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Media Create Sales: Week 35, 2012 (Aug 27 - Sep 02)

Games really do sell systems. Now combine that with a price drop see the sales explosion. Do it Sony.

No. Sony need to make money atm. If they can get those sales with the memory card tie in - their doing pretty well.

Bring the games, the hardware sales will allow cashflow for investing in games. At the moment Sony have a big financial problem - a straight forward 'price cut' is more or less madness and not helpful to the long term health of the Vita.
 
Maybe people forgot how Project Diva was used to sell on PSP:
1: 188k
2nd: 367k
2nd Extend: 264k

Not surprising that f debuted better than Persona 4 actually.
 
No. Sony need to make money atm. If they can get those sales with the memory card tie in - their doing pretty well.

Bring the games, the hardware sales will allow cashflow for investing in games. At the moment Sony have a big financial problem - a straight forward 'price cut' is more or less madness and not helpful to the long term health of the Vita.
Without the memory card from the start, the Vita could have sold a tiny bit better over time, which would have created more incentive for devs to at least give it minimal support. With the userbase as it is, there's no real incentive to choose it over the 3DS, besides system specs. Money is not problem for Sony (Vita wise), its the support, especially with Sony's loss-leading strategy, where losing money initially is not a problem, as long as the support gets better over time.

Of course its too late for that now, and Sony just has to deal with the reality of them selling the Vita with overpriced memory cards, they've already dug their hole, might as well lurk in it for as long as they can.

I think they'll just do OLED screens for the current 3DS models when the costs make sense. Sort of like how GBASP got backlit LCDs in 2005.
I think they'd wanna capitalise on the OLED screens with a new revision, throw in other small upgrades with it. I doubt people will be too fond of upgrading their current 3DS just from the screen alone.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
Maybe people forgot how Project Diva was used to sell on PSP:
1: 188k
2nd: 367k
2nd Extend: 264k

Not surprising that f debuted better than Persona 4 actually.
Those are LTDs (i'm just mentioning it in case people mistake them for 1st week sales). Diva F will probably make it to ~200k with digital sales, i'm guessing.
 
Nice numbers for Vita, but IMO this is nothing more than an oasis. There's nothing else that's big coming out for Vita until the end of the year.

- Ys is a remake AFAIK
- LBP is niche in Japan
- AC3 and COD are western games unproven on handhelds and the latter is developed by the most mediocre developer of all time
- Atelier is a port
- FIFA is niche there and WE is the big soccer game (WE not coming to vita)
- SFvT is an old port
- DJ Max is niche
- Souls Sacrifice is an unproven MH clone

And those are the biggest games that I know are coming out for the system before the end of the year. TGS is gonna show whether or not SCE plans to save the vita, unless there's some big franchises coming from SE, Capcom, Konami, etc on top of Sony's own GT and new franchises for the JP market, then I guess they will just make as much money on vita as they can before canning it.
 
Sadly, Miku is the Vita's Tales of Symphonia.

If anything, this is an encouraging sign that developers will eventually support the device once it's reached an acceptable saturation point, and the Vita isn't very far from that point, IMO. There is definitely a market for the handheld because there are some games that will simply sell better on the Vita platform as opposed to the 3DS and developers know that.
 
Naw, I'm more interested in the software drop here. This series has a very dedicated fan base after all.

There's a miku legs joke here.
Dedicated fanbase that changes with each iteration of the series?

Sadly, Miku is the Vita's Tales of Symphonia.

If anything, this is an encouraging sign that developers will eventually support the device once it's reached an acceptable saturation point, and the Vita isn't very far from that point, IMO. There is definitely a market for the handheld because there are some games that will simply sell better on the Vita platform as opposed to the 3DS and developers know that.
Like what? The third party games that have sold decently on the Vita has been games that haven't been made for the 3DS, and thats not due to technical limitations either. Even FFX would be possible on the 3DS. This ain't Wii/PS3 levels of difference here.
 
Dedicated fanbase that changes with each iteration of the series?


Like what? The third party games that have sold decently on the Vita has been games that haven't been made for the 3DS, and thats not due to technical limitations either. Even FFX would be possible on the 3DS.

Time Travelers sold better on Vita than it did on 3DS. (barely, if you don't include possible digital sales)

Might not be the best example ever, but it does show Horror's point.
 
Time Travelers sold better on Vita than it did on 3DS. (barely, if you don't include possible digital sales)

Might not be the best example ever, but it does show Horror's point.
Come on, you can hardly use that as an example. It was less than 200 units difference, statistical noise. So no it doesn't show Horror's point at all. On the contrary if what he said was true, that developers know some games will simply sell better on the Vita as opposed to the 3DS, why is there such a stark difference in support for both systems since the start, in all types of games and genres?
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Time Travelers sold better on Vita than it did on 3DS. (barely, if you don't include possible digital sales)

Might not be the best example ever, but it does show Horror's point.

I said this before, but Time Traveler's sales were so low, trying to use numbers that low as an example of anything other than the game doing poorly is foolish.
 

FoneBone

Member
If anything, this is an encouraging sign that developers will eventually support the device once it's reached an acceptable saturation point, and the Vita isn't very far from that point, IMO.
Where is that magical saturation point, and how long do you think it would take games to arrive once developers suddenly decide to start supporting it in earnest?

The "slow burn" argument has no relationship to reality.
 

saichi

Member
For a system that has a 900k userbase... not counting digital downloads. that's easily a 1/4 attach rate, maybe more. I would say not bad. Hopefully there's not a huge drop next week.

More like 1/6 unless you are counting 75K sold on DD.

Depends how far in the future, the MH4 announcement alone gave a huge bump to the 3DS last year ;) maybe had a bigger impact than the price cut itself.
But I was not talking about that kind of announcement, more about titles for the end of the year and a few big suprises scheduled for next year.

MH3G was also announced and released 3 months after it was announced. That along with MH4 announcement drove the sales. MH4 announcement alone with no release date would not drive any sales.


But it's only a fact depending on which tracker you use. ;)

There is always DD sales on VITA. ;-)
 
MH3G was also announced and released 3 months after it was announced. That along with MH4 announcement drove the sales. MH4 announcement alone with no release date would not drive any sales.
I think a MH4 announcement alone would drive some sales, just not as much as the immediate release of MH3G in 3 months time. Its MH we're talking about here. I'm sure FF13/MGS4 was selling some PS3's before they were released. Same as Mario on Nintendo platforms.
 
Hopefully some of these Vita sales can maintain through Sept 27th (DJ Max + Ys Celceta + EDF)

PS2:
I thought I told you that we won't stop
I thought I told you that we won't stop
I thought I told you that we won't stop
I thought I told you that we won't stop
 

test_account

XP-39C²
But it's only a fact depending on which tracker you use. ;)
Did we get any 2nd week numbers for Time Travelers? All i know is that the 3DS version charted at 40th place and the Vita version charted at 41th place in the 2nd week (Media Create charts). I havnt seen any numbers, nor i have i seen it chart after this.
 

Jonnyram

Member
Nice numbers for Vita, but IMO this is nothing more than an oasis. There's nothing else that's big coming out for Vita until the end of the year.

- Ys is a remake AFAIK
- LBP is niche in Japan
- AC3 and COD are western games unproven on handhelds and the latter is developed by the most mediocre developer of all time
- Atelier is a port
- FIFA is niche there and WE is the big soccer game (WE not coming to vita)
- SFvT is an old port
- DJ Max is niche
- Souls Sacrifice is an unproven MH clone

And those are the biggest games that I know are coming out for the system before the end of the year. TGS is gonna show whether or not SCE plans to save the vita, unless there's some big franchises coming from SE, Capcom, Konami, etc on top of Sony's own GT and new franchises for the JP market, then I guess they will just make as much money on vita as they can before canning it.
lol, so much effort put into a crappy troll.

Ys IV is not a remake. It's the third version of IV, and it's the first made by Falcom themselves, and will be officially considered canon after its release, taking the place of the previous two attempts at an Ys IV. You missed out one of the biggest upcoming games (EDF3P), and the rest of your points are just insulting.
 
Is the game cross compitable Vita ? ie if you buy the Vita person , your characters , stats and everything gets carried forward and continue playing it on Vita ?

If yes then many might prefer playing it on a handheld then ?
I believe so, and it being F2P on the Vita should be good for its adoption rate. Then again, the US market has shown repeatedly that "it's a console game you can play outside" is not a good enough reason to drive sales. Not sure if the Japanese market is any different.
 
Hopefully some of these Vita sales can maintain through Sept 27th (DJ Max + Ys Celceta + EDF)

PS2:
I thought I told you that we won't stop
I thought I told you that we won't stop
I thought I told you that we won't stop
I thought I told you that we won't stop
With the low Vita userbase, Miku not having the best of legs and those games being insignificant and a few weeks away, thats a big no.
 
I believe so, and it being F2P on the Vita should be good for its adoption rate. Then again, the US market has shown repeatedly that "it's a console game you can play outside" is not a good enough reason to drive sales. Not sure if the Japanese market is any different.

Well, look at Monster Hunter.

PSO2's issue on Vita is that you can't really play it outside as it requires WiFi.
 
Did we get any 2nd week numbers for Time Travelers? All i know is that the 3DS version charted at 40th place and the Vita version charted at 41th place in the 2nd week (Media Create charts).
Nope, we only got first week from each tracker:

Famitsu
Vita: 9,887
3DS: 9,761

Media-Create
Vita: 9,332
3DS: 9,054

Dengeki
3DS: 9,491
Vita: 8,920
 
Andriasang: Miku download sales were about 10% of retail sales. And supposedly the dev costs were so high there might not be a sequel lol?

Can definitely tell the game had a high budget.

10% of ~160k isn't amazing, but not insignificant. They also noted that this is a typical figure for games (wonder if he was speaking about the Vita in particular?)
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Andriasang: Miku download sales were about 10% of retail sales. And supposedly the dev costs were so high there might not be a sequel lol?

The game definitely looked high budget.

That said, if ~200-250K LTD isn't enough to make a sequel worthwhile for a moderate production value music game, then I don't think the Japanese game market can sustain Vita development costs.

I mean quite frankly there aren't that many games that get to that number on any platform. There is a grand total of 15 titles on 3DS even that have done 250K, 6 of which aren't published by Nintendo.
 

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
Can definitely tell the game had a high budget.

10% of ~160k isn't amazing, but not insignificant. They also noted that this is a typical figure for games (wonder if he was speaking about the Vita in particular?)

What other platform has all its games available digital on day 1 in japan?
 

Dascu

Member
What kind of game genre is this Miku franchise and what kind of userbase buys them? I mean, can we expect the people who bought a Vita for this game to also buy stuff like RPGs or action games?
 
Might not matter given the low ratios we've seen.

What ratios have we seen? Genuinely curious. The only one I kind of remember is Persona PSP which was like 10% or 10K, I don't know which exactly.

lol, so much effort put into a crappy troll.

Ys IV is not a remake. It's the third version of IV, and it's the first made by Falcom themselves, and will be officially considered canon after its release, taking the place of the previous two attempts at an Ys IV. You missed out one of the biggest upcoming games (EDF3P), and the rest of your points are just insulting.

Didn't put any effort into it and I'm not trolling. I won't counter your point on Ys as I'm not too sure on that, but even then Ys' sales could be considered niche. Ys 7 (I assume that was a new game when it came out) sold 68k.

Didn't know EDF was set for this year, do you have a release date? The rest of the games I mentioned are not really big sellers in Japan at this point. COD is probably the biggest but the franchise is unproven on handhelds and the versions that did sell in Japan were developed by capable people and not the ones doing the vita version. If you wanna take that as "insulting", then so be it.
 

test_account

XP-39C²
The retail price for Miku F is also quite high, 7.329 yen. About the same price as a PS3 game, at least not far from it. I wonder what the budget for that game actually was. How many unique songs does it have?
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
The game definitely looked high budget.

That said, if ~200-250K LTD isn't enough to make a sequel worthwhile for a moderate production value music game, then I don't think the Japanese game market can sustain Vita development costs.

I mean quite frankly there aren't that many games that get to that number on any platform. There is a grand total of 15 titles on 3DS even that have done that.

I'm ignorant of the franchise but wouldn't it be more likely that licensing costs would drag down profitability on this game and not the visuals?
 

jman2050

Member
I don't get it, did the development cycle get away from Sega or were they actually expecting to sell MORE than this?
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Kind of makes you wonder why Sega is struggling with retail titles, huh.

Well, they have pretty much jettisoned retail on a forward going basis, so that probably says a lot.

I'm ignorant of the franchise but wouldn't it be more likely that licensing costs would drag down profitability on this game and not the visuals?
While that is definitely a part of it, the sales of the PSP games (sans Diva 2) weren't leagues away from this game, yet they made quite a few of those.

[PSP] Project Diva - 101,486
[PSP] Project Diva 2nd - 242,717
[PSP] Project Diva Extend - 189,196
[PSV] Project Diva f - 158,009 / 0.9 for digital = 175,566
[3DS] Project Mirai - 88,737
 
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