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Japan charts: Media Create 18 - 24 Apr
- Thread starter Jonnyram
- Start date
Opinion leaders determine opinions.
Followers mouth the same opinions as the leaders
and a 3rd group just feels totally left out or is dyameterically opposed.
It's no secret that generally, among the opinion leading group, RRs has been received well and generally much better than M64DS.
The problem is that the gaming intelligensia is like the elites of any society. They are more informed and some weild substantial power. The machinations of the GA admins/mods over various issues they feel strongly against is one example of an immature use of that power.
Like all elites however, they (we) don't exactly understand what drives and motivates everyone else. Granted all points of view are well represented by the intelligensia in this forum, but the prevailing view that X is cool does not always mean everyone else agrees or even the majority agrees.
The GAFers here have failed spectacularly on many occasions to read the market properly, and we're not every talking about the 'TRUE' mass market. We're talking about the 10% or 20% of the market that are early adopters and generate the first months of sales.
I just generally think that part of the intelligensia are just so full of shit they are not worth listening to (Matt C. is a good example). And sad to say, many of the most vitriolic posters here fall into that category. It's just become much more fun to drop in when they get things wrong and rub it in and watch them react. Otherwise, I think GAF has so far failed to create any sort of legitimate opinion forming movement that has any real basis on our predictions. We suck at predictions and assesment of product quality tend to take a back seat to partisan grandstanding and childish outbursts and refusal to change a position or point of view even if its been discredited.
Followers mouth the same opinions as the leaders
and a 3rd group just feels totally left out or is dyameterically opposed.
It's no secret that generally, among the opinion leading group, RRs has been received well and generally much better than M64DS.
The problem is that the gaming intelligensia is like the elites of any society. They are more informed and some weild substantial power. The machinations of the GA admins/mods over various issues they feel strongly against is one example of an immature use of that power.
Like all elites however, they (we) don't exactly understand what drives and motivates everyone else. Granted all points of view are well represented by the intelligensia in this forum, but the prevailing view that X is cool does not always mean everyone else agrees or even the majority agrees.
The GAFers here have failed spectacularly on many occasions to read the market properly, and we're not every talking about the 'TRUE' mass market. We're talking about the 10% or 20% of the market that are early adopters and generate the first months of sales.
I just generally think that part of the intelligensia are just so full of shit they are not worth listening to (Matt C. is a good example). And sad to say, many of the most vitriolic posters here fall into that category. It's just become much more fun to drop in when they get things wrong and rub it in and watch them react. Otherwise, I think GAF has so far failed to create any sort of legitimate opinion forming movement that has any real basis on our predictions. We suck at predictions and assesment of product quality tend to take a back seat to partisan grandstanding and childish outbursts and refusal to change a position or point of view even if its been discredited.
Indeed Deku, how long ago was it that the PSP/Sony hordes were trumpeting only this YTD's comparative sales? (completely disregarding the 1 million lead from last year btw) I agree, I've said, & sales data backs me up, that the japanese gaming public are not graphic whores. Superior hw aside, the gamers are more content driven. Their tastes differ from ours of course, but this is only to be expected given the differing cultures. The "untapped" market Iwata spoke of seems to exist, imagine that. Given the software that's due in the immediate future, (AC, FFIII, Mario Kart, JSS, Goemon, Slime Mori Mori DS, Pokemon, etc.) I don't see this momentum slowing in the land of the rising sun. Especially when online is introduced. And to think, there's still no DS "killer app."
Deku said:
Intelligentsia? Elite? Opinion Leaders? Oh come, your still talking about gaming are you? We at GAF play the same crap as every one else and really no one gives a shit about what we think. We are not ''the gaming elite'', and or tastes don't differ from the masses, infact we are the easily hyped masses.
drohne said:
It's not that my logic is circular. It's that your logic is faulty. Don't worry though, I'll fix it for you:
"The ds has sold well largely because the launch games Warioware and Mario 64 are such good portable games. How do we know Mario 64 and Warioware are such good portable games? Because in the process of helping the DS sell so well, Mario 64 and Warioware themselves have also sold so well."
Li Mu Bai said:
I'm not sure I follow you here... If the DS is doing so well because a new market of gamers are buying it (presumably because of Nintendogs?), why would they care about stuff like FF3, MK, JSS, etc.? The "games" they'd presumably go for are the weird shit like the Dictionary, Electroplankton, and Band Bros... I'm not sure what the DS' release list looks like on that front.
Are you saying Non-gamers are ahead of the curve compared to normal gamers on this one, because I find that to be a somewhat dubious claim. I think most DS owners in JP are probably the same sort of early adopter as with any other system. Nintendo might be taking steps to cultivate another market, but i don't think 200K sales of a quasi-game like Nintendogs are enough to proclaim "A NEW MARKET EXISTS!"
I don't think we've really seen any proof that anyone besides the same ol' Nintendo fans are buying the DS in Japan. Nintendogs' success is neither so stratospheric nor so out of left field that N-fans couldn't be accounting for its success.
heidern's flaw is in bringing quality into the equation at all. It's not an issue of quality but rather appeal. Even the most jaded DS critic needs to acknowledge Mario 64 and Wario Ware having decidedly more public appeal Hot Shots or Dynasty Warriors, regardless of subjective leanings.
BTW drohne, Rainbow Islands DS was just announced recently. Ready to cave yet?
BTW drohne, Rainbow Islands DS was just announced recently. Ready to cave yet?
drohne said:
Actually it's the other way round, I'm arguing sales from quality: Warioware and Mario 64 are such good handheld games which is why they've sold so well and helped push the DS to sell so well. However when I say they are such "good handheld games", I am talking more specifically about the combination of game quality and brand power. Not only do they average well over 80% in game rankings for example, but they are based on very popular franchises. Mario 64 DS is a remake of one of the greatest games of all time, Warioware Touch is a sequel to one of the breakout hits in recent years.
Regardless, my point is, it is the selling power of these two games that has driven the success of the DS. My point is these two games have more selling power in the handheld realm than psp games like Dynasty Warriors and Hotshots Golf. Like I said:
"Yeah, so um have you ever considered the possibility that the reason the DS has double the userbase is because Mario 64 and Warioware are stronger games than Hotshots and Dynasty Warriors for a handheld? Software drives hardware."
you're arguing sales from quality, and then trying to argue quality from sales. that's why i called your logic circular. i don't think there's any definite connection between sales and quality, really, and i think mario 64 ds and warioware touched are poor games.
i had a near miss the other day, jarrod. i had a bunch of trade-in credit at eb, and nearly cashed it in for a ds. then i spotted stella deus. and remembered it had a sakimoto soundtrack. and all was well. though if ds emulation doesn't come along by the end of the year, i'll probably buy one to play castlevania and advance wars.
i had a near miss the other day, jarrod. i had a bunch of trade-in credit at eb, and nearly cashed it in for a ds. then i spotted stella deus. and remembered it had a sakimoto soundtrack. and all was well. though if ds emulation doesn't come along by the end of the year, i'll probably buy one to play castlevania and advance wars.
drohne said:
If you notice, this thread is titled "Japan charts". It's a thread about sales in Japan. Whether games are any good doesn't come into it. I haven't for example played Hotshots Golf, so whether it is better/worse than Warioware or Mario 64 I really couldn't say. More to the point, because this is a sales thread, the words such as good and quality pertain not to whether games are good to play or quality entertainment, but to good selling power and quality in getting people to buy them.
The context is sales. In the context of sales, Mario 64 and Warioware are better games than their psp opposition. In the context of sales, it is the higher sales of these games that proves that. It's not circular logic, it is a=b b=a logic. Because they are appealing games they sell well. Because they sell well they are appealing games. My point is, these Mario and Wario have sold on their own merits(whatever those are) and in doing so have pushed the DS to sell well.
Of course if you disagree then fire away with your explanation of why the these games and DS has done so well and so much better than the psp.
so when you said that mario 64 and wario ware are stronger games than minna no golf and dynasty warriors, you just meant that they'd shifted more units? well...ok! i just wanted to keep that gap between sales and quality clear. i'm glad we agree that sales say nothing about the quality of mario 64 and wario ware as games.
and though i don't know why the ds is selling in japan (or anywhere), i think brand and price are at least as important as software. the ds launched very well in the us, and yet had an astonishing <1 tie ratio. so it doesn't seem like software is a necessary element of early hardware success.
and though i don't know why the ds is selling in japan (or anywhere), i think brand and price are at least as important as software. the ds launched very well in the us, and yet had an astonishing <1 tie ratio. so it doesn't seem like software is a necessary element of early hardware success.
heidern said:
Concerning the games, I think Link had a reasonable explanation as to why Hot Shots Golf and Dynasty Warriors sales have been "poor" (as in "not as good as they could have been"). PSP suffered from hardware shortages during the holiday season in Japan, and missed out on a lot of potential software sales. Didn't most of the Mario and Wario sales come around x-mas?
Backwards compatability always lessens launch sellthrough, that's why PS2 had a lower launch tie ratio than GC/Xbox and PSP sprinted past GBA/DS. Plus, DS had bundled software, further lowering consumer incentive to pick up extra DS specific software... the fairly crap US launch lineup didn't help either though. June can't come fast enough.drohne said:
drohne said:
I think comparing the quality of games is a pretty futile and entirely subjective exercise. I can tell you which games I like/dislike and why, but I can't state for a fact which games are good since everyone has their own valid opinion. Well ok, there are 2 exceptions. Andre Agassi Tennis on the Megadrive is objectively bad, and Nintendogs for the DS is objectively fantastic. But those are really the only 2 facts regarding console games since the 90s.
Kiriku said:
For simplicity let's chuck Mario and Dynasty out of the equation and look at the number one killer apps. Wario sold I think around 100-150K first week, and at Dec 31st was around 500K. Hotshots launched around 100K and ended the year around 200K.(I don't have exact numbers but this is in the right ballpark). At this point it wasn't possible to say which was more popular since they were both limited by hardware shortages. They could sell 600K, 2 million whatever, it wasn't possible to draw a conclusion.
This year supplies have increased and there are no longer shortages. We can now see that the games are selling to their potential. Wario and the DS are in higher demand than the psp. The thing is, even though the psp was selling more for a while, Warioware has been consistently outselling Hotshots Golf every week and widening it's lead.
heidern said:
Sorry, I don't really feel like going through loads of sales threads just to see if your selected numbers are correct or not. I bet there are people who would enjoy doing it instead of me though.
But, I didn't know the DS suffered from any severe hardware shortages. And isn't it true that Nintendo (handheld) games typically have legs? Even though you're saying Wario Ware has been outselling Hot Shots Golf, I'm impressed by how long HSG has been putting up decent numbers every week... but perhaps that was the case with previous games in the series as well?
And just out of curiosity, why is Wario Ware considered the number one killer-app and not Super Mario 64 DS?
US DS launch was severly constrained until about mid January. New shipments usually sold out within minutes until after Christmas... JP sellthrough was close too until this year started. As is, there's roughly 1m DS units in the channel currently (5m sold through), which is about the same as PSP actually (2m sold through).Kiriku said:
JoshuaJSlone
Member
I almost always do this, but I happened to be using an older computer last night, so it totally started yelling to me about memory constraints and shutting things down when I tried to be Firefoxing, OpenOffice.org-ing, Trillianing, and Paint Shop Pro-ing simultaneously. I can more than make up for it now, though.heidern said:
Here's a chart of the DS-PSP difference. The biggest lead was 1,059,853, the week of January 3. The next week was the first week PSP outsold DS.
Quite relatedly, here are the cumulative DS and PSP totals.
The standard weekly numbers...
Showing only 2005 for enhanced detail...
And here's one I haven't put into graphical form before: post-PSP launch (estimated) cumulative totals.
Kiriku said:Sorry, I don't really feel like going through loads of sales threads just to see if your selected numbers are correct or not. I bet there are people who would enjoy doing it instead of me though.
There probably are, unfortunately when they see I'm pretty much right they'll give up
But not to worry, here's Enterbrain numbers ending 2nd Jan 05:
DS Sawaru Made in Wario Nintendo 119,000 470,000
PSP Minna no Golf Portable SCE 47,000 178,000
Since that point more psp hardware has been sold, however Wario has sold around 250K to Hotshots Golf 150K.
The DS had some hardware shortages last year, just nowhere near as bad as the PSP. However the DS hardware shortages ended in early January, while the PSPs lasted until lte Feb/Early March. Now the shortages are ended we see the real potential. Kinda like how the ps2 always had the momentum in the US, even though MS matched them at Christmas. Now look at the ps2 go gangbusters. BTW, HSG is a million seller on the ps2. One of only 7 series(although Onimusha is now evicted from the club). That's why it is so important.
Well it was one or the other, and since Wario has sold more, it got the nod. Really though, they both are pretty much as good as each other.
Oh and Joshua, thanks! By going overboard in a sales thread you've done fantastic!
Just my 2 cents:
Nintendogs will be a hit. I think it will sell close to a mill by years end. But I think that Pokemon comparisons are alittle off, because they are two different franchises. I mean, Pokemon has a freaking show promoting it every week. Movies, music, etc. (given, Nintendogs have cute plushes as well )
So I dont think it CAN reach Pokemon proportions due to this. But it will be incredibly successful in its oun merit and drive DS sales.
Nintendogs will be a hit. I think it will sell close to a mill by years end. But I think that Pokemon comparisons are alittle off, because they are two different franchises. I mean, Pokemon has a freaking show promoting it every week. Movies, music, etc. (given, Nintendogs have cute plushes as well
)So I dont think it CAN reach Pokemon proportions due to this. But it will be incredibly successful in its oun merit and drive DS sales.
Unison said:
Unison, I was acknowledging the existence of an "untapped base," while still not ignoring those games that will continue the DS's momemtum with the normal handheld gamer userbase. These sales are really too premature to declare whether a new market exists it's true, but acheiving the status of best selling NDS/PSP title thus far (4 days?) we can use as a barometer. Time & comprehensive sales will be the indicating factors. Using the term "N-fans" regarding handhelds in japan is akin to saying "PS2 fans" there. Look at the GBA/SP/NDS market penetration numbers. If these same individuals were indeed simply "N-fans" the GC would be in a much better situation in that region. Putting up the equivalent, very close to, or exceeding the PS2's sales numbers on any given month.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Pokémon didn't get born a fully evolved monster, so to speak. Checking IMDB, the show didn't come on the air until the year after the games; they had to get popular before the franchise started invading all other media. Outside of Japan they were able to make them all come at once because there was a release date difference of 2.5 years.CrisKre said:Just my 2 cents:
Nintendogs will be a hit. I think it will sell close to a mill by years end. But I think that Pokemon comparisons are alittle off, because they are two different franchises. I mean, Pokemon has a freaking show promoting it every week. Movies, music, etc. (given, Nintendogs have cute plushes as well
So I dont think it CAN reach Pokemon proportions due to this. But it will be incredibly successful in its oun merit and drive DS sales.
heidern said:There probably are, unfortunately when they see I'm pretty much right they'll give up
But not to worry, here's Enterbrain numbers ending 2nd Jan 05:
DS Sawaru Made in Wario Nintendo 119,000 470,000
PSP Minna no Golf Portable SCE 47,000 178,000
Since that point more psp hardware has been sold, however Wario has sold around 250K to Hotshots Golf 150K.
The DS had some hardware shortages last year, just nowhere near as bad as the PSP. However the DS hardware shortages ended in early January, while the PSPs lasted until lte Feb/Early March. Now the shortages are ended we see the real potential. Kinda like how the ps2 always had the momentum in the US, even though MS matched them at Christmas. Now look at the ps2 go gangbusters. BTW, HSG is a million seller on the ps2. One of only 7 series(although Onimusha is now evicted from the club). That's why it is so important.
I don't know, I think most of this "potential" in hardware is dependant upon fairly recent releases. You can't just rely on older games to drive hardware sales. Hot Shots Golf has been out for months, so it's not exactly the latest and most wanted game anymore. I don't think nearly as many people see Hot Shots Golf now and think "I need a PSP for this game!" as they did back in December just because the shortage has ended. During the recent months, other PSP games have been getting attention, even though HSG has legs. I still think the potential of Hot Shots Golf selling well was lost due to hardware shortages during the holiday season, and Sony missed out.
Now, on PS2 there's a huge userbase. Out of all those people, a million bought HSG. Should we really assume that out of that million, all of them are simply going to run out and buy quite an expensive piece of hardware to play the latest HSG? I don't think Sony expected that, or even close to it. I have no idea what kind of sales they expected really, maybe someone else does?
Also, when you look at sales for the online version of Hot Shots Golf 3 in Japan, it seems like these HSG fans aren't blind enough to buy anything HSG.
heidern said:
as opposed to the objectivity and and analytical depth of gaf sales threads? i don't think i've seen a single observation or prediction in these threads that's worth taking seriously -- they're just veiled statements of preference. if a gafer is right about sales then it's pure coincidence. i've been posting in sales threads lately because, well, they're fun now that something is at stake. but they're purely frivolous.
and i don't think the ds's tie ratio is particularly better than the psp's tie ratio. to isolate the best selling game for each console, observe that the ds game is selling proportionately better, and then decide that ds software is "stronger" is misleading.
Kiriku said:
Actually, HSG is the most consistent selling psp game and is always hanging around the top 20-30. The thing is, regardless of whether the psp sales are higher or lower than the DS sales for the week, it is always outsold by Warioware Touch on a weekly basis. Hence why I say Warioware is stronger in the handheld realm. And guys, I'm sorry but to say that the reason the DS has sold almost double the psp is entirely because of shortages is damage control of the highest order. In this industry shortages have consistently served to increase demand. Yes it would have had an effect, but not to that extreme.
Well that was the original point I was making. If people aren't going to run out to get handheld versions of DW and HSG, why should they run out to buy handheld versions of GT, Winning Eleven or a FF spin off? If they don't run out to buy those then what are they going to run out and buy a psp for? Hence why I said Sony need something new and targeted specifically for the handheld market to succeed.
heidern said:
Did I ever say that PSP shortages was the sole reason for Wario Ware selling better? I was only saying I think HSG would've sold better than it did without hardware shortages around the holidays. I don't see how that's damage control of the highest order, more like a reasonable statement. But maybe that's just me. :|
heidern said:
I don't think Sony are stupid enough to rely on handheld versions of console games only for the PSP. At least not if sales are bad, I'm sure they'll put more effort into coming up with new games if that's the case...especially since they seem set on making PSP a success. They really can't afford to just give up at this point.
And PSP is such a wild-card it's hard to say how it will work out IMO. Perhaps some console-to-PSP games will end up being more successful on PSP than the PS2?
But I think it's too early to be looking for trends though...it's only been out a few months after all.
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
I think Sony ARE relying on handheld version of games.
or depending on how you look at it. I'm sure E3 will make things a lot clearer in this regard.I personally think the reason DS is taking off is because the majority of gamers in Japan don't care about graphics and want to play something they haven't tried before. If it was all about graphics, you can bet your ass there would be more that 232 Xboxen a week being sold!
. As beautiful and gorgeous as the PSP is, there is nothing mindblowingly new (queue "there isn't anything new on the DS either!" post ...) for gamers to experience. That's not saying the PSP isn't great - because it quite obviously is an outstanding media player and games console. But the PSP needs machine defining experiences (games more accurately) that can't be had on the PS2 / elsewhere.
I'm hoping the strong wireless play will result in yet more awesome games.
This man speaks the truth.drohne said:
Anyway, I can't believe a non-game has has this sort of impact on the handheld race. Looks like Nintendo's rainbow campaign is working to great effect. Hopefully it's jumped the shark, and shit like Nintendogs doesn't become a new fad...ugh. Oh yeah, viva Jizzmondo.
PEACE.