Hi everyone.  I've watched Tales launch on 360 in Japan with interest, but due to my lack of knowledge of jRPGs (I don't play them, sorry!) I can't really judge the initial results.

What I'm wondering is how do the initial sales / HW spike compare with general results of jRPGs on other platforms?  I'm curious about how the results look comparatively.  Obviously they're good comparing 360 to 360 in Japan, but are they still weak in general for such a title and show 360 still has a lot to do in Japan, or are they in line with similar results you'd expect on Wii (or PS2 before it) or PS3?

I'm also curious whether the evidence is that the title would actually have sold better on another platform (i.e. Wii or PS3) vs 360?  Kudos to MS for putting money behind getting such titles on 360, but I want to understand whether, without MS backing, a developer would really expect to get better sales on 360 vs other platforms for such titles.

I've looked up the small number of jRPG's I know of and the results seem to indicate to me:

a) while a good boost for 360 it actually isn't that impressive compared to jRPG performance on other consoles (obviously though size of install base would affect this)

b) that unless MS is paying you for an exclusive, or you really want to back the 360, you'd still be better either multi-platform or on Wii or PS3 (again this is partly down to install base)

But as I said I only know a few titles so I'm worried I might not have enough visibility to understand this.  Any big jRPG fans care to give their view on this?

There is no evidence that the PS3 is capable of selling JRPG's better than the Xbox 360.

There IS evidence that the Wii is capable of selling JRPG's better than the Xbox 360.

Oh, Vesperia DEFINITELY would have sold more on the Wii or PS3 because they have larger install bases. Vesperia was constrained by how few 360s were actually owned, how many were shipped, and how many Tales fans were willing to go out and get a 360 just for Vesperia.

100k is a good debut...for a 360 game, but not a console Tales game. The lowest selling console Tales games in Japan are Symphonia (Gamecube) and Legendia (PS2) within the 300k range...a number Vesperia will never reach on higher development costs because of the install base.

There's also a couple of other factors, like the fact that the 2D Tales games sell more than the 3D ones, that the next main entry was already announced for the Wii (prompting some fans to 'skip' Vesperia), and the way Namco treated Symphonia on the Gamecube by porting it to the PS2 shortly afterwards, most likely creating a 'wait and see' approach for some fans as they feel it may get ported to the PS3 or Wii somewhere down the line with extras - making the 360 game irrelevant.

Wait, there is? In Japan, I wouldn't say so.

Tales is selling a bit better on Wii, but not a lot.

A Dragon Quest selling 500K on Wii means nothing really (only 1 DQ has ever sold less there)

Other than that, Chocobo flopped on Wii, while Blue Dragon and Lost Odysseus sold 100K+ and 200K +.

RPGs are, in Japan, selling as well on X360 as on Wii - Wii has just had  a higher profile game.

That's an odd conclusion - Vesperia is higher profile than every Wii RPG you named save for Dragon Quest. Actually, you could argue that Vesperia was higher considering that DQ was just an extension of the Kenshin Dragon Quest set whereas Vesperia wasn't a spinoff but instead a full fledged main entry.

I would also say DQS selling as much as the 360 install base does mean something - more potential sales. 

On the Wii, for the week ending June 28th, Tales of Symphonia 2 pulled in 164,000 week 1 sales. The Wii sold 54,000 units up 28 percent from the previous week. On a userbase of over 6 million. Very respectable. However, the game took a huge drop in week 2 and 3.

On the 360, Lost Odyssey managed 56,000 week 1 sales.

On the PS3, Disgaea 3 managed to sell about 60,000 units in week 1. The only comparable game on the PS3 atm, but I admit it's a reach. Disgaea has a cult following, but it doesn't have as much of one as Tales.

This week, ToV managed to sell over 100,000 units. The 360 sold about 24,000 units and is up 289 percent from last week, despite being supply constrained, which in this case is also a hinderance to software sales. Currently the game has an attach rate of 1/6 360's sold, approximately. The 360 has sold about 650,000 consoles in Japan. That's 1/10th the userbase of the Wii.

So, not only did ToV sell well for a Tales game. It sold well for any game, despite being on a dead console. It gave the 360 the biggest hardware bump percentage wise it has ever seen in any single region.

Tales of the Abyss sold 377,950 week 1 in Japan. It was on the PS2, which probably had a userbase at least. The PS2 probably had around a 20 million userbase. Again, the 360's userbase isn't much more than half a million.

The 360 managed to sell a large amount of units and software in Japan this week. For ANY one console, and one game, 25k hardware and 100k software is respectable. For the 360, it's gargantuan.

Claiming that the ToV launch was anything but a monumental success, is spin.

 Dragon Quest is so insanely bigger than Vesperia in Japan. And is Vesperia a lot bigger than ToS2?

Actually, nm, I'm starting my own post. Which title were you referring to there?

Dawn of the New World is a gaiden. A Side game. It's not even Symphonia 2 (that will probably come some day). Zen's post pretty mcuh explained it (before he editted it) with the whole Tales 'classes.' Vesperia is a full fledged main game (mothership) while DotNW isn't (escort).

Well you got one thing wrong, Team Destiny is god there. Their games generally sell better - and are strictly 2D in gameplay.

I was talking about the new untitled game. It would be a bit weird to refer to DotNW since that's been out in Japan for like 2 months.

well,

ToV sales are pretty low indeed.

but the bumpb on the hardware sales was pretty big (for the Xbox360 ofc)

I still believe it will go back to normal pretty quickly

Remember FFXIII s still PS3 exclusive In japan

(damn where is WKS ????????)