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

[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]

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

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).

[Mop it up]

VGChartz is the only place I've ever seen a number for XenoBlade, so I don't trust it. We may never know what it actually sold.

[Kairon]

How badly did EBA do, if I may ask?

[TJ Spyke]

How badly did EBA do, if I may ask?

Between December 2006 (when it released) and February 2009, it only sold 179K copies in the US according to NPD data given to Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22445

[Ian Sane]

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

If you look at some of the examples here we've got a fighting game (Tatsunoko vs Capcom), an RPG (Xenoblade) and a shmup (Sin & Punishment).  They're niche genres NOW but they didn't used to be.  Shmups were very popular in the 8-bit and 16-bit days.  In the 16-bit days fighting games were undoubtably the most popular genre for a while and RPGs were huge on the original Playstation.  I think these are niche now because they're old.  Kids aren't familiar with these genres.  They're the ones playing CoD and Halo.  That's what they're growing up with.  Those genres I listed don't sell like they used to or attract as much attention because the audience for them is shrinking as it gets older.  As we get older we have more responsibilities and careers and kids and all these things that eat our time.  They're not trying to get 16 year olds to buy Xenoblade, they're trying to get people in their late 20's and 30's to buy it and there are less people in that age that still pay attention to videogames that require the kind of playing commitment that a game like that offers.

So how it really is is that you have the AAA FPS for the prime gaming market of kids, teenagers and young adults and the casual iPhone crap for older players that no longer have the same level of interest in gaming that they used to (and people who were never into gaming in the first place.)  So games like Xenoblade and S&P are for the 30 year old gamer who is still as interested in videogames as he was when he was 20.  That's a pretty niche market and will only become more niche over time.

[Kairon]

More people need to play Brain Age so they can stay Brain-young and keep playing these sorts of games.

[Oblivion]

I'm 18 and I bought Xenoblade.

[leahsdad]

I'm 18 and I bought Xenoblade.

Then there is hope in the world.

 Kids aren't familiar with these genres.  They're the ones playing CoD and Halo.  That's what they're growing up with. 

Well, FPS's have been popular for a while.   It's not completely new.   But I sort of feel like the whole AAA game industry is riding a bubble that will pop, and we're going to see a 3rd game industry crash that hits western developers hard.  Look at 38 studios.  They sold 2 million, that's right, 2 MILLION copies in their first 2 months and apparently they couldn't even break even with that.   COD and Halo make a lot of money, but the money that goes into developing and marketing those games in insane. 

[Tamazoid]

Kingdoms of Amalur broke even. It just didn't make enough to save the studio. They wasted too many million trying to make their MMORPG. Mismanagement from a owner that had no idea of how to run a company is what killed 38. Not the sales figures of Amalur.

[Louieturkey]

Kingdoms of Amalur broke even. It just didn't make enough to save the studio. They wasted too many million trying to make their MMORPG. Mismanagement from a owner that had no idea of how to run a company is what killed 38. Not the sales figures of Amalur.

Plus Rhode Island's governor putting fear into potential new investors so they backed out when they were about to agree to invest in the company.  It was a lot of factors.  I also think they didn't use their resources properly.  They had $50 million or something like that and basically spent the majority of it on one game.   For a new IP that is way too much.

[Ceric]

How badly did EBA do, if I may ask?

Between December 2006 (when it released) and February 2009, it only sold 179K copies in the US according to NPD data given to Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22445

That is a crying shame because, that game is excellent.

[TJ Spyke]

Rhode Island got screwed on this because it's possible that they may not get back the millions of dollars they gave in loans to 38 Studios.

Louie, that money was also for a MMO (which does cost a LOT of money to make).

[broodwars]

How badly did EBA do, if I may ask?

Between December 2006 (when it released) and February 2009, it only sold 179K copies in the US according to NPD data given to Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22445

That is a crying shame because, that game is excellent.

Plus 179,000 is generally considered a pretty decent seller by modern standards.  Unfortunately, what profit that generated was probably completely eaten-up by the music licensing rights.

[Louieturkey]

Rhode Island got screwed on this because it's possible that they may not get back the millions of dollars they gave in loans to 38 Studios.

Louie, that money was also for a MMO (which does cost a LOT of money to make).

Rhode Island got screwed, yes.  But they also screwed themselves going to the public like they did.  They probably should never have invested in a game company in the first place.

[Louieturkey]

How badly did EBA do, if I may ask?

Between December 2006 (when it released) and February 2009, it only sold 179K copies in the US according to NPD data given to Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22445

That is a crying shame because, that game is excellent.

Plus 179,000 is generally considered a pretty decent seller by modern standards.  Unfortunately, what profit that generated was probably completely eaten-up by the music licensing rights.

Music license couldn't have been much since they were all covers.  Covers are significantly cheaper than original band tracks.

[TJ Spyke]

Rhode Island got screwed on this because it's possible that they may not get back the millions of dollars they gave in loans to 38 Studios.

Louie, that money was also for a MMO (which does cost a LOT of money to make).

Rhode Island got screwed, yes.  But they also screwed themselves going to the public like they did.  They probably should never have invested in a game company in the first place.

It's common for governments (federal and state levels) to give loans to companies, so this wasn't unusual (well, I think they did made them unsecured, so the taxpayers were screwed if the company went bankrupt).

[Louieturkey]

Rhode Island got screwed on this because it's possible that they may not get back the millions of dollars they gave in loans to 38 Studios.

Louie, that money was also for a MMO (which does cost a LOT of money to make).

Rhode Island got screwed, yes.  But they also screwed themselves going to the public like they did.  They probably should never have invested in a game company in the first place.

It's common for governments (federal and state levels) to give loans to companies, so this wasn't unusual (well, I think they did made them unsecured, so the taxpayers were screwed if the company went bankrupt).

It makes me wonder how they will handle the Amalur property.  Will they sell the IP to another company or will they try to license it out to a game company in hopes of making up the money on profits?  My guess is they will sell it outright to try and cut their losses as soon as possible.

Being an unsecured loan was probably their biggest mistake, especially for the amount they loaned out to Curt.

[marty]

Music license couldn't have been much since they were all covers.  Covers are significantly cheaper than original band tracks.

That's not really true.  Situations change all the time and the price of things isn't set in stone.  Songwriting/composition copyright as well as song-recording copyrights can be confusing or disputed.  I'm guessing Nintendo used covers, not to get out of paying original artists' fees, but because the publishing company probably owned all of the songs for the covers and there wouldn't be any head-aches in obtaining the rights.  I'd be surprised if Nintendo didn't pay handsomely for this convenience.  I also wouldn't be surprised if there was a limit on how many copies Nintendo was allowed to press (or would want to press) due to mechanical royalties, which are paid upfront during manufacture and not after a sale, when Nintendo would (/could) make their money back. 

[TJ Spyke]

Covers are cheaper because you are paying for basically the lyrics and not the right to use the actually song itself (which is why shows like Glee can afford to do so many songs, because they are having the actors perform the songs rather than licensing the original songs).

[marty]

Covers are cheaper because you are paying for basically the lyrics and not the right to use the actually song itself (which is why shows like Glee can afford to do so many songs, because they are having the actors perform the songs rather than licensing the original songs).

Whoever owns the rights to the recording charges whatever they want just as whoever owns the copyright on lyrics/composition could charge whatever they want.  It's far harder to obtain the rights to make a copy of a recording than it is to make a cover, the holder of the rights to the original copy wouldn't want that right to become non-exclusive.  Copyright can be a legal nightmare that most companies wouldn't want to deal with.  Cover's might not be cheaper, they just might be the only option available.


I don't know how much Glee is charged for songs but I'll bet whoever is licensing them is getting paid on the front end and for every subsequent airing, dvd manufactured, and every unit sold on iTunes or whatever.  Fox probably gets a good deal based on volume and exposure but I doubt many networks could afford it.  I also wouldn't be shocked if Fox didn't own some part of the publishing for those songs anyways.

[TJ Spyke]

Covers are almost always cheaper because you are licensing less stuff, you are essentially just licensing the sheet music (i.e. the right to perform the song, but not use the original song). Some songs are hard to get because of who may own it. Glee may have an easier time getting studios to agree to license songs, but from what I have read they pay the same rates as anyone else would.