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On the Wii and "niche" game sales...

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MukiDA:
You know, there's a lot of discussion that happens as to whether it's worth it to bring games stateside, especially on the Wii. The thing that nobody seems to bring up, however, is just HOW well some of these discussed games have actually done. At least according to VG Chartz...

- Tatsunoko vs Capcom?
The USA release sold as much (270,000 copies) as the European (140k) & Japanese (130k) COMBINED. Mind you, this is counting the fact that Japan got two releases of this game (regular + international version).

- Okami?
Not so hot in Japan & Europe, but in the states, it outsold the PS2 version 3 to 1 (390k vs 110k)

- Xenoblade Chronicles?
200k in Europe, 160k in Japan, 300k in the states. Keep in mind, this is with a limited release AND 4 months' worth of sales vs nearly a year in Europe and over two years in Japan.

At the end of the day, North America is far more than a "niche" market of these games, and about the only reason this stuff doesn't get more exposure is more than likely due to the fact that Nintendo has too many multi-million-selling franchises to bother with the effort >_<

That said, I'll just about lose it if we even have to FATHOM something like operation rainfall on the Wii U. Digital Distribution should make bringing over already-translated NOE titles ARBITRARY.

Tamazoid:
Don't trust VG Chartz numbers, even to get a rough estimate. They just grab numbers out of their ass and then edit them when/if publishers reveal the actual numbers. The Japanese numbers are usually accurate though since Media Create and Famitsu release numbers every week.


Well it is rumoured that Sin and Punishment was being used by NoA/NoE to gauge consumer interest for niche games. Probably wasn't the best game to use as a test due to its genre. Apparently this is why we never saw Zangeki no Reginleiv outside of Japan. Sin and Punishment was a massive bomb though I doubt it was expensive to make.


My belief is NoA got burned after bringing over Elite Beat Agents and convincing Rockstar to bring GTA to the DS and both of those games bombed. It most likely convinced them that niche games weren't worth it when games like Brain Training, NSMB and Nintendogs can sell millions, which is shown when NoA reportedly shut down Project Hammer and got NST to work on some casual orientated project.


Hopefully NoA change their attitude with the WiiU. Either way atleast NoE is finally getting their act together (Besides seemingly ignoring the Kirby collection and never releasing Excitebots)

ShyGuy:
The whole industry hates niche and b grade right now. Either make a AAA FPS or an iPhone game. THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND

broodwars:

--- Quote from: ShyGuy on August 21, 2012, 08:39:01 AM ---The whole industry hates niche and b grade right now. Either make a AAA FPS or an iPhone game. THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND

--- End quote ---

I think NISA, Atlus, & XSEED would disagree with you there, considering all 3 are profitable entities based pretty much entirely on niche game sales.  However, what they have proven is that if you're going to release niche games, you have to know how to get the message out and how to manage expectations.  Atlus in particular is in a master of this.

Louieturkey:
It still makes me sad that EBA didn't do better here.  It is one of my top 5 games on the DS.  In fact, I liked it so much, I imported Ouendan 2, the only game I've ever imported outside of Shining Force 3 Scenarios 2 & 3 (and those I got off of ebay).

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