numbers tomorrow, anyway, with the Nintendo financials.
 

Alrus

Member
Ah, thanks a lot for the info. I was sure Golden Week was THE week where nobody in Japan was working, so I didn't know.

I remember MC being a bit late last year (a couple of hours), but then again maybe it was another week. Not that I'd be craving for numbers tomorrow, anyway, with the Nintendo financials.

You're excited for Nintendo financials these days? Most of the recent ones have been awful to witness, terrible numbers and mostly empty promises :/

I'm much more excited to see if Youkai Watch reached 100k last week or not :p
 

Alrus

Member
what if it is like no no kuni? release on 3ds first and then ps3 later :p

Considering this game is mostly geared toward the Japanese market and Ni No Kuni PS3 was a failure there, I'm not sure they're too keen on trying that plan again.
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Finally, a PS4 game which is NOT a port.

Ok, it's a Compile Heart game, which won't sell that much (due to being niche), whihc is a "idol x RPG"...but it's finally something. I hope there are more announcements for the next months, situation for 2014 is still awful.

Comgnet's retail chain preorder comparisons, as of May 7th, 2014

[3DS] Yokai Watch 2 - 124pt + 97pt = 221pt

[Wii] Mario Kart Wii - 108pt
[3DS] Mario Kart 7 - 97pt
[WiiU] Mario Kart 8 - 103pt

[PSV] Persona 4 The Golden - 121pt
[3DS] Etrian Odyssey IV - 46pt
[3DS] Shin Megami Tensei IV - 80pt
[3DS] Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl - 39pt
[3DS] Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - 78pt

[PSV] Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2 - 25pt
[PSV] Ch&#333; Megami Shink&#333; Noire: Gekishin Black Heart - 34pt + 19pt = 55pt
 

hiska-kun

Member
[PSV] Persona 4 The Golden - 121pt
[3DS] Etrian Odyssey IV - 46pt
[3DS] Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl - 39pt
[3DS] Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth - 78pt

You should add Shin Megami Tensei IV, i think it will be a very good comparation.
 
Top Bottom