@mrstickball

Your comparing LO to FF1 ( a revolutionary game at the time that SAVED a company from bankruptcy) while LO hasn't even made up its budget yet..

Fair do's

{rolls eyes}

No. Answer my question.

There you go. Thank you, oh most insightful Sorkiu.

 Even though Sakaguchi's games are known worldwide, the games aren't niche either.

The issue, from how I see it, is that Mistwaker is a new studio, putting out new IPs. Go look at any current, major franchise. Very, very few JRPG franchises ever sold gangbusters on title #1. For some, it took #2 or #3 before it sold well. Yes, I know there are a few like Kingdom Hearts that sold gangbusters from day-1, but that (I believe) was a very unique case.

Look at it this way: Lost Odyssey, in a matter of a few months, has outsold a title from the same company that's charted for well over a year. LO will most likely sell 750,000 units before VGC kills off sales numbers, and will podder to 1m.

If true, this is a 50%+ increase versus it's last title. This could help MW out in the long term, as a LO2 or a BD2 might wind up doubling previous itenerations: Final Fantasy VII didn't sell 10m-ish copies because it was Final Fantasy 1, but because it had built up a very strong, dedicated fanbase, and then did something fantastic with the 7th game in the series, breaking their old records.

 Yet every anti-mistwaker person forgets to mention that they are comparing titles that the given company had 10-20 other titles out before they "struck it big" with uber-sellers. Mistwaker has 3 titles out: ASH, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. 3 titles, folks. When they hit the #10 area, lets talk again, and see if Mistwaker is still treading water, or not. Ok?

Dodec = fail.

This thread = fail.

Proclaiming a company such as mistwalker niche = fail. 

Comparing the sales of 2 hyped games to reach 1 million= fail.

Being niave about big game budgets = fail.

YOU= fail.

The entire RPG genre has shrunk signifficantly even in Japan with a couple exceptions.  High dev costs and constantly decreasing fanbase are threatening to make the genre truly niche.  The 360 is not helping this situation.

This is the important part: the 360 is not supporting the genre, nor is it a financially viable development spot for the genre.  Even by Legend's very generous estimates above the games didn't break even till 1 million sold. 

Also pardon me for doubting your sales wisdom that LO will hit 1 million stickball but you also said you expected Blue Dragon to hit 750K by the end of 2007... yeah that worked out great.

 Alright i admit it, im a clostet mistwalker hater. Why? Because i feel that as a whole, the jrpg genre in the west is some what niche. MS comes along, gobbles up arguably the most influential console rpg creator along with renown composer. Said company now splits fan base of a genre that was already niche to begin with thus = bad sales for both consoles, which we have seen so far.

(LO and BD would probaly have the same amount of sales on the ps3, if not more signifigantley more.) 

Oh and here's a fun link for you. Looks like retail developers get far less money per game sold than I originally thought. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/2002futurecontentconf.shtml

"Profits will increase as the industry transitions to electronic distribution, he added. Companies could earn $30 per copy, up from about $7.50 per physical box. "

$7.50 per physical box. I would assume he's referencing PC games, which retail for $50 instead of $60, so we'll be nice and say developers of 360 and PS3 games get $10 of physical box price. And, given the fact the link is 6 years old, we can hope that maybe developers see a little more of that cut and raise it all the way to double his estimate: $15.

That would mean 2 games totalling $40 million in development would need to sell 1.3 million copies apiece to break even. Even if we went with Dodece's lowest estimates of $15 million apiece for development the games are only 1/2 of the way to breaking even. Ouch.

@dababus: Microsoft in no way owns Uematsu (they do own Sakaguchi). Uematsu is freelance. Hence the work he did on Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

@ naztips- Ah i was under the impression he was bought into slavery along with sakaguchi. I still stand by my opinion that MS is trying to split an already niche market (jrpgs) and them doing this is not good for that particular genre, nor what it needs.

Not to condone Microsoft's actions of buying games, but Mistwalker's games are actually very good.  From the time I've played Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey I would (as a big JRPG fan) honestly say they are far better than the last 2 Final Fantasy games.  I consider Mistwalker to be a very good developer.  Just nowhere near a succesful business...

Im not saying mistwalkers games are bad, far from it actually.