Kresnik said:
I mean, there's niche and then there's selling < 2k in a month on sale at an already discounted price. It's going to be very, very interesting to see how this situation evolves over the coming years. I don't doubt for a second that the majority of Japanese games going forward are going to find their way to Steam, and I really can see the attraction because it's as he mentioned - it's a one-time investment that'll pay for years. Yet we're already seeing the bubble burst somewhat - for example, compare the sales of the Neptunia games to Mugen Souls. Same developer, all competent ports, yet the former have seen explosive sales due to getting in there early while the latter has sold abysmally. Sure, those sales will probably be made up down the line, but will selling a few hundred more copies at sub £5 in a year's time really make up for it? (That's not even mentioning the efforts of Aksys which are the very definition of why Steam porting is more than just a quick investment - terrible ports, terrible sales. So while it certainly seems there's easy money to be made on Steam, you have to put the effort in). Anyway, regardless of what happens I hope XSEED start working on 3DS games soon. They'd be stupid to leave the money from Story of Seasons on the table in the wake of Stardew Valley's runaway success. |
If you look at VGC data on Mugen Souls in US/EU its sold 39k/16k and current steamspy sales for it are 16k, I'd say that is quite good sales for a very Niche game on Steam that released very late and thats a little under 11 months of sales, They are right about the one time investment though, Over the next 3 years it could be up to 30k sales and another 5 down the line up at 50k still ticking in a little profit for them.
I do think we will start seeing Japanese developers releasing within a few months on the PC after the console version is out moving closer and closer to a simutaniously release, I think over the next year or two we will also see that a lot more Japanese developers have started the development of the game with PC in mind from the beginning which will tie in with my first point along with better quality releases.
As the library of niche Japanese games gets larger and less time to wait for the ports it will lead to more using it as platform and leading into higher sales across the board. In the long game I think there is a good market on PC for developers to take advantage of and the future for the fans is looking good.
