Microsofts 2008 RPG gambit - success or failure?

[cwbys21]

ClaudeLv250 said:

Godot said:
Lost Odyssey wasn't a success at 780k. The game certainly lose money with the marketing they had and the cost of the game. However, the studio has the financial backing of Microsoft so it's not a problem for Mistwalker.

As for Tales of Vesperia, it's the highest budget for any Tales game and yet it's the one that sold the worst in Japan. I won't call that a success.

Don't get me wrong, I bought a 360 to play JRPGs but I think Microsoft is paying to have RPG to prevent PS3 to do good on that front. There aren't many RPG fans on Xbox console but those that are there are happy.

This.

One problem with moneyhatting RPGs is that moneyhatting a sequel becomes useless because the first game already had it's (tiny) intended impact on the install base. This is exactly why thenext mothership Tales title is already slated for Wii. It's going to backfire because it's temporary, only so few Japanese developers can afford to kamikaze the Japanese market on the 360 and the smaller developers who Microsoft isn't looking to moneyhat will have no choice but to go to another platform where their game isn't destined to fail in their homeland. 

 

I thought about this as well, how can Lost Odysey be considered a success, I couldn't watch a TV show without seeing at least one comercial for it.  Thankfully ESPN is to expensive for to many adds of it and that is how I got away from them.  And the adds weren't running for a week or two, they had to have run for over a month.

As for the rest of the titles listed, I don't think Microsoft is happy with only 100,000 sales of ToV and only 30,000 360s being sold.  That is one of those games Microsoft would have paid for and they didn't get much of a return.  NG2, not a rpg.  Too Human, hit or miss on reviews, can't pass judgement on it yet.

The upcoming list, the SE games could sell well because they say SE on the cover.  Fallout 3 will sell well, but sales will be split between 360/ps3/pc and the downloadable content will also be on pc from what I understand of the situation and as usual, it will be free on pc but you will have to pay for it on 360.  Fable 2, should sell well, lots of good publicity for the game.