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shikamaru317 on 22 February 2024
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konnichiwa said:
Machiavellian said:

The past is the past but even still, Team Ninja today is not Team Ninja from the past.  Sony have worked hard to secure their homeland and squeeze MS out and as you even Stated, Phil is just tired of spending a huge sum of money trying to get support for little gain.  Every time you spend they want you to spend even more to the point where all you are doing is spending just to get junk on your system.  So I am sure Phil figured out that investing in Japan that way is a no win situation.  I rather MS go to new markets and build relationships and tell every Japanese developer who do not want to publish on Xbox to F themselves.  Personally, I really feel that games coming from Japan is getting stagnate.  They all feel and play the same.

I would say 'not investing in it is a certainly lost situation' because who wins if you don't invest? They also not invest in other asian markets so you don't get games like Stellar blade/Genshin Impact etc on xbox.

You may feel that ways about games from Japan but when so many games are game of the year contenders or winners from Japan and Hi Fi Rush being one of the most well received xbox games I don't get that view...

Especially when the biggest Xbox game pass launch is Palworld with more than 10 million players on xbox alone...It is up their with games like Starfield/Halo Infinite/Forza Horizon... and possible beating atleast one of them.

Yeah, Japan and Asian games in general are killing it right now, no doubt about that. Look at the most anticipated games for 2024 from both The Game Awards and The Golden Joysticks. The list of most anticipated nominees between the two Awards shows included 6 Asian games, with FF7 Rebirth winning the award on both. Here on VGC's own awards, Most Anticipated for 2024 had 3 JP games on the shortlist, and the category was also won by FF7 Rebirth.

Then look at the accomplishments of Asian games so far this year:

Reviews (80+)

Asian Games

  • FF7 Rebirth- 93
  • Tekken 8- 90
  • Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth- 89
  • Persona 3 Reload- 88
  • Granblue Fantasy Relink- 81
  • UNDER NIGHT IN-BIRTH II SYS:CELES- 82
  • Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy- 81
  • Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II- 81

Western Games

  • Anomaly Agent- 84
  • Lil Guardman- 84
  • Momodora: Moonlit Farewell- 84 (western developed but made in a JP style and published by JP indie Publisher Playism)
  • Helldivers II- 82
  • Home Safety Hotline- 83
  • Boxes: Lost Fragments- 82
  • Islands of Insight- 81
  • Ultros- 81
  • Go Mecha Ball- 81
  • Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden- 80

With the exception of Helldivers 2 and Banishers, the rest of the western games that reviewed well were basically indie/single A games, many of which only got a handful of reviews. Meanwhile on the Asian list, we have multiple AA and AAA hits from major publishers, and a far higher review average.

Sales/Players

Asian Games

  • Palworld hits 25m players in the first month, including 15m sales on Steam and 10m players on Xbox (Xbox and PC gamepass players plus Xbox copy sales). It also becomes #2 on the Steam Peak Concurrent player charts with 2.1m peak concurrent players
  • Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth sells 1m copies in the first week, a record for the franchise (about doubling it's predecessor, Yakuza 7). It also managed over 45k peak concurrent players on Steam, over 4x higher than the previous Steam record for the Yakuza franchise. 
  • Persona 3 Reload sells 1m copies in the first week, a record for an Atlus game. It also achieved over 45k peak concurrent players on Steam, up from 35k on Persona 5 Royal
  • Granblue Fantasy Relink becomes the 7th highest Japanese RPG on the peak concurrent Steam charts, with 114k peak concurrent players (24 hour peak is still 91k 3 weeks after release)
  • Tekken 8 more than doubled Tekken 7 in peak concurrent players on Steam. Namco Bandai also suggested that sales were tracking towards hitting 2m before the end of this quarter (end of March)

Western Games

  • Helldivers 2 sells 1m copies in the first 3 days, and manages 457k peak concurrent players on Steam, putting it in 20th place on that chart, and still has 444k peak in the last 24 hours, 2 weeks after launch

Flops

Western

  • Suicide Squad- 60 on Opencritic. Manages just 13k peak concurrent on Steam (below Arkham Knight and Arkham Origins), down to 1k peak in the last 24 hours, 3 weeks after release. Already out of both Xbox's top 50 most played games chart (US), and TrueAchievements top 40 most played chart on Xbox (all regions), down to #38 on TrueTrophies top 40 most played chart on Playstation (all regions).
  • Skull and Bones- 60 on Opencritic. Didn't release on Steam so no way to look at it's peak concurrent players there. Debuted at #23 on Xbox's most played games chart (US version) and #30 on TrueAchievements most played games chart (all regions), behind quite alot of comparable games, including Ubisoft's own AC Valhalla (though it is boosted by being on Gamepass) and on the TrueAchievements chart, behind the now almost 6 year old Sea of Thieves. 
  • Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden- Though it reviewed well, it seems to be a commercial flop. It was made by the same team at Dontnod as Vampyr, but peak concurrent players are 5x lower than Vampyr on Steam. It also failed to make the top 50 most played chart on Xbox (US), top 40 TrueAchievements (All regions), and top 40 on TrueTrophies on Playstation, and debuted at only #27 on Xbox's bestsellers chart for the week (US).

Asian

  • Foamstars- 59 on Opencritic, already down to #25 on TrueTrophies most played Playstation games chart (down from #8 the week prior).

Western devs/publishers definitely need to up their game for the remainder of 2024 and beyond.

Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 22 February 2024