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No commericials for Tales of Symphonia

Auron

Member
bheemer said:
i wouldnt touch baiten chaos or any other card based rpg for that matter with a ten foot pole

Including cards in the game was pretty dumb, considering the company(Lost Kingdoms, Yu-Gi-Oh!). Supposedly it plays nothing like a card-based RPG, and just acts as a feature to scare away potential sales.
 

ferricide

Member
you know, i think namco has realistic expectations for this game. you know, they do make marketing plans before they decide to release a game in america, and then do in-depth costing and whatnot when they make that leap. they're aware of what kind of sales potential to expect depending on their marketing strategies, and they're probably right.

as someone pointed out, harvest moon has sold well with crap marketing. if it sells as well as harvest moon, and it should really sell better IMO, then i think it will have sold to namco's plan.
 

Dave Long

Banned
Mr. cide is dead on. They probably know already what to expect and that number wouldn't be significantly increased with TV ads. They're better off saving all that money to push the Nina game later this year no matter how good or bad it is. Boobs beat Japanime RPGs any day of the week.

(...and for the record, I'm one of the nerds that wants to play Tales really bad. I wish I was reviewing it because I'm low on cash right now so I might not be able to buy it this week.)
 

jarrod

Banned
Did Xenosaga get any notable push, I can't rmember? Anyone think Baten Kaitos or Xenosaga II will get worthwhile ad campaigns?
 

lordmrw

Member
Xenosaga had print ads and commercials here in america, and it did pretty well before joining the Greatest Hits lineup. And can anyone tell me what the artbook is like. Is it one of those puny ass 16 page mini books that recycle the same box art and renders, or is it a decent sized book?
 

NotMSRP

Member
It's a HQ ~100 page artbook. Very nice.

Soul Calibur 2 artbook, Xenosaga artbook, and Tales of Symphonia artbook are all great free artbooks. I think this is where all of the marketing money is spent, and it is spent well, in my opinion. Great preorder bonuses rock!
 

Mock

Banned
Most of the people these commercials would be aimed at play video games last I checked. The people behind the Nielsen rating system are trying to find out where the bloody hell we actually are. Men 18-35 have fallen off the radar.

Why the fuck should Namco or Nintendo waste advertising money for TV ads when I can find the info online or through other friends who are gamers?
 

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
Just checked my preorder... which I set up about two months ago. No free shipping, but I will be getting the artbook and poster.

The hell with EB Saver shipping, just switched to 3 day.
 

Scott

Member
I got my artbook today, so a few details:

It's exactly 80 pages, with no art on the inside of the front or back covers. Front cover is pretty much the same art as on the boxart, back cover has a symbol/emblem in the center (the thing in the logo). As for the art itself, there's a quick bio for each character, along with a few pages of hand-drawn art. For some, there's also an additional 1-2 pages with various anime stills of the character; the rest just have one or two stills along with their bio.

Other than that, each additional character (NPCs? Enemies? Not really sure...), spirits, vehicles, etc get one page each. Following that is around a dozen pages showing most of the in-game models for NPCs & the lead characters.

Overall I'm really pleased with it. I can't compare it to Namco's previous artbooks (as I haven't had the chance to flip through them), but it's really rather well-done, especially for a freebie. Can't really complain. :p


Also, if you ordered from GameStop, you really should go and get your artbook ahead of time. I called up mine today, and they only had one left, which I rushed over to snag. :p I'm not sure if they put aside some for existing pre-orders or not, but the way they were talking, it sounded like it was on a first-come, first-serve basis. Just a heads up.
 

ferricide

Member
seriously, namco (rightly) expects the hardcore/web audience to be the ones driving the sales of this game. after all, if disgaea and harvest moon can sell over 100k without TV ads, guess what? that's the kind of expectations they have for this game, i'd almost lay money on.

TV is really not very directed marketing. it only makes sense to advertise games on TV when you expect a wide swath of console owners to be into it. it's incredibly expensive. if this game sells well for a game with no TV ads is probably better than if it sold OK for a game with TV ads.
 

Deg

Banned
Considering the detail is very vague i dont know how they are going to push the game exactly and where the advertising and how its aimed.

I dont think Namco know what to do with the game so are spending less. TOS is untested in the US market from what i know and looking at the success of FF i think it would be wise to push it properly. It could become a franchise for them. Matter of risk i guess.

I see them spending most of their money on SRS and maybe 2 other games this year.
 

Dave Long

Banned
Do you even read video game magazines? Tales has been in every single print mag for the last couple months. It's also gotten big coverage in Nintendo Power and I've even seen web ads at IGN IIRC.

Plus they did the pre-order art book promotion on top of that to generate even more interest. You folks are just not even close to realistic or at all tuned in to advertising practices if you haven't added it all up.
 

ge-man

Member
I don't see too much of a problem here unless Namco expects some big numbers. ToS isn't going to grab regular FF numbers. It could match FF:CC, however.

For the sake of the discussion, does anyone know what Namco is hoping for in US sales? We might want to start there before anything else.
 
jarrod said:
The PS2 release is a waste of time, Symphonia would've been better served as a headlining PSP game imo (rather than Eternia). Tales Studio seems to have had trouble getting the game running up to speed on PS2, PSP (with it's more GC like architecture) probably would've been better in that regard also. :/


Where did you hear that? Where is you source? This is the first time I heard this. Are you sure you are not making something up. I hope the Tales of Symphonia come out on the PS2 in the US.
 

Mashing

Member
That's what I'm saying... just show the awesome looking CG in the commercial... after all, publishers don't care if consumers return their games or not... they've already got their money from the retailer.
 

Alcibiades

Member
Mashing said:
That's what I'm saying... just show the awesome looking CG in the commercial... after all, publishers don't care if consumers return their games or not... they've already got their money from the retailer.

you can't return an opened game...
 
Mashing said:
That's what I'm saying... just show the awesome looking CG in the commercial... after all, publishers don't care if consumers return their games or not... they've already got their money from the retailer.
Nobody's gonna be returning BK because they thought there would be more FMV.
 
Where the hell's my freaking artbook? I was the first one to pick up my preorder of ToS, I was there when they opened the box, NO artbook. The guy just said they didn't get it. WTF is Namco's problem, I preordered just for the bonuses and I expect to get it. Now I'm hearing about these idiots who have 2 or 5 artbooks, while my EB had none. This is BULLSHIT.
 

Bishman

Member
Neutron Night said:
Where the hell's my freaking artbook? I was the first one to pick up my preorder of ToS, I was there when they opened the box, NO artbook. The guy just said they didn't get it. WTF is Namco's problem, I preordered just for the bonuses and I expect to get it. Now I'm hearing about these idiots who have 2 or 5 artbooks, while my EB had none. This is BULLSHIT.

I know! I'm waiting for my art book too.
 
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