Tendo City

This right after Sega announced Virtua Fighter 5 for the 360...

Quote:We're as sober as the Pope. Watch and see how other Japanese publishers react. Mark our words here: Other publishers, other big-name Japanese publishers aside from Capcom (how we love thee, Capcom), will begin putting their once Sony exclusives on Xbox 360. And, in some cases, they'll put them on Xbox 360 first. Don't believe us? Watch for Namco and Konami in 2007. We're still not certain whether Metal Gear Solid 4 will hit Xbox 360, but if numbers (of units sold) do the talking, count on its arrival to Xbox 360 sometime after the PS3 version. What about Namco? We're sworn to secrecy, but the tide is changing here too. Prepare for some real Namco hardcore gaming love in 2007. Overall, Sony has reacted with alarm, anger, confusion, and is now realizing it must deal with this new situation: It isn't the console leader anymore. Oh yeah, almost forgot. Then there are Mistwalker's Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, two highly anticipated Japanese RPGS exclusive to the console. And, oh yes, did somebody say something about Resident Evil 5?

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/749/749547p7.html
Silent Hill, Metal Gear, Castlevania, and Soul Calibur have all been on the Xbox before, so the only other Sony exclusives he could be talking about are the 'Tales of ...' RPGs and/or Tekken, no? Tekken has been noticeably absent since 2005; I wonder what's going on there. Playstation 2 exclusive Soul Calibur 3 had underwhelming sales, so it's a no brainer it will go multiplatform for the fourth iteration.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Playstation HQ.

Oh, and I'm still praying that SquareEnix commit a good project to the 360. The next Chrono game would be nice...

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Playstation HQ too, but I don't speak Japanese so I don't think it would do me any good.

Tales RPGs have been on the GC and GBA/DS before, so it's probably not that.

Blue Dragon sold like 80,000 week one and dropped off the top 30 week 2... though Zelda wasn't on the Japanese lists last week either, so...

I think that the rumors are more prevalant than the facts. How about that Virtua Fighter 5 for X360 thing, huh? ... yeah, didn't happen.

Remember when a lot of Japanese gamers bought the original XBox for one game and then after beating that game, they immediatly returned the XBox. Will this happen when the Japanese are through with Blue Dragon?

A Black Falcon Wrote:Blue Dragon sold like 80,000 week one and dropped off the top 30 week 2... though Zelda wasn't on the Japanese lists last week either, so...

I think that the rumors are more prevalant than the facts. How about that Virtua Fighter 5 for X360 thing, huh? ... yeah, didn't happen.

What are you talking about? Virtua Fighter 5 is coming to the 360 at the end of next summer. Sega officially announced it.

Capcom, a Japanese developer, has enjoyed more success on the 360 platform due to American and European audiences than Japanese. I'm sure other Japanese developers took notice.

Quote:though Zelda wasn't on the Japanese lists last week either, so...

Well, that's mainly because there just aren't that many Wii systems in Japan. Zelda is still roughly at 50% attach rate.

Quote:What are you talking about? Virtua Fighter 5 is coming to the 360 at the end of next summer. Sega officially announced it.

Capcom, a Japanese developer, has enjoyed more success on the 360 platform due to American and European audiences than Japanese. I'm sure other Japanese developers took notice.

True about VF5, I hadn't noticed.

Anyway, while ideally other developers would notice, developers often pay attention to their own region first, and not others, so the most popular systems in their own region get most of their games. This is true for American publishers too... notice where most of the Xbox/X360 games are from, and notice how the N64 got better American third party support than the much less successful in the US GC got... so yeah, while some games will (and are) coming on X360, I think that most Japan-developed titles will be on the systems that are the most successful systems there. Which almost certainly will not be the X360. :)

Great Rumbler Wrote:Well, that's mainly because there just aren't that many Wii systems in Japan. Zelda is still roughly at 50% attach rate.

50% of what? Systems produced vs systems sold? Total population of the country?

You don't know what attach rate means? It's has to do with the number of games sold versus number of systems sold.

The Wii has sold about 544,000 units in Japan which means that Zelda has sold about 250,000.

A Black Falcon Wrote:True about VF5, I hadn't noticed.

Anyway, while ideally other developers would notice, developers often pay attention to their own region first, and not others, so the most popular systems in their own region get most of their games. This is true for American publishers too... notice where most of the Xbox/X360 games are from, and notice how the N64 got better American third party support than the much less successful in the US GC got... so yeah, while some games will (and are) coming on X360, I think that most Japan-developed titles will be on the systems that are the most successful systems there. Which almost certainly will not be the X360. :)

This is not necessarily true. Team Ninja's game do rather poorly in Japan, but have been million sellers thanks to the U.S. and Europe (save for DOAX). Capcom's games tend to do much better outside of Japan as well. Namco is pretty much in the same boat. The North American and European markets are each double the size of Japan's market. A developer can't ignore that.

If that was true, Namco would have done things like another Tales game on the GC (with now Symphonia on GC did far better than Legendia or Abyss on PS2 in the US) or Soul Calibur III on the GC (since it outsold the other two versions here), but they didn't. Capcom? Hmm... they have done some support for the X360, but they have supported all the platforms...

As for Team Ninja, they're definitely an exception to the general rule.

How well did Tales of Symphonia sell? The PS2 is saturated with RPGs, only the best of the best stand out now. Tales has always been just a little above average. It did relatively well on the GC because it was one of very few RPG options. It probably didn't do as well as they wanted it to though which is why you didn't see more games in the series on the GC.

Namco fucked up with Soul Calibur 3 being exclusive on PS2. I believe it's the worst selling of the series with around 400,000. Namco claimed they wanted to focus their energy on creating a better fighting game, so they chose one platform, the one that has the largest installed userbase. That was their idealology, and it failed them. Then again, from what I hear, the game wasn't very much to get excited about. I hear it was more unbalanced than ever.

Capcom has previously released most of their big games on Japanese consoles, the GC and Playstation. They left some rather crappy left overs for the Xbox. Not so now. Capcom's Dead Rising has sold close to one million. Lost Planet and both of the demos released earlier this year on Xbox Live became the fastest and most downloaded demos at their time. Resident Evil 5 went multiplatform and is headed for 360 as well as PS3.

Just wait and see. IGN and 1up are both reporting basically the same thing, that another big name publisher and franchise that were once Playstation exclusive is opening up to include the 360. 1up called the VF5 move months ago at E3, btw.

Quote:How well did Tales of Symphonia sell? The PS2 is saturated with RPGs, only the best of the best stand out now. Tales has always been just a little above average. It did relatively well on the GC because it was one of very few RPG options. It probably didn't do as well as they wanted it to though which is why you didn't see more games in the series on the GC.

450,000 US GC or something? Better than Baten Kaitos, which DID get a GC sequel (which did terribly, probably because people liked ToS more than Baten Kaitos...), and as I said quite bit better than Legendia or Abyss US sales. In Japan the PS2 ones (there are five PS2 Tales games in Japan) did sell better than Symphonia on GC, I think, which is why the decision was made; it had nothing to do with US sales, as always.

Namco didn't put Tales of the Abyss on GC because Namco, like Sega, makes bad decisions about which platforms to put its games on.

Quote:Capcom has previously released most of their big games on Japanese consoles, the GC and Playstation. They left some rather crappy left overs for the Xbox. Not so now. Capcom's Dead Rising has sold close to one million. Lost Planet and both of the demos released earlier this year on Xbox Live became the fastest and most downloaded demos at their time. Resident Evil 5 went multiplatform and is headed for 360 as well as PS3.

That's not quite true... Xbox didn't have Capcom exclusives, but at least they released a bunch of their 2d fighting games on it... GC only got CvS2. :(

Other than that though that's mostly right. If you said that as "PS2" instead of "Japanese platforms" though, I'd say.

A Black Falcon Wrote:450,000 US GC or something? Better than Baten Kaitos, which DID get a GC sequel (which did terribly, probably because people liked ToS more than Baten Kaitos...), and as I said quite bit better than Legendia or Abyss US sales. In Japan the PS2 ones (there are five PS2 Tales games in Japan) did sell better than Symphonia on GC, I think, which is why the decision was made; it had nothing to do with US sales, as always.

Namco didn't put Tales of the Abyss on GC because Namco, like Sega, makes bad decisions about which platforms to put its games on.



That's not quite true... Xbox didn't have Capcom exclusives, but at least they released a bunch of their 2d fighting games on it... GC only got CvS2. :(

Other than that though that's mostly right. If you said that as "PS2" instead of "Japanese platforms" though, I'd say.

RPGs tend to do well in Japan more so than in the states. The PS2 was the safest bet all around though.

Xbox did get that Capcom dinosaur game exclusive...third in the series...can't think of the name...it was dinosaurs in space though. lol

Quote:RPGs tend to do well in Japan more so than in the states. The PS2 was the safest bet all around though.

Usually yes, but the point is, ToS did really well in the US. It was ridiculous for Namco to not release Abyss on the GC too (the next 3d-battles Tales game) -- or it would be if Namco was looking at US sales. They aren't, so they didn't.

Quote:Xbox did get that Capcom dinosaur game exclusive...third in the series...can't think of the name...it was dinosaurs in space though. lol

GC had exactly one Capcom exclusive: P.N.03. And it was only exclusive because, unlike RE4 and Viewtiful Joe, it failed to sell in its original GC release...

A Black Falcon Wrote:Usually yes, but the point is, ToS did really well in the US. It was ridiculous for Namco to not release Abyss on the GC too (the next 3d-battles Tales game) -- or it would be if Namco was looking at US sales. They aren't, so they didn't.



GC had exactly one Capcom exclusive: P.N.03. And it was only exclusive because, unlike RE4 and Viewtiful Joe, it failed to sell in its original GC release...

Reason being Playstation 2 had a larger installed user base than GC and Xbox combined. It's assumed to be a safe bet.

Because with RPGs, they need to look everywhere and consider their largest possible audience. PS2 gamers eat up RPGs. GC and Xbox owners not so much.

Quote:Reason being Playstation 2 had a larger installed user base than GC and Xbox combined. It's assumed to be a safe bet.

Because with RPGs, they need to look everywhere and consider their largest possible audience. PS2 gamers eat up RPGs. GC and Xbox owners not so much.

Sales say that neither of those things are always true, of course... I mean, you're speaking in generalities. Generalities are not always true in the details, as things like the examples I cited -- US ToS and Soul Calibur II sales -- prove... trying to deny that Namco is ignoring its US market by not releasing GC versions of the next games in those serieses is absurd because... well, if units sold were all the mattered, why aren't there still NES games being made? It sold 35+ million in the US after all!

Yeah, active systems, and the system's actual userbase and interests, are more important than pure numbers. X360 game sales show this too, with some games selling really, really well despite the limited size of the userbase...

A Black Falcon Wrote:Yeah, active systems, and the system's actual userbase and interests, are more important than pure numbers. X360 game sales show this too, with some games selling really, really well despite the limited size of the userbase...

which is why japanese developers are defecting to the 360.

Quote:which is why japanese developers are defecting to the 360.

Now that the Wii and PS3 are out, expect those defections to slow...

Not really. The Wii is in a different ballpark, it is a non-issue to Microsoft and Sony. The PS3 is what the Japanese are defecting from because of the steep development price, ridiculous consumer price, and the comparitively poor console environment (Sony's online can't hold a candle to Live; Microsoft development tools are far more friendly, etc), and the fact that there are more 360's out than PS3's, and it's likely to stay that way through 2007.

What, the old "consoles don't compete with eachother" stuff? Never has been true, whether it's Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony that's trying to say it...

I know that all three companies act like the Wii isn't competition for the other two, but by virtue of being a console it is. This is a major console, not a handheld (which are competition too, by the way, but slightly different because of the differences between the major console and handheld markets)... yeah, a slightly-cheaper-to-develop-for competitior, but definitely one, no question.

Quote:comparitively poor console environment (Sony's online can't hold a candle to Live; Microsoft development tools are far more friendly, etc),

This doesn't matter. If a console is successful enough, hard development will be forgotten; if it fails, easy development won't help.

I can't speak for Sony, but Nintendo's online can't hold a candle to Live either. Nintendo did the Mii thing, but other than that they really screwed up the whole online game thing. They CAN fix it though. I mean the original XBox didn't even HAVE online at first and that was all added in with a patch. Nintendo can do a full revision of it's service. At least, slowly, they are improving.

A Black Falcon Wrote:What, the old "consoles don't compete with eachother" stuff? Never has been true, whether it's Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony that's trying to say it...

I know that all three companies act like the Wii isn't competition for the other two, but by virtue of being a console it is. This is a major console, not a handheld (which are competition too, by the way, but slightly different because of the differences between the major console and handheld markets)... yeah, a slightly-cheaper-to-develop-for competitior, but definitely one, no question.



This doesn't matter. If a console is successful enough, hard development will be forgotten; if it fails, easy development won't help.

PS2, Xbox, and GC are non-factors. They are on the way out. They are not included in the life cycle of next-generation consoles.

I don't agree. Different ballpark...

It matters, or maybe you forgot how so many companies defected to the Playstation due to Sega's nightmare of a development environment for the Saturn, and I even heard that N64 wasn't the most friendly. With development cost climbing more and more you can bet that developers will look to the platform to cut costs and make the maximum profit.

Quote:It matters, or maybe you forgot how so many companies defected to the Playstation due to Sega's nightmare of a development environment for the Saturn, and I even heard that N64 wasn't the most friendly. With development cost climbing more and more you can bet that developers will look to the platform to cut costs and make the maximum profit.

Sega... the 32X was a hard blow, Saturn just finished them off (though they helped that along by stopping all Genesis development in mid 1995 in order to focus on the Saturn... bad, bad move...). Playstation had what people wanted: better 3d games.

As for programming difficulty, in that case all three were hard to program for... PSX might have been "easiest", but it was by no means actually easy to program for. Saturn was truly hard to program for, though, and the N64 was not easy to get working at a good level of performance, but still, the PSX definitely was not actually "easy" to program for... and as I said, that had nothing at all to do with success. PS2 is harder to program for than Xbox or Gamecube and yet it crushed them. Sales >>>>>>>>> ease of programming.

relatively speaking, of course

Developers jumped on the PS2 because of the PSX's success, Nintendo's dwindling support, Sega's evident demise, and the complete unknown Microsoft. Really, where else would they turn to? Things are much different now. The playing field has completely changed. Why, just today, only 6 weeks after PS3's launch, I walk in to a gamestop and see a sign that reads: "We have PS3's in stock. Please buy them." There's a current thread of people who are taking pictures of places they see PS3's in stock, and then of them asking clerks how long they've been sitting there. some say days, a few said almost two weeks. Who, in their craziest moment, could have predicted that? Oh yes, the times are changing. With it, the developers' minds.

Quote:Developers jumped on the PS2 because of the PSX's success, Nintendo's dwindling support, Sega's evident demise, and the complete unknown Microsoft. Really, where else would they turn to?

This is called "spin written in hindsight made in order to prove a point". Look back at now from five years from now and things will probably seem just as "obvious" about what would happen...

... yes, the PS2 did seem to have things won quite quickly, but still. The PS2 was even more successful than the PS1 was, remember! By a good margin too...

Quote:Why, just today, only 6 weeks after PS3's launch, I walk in to a gamestop and see a sign that reads: "We have PS3's in stock. Please buy them."

This, I'm pretty sure, is about price first, game selection second. $300-$400 and demand would be insane, games or no... PS2 didn't exactly have much worth mentioning its first holiday season. :)

A Black Falcon Wrote:This is called "spin written in hindsight made in order to prove a point". Look back at now from five years from now and things will probably seem just as "obvious" about what would happen...

... yes, the PS2 did seem to have things won quite quickly, but still. The PS2 was even more successful than the PS1 was, remember! By a good margin too...

Nah, Sega was experiencing success but it was painfully obvious third parties were waiting on the fence. Sega was pumping out great and numerous 1st party titles, but it wasn't enough. They had ruined themselves from their Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn. I was quite surprise they had as much support as they did.

Nintendo's strict quality standards were part of the entire 64 era. Many developers had already jumped over to the Sony side of things (see Squaresoft) because it had the CD (a cheaper format compared to the 64 cartridge), and it was easier to program for, and because it had already been out like 17 months before the 64. You had to have read some of the articles pre-Gamecube, even from Nintendo themselves, how they were going to turn things around. On that same token, you had to have read articles about Sony's unrivaled success and their achieving of being the best selling console to history (making games cool, so to speak). It was written on the wall, some people just turned a blind eye to it.

Xbox...back in 2000 this was still just its project name. Why on earth would developers throw their weight behind an unknown competitor in the console space?

No, it was obvious developers would stick with Sony on round 2. This generation, however, everything is different thanks to Sony. It is obvious something is going to get shaken up due to Sony's new course of direction. No longer are they creating consoles for the masses (obvious with their hardware pricepoints well above average), but rather they are making high-end products Joe Schmo can't afford. It's like they forgot that the Joe's got them where they are, that big casual "cool" fanbase has been forgone for a different crowd that wants an all-in-one box for a premium price. Meanwhile, Microsoft seems to have Kutaragi's Playstation 2 handbook and is following it to the page (but also adding more: Live), and trying to pick up Joe Schmo that Sony left behind.

The people ignoring the fact that developers are in fact giving more support to the 360 than Playstation are the same people who refused to believe that developers were shying away from Nintendo at one point. It was easy to see why (as I pointed out before).

Right now, Microsoft has a ~10 million userbase, the largest of the three; they have friendly development tools (even PS3 developers confessed that Microsoft has better tools); they have Live (which kicks everything else in the pants); they have a good price-point (that's fixing to drop here in several months); and they have the third party support (there are more announced games for 360 in 2007 than there are for PS3). All the pieces in play are obvious.

Right now, Sony has less than a million PS3's sold, the smallest userbase; they have an architecture that is different and more costly than 360 or Wii; many developers have gone true multi-platform with simultaeous releases of big games on the cheaper 360 (see Resident Evil 5, Grand Theft Auto 4, Assassin's Creed, et al); Sony has very obviously priced themselves out of the market as you can walk in to most any store and buy one (a very different story than the PS2, Xbox 360, or Wii launches where they were hard to come by for months after launch)...in essence, Sony of today is NOT the same company of the past 10 years. There will be a different outcome, one that isn't as successful as either previous console.

Nintendo is hard to gauge. They've broken away from the traditional route that Microsoft and Sony are taking of adding more horsepower. It's not obvious as to whether third parties will jump on the Nintendo band-wagon or not. Right now, there are only about 50 games announced for the Wii in 2007 (compared to ~200 for the 360, and ~170 for the PS3). Seeing as how Nintendo is breaking new ground, bring in a new kind of gamer, it's hard to tell what all this means.

In any case, as I said, the playing field is very obviously different as long as you're not turning a blind eye to any part of it.