What data? And why would the Vita need to be another PSP for Monster Hunter to keep being Monster Hunter? I can see why it would be insane for Capcom to move the series to the Xbox (in Japan, anyway, because I think the 360 would have been well positioned to finally make MonHun accepted in the west) but simply releasing the franchise on the Vita as everyone initially expected would seem like a very low risk move because the obstacles to adoption for the Xbox and the Vita aren't the same.

What even are the obstacles for the Vita? Price? Sure, price is always an obstacle for anything. Every price drop is met by some sort of bounce. It can't hurt to move more software, either, but the more price sensitive a customer is, the less likely he is to buy his games new anyway. Form factor? I doubt it. It's essentially a PSP with a second stick and no crappy UMDs. I think the 3G version may be a whopping 10g heavier than the PSP-3000. Lack of compelling software? Most definitely. I think this is the major one. Monster Hunter wouldn't single handedly solve that problem nor would it single handedly make the Vita into a PSP, of course. But I don't think it has to. The Vita doesn't need to sell exactly 1:1 with the PSP for franchises to perform as well on it, surely. It only has to be acceptable to the franchise's audience.

I guess nothing is ever guaranteed. There's no guarantee that many of the millions of people who just bought GTA5 in droves won't turn up their noses at GTA6 whenever it turns up on the PS4/Xbone. But I have a good idea that they won't. It is a reliable system selling franchise that has been extremely well handled such that its drawing power remains intact, and the latest entry is being extremely well received - and not just from "journalists" of questionable integrity. While Capcom may be getting a little happy with the Super Turbo Arcade Edition EX rereleases and little social/mobile/puzzle game spinoffs lately, the same can actually be said about Monster Hunter.

But anyway, I don't assume it would have pushed out exactly the same numbers on the Vita at all. I just have the feeling it would have sold roughly the same, perhaps marginally less but definitely in the ballpark. That's not to say that Capcom made a bad move by any means. If they are adamant about getting the series to catch on in the west without moving it to home consoles, the 3DS is the only chance of that and Nintendo is certainly more of a partner for them than Sony has been.

I have no idea, but that's not the point. The point is that it is incredibly dumb to say that because the Vita has only sold 1.8 million units as it stands, MH4 on the Vita would have had to manage a ridiculously unlikely 100% attach ratio to match the sales it pulled on the 3DS.

I should hope that no one really thinks that 12 million people bought a 3DS for a game that was bought by only ~2 million so far, but I guess we can't rule out that there are because if there are people who will believe the above, there must be people who will believe anything.

Guys, NONE of you are getting a very important point:

a Vita MH4 would've been far less attractive to Capcom because it would've been (much) MORE EXPENSIVE to develop. They would have seen much less profit, even if it had sold the same amount.
I noticed this point is either completely overlooked or severely underestimated.

Even -if- they had made MH4 a Vita exclusive, they would need to sell much more copies to achieve the same profits. Think of the difference between the development budget of AAA Wii and AAA PS360 games. The 3DS-Vita situation would be very comparable, relatively-speaking.

On top of that development would have taken longer, too, so Japan would likely still be waiting (likely well into 2014, too).

That's not even taking into consideration all of Nintendo's bonuses, like publishing the game and whatnot. Clearly it's been a no-brainer for Capcom to go with 3DS over Vita, regardless of intall base.

Well, it didn't outsell the Wii.

Can we just put this topic to rest ?
It is obvious: The Vita wouldn´t be in the bad situation it is in today if MH 3G and 4 were previously announced as exclusives for it.
HOWEVER it is highly unlikely that MH4 would have achieved around 2 Million software sales on the Vita !
What is the most optimistic attach rate one could imagine ? 30% ?
So the Vita would have had to sell more than 6 million units to achieve 2 Million ss if it would have a 30% attach rate (which is far,far higher than MH´s usual attach rates)

...and I don´t think MH would have pushed the Vita so far

Out of curiousity, do you have a link or an explanation for this?  I'm not saying that you're wrong, but the fact that the Vita has a lot of independent developers creating content for it makes me cautious of that claim.

In regards to the topic, I think that Monster Hunter 4 would have done well on the Vita.  It may or may not have done as well as it has done so far on the 3DS, but I suspect that the people in Japan who love Monster Hunter would have bought whatever handheld the game was announced on.

It has been mentioned, actually, but it's not necessarily the case. It isn't as simple as, "This system is more powerful, therefore this system is much more expensive to develop for." If you spend more time trying to squeeze your game onto a lower spec system, then it can actually be more expensive than developing for a system with higher specs.

If they're creating the assets in HD (to be used later in MH4U for Wii U or something) and then scaling them down, I don't know why it would be significantly cheaper to develop on the 3DS. Or any cheaper, really.

badgenome said:



peachbuggy said:

pointless arguing with you since you obviously have a crystal ball and a time machine.




I don't need a time machine or a crystal ball to tell you that Monster Hunter is bigger than Final Fantasy.



Crystal ball and time machine are for point 2 as you well know.

Oh. Well, I don't need those to tell you that the biggest third party game in Japan will move hardware. How much is up for debate. That it would happen is not.

That's my point.  Lots of people seem to think that if MH4 was announced on the Vita it would have some huge install base cause everyone would be waiting for it.  For all we know the VITA would get 100% attach rate, but they could also get a 0% attach rate.  We have no idea how many of that 1.8 million would buy or not buy a MH game.  To assume is pointless.  

THe fact is that MH4 sold a shit ton on 3DS.  What it would have done on VIta we will never know