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Forums - Sales - Star Ocean 4 - What went wrong with its sales?

Bitmap Frogs on 25 March 2009
The Anarchyz said:
Bitmap Frogs said:
Lost Odyssey worked very well in the west because it was as westernized as it could be while still being japanese at heart. Which is what japanese companies should be doing if they want their games to sell here.

The Gooch got it right - he and his crew sold 650k copies of pure-old-school turn-based combat in the land of the first person shooter.

 

Lost Odyssey worked very well in the West because it has in the cover "From the Creator of Final Fantasy", also MS advertising... Although what you're saying is true, the game has this FF-X feeling while it has a lot of western elements, i personally love the game...

 

So did Blue Dragon and sold in the west half of what Lost Odyssey did. Interestingly enough, Blue Dragon sold much better in Japan. You sure westernization has nothing to do with it?

Aw come on, think before you post.





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).

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The Anarchyz on 25 March 2009
Bitmap Frogs said:
The Anarchyz said:
Bitmap Frogs said:
Lost Odyssey worked very well in the west because it was as westernized as it could be while still being japanese at heart. Which is what japanese companies should be doing if they want their games to sell here.

The Gooch got it right - he and his crew sold 650k copies of pure-old-school turn-based combat in the land of the first person shooter.

 

Lost Odyssey worked very well in the West because it has in the cover "From the Creator of Final Fantasy", also MS advertising... Although what you're saying is true, the game has this FF-X feeling while it has a lot of western elements, i personally love the game...

 

So did Blue Dragon and sold in the west half of what Lost Odyssey did. Interestingly enough, Blue Dragon sold much better in Japan. You sure westernization has nothing to do with it?

Aw come on, think before you post.

 

Think before you post? incredible...

Last time i checked Blue Dragon doesn't have that in the cover, core JRPG fans know about Hironobu Sakaguchi, but a lot of the mainstream don't know about who this guy is... If everyone knows about Sakaguchi then what's the point of putting "From the Creator of Final Fantasy" in the cover? that's marketing, they knew that phrase would sell some copies...

It's the same with a movie, how many times did you saw a trailer that said "From the director of X movie", "From the writers of Y movie", "from the producer of Z movie", sure, people are household names like Steven Spielberg and they only put the name, but others like Bryan Singer are only known by a few, so in the Valkyrie trailer they had to put "From the director of The Usual Suspects and X-Men"...

It's marketing, do you think that people knew that the game was westernized the first week? and this game had the biggest one in the West between all 360 JRPGs... 

And BTW, I never said that westernized had nothing to do with it, i even said "Although what you're saying is true", i just think that the marketing had more to do it...



memory2zack on 25 March 2009
I don´t Darc Requiem said:
Tremble said:
Hmph! I told you, and I got banned for that!

360's owners don't give a sh*** about Jrpg's, even FFXIII will bomb on 360 (less than 1 millions). The 360 is a good console, great shooters, racers and wathever you want, but for rpg's, that's on DS, PSP and PS3 (atelier rorona, summon night 5, and a third one announced in only a few days !!!)

If the PS3 had RPGs, I'd own one. There is Disgaea 3 and Valkyria Chronicles and not much else. The only JRPG that a sold well in the West this gen is Lost Odyssey. Last time I checked it wasn't on PS3 it was on 360. Maybe WKC will change that, but unless it does the PS3 has only proved it can sell JRPGs in Japan. Considering that the top selling 360 games in Japan are all JRPGs, that isn't saying much.

 

I dont even consider LO having sold well in the West. It hasn´t even reached 1m copies sold worldwide. At least compared to the previous generations.

 

LO sold better than BD (one of the reasons) because it had a serious "FF look" whereas BD a more serious "DQ look". Probably bad reviews didn´t help it either and the 7-ish reviews of LO made people think "I´ll just wait for the next FF". This could be applied to TLR as well.



Bitmap Frogs on 25 March 2009
The Anarchyz said:
Bitmap Frogs said:
The Anarchyz said:
Bitmap Frogs said:
Lost Odyssey worked very well in the west because it was as westernized as it could be while still being japanese at heart. Which is what japanese companies should be doing if they want their games to sell here.

The Gooch got it right - he and his crew sold 650k copies of pure-old-school turn-based combat in the land of the first person shooter.

 

Lost Odyssey worked very well in the West because it has in the cover "From the Creator of Final Fantasy", also MS advertising... Although what you're saying is true, the game has this FF-X feeling while it has a lot of western elements, i personally love the game...

 

So did Blue Dragon and sold in the west half of what Lost Odyssey did. Interestingly enough, Blue Dragon sold much better in Japan. You sure westernization has nothing to do with it?

Aw come on, think before you post.

 

Think before you post? incredible...

Last time i checked Blue Dragon doesn't have that in the cover, core JRPG fans know about Hironobu Sakaguchi, but a lot of the mainstream don't know about who this guy is... If everyone knows about Sakaguchi then what's the point of putting "From the Creator of Final Fantasy" in the cover? that's marketing, they knew that phrase would sell some copies...

It's the same with a movie, how many times did you saw a trailer that said "From the director of X movie", "From the writers of Y movie", "from the producer of Z movie", sure, people are household names like Steven Spielberg and they only put the name, but others like Bryan Singer are only known by a few, so in the Valkyrie trailer they had to put "From the director of The Usual Suspects and X-Men"...

It's marketing, do you think that people knew that the game was westernized the first week? and this game had the biggest one in the West between all 360 JRPGs... 

And BTW, I never said that westernized had nothing to do with it, i even said "Although what you're saying is true", i just think that the marketing had more to do it...

 

 

 

 

Granted not all covers are created equal (these are the PAL covers) but as far as namewhoring the creative team behind, they went way way further with Blue Dragon. 

 





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).