Quote.

Why not for once the other way around, what's so freakin special about the 360 in JAPAN!  

Right.... nothing.

Yeah Sony doesn't buy exlcusives in the same way that benefits arn't part of your salary.

They do, but instead of microsofts straight fowawrd, and honestly, more honest... Here's a big pile o' money.

Sony goes with a "We'll give you the same amount as the big pile o' money, but instead we'll just pay for some of your development costs and advertising."

They both translate into the same thing since the big pile o' money no doubt is used for the development costs and advertising.

It's all risk minimization, so as a developer you have to sell less copies of the game to turn a profit. This is becoming more and more important in the hi-def gaming scene where games are so expensive, very few turn a profit and you need to run a fire 6 games out there and hope 1 hits strategy.

Yet another Namco semi-exclusive for the X360 and a win for X360 sales in Japan.

Namco sure is giving the X360 alot of love. Definately not a bad thing. I think the game can/will break 100k in Japan alone.

Everyone forgets that most of the JRPGs for the X360 have been forgettable efforts by second-rate development studios.

The only 2 "real" RPGs thus far have been BD and LO - and LO is guarenteed 100k, and/or even 150k.

The others - Enchanted Arms, Eternal Sonata, and such have been offshoots from various publishers (From Software really isn't a household name).

And in the West, with no major SE and such, MS has an uphill battle with the userbase - users aren't entirely there, maybe 500,000 JRPG fans worldwide, on the X360.


However, we've seen in Japan, expecially, when actual franchise IPs come X360-side, they do well. Ace Combat 6 had a pretty strong opening (75k via MC), RR6 did well considering the userbase (and compared to RR7 on PS3), and so on and so forth. A Tales came, a real Tales game, would definately boost the X360 JRPG base by leaps and bounds - as you'd probably have a strong userbase of ~250,000 hardcore JRPG players that would be candidates for buying a Tales game. Would Versperia do as well as Legendia? Probably not, but with MS cash help, and such, it'd be dumb for Namco not to do it.



In other news, it'd be neat to see how much TOV sells on the X360 vs. TOL. TOL did what? 350k LTD in Japan?

It is simple really. They can release the game on PS3 with no financial incentive from Sony and lose money or they can take a money hat from MS release the game as a timed exclusive and have enough money to fund the eventual PS3 port and their next project. If it weren't for MS moneyhats you can pretty much guarantee that both the PS3 and 360 would have fewer RPGs because the Japanese third parties would look to the Wii to keep them in the black financially.

I am always amused by the erratic behavior of some posters in regards to these rumors. Specifically Microsoft purchasing a exclusive title for Japan. I always get the impression that some posters are really intimidated by Microsoft. You can admit it your scared Microsoft very well might split the RPG market, and screw you out of half of your enjoyment. That looks to be their goal. Hell I expect them to be buying more then mere timed exclusives this year.

I think if Microsoft bought the exclusivity it would be a smart move. They need more exclusive library content to overcome prejudices in the Japanese market. Sadly it is a misinformed statement that the 360 is not a RPG machine. Further more it is actually the front runner in RPG acquisition. Perhaps their hope is that if they keep up the volume eventually the market will take notice.

I wouldn't be shocked if this were true, and I would expect Microsoft to purchase at the very least four JRPGs total for next year. I expect them to at least do par for next year in the area of exclusive RPG acquisition. Whether it is a title in this series or not we should expect these kind of announcements in the near future. Microsoft has made a lot of ground in securing project exclusivity over the past year.

And I think every single anti-Verspia exclusivity is looking at it merely from them wanting the game on the PS3/Wii, rather than Namco's own good.

Lets face it: many next-gen Japanese games, including RPGs, have tanked. Namco's Ridge Racer series has been abysmal, on both the X360 and PS3, and Gundam Mousou also tanked.


So what should a company do to make money? They can:

A) Go for the sure bet. Make the game using the Eternal Sonata engine (saving cash), optimized for the Xbox 360, and take a bit of money from Microsoft in a money hat.

If the X360 version sells, it's going to mostly be pure profit in their pocket.

Or,

B) Go for the long, risky bet. Make a new engine, or work out the Eternal Sonata engine on the Playstation 3. ES isn't on PS3 yet, so there'd be added costs factored into porting it. Sony won't pay as much for the game, if any, since Tales games have been on Sony systems for awhile.

The PS3 version absolutely would have to hit ~500,000 units to make Namco a profit. If not.........



So from a standpoint of this company's workers having to feed their family - what are they going to do? Work with a system they already know well, on an engine that's already done, and take extra money, or go with another system to feed a few extra fanboy's idiotic desires?


On a side note, anyone ever read the huge Fan Poll created by Namco about Eternal Sonata fans, and their system likes/dislikes? Fact was, the majority didn't prefer for ES to be on the PS3 - they either were willing to buy a X360, had one, or didn't care about ES.

Yeah... The Xbox 360 is going to sell a week 5,000 units more than what they normally do. That's great man!

Namco has already killed the Ace Combat franchise by linking it's name to the Xbox 360 in Japan, and if this game is really a timed-exclusive for the Xbox (because it still isn't comfirmed, though it seems so), they are going to kill a series that once did sell an avarage of 600,000-800,000 units in Japan alone.

To get a big J-RPG base, you need a J-RPG for which poeple buy a system alone, and i'm talking about games like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Pokémon and once those J-RPG fans have the system, they will buy the secondary J-RPGs like the Valkyries, Star Oceans, Level 5 rpg's, Baten Kaitos, Lost Oddesey, Blue Dragon etc...

Kill the Tales of series by putting it on the 360? Are you crazy??? They just released a DS Tales of game, a remake of an older one (Tales of Destiny - Director's Cut) is coming out for the PS2 soon, a remake of a PS2 game Tales of Rebirth is coming out in 2008 for the PSP, and a sequel to the GC Tales of Symphonia is coming out on the Wii in 2008. Now with ToV coming out for the 360 that leaves the PS3 as the ONLY system not getting a Tales of game at the moment...(or at least until the time exclusive ends if its there)

I'd hardly call that killing the series by releasing on the 360...

http://namco-ch.net/taleschannel/index.html 

Its about time Sony will do the same thing and start waving with a bag of money then as it seems the Japanese love money just as much as in the West, *Square Enix, whistles*. One advice to Namco, not to let the bomb drop too hard on their heads... release it first in the US