Will Monster Hunter World be a Mult Million Seller in Japan? (2mil+)

[Mnementh]

Kyuu said:

Mnementh said:

Yeah, but I thought about it, and actually I can't believe it anymore. The series exploded after Tri. So no longer the same metric apply. Also the more I see of MHW, the more I think it was really expensive compared to earlier entries.

 

I actually believe it will sell more than 2 million in Japan, I expect something like 3 million, which would be OK. But I no longer can see halving the userbase in Japan as a success.

Nonsense. Excuse me, but was that an attempt to sugarcoat Tri's failure?

MH's popularity exploded with Portable 2nd G (Freedom Unite) which well outsold the original Portable 2nd despite being a mere expansion. Tri saw a massive decline because Capcom fucked over their fanbase which was 100% Playstation owners. They released it on a underpowered console with a player base that didn't care enough about third parties. The game offered little advantage over portable iterations. Capcom overestimated the Wii install base but, thankfully, it wasn't that big of a blunder: They ported it two or so years later and maximized sales to a very healthy total of 3 million.

Funny how your thoughts swiftly changed from "1.2 million would be a success" to "3 million would 'okay'"

The series was going to receive an overhaul sooner than later. I think it's naive to conclude that the new assets are designed for just a single game, when they're obviously made with future iterations (Including Switch's) in mind. The upgrade was inevitable. Were you unrealistically expecting Capcom to stick to PS2 level graphics forever? Pokemon on Switch should follow suit if Nintendo/Gamefreak actually care about their fans.

You also seem to disregard MHW's higher price compared to 3DS games, or PS+, or the small PS4 install base. I imagine anything over 2 million in Japan would probably be considerably above Capcom's original expectations. It's the western sales that may be concerning. Again though, it's fine regardless.. Capcom can opt to port it to Switch like they ported Tri to 3DS.. or make news games based on it.

The MH fanbase in Japan is NOT 6 million (if that's what you're implying) It's at most 5 million across all platforms. You can't just lump the combined sales of MH4 and MH4U together and pretend no overlapping took place. MH4 sold on a slower pace compared to Portable 3rd. Without an expansion, it would have probably failed to pass 4.5M (And I'm assuming the numbers at Capcom's site are "sold through" MH4 otherwise only sold 3.44 million according to VGC "Media Create?")


Tri selling poorly had no connection whatsoever with MH's popularity at the time. Why do you think Portable 3rd sold 2 Million FW in Japan? It did, because the hype existed long before it came out. Yet this same hyped-up fanbase didn't give a damn about Tri because the Wii -they thought- was not worth it.

"Excuse me, but was that an attempt to sugarcoat Tri's failure?"

Tri was clearly a failure based on the series standards (at least after 2). I guessed the PSP entries came after Tri, looking it up it isn't true for every title. So, the series didn't explode after 3, it did parallel to Tri, on the PSP. The thing has not much to do with Nintendo or Playstation though, on PS2 it wasn't that big too. PSP and 3DS were the successful platforms for the series.

"The MH fanbase in Japan is NOT 6 million (if that's what you're implying)"

I implied no such thing. If you look I named MH4 as the most recent mainline entry with 3.44M sales in japan. Pokemon is slightly bigger in Japan, hence my comparison, Pokemon can reach 4M constantly, MH is constantly above 3M in Japan. That's why I said 2M for Pokemon as comparison to 1.5M for MonHun. I never lumped MH4 and MH4U together, especially not for Japan. It makes sense to combine MH4 for Japan and MH4U for the West to get a realistic picture for worldwide sales. But this was about Japan.

"Tri selling poorly had no connection whatsoever with MH's popularity at the time. Why do you think Portable 3rd sold 2 Million FW in Japan? It did, because the hype existed long before it came out. Yet this same hyped-up fanbase didn't give a damn about Tri because the Wii -they thought- was not worth it."

True, but the thread assumes it would be a success if MHW follows the Tri-failure. As I got myself into the trap, I thought beating Tri would be good for home console MonHun. But I realized my error: it would still be bad for the series.

That said: I think PS4 is fairly successful in Japan and can rally the fanbase. 3M should be possible and the measurement for success. Below it - and especially 1.5M - means a strong decline in the series. As Tri was. So, do you wanna compare MHW - the next new mainline entry with updated graphics and gameplay (and probably budget) - with one of the weaker entries in the series? Is this what you hope for the future of the franchise? If we care about the series - and I do - we should hope for at least 3M in japan (which would still be a small decline) and a considerable growth in the west, 2M there at least. Otherwise the series is in difficulties.

Do you want this graphical and gameplay update? Probably. So what does Capcom learn, if it sells only 1.5M in Japan and say 1.5M in the West? That all the investment was for naught and they should invest less in the series. That's nothing we can wish for.