First of all I want to say that Final Fantasy XII dind’t sold Half of what part X did and that it will likely sell another 250,000-300,000 since the game recently has turned platinum in NA en EU.

The problem with Final Fantasy XII is that it did came to late in PS2 life cycle when the focus was shifted and it’s practically the same situation as Final Fantasy’s IX one in his day, but if we go out of the Final Fantasy franchise we will see that the same did happen with other video-game sagas like: Zelda (Majora’s Mask), Banjo (Banjo Tooie) and if a game like Paper Mario 64 had came out in 1999 it would have sold twice as what it did in 2000 and 2001 (EU).

I don’t know how much Final Fantasy XIII will sell, but I can tell you know that it will be the best selling Final Fantasy of this generation and that the last one this generation (FF 15????) will have the lowest numbers.

It could be also be the first "real" next-gen RPG like FFX in his day and this could make people curious.

mrstickball said: A few things: #1. We do have X360 software sales, Microosft has consistently stated and shown that the X360 in Europe has the highest attach rate ever for software, totally destroying your baseless claims of European countries/retailers not stocking X360 software. The X360 attach ratio for software is around 5.7-6.0 in Europe, and has been above 4.5 since last year. So if anything, European software leans in the favor of the X360. Sports games, like in the US, fail to chart for the Wii whereas they've done well in 06 and 07 for the X360 platform in most countries. I really don't understand everybody's fixation with attach rates, it just seems like people want to redirect the argument in a completely pointless direction in what seems to be an attempt to criticise the Wii. As I've said before software sales, plain and simple tell devs all they need to know. #2. XBLA will kill Wiiware, because it has a 2+ year headstart. There are 100+ games in dev for WiiWare? That's nice, but the X360 has just as many in development. The X360 has cornered the market in such software, and has had the backing of every major developer (sans SE) for the XBLA platform. Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, as well as others already have released titles, and plan many, many more. That's ontop of the 50-odd exclusive, non-remakes out there. That's all very well but unless something hugely dramatic happens to the market there are going to be way more Wii's out there than 360's. Devs will take their games to the platform which offers the best profits, 2 year head start be damned. You also have to remember that Wiiware has the exclusive support of the worlds best developer. #3. Carlos, if the Wii only has a 4.0 attach ratio, and 150m units sold, it'll be the lowest software-selling #1 console since the SNES. The Playstation 2 has sold OVER 1.3 billion software units. Therefore, it's a trickle-down effect: mediocre 3rd party sales in the West = no/few exclusives, which will continue to hurt the Wiis poor attach ratio. I understand the whole "oh it's moving decent software since there are so many hardware units", but again, the numbers have stagnated for 12 months. No console has done that, ever, except for handhelds. At some point, it's either going to change, or Nintendo might not get alot of happy 3rd party developers. It seems reasonable that mediocre games should recieve mediocre sales, 3rd partys only have themselves to blame. Also the idea that Wii's attach rate will remain the same for it's entire lifespan is ridiculous and is kind of a pointless arguement. Your average Wii owner has probably had their system for roughly 5-6 months, shorter than both the other console's, it is pretty obvious that with an increase in this number an increase in attach ratios will follow. I'm not trying to be on the anti-Wii train, but I'm trying to be honest. Not everything is beyond perfect in Nintendoland. With the Wii getting alot of ports, and second-rate games, as well as multiports is hardly a sign of a PS2-like console leader. And everyone in the Wiicamp is saying that it's going to blow the PS2 out of the water: exactly how is it going to do that when a supposed uber-unique game that's supposed to be a million-seller, Zack & Wiki, bomb in both the US and Japan, going to send signals to developers to jump on with major efforts? And having said that, it always makes me tend to believe that the race is going to be alot, alot closer than you 150m+ Wii sellers think. Who said that Z&W would sell a million units? It is very early days for the title and early sales may not be indicative of future performance due to supply issues and the almost complete absense of any marketing. I think if you look at the resources Capcom has put in to it's 2 Wii titles in relation to their returns it'll become apparent that their backing of the Wii has paid off.

 

Who said that Z&W would sell 1m units? Half of the people on this forum. Look it up when there's been any discussion on 1m+ sellers for the rest of the year. Z&W was supposed to be up there with Mario & Sonic at the Olympics in terms of sales.

mrstickball said: Who said that Z&W would sell 1m units? Half of the people on this forum. Look it up when there's been any discussion on 1m+ sellers for the rest of the year. Z&W was supposed to be up there with Mario & Sonic at the Olympics in terms of sales.

The burden of proof lies with you as the one who made the initial claim.  So, link please.

mrstickball said: Who said that Z&W would sell 1m units? Half of the people on this forum. Look it up when there's been any discussion on 1m+ sellers for the rest of the year. Z&W was supposed to be up there with Mario & Sonic at the Olympics in terms of sales.

Not really. There was more people predicting it was going to do below 300k worldwide, with most of the people saying something in the 400-600k range. 

And like it was pointed already, Capcom already stated in their forums that they are happy with the first week sales of the game, with the first shipment almost sold out, just hoping that it has some legs.

klydwntelos said: I think that blu-ray will be a bigger deal in about 2 years. By that time blu-ray will probably have beat HD-DVD out, and the PS3 will cost under $300 - probably a lot less. That means that people who want a next gen media player will pick up PS3s, just like people who wanted DVD players could get a cheap PS2.

If blu-ray beats HD-DVD in 2 years the PS3 will certainly not be a cheap Blu-Ray player.  There would be much cheaper and better Blu-Ray players available.  The main stream would never use a gaming device as their player of choice

Also, Naz, I never said the Wii would have an entire LTD attach ratio that was bad. I was merely saying that it's abysmal right now, and not increasing. I have stated multiple times I know it will increase, but I'm just refuting some people's logic about attach ratios and software sales.

Also, exactly how many of the current XBLA games are 1st or 2nd party?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Live_Arcade

Of the 96 XBLA titles available, you have for the various parties:

1st Party Titles:
(Carbonated: 4, Bizarre: 2, Freeverse: 2,

3rd Party Titles:
(Behemoth: 1, Wanako: 2, Vivendi: 1, Backbone: 3, NinjaBee: 3, id Software: 1, Q Entertainmen: 1, Eidos: 1, PopCap: 4, GarageGames: 1, PomPom: 2, Namco: 7, Stainles: 4, NakedSky: 1, Llamasoft: 1, Midway: 9, Konami: 9, Capcom: 1).

That's not all of them, but that's a rather large ratio of 3rd party to first party, no?


Also, Naz, I don't understand you comparing new, unique games on XBLA versus old emulated games on VC. Why are you trying to compare classic games, which have already been reviewed many times, versus actual new games? Shouldn't we be comparing new games vs. new games, of which, we can't tell what WiiWare will even do? Don't get me wrong, I know 50% of the XBLA catalogue is lesser-quality emulated games, but the other 50% are new, which is what I'm talking about: since we are talking WiiWare and not VC, isn't it natural to compare unique titles on both platforms?

And that's what I'm trying to discuss: the X360 has about 40-50 unique titles that were either high-def redux or unique games versus the 0 out for the Wii, and the 30 planned (the X360 has more, if Im not mistaken)

The X360 has no amazing hardware base outside the US where it is 8.16million units. That number alone shows that the X360 is relieing to much on the NA (this is of course no fault of MS because they have tryed to get the Japanese to buy the X360 but to no avail as of yet). In the PAL regions it has 4.12million which is a good number but after 2 years on the market that is not overly impressive unlike its NA 8.16million counter part which is impressive after 2years on the market. In JPN it hasn't even sold 0.5million in 2years and this is the consoles major downfall, it isnt selling because its is branded with Microsoft on the side and therefore the Japanese instently say no to it because its American BUT if MS got Sega, Toshiba or BandaiNamco to sell the console in JPN on MS behalf then it would sell alot better because it wont be as Americanised and will have better sales. If it had 8.16million in NA, 4.12million in PAL and 4.12million in JPN then it would still be in the lead and be a good successor to the PS2 as market leader but it doesnt have those sales in JPN and wont have those sales in JPN anytime soon.

Second major downfall is the fact that X360's strongest regions are NA and UK the rest of PAL regions have prefered the PS3 (alot of them not all) if it some how got better sales in Spain,France,Italy etc then it could have 8million sold in PAL aswell and still be market leader and have 20million consoles sold by the ned of the year but MS has done something with the Xbox brand and targeted it too much towards English speaking countries and the games on the system have followed with them all being aimed at a 13-21year old male and yes MS have tryed to get the children involved with VivaPinata and kudos to them for trying but to be fair that was a half hearted atempt at tempting the children and parents to chose the X360, why would the parents buy their children VivaPinata and an X360 if thats all the child has to play, they will just buy a Wii because of Mario or PS3 because of Ratchet because they are icons and everyone recognises them the same as everyone recognises MasterChief from Halo but for different reasons and Halo isnt a game for toddlers so MS have to get a mascot like Mario,Ratchet or Sonic and fast otherwise that childrens audience they want will go to where the mascots are.

Eventually these 2 reasons will slow down the X360 and NA will not have anymore people that want the X360 and the sales will quickly dry up, i am NOT going to use the game argument about MGS4 and FFXIII because that is not why it is going to come third. At the moment the X360 might be beating the PS3 but the PS3 sells well in ALL regions and 3 regions beats 1.5 regions any day(the 0.5 being that the UK has over 1million X360's and the other 3million in PAL are scattererd and are not consistent with countries and nor are the sales). The image of the Xbox brand was never really big and the fact that the failure rate was publicly announced it has hurt an image that was never really there to begin with. The Playstation image is MASSIVE everyone knows that and yes the price hurt them but they have fixed that most of it anyway with the $399 40GB and are now getting that to the public with the new ads which are really good and show off the PS3 well. The lack of BC isnt a massive problem if you have a PS2 and isnt really a big problem if you never had a PS2 even though the library is impressive you dont buy a "next-gen" console for the "last-gen" software.

At the end of this console war it will be evenly matched at the end in my opinion with about a third market share for each console.

mrstickball said: Also, Naz, I never said the Wii would have an entire LTD attach ratio that was bad. I was merely saying that it's abysmal right now, and not increasing. I have stated multiple times I know it will increase, but I'm just refuting some people's logic about attach ratios and software sales.

Is an attach rate of 4 really that bad considering the average Wii has been owned for around 5-6 months? That works out to be 2/3s of a game purchased per month, per Wii owner. To me it seems perfectly reasonable especially considering that 3rd party support has been, shall we say, underwhelming.

Am I missing something?