Famitsu Boss Expects Five Million for Monster Hunter Freedom 3
Hamamura shares his thoughts and predictions on PlayStation Move, Monster Hunter and more.
Posted Apr 11, 2010 at 04:25, By Anoop Gantayat
Enterbrain CEO Hirokazu Hamamura held one of his periodic market seminars on the 9th. As usual, he offered industry analysis and predictions to the members of the press. Mainichi shared a summary.
In a past seminar, Hamamura suggested that Dragon Quest IX could go on to sell 5 million units. He brought out the 5 million figure at this seminar as well, only regarding PSP's Monster Hunter Portable 3rd. Noting that two out of three gamers want to play it (this is presumably from Enterbrain research), he suggested that the game could target 5 million units.
Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G has shipped 4 million units across its standard and budget re-releases, making it the biggest PSP game ever.
On the PSP in general, he referred to the system as "A domestic game machine that sells only in Japan."
He seems to have a negative opinion about PSP go, noting that it's selling worse than Wonderswan, a portable game machine released by Bandai in 1999. "You can now download Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G," he said, "but you can't really say that you can play the game properly."
Many gamers have complained that the PSP go's control layout makes playing Monster Hunter difficult. This wasn't an issue until late last month when Capcom released Monster Hunter in downloadable form for the first time. Sony is even started bundling free copies of the game with PSP go, but sales did not see any form of spike. Even as the standard PSP tops the weekly hardware charts, PSP go consistently sells worse than PS2 and Xbox 360.
Hamamura also shared comments on other platforms.
Regarding Xbox 360, he said of Bayonetta, "The Xbox 360 version is better, but it sold half as much as the PS3 version." He pointed to this as evidence that software may not necessarily be all that it takes to win in a multiplatform strategy. However, he said that Monster Hunter Frontier Online represents another chance for the system, as it will be the first HD Monster Hunter game.
Wii continues to remain a "Nintendo market," he said. He cited as evidence Capcom's Monster Hunter 3, which he said had great expectations, but capped off at one million units. In past seminars, Hamamura has indicated that he expected more than this for the game.
On PS3, he made note of the recent success of Sony's Torne DVR kit, likening this to the PS3's popularity in North American and European markets as a Blu-ray player.
He seems to be a bit skeptical of Sony's upcoming Move motion controller device, though, stating "If the price is around ¥10,000, it will be tough. It's possible it could end up as just a peripheral."
