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Forums - Sales Discussion - Media Create Sales 11/29 ~ 12/05

Torillian on 10 December 2010
jarrod said:
Torillian said:

But what about Disgaea 2?  Your statement is supposed to be talking about the series as a whole.  So here's the best I can figure for Disgaea 2 sales.

According to a statement from NIS they have sold 1.6m Disgaea titles total.  Taking out all the sales we have from Disgaeas other than 1 and 2 that leaves us with 770,000.  Taking out the Japanese sold for Disgaea 2 and if we're nice and give you 250k for Disgaea NA sales that leaves us with 370,000 to be split between Disgaea 2's NA release and Disgaea 1's Japan release.  Once we're there we can either assume Disgaea 1 sold the same in Japan as Disgaea 2's 150,000 leaving Disgaea 2 with 220,000 NA sales but in my mind the more reasonable conclusion would be that the original Disgaea sold more in Japan and it only takes 200,000 sales of Disgaea 1 in Japan before Disgaea 2 is dipping below Disgaea 3's NA sales. 

This was all done also assuming that the first two games sold absolutely nothing in EU, which may or may not be reasonable and not taking into account that NIS probably means shipped, but with a tiny game like Disgaea I doubt there are a ton of them sitting on store shelves.

Disgaea 1-2 did sell basically nothing in Europe (where Koei handled them). Disgaea 1's impressive US sales are actually what led N1 to establish NISA iirc (Atlus USA handled the first game here).

I wouldn't be surprised if D2 and D3 sold within the same ballpark though, but mixing trackers and then doing some fuzzy math with shipment data to try and arrive at a comparison is a slippery slope at best.  But D1 was the real breakout... this is all pretty tangental though, as it really has little bearing on how a PS3 Tales might do, except arguably to draw a negative conclusion based on past performance (Disgaea sold great on PS2, Tales really didn't).


I don't see how mixing trackers matters if they're all tracking the same thing.  I did what I could with the information given to us and I honestly don't see how the math would be "fuzzy".

True this is a tengental argument, but I knew that when I came into it.



...

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Torillian on 10 December 2010
jarrod said:
Torillian said:
jarrod said:
Hero_time88 said:

Tales of the Abyss and Legendia unlike the Wii en Xbox 360 entries didn't even get a PAL release, and there hasn't been single Tales that has been markteted as much as Symphonia, which in Europe got bundles and was translated to all the important languages.

I think that Abyss could have performed well on the PS2 in the US if hadn't been released so close to FFXII and a little more marketing could have helped. Legendia had awesome music, but it is a pretty forgatable JRPG.

Symphonia only got the royal treatment in Europe because Nintendo published and promoted it themselves.  And it paid off iirc (over 200k sold).  If Namco (or their various distro partners like EA, Ubisoft, Atari, etc) had handled it, then it'd have gotten the same terrible treatment the rest of the series did.  I kind of wonder if NOE wouldn't have been more receptive to doing Graces if Namco wasn't planning a significantly enhanced PS3 release within 2 months of it's release?

In the US, Symphonia had basically the same level of promotion as Legendia/Abyss (just some internet and print ads), yet it dramatically outsold both combined.  Symphonia actually even outsold Abyss just just counting sales starting from the release of the latter game, Namco made a GIGANTIC mistake not having a GC version for the west (same deal goes for Soulcalibur 3 actually).

I think Graces Wii could've done better in Japan if it hadn't released alongside FFXIII, and wasn't a bug-ridden mess. The negative word of mouth spread pretty fast, which is also why it's legs bottomed out completely (even compared to other Tales games).  Would've probably sold 250-300k then.


Doesn't seem to have bottomed out any sooner than other Tales games.  ToS2 on Wii had a ratio between FW and LTD of .655 while ToG has a ratio of .636 and ToV PS3 had a ratio of .642.  The only recent console Tales I see that doesn't follow that pattern is ToV for 360 which has a ratio of .57 which I would be inclined to chalk up to the smaller user base of the 360.

I'm talking purely original mothership releases, like Graces.  And this is the data set I'm looking at, which directly covers 70% of the JP market (and estimates the rest)...

 

  • Tales of Innocence (DS) 106,733 (246,240) 43% fw
  • Tales of Vesperia (360) 101,272 (204,305) 50% fw
  • Tales of Hearts (DS) 141,610 (261,751) 54% fw
  • Tales of Graces (Wii) 143,309 (197,509) 73% fw
...it's a dramatic difference when you get to Graces Wii, and that's likely due to the game being literally uncompletably buggy.  Namco really fucked the game over releasing it in the state they did, and at the time they did; most RPG fans skipped it initially in favor of FFXIII, then didn't bother when the word of the bugs spread.  The fact that Symphonia KoR somehow sold better is a testament to how badly a disservice Namco did to Graces Wii.

I think Syphonia selling better makes sense just because of the name behind it.  Syphonia is still the best selling Tales game ever which means a lot of people who played that game don't really care about the Tales franchise in general. 

But you are right, if you only look at mainline non-ports there is a pattern.



...

jarrod on 10 December 2010
Torillian said:
jarrod said:
Torillian said:
jarrod said:
Hero_time88 said:

Tales of the Abyss and Legendia unlike the Wii en Xbox 360 entries didn't even get a PAL release, and there hasn't been single Tales that has been markteted as much as Symphonia, which in Europe got bundles and was translated to all the important languages.

I think that Abyss could have performed well on the PS2 in the US if hadn't been released so close to FFXII and a little more marketing could have helped. Legendia had awesome music, but it is a pretty forgatable JRPG.

Symphonia only got the royal treatment in Europe because Nintendo published and promoted it themselves.  And it paid off iirc (over 200k sold).  If Namco (or their various distro partners like EA, Ubisoft, Atari, etc) had handled it, then it'd have gotten the same terrible treatment the rest of the series did.  I kind of wonder if NOE wouldn't have been more receptive to doing Graces if Namco wasn't planning a significantly enhanced PS3 release within 2 months of it's release?

In the US, Symphonia had basically the same level of promotion as Legendia/Abyss (just some internet and print ads), yet it dramatically outsold both combined.  Symphonia actually even outsold Abyss just just counting sales starting from the release of the latter game, Namco made a GIGANTIC mistake not having a GC version for the west (same deal goes for Soulcalibur 3 actually).

I think Graces Wii could've done better in Japan if it hadn't released alongside FFXIII, and wasn't a bug-ridden mess. The negative word of mouth spread pretty fast, which is also why it's legs bottomed out completely (even compared to other Tales games).  Would've probably sold 250-300k then.


Doesn't seem to have bottomed out any sooner than other Tales games.  ToS2 on Wii had a ratio between FW and LTD of .655 while ToG has a ratio of .636 and ToV PS3 had a ratio of .642.  The only recent console Tales I see that doesn't follow that pattern is ToV for 360 which has a ratio of .57 which I would be inclined to chalk up to the smaller user base of the 360.

I'm talking purely original mothership releases, like Graces.  And this is the data set I'm looking at, which directly covers 70% of the JP market (and estimates the rest)...

 

  • Tales of Innocence (DS) 106,733 (246,240) 43% fw
  • Tales of Vesperia (360) 101,272 (204,305) 50% fw
  • Tales of Hearts (DS) 141,610 (261,751) 54% fw
  • Tales of Graces (Wii) 143,309 (197,509) 73% fw
...it's a dramatic difference when you get to Graces Wii, and that's likely due to the game being literally uncompletably buggy.  Namco really fucked the game over releasing it in the state they did, and at the time they did; most RPG fans skipped it initially in favor of FFXIII, then didn't bother when the word of the bugs spread.  The fact that Symphonia KoR somehow sold better is a testament to how badly a disservice Namco did to Graces Wii.

I think Syphonia selling better makes sense just because of the name behind it.  Syphonia is still the best selling Tales game ever which means a lot of people who played that game don't really care about the Tales franchise in general. 

But you are right, if you only look at mainline non-ports there is a pattern.

Symphonia wasn't really that big in Japan though, even combined GC PS2 it sold about the same as Eternia, Abyss and Rebirth at around 500-600k (and way less than Destiny 1-2, which both did 800k-ish).  That's what also makes Graces performance surprising... the Team Destiny games were usually the bigger sellers last gen, which Graces is pretty much the next in that lineage.

Anyway, Graces will did have sellthrough more like one of the less leggy spinoffs or ports, though it's still actually the worst legs in the entire series this gen even then.  The bugs are directly to blame imo, if Namco had shipped a complete game originally (even in the face of FFXIII) I think Graces would've gone on to move another 100k rather than just half that after it's first week (like Vesperia 360 and Hearts did).

Anyway, current gen spinoffs, remakes and ports for comparison...

  • Tales of Eternia (PSP) 74,630 (193,541) 39%
  • Tales of the Tempest (DS) 83,298 (205,541) 41% fw 
  • Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (PSP) 97,156 (214,128) 46% fw
  • Tales of Phantasia: Full Voice Edition (PSP) 65,417 (112,367) 58% fw
  • Tales of Destiny 2 (PSP) 65,503 (114,757) 57% fw
  • Tales of Rebirth (PSP) 44,888 (83,016) 54% fw
  • Tales of Symphonia: Knights of Ratatosk (Wii) 151,138 (212,408) 71% fw
  • Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 (PSP) 210,297 (317,730) 66% fw
  • Tales of VS. (PSP) 153,336 (231,351) 66% fw
  • Tales of Vesperia (PS) 227,506 (362,359) 63% fw
  • Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X (PSP) 114,199 (169,421) 67% fw


Hero_time88 on 10 December 2010
jarrod said:
Torillian said:
jarrod said:
Hero_time88 said:

Tales of the Abyss and Legendia unlike the Wii en Xbox 360 entries didn't even get a PAL release, and there hasn't been single Tales that has been markteted as much as Symphonia, which in Europe got bundles and was translated to all the important languages.

I think that Abyss could have performed well on the PS2 in the US if hadn't been released so close to FFXII and a little more marketing could have helped. Legendia had awesome music, but it is a pretty forgatable JRPG.

Symphonia only got the royal treatment in Europe because Nintendo published and promoted it themselves.  And it paid off iirc (over 200k sold).  If Namco (or their various distro partners like EA, Ubisoft, Atari, etc) had handled it, then it'd have gotten the same terrible treatment the rest of the series did.  I kind of wonder if NOE wouldn't have been more receptive to doing Graces if Namco wasn't planning a significantly enhanced PS3 release within 2 months of it's release?

In the US, Symphonia had basically the same level of promotion as Legendia/Abyss (just some internet and print ads), yet it dramatically outsold both combined.  Symphonia actually even outsold Abyss just just counting sales starting from the release of the latter game, Namco made a GIGANTIC mistake not having a GC version for the west (same deal goes for Soulcalibur 3 actually).

I think Graces Wii could've done better in Japan if it hadn't released alongside FFXIII, and wasn't a bug-ridden mess. The negative word of mouth spread pretty fast, which is also why it's legs bottomed out completely (even compared to other Tales games).  Would've probably sold 250-300k then.


Doesn't seem to have bottomed out any sooner than other Tales games.  ToS2 on Wii had a ratio between FW and LTD of .655 while ToG has a ratio of .636 and ToV PS3 had a ratio of .642.  The only recent console Tales I see that doesn't follow that pattern is ToV for 360 which has a ratio of .57 which I would be inclined to chalk up to the smaller user base of the 360.

I'm talking purely original mothership releases, like Graces.  And this is the data set I'm looking at, which directly covers 70% of the JP market (and estimates the rest)...

 

  • Tales of Innocence (DS) 106,733 (246,240) 43% fw
  • Tales of Vesperia (360) 101,272 (204,305) 50% fw
  • Tales of Hearts (DS) 141,610 (261,751) 54% fw
  • Tales of Graces (Wii) 143,309 (197,509) 73% fw
...it's a dramatic difference when you get to Graces Wii, and that's likely due to the game being literally uncompletably buggy.  Namco really fucked the game over releasing it in the state they did, and at the time they did; most RPG fans skipped it initially in favor of FFXIII, then didn't bother when the word of the bugs spread.  The fact that Symphonia KoR somehow sold better is a testament to how badly a disservice Namco did to Graces Wii.

Abyss faced Kingdom Hearts II and Graces F had MHP3 against it, not the smallest releases either, and I seriosly think it has more to do with the kind of audience that owns the Wii in Japan than anything else. Abyss was also full of bugs and technical problem, and it didn't seem like it did hurt it all, atleast not in Japan.

I don't know what the situation was of the GameCube during 2005/6 in the US, but here it started to die really fast after the release of RE4 and the end of that year it's situation was similar the current situation of the PSP here. Didn't the first Baten Kaitos sell decent in the US but the second one bombed? Well, I don't think that a late 2006 GC release, with FFXII against it and the new consoles coming would have done that well to begin with.



jarrod on 10 December 2010

Hero_time88 said:

Abyss faced Kingdom Hearts II and Graces F had MHP3 against it, not the smallest releases either, and I seriosly think it has more to do with the kind of audience that owns the Wii in Japan than anything else. Abyss was also full of bugs and technical problem, and it didn't seem like it did hurt it all, atleast not in Japan.

I don't know what the situation was of the GameCube during 2005/6 in the US, but here it started to die really fast after the release of RE4 and the end of that year it's situation was similar the current of the PSP here. Didn't the first Baten Kaitos sell decent in the US but the second one bombed? Well, I don't think that a late 2006 GC release, with FFXII against it and the new consoles coming would have done that well to begin.

The bugs in Graces were so bad, Namco actually had to reissue replacement disks.  We're not even talking "full of bugs and technical problems", we talking an incomplete game-breaking build that should've failed QA tests.  Abyss doesn't even begin to compare.

Abyss also released at a time when Tales was doing well as a franchise.  It alone outsold Vesperia on PS3 & 360 combined, the franchise in general has seen a significant decline versus where it was last gen.  Kingdom Hearts isn't nearly as big as FF in Japan either, it's (at best) half as big.

And again, as for the US market, Symphonia GC still outsold Abyss PS2 just counting sales after it's release.  It was budget priced (Player's Choice) by that point, but Abyss hit bargain bins within a few months too... there was still a market for a GC Tales game even at that late point, or Namco could've just as easily transitioned the game to Wii (which probably would've paid off going by RE4's huge early success).  Both versions of Baten Kaitos bombed in the US though iirc, neither passed 100k afaik (possibly not combined even).



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MightyGrogg on 10 December 2010
Carl2291 said:

Oh, wow.

PSP > Everything else combined... As it should be.


It's because of one game. Those numbers will drop next week. PSP is doing good though. I'm waiting for the PSP2 and 3DS though. DSi and DS LL sales are down because everyone is waiting for 3DS. Wait until the 3DS is released. It'll be triple what the PSP is selling right now.



Hero_time88 on 10 December 2010
jarrod said:

Hero_time88 said:

 Abyss faced Kingdom Hearts II and Graces F had MHP3 against it, not the smallest releases either, and I seriosly think it has more to do with the kind of audience that owns the Wii in Japan than anything else. Abyss was also full of bugs and technical problem, and it didn't seem like it did hurt it all, atleast not in Japan.

I don't know what the situation was of the GameCube during 2005/6 in the US, but here it started to die really fast after the release of RE4 and the end of that year it's situation was similar the current of the PSP here. Didn't the first Baten Kaitos sell decent in the US but the second one bombed? Well, I don't think that a late 2006 GC release, with FFXII against it and the new consoles coming would have done that well to begin.

The bugs in Graces were so bad, Namco actually had to reissue replacement disks.  We're not even talking "full of bugs and technical problems", we talking an incomplete game-breaking build that should've failed QA tests.  Abyss doesn't even begin to compare.

Abyss also released at a time when Tales was doing well as a franchise.  It alone outsold Vesperia on PS3 & 360 combined, the franchise in general has seen a significant decline versus where it was last gen.  Kingdom Hearts isn't nearly as big as FF in Japan either, it's (at best) half as big.

And again, as for the US market, Symphonia GC still outsold Abyss PS2 just counting sales after it's release.  It was budget priced (Player's Choice) by that point, but Abyss hit bargain bins within a few months too... there was still a market for a GC Tales game even at that late point, or Namco could've just as easily transitioned the game to Wii (which probably would've paid off going by RE4's huge early success).  Both versions of Baten Kaitos bombed in the US though iirc, neither passed 100k afaik (possibly not combined even).

I know the story about Graces, but even it's initial sales where pretty avarage, and I just disagree with you by giving part of the blame to FFXIII when Graces F had bigger release against it. Kingdom Hearts II was just mentioned because it was a big release close to the Abyss one, you don't have to tell me how big  the franchise is.

Tales of just had one hit in the west, and there a people who don't even know that they are all part of the same franchise.

Also when you look at the western sales of Jrpg's on the PS2, I a lot of the releases prior to 2004 did relatively well like Xenosaga, Star Ocean 3 and the Dark Cloud series, which might have something to do with that there was point in which there where just to many them and the sales might have been started to devide between the many releases.



huaxiong90 on 10 December 2010
jarrod said:
huaxiong90 said:
jarrod said:
huaxiong90 said:

Also, lmao at Tales of Graces F. Tales obviously belongs on Sony consoles. Now let's hope they bring them to the West too.

Problem is, Tales games do the worst on PlayStations outside Japan.  They pretty much all bombed on PS1/PS2/PSP here.

I've always said, Namco should be making each and every Tales game multiplatform to really maximize their audience.  That way you hit the PS audience inside Japan (where the series tends to sell best) and the Nintendo audience outside Japan (where the series tends to sell best).  Abyss not releasing on GameCube, when Symphonia did a whopping 500k plus on the system in the US alone, was one of Namco's stupider decisions in recent memory... 

Oh, no doubt (regarding Abyss and Symphonia). But looking at the recent figures of Tales...we need a Western PS3 release before it's absolute. But looking at the trends so far, it's looking that way.

I didn't mean to come off as a douche with my last comment (as in I'm saying "other consoles don't deserve to have Tales"), but it really seems like the Tales fanbase is now on PS3.

I think in Japan, it's unquestionably on PS3/PSP (where the games can sell upwards of 300k), and not 360/Wii/DS (where the games all sold between 200-250k).  It'll be interesting to see how the early Abyss 3DS port does, and if Namco can build up an audience there.

In that case, we can agree.



Rockstar: Announce Bully 2 already and make gamers proud!

Kojima: Come out with Project S already!

Kasz216 on 10 December 2010
jarrod said:
Boutros said:
jarrod said:
huaxiong90 said:

Also, lmao at Tales of Graces F. Tales obviously belongs on Sony consoles. Now let's hope they bring them to the West too.

Problem is, Tales games do the worst on PlayStations outside Japan.  They pretty much all bombed on PS1/PS2/PSP here.

I've always said, Namco should be making each and every Tales game multiplatform to really maximize their audience.  That way you hit the PS audience inside Japan (where the series tends to sell best) and the Nintendo audience outside Japan (where the series tends to sell best).  Abyss not releasing on GameCube, when Symphonia did a whopping 500k plus on the system in the US alone, was one of Namco's stupider decisions in recent memory... 

This gen is obviously different. Look at Tales of Symphonia 2. I'm pretty sure a Tales of game would sell better on the PS3 in the west. I mean even Disgaea 3 nearly sold more :/

ToS2 was an ultra low budget spinoff, supposedly pretty shitty, and yet it still sold nearly 200k US.  It actually sold on par with Vesperia 360 (which was far higher budget/quality), and both sold better than every PS1/PS2/PSP Tales game has in America.

I'm not convinced PS3 has a better audience for Tales games than PS2 did either.  You bring up Disgaea, but that series sold better on PS2 even... I'm not sure why you'd think it'd be the opposite for Tales exactly?  Has *any* RPG series sold better on PS3 than they did on PS2?  

Wasn't ToS2 so shitty that they had to recall it because it had some gamebreaking bug or something?  That can't help legs of your product.



Kenology on 10 December 2010

^Wasn't it Graces that had the bugs?