do you regret making some of your threads after making them?

I think that focusing on Japan is a good idea since Nintendo didn't care about them for a long time.

Yes some of them, I create a lot of threads and am bound to make mistakes from time to time. Do I regret making this thread, no I don't. Rol saying I needed to research the subject and pointing out that the conference took place right prior to TGS, what honestly does he believe I was not aware of that? No shit I am aware of it!

Me quoting Rol was not because I think he is a good solid source for information. I quoted Rol saying Nintendo was paying Capcom off because in another thread a large amount of users supported that idea and Rol was the one who everyone will actually know. Now with a little research we see that Nintendo always tells us when they pay for exclusive content. Nintendo and Capcom have a great partnership and honestly there is no reason other then rumors to believe a pay off was made. People tell me not to say things without doing research, but what research proves that MH4 was bought by Nintendo? The facts really lead the other way.

In fact a lot of the media have very different reasons for MH4 being exclusive to 3DS. Such as lower dev costs, a great relationship with Nintendo. Publishing deals outside Japan.

But enough about my lack of research, to the comments people are making about UbiSoft.

Rol states UbiSoft made money on Quantity and not quality. A quick look over their charts and I disagree. They made their money by targetting girl gamers and  mothers. Look at their line-up Imagine and the Petz series dominate the DS sales wise, look at the highest selling title Imagine:Babyz 2.82 million copies sold.Or another title Imagine:Fashion Designer 2.79 million copies now was that just quantity? I think those 2.79 million gamers definatly thought the game was quality. Even UbiSoft's Rabbids series sold over 700,000 copies which is very good for a handheld game.

UbiSoft made a killing on their DS games, Nintendo made a killing in royalties. Nintendo probably sold hardware thanks to alot of these female focused titles. Then lets look at UbiSoft on PSP, Assasins Creed on PSP sold over a million copies and so did Lumines. Of course UbiSoft had more success on DS with their Imagine and Petz titles but they definatly impacted PSP sales as well. Considering how low Sony's software sales were on PSP Assasins Creed doing this well shows that it was a very big title! The highest selling title on PSP according to VGChartz only broke the 6-million mark. So Assasins Creed is up their listing within the top fourty highest selling PSP games.

A little research shows that UbiSoft is very important to Nintendo's handhelds and even Sony's handhelds! If Nintendo wants to attract female gamers like they did with DS they need Imagine and Petz titles, if they want to steal market share from Sony and compete then they need Assasins Creed and other western titles.

I don't believe for a second that western titles are not a force on handhelds! Look at PSP's sales figures the top ranking games other then Monster Hunter where are the japanese games? Square-Enix and Capcom are high in the charts but look GTA outsold Monster Hunter, but I thought that Western portable titles didn't sell well? I also see Activision and EA games pocked throughout the top 50 list.Lucas Arts, Warner Bros. Sales figures prove that the PSP was largely sold by western third party developers.

Then look at Nintendo's top twenty DS games. 17 of them are from Nintendo themselves but what about the other three titles they must be Japanese right? Well one Mario and Sonic at the Olympics was sorta first party. So number 15 is from Majesco and number  20 on the highest selling list for DS and the first non-First party title is.... Lego StarWars from Lucas Arts! But wait that must be an anomaly because Western developers weren't that successful on DS, wait out of the top fifty and excluding games published by Nintendo themselves I see Activision, EAGames, UbiSoft, Majesco , Disney Interactive, Warner Bros. Umm what about the Japanese developed games? Where's Capcom or Square-Enix? Well Square actually has two of the top fifty titles, but Capcom is non-existent.

A little research and look at the handheld industry shows that while MH was extremely important to PSP. Western developers and publishers outside of Nintendo's first party studios sold more software and in turn more hardware. Yes Nintendo's first party content made in Japan trumped everything. But as far as third party content is concerned western third parties dominated the handheld market.

Even Monster Hunter on PSP could take on RockStar's GTA. So please arguing that North America is not important or somehow less important than Japan is insane. Also seeing as UbiSoft's titles on DS made up a good chunk of the non-first party titles in the top fifty DS games I would say it proves that they were very important to Nintendo's success.

As for UbiSoft, they released 36 Imagine games for DS. Of those 36 titles 8 of them sold over a million copies which is a major feat. Though I must admit ten of them failed to sell over 100K. Likewise of the Petz games 19 of 26 broke the 100k mark with two selling over a million. Now yes UbISoft did release too many games. I guess you are both right and wrong. They released a huge quantity of titles which you are right about, however they also released alot of the biggest titles on DS. Regardless of the crap they put out they still managed to shift millions of copies.

Also do note that many of today's biggest franchises have failed to sell over 100K, including the mighty Street Fighter who had several titles fall short of 100k. If your talking over 100K but not a million look at Monster Hunter which while sometimes successful has also seen some pretty pittiful releases. Infact the first two Monster Hunter titles failed to break a million and Monster Hunter Tri on Wii was outsold by Imagine Babyz on DS. Just look at Sega for example only 7 of their DS games broke the million mark, while UbiSoft had twelve titles break that mark. Look at how many broke 100k Sega had 42 titles while UbiSoft had 113.

Lets look at Capcom on DS shall we they failed to sell a single million copy game. Not one, with far fewer and according to you higher quality titles not one game broke the million mark. Also of the 27 games , 7 of them didn't even shift 100,000 copies. Now yah Monster Hunter is a big franchise but Capcom has contibuted very little to Nintendo's DS success.

Square-Enix did a lot better then Capcom and in fact did almost as many million sellers as UbiSoft. 11 million selling games were released for DS, but that doesn't mean they too didn't have poor selling titles like UbiSoft, look several titles failed to break 100,000 copies. If anything Square is the most important third party that Nintendo has in Japan. According to the performance of Square titles on Nintendo hardware.

Now honestly I think UbiSoft probably killed their own sales with all these games. If UbiSoft had stuck to releasing say ten Imagine games the sales of those games probably would have been far better then releasing over 30. Same could be said for the Petz titles which UbiSoft flooded the market with.

However while UbiSoft did make more games, they created more successful titles then the competition did. Sure they also made more flops but if you look at how many titles sold over 100k their aren't that many that are truly flops. A handheld game has a very hard time breaking 100k regardless of publisher or developer.

But again I am not soully talking about UbiSoft. look at Activision they launched 7 million selling titles out of a total of 104 titles. Much like UbiSoft quite a few of their titles flopped. Activision had 75 titles break the 100,000 mark, showing yet again they launched more games that were more successful then Sega who is Nintendo's biggest Japanese 3rd party supporter. Even Majesco one of the struggling North American publishers managed to have 4 million sellers with 22 titles that broke 100k! THQ has 7 million sellers, Disney Interactive 9 million sellers

However this clearly shows western developers are not less important then Japanese ones. You pointed out RockStars success on PSP. I notice you limit your response to talking about UbiSoft and not the other publishers in NA. Look at the sales figures for DS and PSP and you'll note that a ton of the big sellers come from North American publishers.

How can you possibly argue that Japanese third parties are more important then North American ones? On what basis a single high selling PSP franchise? Yes North American publishers publish a shit ton more games thus leading to more flops, but it also leads to more successful titles. Japanese publishers on the other hand (Talking Square Enix) release fewer games with almost as many million sellers, however even Square has tons of flops.

Also look at where Square's games and Capcom's games sold? The most successful Square Enix title shifted only 1.18 million outside of Japan. Compare that to Western titles sales outside of Japan and you'll notice that even the best of the best coming out of Japan fails to outsell American titles anywhere else on the globe. Look at Monster Hunter's most successful title sold barely 1.02 million units outside Japan. Now Japan accounts for how much of the hardware sales for Nintendo platforms? For DS Japan was the smallest global market for Nintendo's hardware by a long shot. The sales for Wii are about 1/4th that of America and 1/3rd of Europe, so how exactly is Monster Hunter or any of the titles Nintendo announced going to impact sales outside of Japan?

Now as I admitted, this conference was held in Japan as a precursor to TGS. However that does not change the fact that all the major western titles are being dropped. If Nintendo has something from the west to announce they sure aren't hinting at it. Seriously its not just at this conference look at E3, how many western titles were announced there? Nintendo has already lost significant support from Activision and UbiSoft two of their biggest supporters on DS.

As for me seeing things with a bias, your right I definitely see things with a bias. But are you honestly going to say that you don't? I have seen many articles and threads that you have written based solely around your opinions and not facts, you then try to find facts to back those opinions the exact same way you say I do.

Its part of writting a post, I can try to remain as unbiased as possible but there will always be some bias, just like you. Because we have opinions and beliefs and no matter what those beliefs and opinions will always effect our threads and posts.

To be honest I don't think their is a single IP that justify Nintendo paying for them to be on 3DS. I don't think Nintendo should pay Capcom upfront for MH4, now giving them incentives is one thing, even offering to help publish the title in North America is one thing. But if they were directly paying Capcom then I would have to object.

Honestly Monster Hunter is unproven, if we knew for a fact that the title would shift 4-5 million like it did on PSP then I would be alright with Nintendo paying for it. However look at what happened when GrandTheftAuto was brought to DS it shifted alittle over a million copies but all in all failed to give Nintendo sales on par with PSP.

If Nintendo is paying for Capcom support, then I think they should likely be paying for Western third party support. Should they pay for a single IP, No. But giving UbiSoft the same incentives to bring Assasins Creed (Another unproven IP for Nintendo's handheld) is probably smart. Also offering some kind of financial assistance to RockStar to get their games on 3DS would be just as smart.

In the end one big Japanese game is not going to benefit their sales outside of Japan more then a western game. Japan is Nintendo's smallest market and they depend on North American and European sales for their existance.

If you look at one of the biggest handheld publishers. Capcom's total sales for PSP 16.67 million copies while RockStar had a total of 16.15 million.

Again if you read my earlier statements I don't think Nintendo should be paying any publishers outright. I think they should be investing in getting publishers to develop for 3DS. Using incentives but if Nintendo is going to start paying then yah I think a proper GTA game would be just as important to the west as MH is to Japan. Lesser titles would be like AssasinsCreed.

If you read my whole posts, I wasn't saying that Monster Hunter wouldn't influence a ton of Japanese to pick up consoles. I said it wouldn't influence a ton of Westerners to pick up consoles. It is quantity in a way while Monster Hunter might sell more copies in Japan then most Western titles do in the west. Monster Hunter is a single game and western publishers produce more million selling games then Capcom does or even Square-Enix.

So Nintendo has to choose between a single bigger game, or multiple big games. Whats more important one title that has the potential to sell 5-million copies in pretty much just Japan (Where they already buy Nintendo platforms alot) or 6-titles with the ability to sell 2-million globally? Whats going to push hardware sales higher? The Japanese market is not where Nintendo needs to sell hardware, North America and Europe are their biggest markets.

Sorry, Joelcool, but Rol has pretty much nailed it in several posts now.

Securing Monster Hunter is a veritable critical blow move by 3DS against Vita. MH didn't just sell a lot of copies... it also sold a lot of PSPs, and it sold a lot of people on PSP having a hugely popular franchise exclusively. Nintendo has managed to steal an enormous amount of Vita's potential thunder by obtaining the one essential franchise that PSP had against DS. Now 3DS will have MH and Pokemon.

GTA, while hugely popular on consoles, didn't sell the PSP in the west remotely close to what MH did for PSP in Japan, which is the most prolific market for hand helds. I'm not saying GTA wouldn't be a nice addition to the 3DS; the more games the better. But the console hits that you continue to cite (AC for example) are not what made the DS conquer the PSP even in the west, much less Japan.

Monster Hunter is a critical blow to the Vita in Japan. Japan had Sony with a stronger share of the market then North America. However PSP sales were still higher in North America. Monster Hunter did not push hardware in Sony's biggest market, include the rest of the world and Monster Hunter contributed very little to Sony's success outside of Japan.

As I have said multiple times the Japanese market is the smallest for Nintendo and it was also for Sony. While MH definitly helped Sony secure a larger marketshare in Japan it did not help at all globally. Not saying Japan isn't important but it makes up less then one third of Sony's market.

Infact Sony sold more units in the EMEAA then America or even Japan.

Also I agree the titles I mention AC for example did not make DS conquer Sony in the west or Japan. Neither did MH help Sony conquer the west. It did squat outside of Japan.

But the AC that was coming to 3DS was not a cheap cash in, it was being developed internally by some of the best developers UbiSoft has. Unlike the two DS games that were developed cheaply by GameLoft. Also if you note AC on PSP sold over a million copies in the west which made it more influential on American and European sales then Monster Hunter did.

You also have to realize that GTA also sold more copies in the West then Monster Hunter did in Japan. You may be right Monster Hunter did wonders for Japan, but without GTA you can bet Sony would have lost about 5-6 million in hardware sales in the west. Also look at software sales for PSP in Japan they do not match up with software sales in the rest of the world.

Software sales for PSP show that of the top 50 titles on PSP EMEAA lead the pack with 40.54 million copies while America was second most important with 36.55 million in software sales with Japan trailing at a distant third with only 17.85 million. Of that Monster Hunter made up 11.38 million.

So yes if MH4 succeeds and Sony doesn't replace Monster Hunter with another big game, they can consider Japan lost. However with no third party support in the West. Nintendo will have a much harder time fighting Sony off there.

If you read the thread as me saying Japan was not important you misread it. I said that the West is the larger market and more important then Japan. I said if Nintendo was going to invest so much efforts into Japan it should do likewise in the rest of the world.

Say Monster Hunter does amazing, Nintendo crushes Sony in Japan and gains about a 90% market share there. What about the west? Nintendo's software sales for their top fifty titles show that EMEAA and America are at a virtual tie at 115 million copies. The West's market is far larger then Japan's.

Now of course we all know that Nintendo's software dominates in all regions. However in the west , American software is dominant. Check the EMEAA records and the American records of software sales and you will note that western publishers dominate those markets. Those markets also make up a majority of Nintendo's software sales.

So yes I think a domination in Japan is possible with all this Japanese support. But what about the West? Look at Vita's market that they are targetting? They are aiming at their largest market EMEAA and America second. With the titles that are popular in the west. Nintendo might be able to strike Sony down in Japan by compromising the West. But Sony might make tons of gains in the Western market that weren't present last generation.

Although I guess Nintendo's headquarters are in Japan and dominating Japan is a personal issue. Nintendo's titles will no doubt sell well in North America as well. However they could loose marketshare in North America and software sales, right now with 3DS selling at a loss its software sales that will help Nintendo return to profitability.

Lets face it even with Nintendo dominant in Japan, the software that sells in Nintendo's largest markets (America/EMEAA) is western made. So a cut in software sales in the West followed by a cut in hardware sales. Is not a wise decision.

Nintendo is simply trading market share in the west for market share in Japan. If you look at it as how much damage it will do to Sony then its obviously going to do alot of damage. If you look at it as how much hardware will a few Japanese titles push and how much software profit will be generated your looking at far worse outcome.

You can argue all you want that Monster Hunter is a more important title then AC, your right it is. But the west is more important to Nintendo's profit margins then Japan is. So you have to wonder is Monster Hunter more important to western sales then western support? Because AC isn't the only title that has been cancelled, several titles from other publishers like Activision were also dropped.

Focusing entirely on Japan and not at all on North America is very dangerous. Sony could totally capatalize on this get an exclusive Assassins Creed, CoD and Grand Theft Auto and you will see them increase share in North America. Will Sony win the war loosing Japan and such, no. Will there market share globally fall? Possibly but if Sony played its cards right and got alot of western support they could probably hold on!

Don't believe me check the stats on software sales in America or EMEAA for PSP. You'll note that western titles dominate. If Nintendo wants to crush Sony globally the way it intends to crush them in Japan. Then they need to focus heavily on the West.

Of course through all this research I have come to realize, if Nintendo can get MH3G and MH4 exclusively to 3DS they will crush Japan. If Nintendo gets exclusive RockStar support and the support of the publishers they already had for DS. Sony doesn't have a chance in hell anywhere on the globe.

Vita will be dead if Nintendo gives equal attention to the west.

Holy crap that was a long reply, sorry everyone I don't expect anyone to actually read that. I spent like 3-hours researching it and making it perfect. Again sorry, the just of the post pointed out that MH will crush Sony in Japan, but it won't benefit Nintendo is the largest markets.

Sony's largest market is the EMEAA with America in second and Japan in third. Nintendo takes Japan at the cost of support of western developers and Sony has a chance of building a stronger marketshare in EMEAA and America where they were strongest. But I conclude that if Nintendo gets the western support they did with DS, plus the support of RockStar games then they could crush Sony in EMEAA and America like they can in Japan.

But right now Vita is showing alot of promise for the west, so the battle Nintendo has to win is in the west. Not Japan which is already won!

You're right about the software sales being higher in NA and EMEAA than Japan, simply because Japan has a smaller population than either of those other markets individually, much less combined.  And if we were speaking of console sales, I'd totally agree with what you're saying.  The ironic thing about the handheld market is that despite Japan having less people (i.e. sales), it is more important for Sony and Nintendo to ensure success there.  Like you said, GTA may very well have sold more copies in the west than MH did in the east (again, more consumers there) but what you're not realizing is that MH did far more for the PSP's success as a system in the east than GTA did for it in the west.  Far more.

The software that sold the most for the DS and moved the most units in the west was not western software.  It was Nintendo's games, which is software from Japan.  The slew of games from Ubisoft that you mentioned previously may have sold a lot of copies based on pure volume, but those games (Petz, etc) sold in the first place because of the way that was paved by Nintendo's games.  Again, Japanese software.  You're right that MH sold squat outside of Japan, but conversely, GTA sold squat in the east, and Japan is more important to handhelds.

Having said all of that, I do agree with you that it is to Nintendo's advantage to do well with western software on 3DS, too.  Like I said before, the more games, the better, and it would certainly help to secure things like GTA exclusively for 3DS, no doubt.  But you are applying the principals of the console market to the handheld market, which is actually the opposite; securing western support for consoles is more important than software from Japan (save for many of Nintendo's games, of course), as Japan is handheld land and consoles are bigger in the west.

Well I have had my mind changed in a way, I now believe Nintendo would be smart to pay for MH to be exclusive. I still think that in doing so they should make similar moves to maintain western support. I do think that there neglect of the west could definitely hurt them in the long run.

Why did I change my mind, fact is yes Monster Hunter's sales are mind blowing for Sony. In comparison with the leading DS titles MH games do perform decently. I think the loss of Monster Hunter could do serious damage to Sony. MH could have the potential of selling up to 5-million 3DS units in Japan. So yes as a form of attack on Sony MH is a very big attack.

The real question is, will all this damage to Vita pay off in anywhere but Japan? Yes it will strike a deadly blow to Sony's capabilities to compete in Japan. At least I'm sure that's what Nintendo is aiming at, but what about the rest of the world?

The thread's purpose was to talk about Nintendo's neglect of the west in favor of Japan.

Now you say that Japan is the home of handhelds, but neither hardware nor software sales reflect that as true. Per capita yah Japanese spend way more on handhelds based on the population size. But per capita means squat, over all sales come from North America and EMEAA. As for Nintendo titles selling the hardware , yah everyone's right Nintendo titles do shift hardware in North America.

However even Nintendo's titles in the past have proven incapable of getting the results DS did. Look at GBA its life cycle was a tad shorter but it also had no competitor. Yet with no competitor GBA  didn't come close to DS success, with all of Nintendo's biggest titles the GBA did not dominate (PSP and DS combined sold over twice as many units).Also yes lets bring up GameCube now on the home front, all of Nintendo's best titles failed to shift hardware and 3DS's current performance is going the way of GCN's!

At the moment 3DS is doing worse then GBA did on a global scale. Only difference is that 3DS now has not only Vita to compete with but smart phones and tablets. A quick look at the software that sells in America and the EMEAA show that while Nintendo does dominate the third parties contribute a ton to that domination.

All I'm saying is that if Nintendo is going to strike Japan so hard, they can't do so at the cost of American and European support. At the moment with all the cancellations from UbiSoft and Activision among other Western publishers. Show that Nintendo is relying to heavily on the Japanese developers.

Japanese developers will not shift hardware outside of Japan, and while this blow to Sony will definitely help Nintendo take back Japan it does very little outside. If Nintendo was smart they would secure every single big publisher Sony had supporting PSP. Which leaves RockStar and ensuring the other western publishers remain on board.

If Nintendo can get RockStar and MH and maintain DS's support then they can dominate the whole globe. Hopefully 3DS sales would pick up by the end of 2012.

Also just wondering while Sony can take a direct hit and serious damage. How can Nintendo do harm to Apple? Do you think they know which Apple titles sell strongest in Japan, America and the EMEAA and would steal some exclusives. If they did steal some exclusives would it even put a scratch on Apple?

I think the days of Sony being the biggest threat to Nintendo are over. Sony has no chance in winning , in fact Sony Vita dying could damage developer confidence in handhelds which could have adverse effects on Nintendo themselves. How can Nintendo strike at Apple with 3DS?

Focusing on Japan will also not help Nintendo take on Apple. Japanese dominance without success in the west is useless. Especially if Nintendo wants to turn the 3DS around! They need to sell 3DS's in EMEAA and America pronto! North American developers definitely can shift more hardware in the west then the Japanese titles Nintendo is getting.