Mistwalker’s New Game To Be Announced Around Springtime.

[loves2splooge]

Lost Odyssey is a successful IP (820k sales worldwide) and it is owned by Microsoft. You can count the number of PS2 jrpg IPs that had the same or better selling games on one hand: Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean (on the 360, it got starched by LO in the west. So did Tales) and Dark Cloud. And this gen you might be able to add Valkyria Chronicles to that list since the word of mouth is so amazing but that's about it. That is an exclusive list. Not many jrpg IPs hit it as big as Lost Odyssey did, especially new IPs. A Mistwalker new IP on Ps360 or Wii would have big shoes to fill and they'd have to find a big third-party publisher that would give it top priority. Square-Enix, Bandai Namco, SONY and Sega would all treat Mistwalker like a second-class developer (less marketing, less budget) because they wouldn't want Mistwalker to overshadow their marquee titles. Especially Square-Enix since there's some history there with Sakaguchi. Microsoft on the other hand knows that LO is their golden jrpg goose. They will advertise it. They just have to learn how to market their games properly in Japan because I don't feel that their games (both Japanese and western) are living up to their full potential. They did a good job with Lost Odyssey in the west (700k+) though. And there's no chance in hell that Mistwalker would sell well on the ultra-crowded DS, where Mistwalker performed poorly. The PSP is a pretty crowded market too.

Lost Odyssey 2 is a guaranteed easy 1 million+ worldwide because A) the install base is much larger in Japan now and the 360 has the highest software to hardware attach rate. So the 360 gamers there are still buying the games and they will buy Lost Odyssey 2, a guaranteed exclusive unlike SO4 and ToV. It also got good reviews from Famitsu (36/40). Blue Dragon 2 would be even bigger in Japan than LO2 but LO2 is much more successful in the west so it makes more economical sense to go with LO2.) and B) the jrpg fans in the west are going to support it even more (700k+ for LO1, that number will grow higher now that the 360 install base is even bigger yet and LO2 won't have much competition).

As for the Valkyria example, on the PS3, I doubt a Valkyria Chronicles sequel (VC3 or whatever they might put on PS3) does as well as the first because Valkyria Chronicles benefitted from a Blue Ocean. If you want to play a jrpg in the west NOW on your PS3, what do you buy? Valkyria Chronicles (or Demon's Souls these days if you are feeling lucky). You still gotta wait for FF13, WKC, Resonance of Fate, SO4 International, etc. Valkyria Chronicles benefitted from the Blue Ocean. The PS3 was starved for jrpgs but in 2010 it has a glut of jrpgs.

Right now I'd say releasing Lost Odyssey 2 (which has to be exclusive to 360 because MS owns it) and getting that guaranteed 1 million+ is a much safer bet than a new IP. Mistwalker wasted waaaayy too much time on the DS. If you look at the sales of their DS games, it's sad. That's what happens in such a competitive blood thirsty Red Ocean market. With all the jrpgs on the DS, it's annoying because you think, "oh that jrpg looks cool and that jrpg looks cool" on a weekly basis it seems like but at the end of the day, I don't only want to play jrpgs so that means that I won't be playing the vast majority of jrpgs out on the platform as I want to make time for the other games. All these jrpgs get lost in the shuffle on the DS. And Mistwalker is one of the many victims of that reality. Even if the PS3 doesn't hit the saturation point, a guaranteedl 1 million+ seller wth LO2 is hard for Mistwalker to pass up.