Star Ocean 4 - What went wrong with its sales?

[Bitmap Frogs]

The Anarchyz said:

Bitmap Frogs said:

The Anarchyz said:

Bitmap Frogs said:
Lost Odyssey worked very well in the west because it was as westernized as it could be while still being japanese at heart. Which is what japanese companies should be doing if they want their games to sell here.

The Gooch got it right - he and his crew sold 650k copies of pure-old-school turn-based combat in the land of the first person shooter.

 

Lost Odyssey worked very well in the West because it has in the cover "From the Creator of Final Fantasy", also MS advertising... Although what you're saying is true, the game has this FF-X feeling while it has a lot of western elements, i personally love the game...

 

So did Blue Dragon and sold in the west half of what Lost Odyssey did. Interestingly enough, Blue Dragon sold much better in Japan. You sure westernization has nothing to do with it?

Aw come on, think before you post.

 

Think before you post? incredible...

Last time i checked Blue Dragon doesn't have that in the cover, core JRPG fans know about Hironobu Sakaguchi, but a lot of the mainstream don't know about who this guy is... If everyone knows about Sakaguchi then what's the point of putting "From the Creator of Final Fantasy" in the cover? that's marketing, they knew that phrase would sell some copies...

It's the same with a movie, how many times did you saw a trailer that said "From the director of X movie", "From the writers of Y movie", "from the producer of Z movie", sure, people are household names like Steven Spielberg and they only put the name, but others like Bryan Singer are only known by a few, so in the Valkyrie trailer they had to put "From the director of The Usual Suspects and X-Men"...

It's marketing, do you think that people knew that the game was westernized the first week? and this game had the biggest one in the West between all 360 JRPGs... 

And BTW, I never said that westernized had nothing to do with it, i even said "Although what you're saying is true", i just think that the marketing had more to do it...

 

 

 

 

Granted not all covers are created equal (these are the PAL covers) but as far as namewhoring the creative team behind, they went way way further with Blue Dragon.