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Forums - Nintendo - NIS comments about pricing and JRPGs saturation

alfredofroylan on 22 November 2009

On the DS

Publishers are saying this, eh? I don’t think it’s actually the market that’s in decline, but that there’s an oversaturation of RPGs on the DS, splitting sales in an already pretty small niche. It’s like the go-to platform for new, "too traditional," risky, or low-budget RPGs that would otherwise never see the light of day. In a sense, it’s fantastic for taking the reins and letting more ideas and games get made that wouldn’t even get past pre-production concept brainstorm napkin-drawing sessions. I think that’s the first step, anyway.

But if publishers are saying this because they aren’t quite seeing the profits from a handheld with a userbase of 110+ million, it’s probably due to the pricing structure implemented by Nintendo and retailers. It seems like the "king" of any console generation has the most unfriendly pricing structure; meaning they ask for a fairly significant monetary percentage of each game sold. It would be rude to discuss specifics, but depending on the type of cartridge/disc you need, and how many units you feel you can sell or order, and the retailers you’re trying to get to carry any particular game… it’s not uncommon for the "king" platforms to absorb quite a chunk of potential profit, under the assumption their more vast userbase will lead to more vast sales. Which, coupled with my previous comment on oversaturation, makes it increasingly difficult to do. - Script Editor, NIS America – Nick Doerr

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/11/22/siliconera-sounds-off-why-is-the-western-ds-jrpg-market-in-decline/

I love NIS games but they're so niche that's difficult to get bif numbers of them, anyway digital releases could give small companies the perfect way to sell their games.



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jarrod on 23 November 2009

NIS hasn't done that well on DS, but then their support of the platform has been pretty awful too. 5-10 year old ports, Hitmaker/Gust shovelware and a puzzle game isn't exactly the most compelling lineup compared what other RPG specific publishers (Square Enix, Atlus XSEED, etc) are doing on the platform.



loves2splooge on 23 November 2009

Is NIS making more money in the retail HD market though? Disgaea 3 cost a lot more to develop than their DS games and it had similarly poor sales (0.11m in Americas, 0.11m in Japan). I can't imagine that 220,000 sales is enough to cover a HD-level budget. If NIS wants to consider making low-budget games for PSN/XBLA, that's one thing. Those games are much cheaper to make than $60 retail releases. If NIS can't make much money on the DS and considering the expense of developing for either of the HD twins, you have to wonder about their financial prospects in the gaming industry (as well as the financial prospects for other small Japanese publishers). NIS is a privately-held corporation though so we don't know what's going on with them financially.



jarrod on 23 November 2009

I wouldn't say Disgaea 3 is really "HD budget" though, it still looks on par with Disgaea 1-2 for the most part (and they looked more like PS1 than PS2 games in the first place). They've basically dropped internal PS3 support from the looks of it too, now they're just publishing Gust & Hitmaker games for it while their own teams make PSP games.



Kenryoku_Maxis on 23 November 2009

Frankly, Atlus, XSEED and etc are doing fine, while NIS is making Disgaea 72 and La Pucelle Again Redux Alpha...and its not selling as well as they hoped. Amazing.

If you're going to limit yourself to the 'niche', then play by its rules. Even SquareEnix has finally started to branch out beyond just 'Final Fantasy sequel #154'. Its not working. NIS needs to stop blaming Nintendo (like everyone else is) and start blaming their own lackluster game lineup since the PS2 ended. Which even then was mostly just copying the La Pucelle/Disgaea formula and publishing other companies 'niche' titles.



Six upcoming games you should look into:

 

  

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Kasz216 on 23 November 2009
jarrod said:
I wouldn't say Disgaea 3 is really "HD budget" though, it still looks on par with Disgaea 1-2 for the most part (and they looked more like PS1 than PS2 games in the first place). They've basically dropped internal PS3 support from the looks of it too, now they're just publishing Gust & Hitmaker games for it while their own teams make PSP games.

Word.  Though Disgaea 3 probably cost them to lose some profits elsewhere.  They talked about how they did nothing for a long time just to study the PS3 aritecture. 

Seems like they spent a lot of time on it.



Kenryoku_Maxis on 23 November 2009
Kasz216 said:
jarrod said:
I wouldn't say Disgaea 3 is really "HD budget" though, it still looks on par with Disgaea 1-2 for the most part (and they looked more like PS1 than PS2 games in the first place). They've basically dropped internal PS3 support from the looks of it too, now they're just publishing Gust & Hitmaker games for it while their own teams make PSP games.

Word.  Though Disgaea 3 probably cost them to lose some profits elsewhere.  They talked about how they did nothing for a long time just to study the PS3 aritecture. 

Seems like they spent a lot of time on it.

And they're blaming the DS for their trying to focus on the PS3.

Gotta love these third parties.  Out of ALL the consoles to be complaining about, the DS....Not even the Wii, but the DS.  Tha'd be like a company coming out and complaining about the PS2 last gen because their ventures on the XBOX didn't pan out as they hoped.



Six upcoming games you should look into:

 

  

noname2200 on 23 November 2009

I think many of you are missing the point. The guy's not putting the blame on the DS; he's splitting the blame on developers (for saturating one platform with a niche genre) and Nintendo (for demanding what are apparently high royalties).

You can (and should!) debate those points, but don't waste time arguing with something he didn't say.



Xxain on 23 November 2009
noname2200 said:
I think many of you are missing the point. The guy's not putting the blame on the DS; he's splitting the blame on developers (for saturating one platform with a niche genre) and Nintendo (for demanding what are apparently high royalties).

You can (and should!) debate those points, but don't waste time arguing with something he didn't say.

Thank you... the power of reading comprehension

Kasz216 on 23 November 2009
Kenryoku_Maxis said:
Kasz216 said:
jarrod said:
I wouldn't say Disgaea 3 is really "HD budget" though, it still looks on par with Disgaea 1-2 for the most part (and they looked more like PS1 than PS2 games in the first place). They've basically dropped internal PS3 support from the looks of it too, now they're just publishing Gust & Hitmaker games for it while their own teams make PSP games.

Word.  Though Disgaea 3 probably cost them to lose some profits elsewhere.  They talked about how they did nothing for a long time just to study the PS3 aritecture. 

Seems like they spent a lot of time on it.

And they're blaming the DS for their trying to focus on the PS3.

Gotta love these third parties.  Out of ALL the consoles to be complaining about, the DS....Not even the Wii, but the DS.  Tha'd be like a company coming out and complaining about the PS2 last gen because their ventures on the XBOX didn't pan out as they hoped.

I can understand why they're frustrated though.  They have the same small group of people buying all their games and that group is more or less "Spread to the wind."


They have no clue where it's gone.  They started with the PS3 hoping it would be them but then the PS3 stalled.

 

Hence all the ports after Disgaea 3.  I think they're just hoping the ports would be good testers for other systems so they could find where their base has gone.