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Forums - Sales Discussion - First day sales in Japan (1/22) - Fragile, Left 4 Dead, Zill O'll

outlawauron on 25 January 2009
sc94597 said:
mibuokami said:
sc94597 said:
exindguy said:
I keep mentioning this in other threads, but Fragile is a fairly weak game--if it were to sell a ton of copies (lifetime) I'd (further) question the sanity of Japanese gamers.

The game is actually in my top ten on wii after 7hrs of playing it today. I don't think it is as weak as you say. Obviously I don't think it is weak at all.

@mibuokami Yeah but outlawauron asked about the developers knowing about it flopping before release, and said nothing about the initial expectations.

Well if the games sells out in alot of stores after selling all or most of its shipment do you think that people are going to quit and not buy it when the next shipment comes? A game selling close to all of its shipment shows that the demand of the game is most likely higher the retailers thought. Meaning that there won't be as high of a drop off the next week depending how much higher the demand is. While it doesn't say the game is a sucess right away it could show that in the future the game could become more sucessful. Think of it like there was always a number of people who would buy the game. The retailers thought this number of people would be lower than what it really was so they ordered less than what was demanded. The game sold almost all of its shipment or maybe even all. There are people who couldn't find the game. The game has legs the next week and sells very well the second week. We don't even know what the budget was or if it made a profit or not. We also don't know if Namco is planning to localize it or not, and we don't know how much it will sell lifetime in Japan,Other regions, or Worldwide. So isn't it a little early to call it a flop? The only thing we can do now is speculate and give our opinion on if it flopped or not based off this speculation.

I can understand where you are coming from but considering the life time sale of most games with similiar sale pattern (around 45% first day sale) in Japan, I have high doubt this will make back the money that the publisher sink in its production.

Also considering how crap Namco is at localising, I don't have much hope, firstly I don't think this game will reach Pal territorry this year given Atari's history, which leaves NA only, so there is a good chance this game won't even reach more than 300k life time, that's less than 12 million in total revenue for Namco, and I highly doubt this game took less than that amount to make.

 

I hightly doubt the game has a higher developement cost than Red Steel-$12m  or Gears of War$10m(doesn't include UE3 engine). Over 10 million seems unrealistic to me.

I think if it was localised that it would sell similarly to the 360 version of eternal sonata which I'm certain had higher development costs.

While I don't think it's that high, if PS2 and Dreamcast games can cost more than $15 million, so can a Wii game.



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mibuokami on 25 January 2009
sc94597 said:
mibuokami said:
sc94597 said:
exindguy said:
I keep mentioning this in other threads, but Fragile is a fairly weak game--if it were to sell a ton of copies (lifetime) I'd (further) question the sanity of Japanese gamers.

The game is actually in my top ten on wii after 7hrs of playing it today. I don't think it is as weak as you say. Obviously I don't think it is weak at all.

@mibuokami Yeah but outlawauron asked about the developers knowing about it flopping before release, and said nothing about the initial expectations.

Well if the games sells out in alot of stores after selling all or most of its shipment do you think that people are going to quit and not buy it when the next shipment comes? A game selling close to all of its shipment shows that the demand of the game is most likely higher the retailers thought. Meaning that there won't be as high of a drop off the next week depending how much higher the demand is. While it doesn't say the game is a sucess right away it could show that in the future the game could become more sucessful. Think of it like there was always a number of people who would buy the game. The retailers thought this number of people would be lower than what it really was so they ordered less than what was demanded. The game sold almost all of its shipment or maybe even all. There are people who couldn't find the game. The game has legs the next week and sells very well the second week. We don't even know what the budget was or if it made a profit or not. We also don't know if Namco is planning to localize it or not, and we don't know how much it will sell lifetime in Japan,Other regions, or Worldwide. So isn't it a little early to call it a flop? The only thing we can do now is speculate and give our opinion on if it flopped or not based off this speculation.

I can understand where you are coming from but considering the life time sale of most games with similiar sale pattern (around 45% first day sale) in Japan, I have high doubt this will make back the money that the publisher sink in its production.

Also considering how crap Namco is at localising, I don't have much hope, firstly I don't think this game will reach Pal territorry this year given Atari's history, which leaves NA only, so there is a good chance this game won't even reach more than 300k life time, that's less than 12 million in total revenue for Namco, and I highly doubt this game took less than that amount to make.

 

I hightly doubt the game has a higher developement cost than Red Steel-$12m or Gears of War$10m(doesn't include UE3 engine). Over 10 million seems unrealistic to me.

I think if it was localised that it would sell similarly to the 360 version of eternal sonata which I'm certain had higher development costs.

 

Gears was a very specific case where Epic had all the home court advantage of their own engine along with massive cost saving initiative through outsourcing to China. I think Red Steel if a fairly reasonable comparatble when it comes to production cost. Which means that if this game ever sells 300k it might barely break even if you discount the cost of localisation.

Eternal Sonata was not a profitable endeavour, this game won't be either.

 




sc94597 on 25 January 2009
outlawauron said:
sc94597 said:
mibuokami said:
sc94597 said:
exindguy said:
I keep mentioning this in other threads, but Fragile is a fairly weak game--if it were to sell a ton of copies (lifetime) I'd (further) question the sanity of Japanese gamers.

The game is actually in my top ten on wii after 7hrs of playing it today. I don't think it is as weak as you say. Obviously I don't think it is weak at all.

@mibuokami Yeah but outlawauron asked about the developers knowing about it flopping before release, and said nothing about the initial expectations.

Well if the games sells out in alot of stores after selling all or most of its shipment do you think that people are going to quit and not buy it when the next shipment comes? A game selling close to all of its shipment shows that the demand of the game is most likely higher the retailers thought. Meaning that there won't be as high of a drop off the next week depending how much higher the demand is. While it doesn't say the game is a sucess right away it could show that in the future the game could become more sucessful. Think of it like there was always a number of people who would buy the game. The retailers thought this number of people would be lower than what it really was so they ordered less than what was demanded. The game sold almost all of its shipment or maybe even all. There are people who couldn't find the game. The game has legs the next week and sells very well the second week. We don't even know what the budget was or if it made a profit or not. We also don't know if Namco is planning to localize it or not, and we don't know how much it will sell lifetime in Japan,Other regions, or Worldwide. So isn't it a little early to call it a flop? The only thing we can do now is speculate and give our opinion on if it flopped or not based off this speculation.

I can understand where you are coming from but considering the life time sale of most games with similiar sale pattern (around 45% first day sale) in Japan, I have high doubt this will make back the money that the publisher sink in its production.

Also considering how crap Namco is at localising, I don't have much hope, firstly I don't think this game will reach Pal territorry this year given Atari's history, which leaves NA only, so there is a good chance this game won't even reach more than 300k life time, that's less than 12 million in total revenue for Namco, and I highly doubt this game took less than that amount to make.

 

I hightly doubt the game has a higher developement cost than Red Steel-$12m  or Gears of War$10m(doesn't include UE3 engine). Over 10 million seems unrealistic to me.

I think if it was localised that it would sell similarly to the 360 version of eternal sonata which I'm certain had higher development costs.

While I don't think it's that high, if PS2 and Dreamcast games can cost more than $15 million, so can a Wii game.

Well the PS2 and Dreamcast were both much harder to develop for than the Wii aswell. Anyway I have no doubt a wii game could cost more than $15 million. Actually most big Nintendo games like Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Bros Brawl probably cost that much or more. A game like fragile on the other hand, while probably having a larger development cost than the average wii game, I doubt it was over $10 million.

 



sc94597 on 25 January 2009
mibuokami said:
sc94597 said:
mibuokami said:
sc94597 said:
exindguy said:
I keep mentioning this in other threads, but Fragile is a fairly weak game--if it were to sell a ton of copies (lifetime) I'd (further) question the sanity of Japanese gamers.

The game is actually in my top ten on wii after 7hrs of playing it today. I don't think it is as weak as you say. Obviously I don't think it is weak at all.

@mibuokami Yeah but outlawauron asked about the developers knowing about it flopping before release, and said nothing about the initial expectations.

Well if the games sells out in alot of stores after selling all or most of its shipment do you think that people are going to quit and not buy it when the next shipment comes? A game selling close to all of its shipment shows that the demand of the game is most likely higher the retailers thought. Meaning that there won't be as high of a drop off the next week depending how much higher the demand is. While it doesn't say the game is a sucess right away it could show that in the future the game could become more sucessful. Think of it like there was always a number of people who would buy the game. The retailers thought this number of people would be lower than what it really was so they ordered less than what was demanded. The game sold almost all of its shipment or maybe even all. There are people who couldn't find the game. The game has legs the next week and sells very well the second week. We don't even know what the budget was or if it made a profit or not. We also don't know if Namco is planning to localize it or not, and we don't know how much it will sell lifetime in Japan,Other regions, or Worldwide. So isn't it a little early to call it a flop? The only thing we can do now is speculate and give our opinion on if it flopped or not based off this speculation.

I can understand where you are coming from but considering the life time sale of most games with similiar sale pattern (around 45% first day sale) in Japan, I have high doubt this will make back the money that the publisher sink in its production.

Also considering how crap Namco is at localising, I don't have much hope, firstly I don't think this game will reach Pal territorry this year given Atari's history, which leaves NA only, so there is a good chance this game won't even reach more than 300k life time, that's less than 12 million in total revenue for Namco, and I highly doubt this game took less than that amount to make.

 

I hightly doubt the game has a higher developement cost than Red Steel-$12m or Gears of War$10m(doesn't include UE3 engine). Over 10 million seems unrealistic to me.

I think if it was localised that it would sell similarly to the 360 version of eternal sonata which I'm certain had higher development costs.

 

Gears was a very specific case where Epic had all the home court advantage of their own engine along with massive cost saving initiative through outsourcing to China. I think Red Steel if a fairly reasonable comparatble when it comes to production cost. Which means that if this game ever sells 300k it might barely break even if you discount the cost of localisation.

Eternal Sonata was not a profitable endeavour, this game won't be either.

 

I can't really find any information on development costs. Red Steel held the title(I don't know if it still does) as the highest costing third party Wii game.  So for fragile to cost as much or more I doesn't seem realistic. There isn't enough information as of now to tell us if it will fail or not.

 



yuexxx on 25 January 2009

Nintendo said that mario galaxy cost over 15 millions



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yuexxx on 25 January 2009

1 Fragile isn´t a jrpg is a aventure game read the article of ign
2 Famitsu review only a 32 for famitsu it´s a normal game
3 The art direction is great but the protagonist is awful
4 The combat system is bored
=> Bad sales



sc94597 on 25 January 2009
yuexxx said:
1 Fragile isn´t a jrpg is a aventure game read the article of ign It is advertised as a Jrpg so. If you want to be correct it is an Action-Adventure not Adventure. I will still consider it an RPG though because it has all the requirements, it also has all the requirements to be an Action-Adventure. 
2 Famitsu review only a 32 for famitsu it´s a normal game That translates to an 80% which is above average.
3 The art direction is great but the protagonist is awful I don't think so, much better than alot of main characters. Actually I would rate him higher than alot of characters I've come across in games. An example of a main character from a recent namco game that he is better than is Emil from ToS: Dotnw and ToS: Dotnw is one of the Wii's best selling third party games in japan.
4 The combat system is bored This is valid.  
=> Bad sales

@Mario Galaxy post  link? Also that may support my reasoning. Over 15million probably means in between 15-16 million. If Fragile costed more than 12 million that means it is heading toward Mario Galaxy territory which is DEFINATELY unrealistic.



mai on 25 January 2009

@yuexxx

What you've said make no sense. WKC was reviewed by Famitsu 29/40, which makes WKC pretty mediocre game by Famitsu standards, but WKC sold well.

My expectations were about 35-50k first week (smth inbetween Eternal Sonata for PS3 and X360), now Fragile barely could make it out, ~30k maybe.



mibuokami on 25 January 2009
sc94597 said:

I can't really find any information on development costs. Red Steel held the title(I don't know if it still does) as the highest costing third party Wii game. So for fragile to cost as much or more I doesn't seem realistic. There isn't enough information as of now to tell us if it will fail or not.

 

From your statement I did some research and came up with this, I concede your original point, wii game appear a lot cheaper to make!

Below is a quote from THQ about wii development in general:

According to THQ Chief Executive Brian Farrell, while an investment in an Xbox 360 or PS3 game might be in the range of $12 million to $20 million on average, the money required for developing a title on the Wii can be as little as half that (or less), with an investment generally ranging from $5 million to $8 million. "It's that order of magnitude lower," Farrell explained to Reuters.

 

Considering fragile has been in development for at least 2 years, and will have higher than normal expenditure due to localisation. Lets put it at the higher end $8 million. Nowhere near the previously mentioned $12 million. (Again I concede this point: good spotting my friend!)

Assuming Namco makes say $40 per game (I think this is more than generous) they will have to sell at least 200k to break even.

Given that it sold only a pitiful 16k at its Japan debute I can easily see a lifetime sale of no more 100k there. NA will get this game eventually and might add another 100k or even more but as for Pal? lol good luck with Atari who just plain fail at localisation.

And remember 200k is to break even, up until that point Namco would still be in the red. Seeing your investment of 2 years make a couple of buck would be deemed a failure by both the publisher and (more importantly) the shareholder.

If this game manage to sell around 300k copies then it could conceivably turn a profit so lets see how its sales goes.

This of course is all hypothetical, as we have no way of knowing the real cost of this game unless Namco come out and say it.

 




woopah on 25 January 2009

i think the main problem are the handhelds are stealing all the software sales. in japan at least i see the main competitor of wii not as the PS3 but the DS/PSP. as people of said it needs mainstream japanese games to build the audience. Now most of these have been annonced but until they are released games like fragile and trace memory will simply not sell. this can be seen at namco itself. niche titles such as fragile and that air combat game sell small whilst more mainstream games like tales sell extremely well



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