Lurker > ChichiriMuyo

Liquid Wind posted...
If Xenoblade can only sell 100k these days considering how many more gamesare sold, it will be seen as a failure by a lot of people. When people mention that Opoona only sold 65k or whatever they forget to consider the fact that Koei (and whoever else was involved) will never try an experiment like that again. Ever. Thats how big of a failure it was for them. For Nintendo to only do slightly better when their stock price is already being battered by the market... yeah, no.

this isn't an experimental game that they have to decide whether or not to make though...they...already made it. and translated it into english. they literally have to change the region codes and manufacture it, it shouldn't need to sell anywhere near 300k to profit, and it would likely hit in that range given the hype, lack of other good RPGs on the wii, or really lack of any kind of competition period on the wii. nintendo is just being stupidly dickish here and showing us where their actual priorities lie, iwata and reggie's spiel about trying to get long time gamers back at e3 was 100% BS

"Experimental" is relative to the current state of the market. A localization getting 100k ten years ago would have been good. 20 years ago it would have been quite successful. Toady, maybe not so much. Especially if they think that they need to localize to American English and not just English.

Now, I've said this probably a half a dozen times or so, but I think it's stupid of them to not go ahead any way. I'll say it again, so maybe you'll listen. It's stupid of them to not go ahead anyway. I've said it almost every single time I've posted. But that's not good enough for you, obviously, so how about a third time in this post alone? It's stupid of them to not do it any way. It's really stupid. Utterly stupid. It's half-a-dozen times stupid. I don't know how many times I can say it before people like you get it. Seven times I'll say I don't agree with the decision because it's not right and it likely undermines their long-term strategy.

But that doesn't mean there aren't reasons why they make that decision, and the primary one is that they don't think there's real money to be made.

Have you ever seen an "it prints money" gif? You notice how Xenoblade isn't featured in them? Do you notice that nothing resembling an RPG has anything more than a minor impact on the possibility of them coming into existence in the first place? It's because games like Xenoblade might not even make money when you take into consideration the administrative/localization/manufacturing costs.

I WANT the game to come out. I WANT it to succeed. I want people to ****ing love it even if I don't give a crap after five minutes of playing it. I want Nintendo to at least try to serve me/you/the hardcore even if it fails. JRPGs were underloved 15 years ago when they were the only thing I'd play and they still are when I don't really care to play them much at all.

However, the money just isn't there. That's what Nintendo is saying right now by not releasing the game in NA. You might buy it, but chances are even if you have a hundred friends not a single one of them will ever play it. Let alone pay for it. If X number of people won't play it, let alone buy it, it's just not worth the effort when dollars and cents are the only way to judge success.

Again, for like the eighth-hundredth time, I disagree, but they've got a business to run. Unless we suddenly throw down more money than they can count in a day it doesn't matter what we think or even where we'll put our money unless they can create a profitable venture at the end of the day.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Vlado posted...
Lightning Strikes posted...
In other news, Vlado is willfully dense.

lol, and then you try to convince me you aren't regularly opposing me just for the sake of it.

Reality opposes you on a regular basis. Get over it.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

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

Even Sony believes that BR is a poor standard, based on their moves towards HVD. It's just a profitable standard because the uninformed will buy what's pushed on them. HVD was ready to go when the decision to push BR was made, and the next switch will be just another way to make you buy the same movie for the Nth time once they decide to make it a standard. Enjoy your just-better-than-beta format, cause it won't live long and you'll be lucky if your investment in the format is still usable (let alone considered high-quality) in five years.

Keep in mind that blu-ray can't handle anything beyond 3D/1080p/24fps at the very best, and people are starting to think they should have that at the very least if the rest of their set-up facilitates that. HVD could and would destroy that and wasn't adopted when it could have been, and that's contrary to tech adoption. In the past, when things like DVD and VHS were adopted it was because they could do things beyond what were expected of them, not things that were promised to be obsolete in the next couple of years.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

I have a PS3 and a stand alone BR player or two. Hell, I can burn BR discs on one of those devices (the "or two" device). I don't think I deserve a ^5 at all. In fact, I'm almost inclined to believe I should be ashamed for adopting the technology. BR seemed like a good thing compared to HD-DVD, but compared to what we should be getting at this point it's crap. The format is just barely above trash compared to existing tech that just isn't being used. And praising people for accepting such a mediocre step up is shameful. BR isn't a revolution, it's a mere incremental expansion, and anyone who thinks their money is actually worth something should realize that BR was merely a money-grubbing tactic by companies that don't want real innovation.

I know I do, after the fact. I gained nothing by having multiple BR devices, and anyone who disagrees should consider how limited the format is in regards to the new push for 3DTVs (at the least)... BR is mediocre for that, and it's just been a handful of years since the BR push began. 3D is the next push, for right or wrong, and already BR is barely able to handle it if at all (and in the future as advancements come, it won't). We have a standard barely able to handle 3D/1080p/>24fps, and even that won't be the "standard" a few years from now. It'll just be behind the times, for most.

Blu-Ray hardly handles today's needs and has no eye at all for tomorrow's. It's what we wanted yesterday before we knew what today would be like. And anyone with any realization of technology knows that tomorrow it will be a joke - it will be like the laserdisc, except people were actually foolish enough to buy in.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Paratroopa1 posted...
I'm confused, since when has "only" 100k copies of a game not been good enough to warrant a release? Nintendo's published far less successful games with far smaller prospects before, and this game's already freakin' made, all they need to do is localize and distribute the thing. I'm certainly no expert, but the idea that this isn't likely to be a successful business venture just doesn't stack up for me.

For at least as long as this generation has been going on. In some cases, much longer. If you look at Square's Us:Japan sales during the SNES era there's almost no reason for them to skip on FF5 (it'd have sold ~80k, given existing data, and that would have been VERY good at the time for a JRPG) but they did. They weren't the only ones to make such a decision. When we talk about PS1 or PS2, there are certainly far more examples of games with "guaranteed" sales that got passed on. At this point, if a company releases anything that sells less than 100k in a region, regardless of how cheap localization may or may not be, the shareholders will have their CEO's head. Video games aren't niche anymore, and the people with the money expect notable sales. Not just profits, which are obviously the main goal, but a demonstration of future profits to be made.

If Xenoblade can only sell 100k these days considering how many more gamesare sold, it will be seen as a failure by a lot of people. When people mention that Opoona only sold 65k or whatever they forget to consider the fact that Koei (and whoever else was involved) will never try an experiment like that again. Ever. Thats how big of a failure it was for them. For Nintendo to only do slightly better when their stock price is already being battered by the market... yeah, no.

100k is the bare minimum for people not losing their jobs and never having a place in the industry again. 250k is what they should shoot for to please the people who really control their fate (investors), and I don't know if they can make that in NA. NoA probably believes they can't. And yes, that's considering it as a mere localization. That's just a sign of how much it costs to work in the gaming industry these days.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

KamikazePotato posted...
No, Xenoblade is pretty much guaranteed to sell much better than those. It's simply a more high-profile game. And even without that, after Operation Rainfall, it's got the internet talking about it. Capitalizing on that instant hype would have been very smart. And even without considering either of those, the game is already translated. There is pretty much nothing to lose by releasing it here. None of that is taking into consideration the PR damage this is going to do to them.

Essentially, it's just a mind-numbingly dumb decision in every possible capacity.

I'm not saying that this is the right decision by them. I'm saying that they are simply being practical. Simply releasing the game because a few people want them to isn't necessarily the right decision either. They could fail hard, monetarily. They may simply have prioritized fiscal success per product over general perception. They may simply not want to lose money as a way to tell gamers that they are going to publish every obscure game they want.

I personally believe they are making the wrong decision, but I also believe they are making it based on what they believe are the right decisions. Selling something at a loss is always a terribly difficult decision to make when the only gain from it is marginally raising the perception of a very small segment of the market. If it was obvious that they'd profit, they'd move on it. Right now, all they have to gain is the respect of a very, very small portion of the market at a cost that doesn't buy them additional sales down the road. The next MK will still sell tens of millions whether they localize Xenoblade or not. And how many people would buy MK simply because NoA was cool enough to release Xenoblade? How many will refuse because they don't? It's a tiny number, and if Xenoblade can't come close to profitability it's a sacrifice worth making if all you think about is profit margin.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

GuessMyUserName posted...
guys


There is absolutely no way Xenoblade sells less than 100k. PERIOD. There's just absolutely no way at all whatsoever.

Not just Opoona. But ARC RISE FANTASIA sold 100k.

Actually, as of now, it's guaranteed to sell zero copies in North America. Shows what you know. Either way, a lot of games over time were "guaranteed" to sell X copies by the fanbase and many failed. Unless you have 6 million dollars and a contract to Nintendo to hand that over, there's no guarantee of anything. Yes, it ABSOLUTELY SHOULD sell more, but that doesn't mean it will. There aren't enough hands on all of the B8 users to count the number of times a product failed to sell the "guaranteed" numbers. And we don't even know how many actual sales it would take to justify the investment. What if 100k is an abysmal failure? What if 250k is just barely breaking even? Are you going to guarantee 300k sold with absolutely no evidence to back yourself up with? No, you're not. The majority of games that hit the market are financially failures, that means stuff like Opoona and ARF probably lost a fair amount of money. I'd advocate that it's in Nintendo's interest to lose that money if they have to, especially with a new console on the horizon and a track record of not providing enough content, but you can't tell them they are wrong for not flushing cash down the drain.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

YetAnothrShadow posted...
ChichiriMuyo posted...
Brittish localization is not the same as NA localization regardless of it being in English. It's good enough for me and many others, but it will have the effect of "losing" buyers if the British version is released in the US. Blame that on the American consumer.

Pretty sure most people interested in this game aren't going to care about that.

How about the people who aren't die-hard about it? There certainly aren't 100k+ preorders at this point, because if there were then NoA would have 6 million+ reasons to say "hell yeah, we're releasing Monado." Nintendo is thinking about more than just the people participating in Op RF right now... they're thinking about how that push translates into actual region-wide sales. The vast majority of those sales will have to come from people who aren't all that interested just yet. Some may know what's going on, many more would have to take the plunge without even knowing about the campaign. That latter group... they're the ones who will pass on a game they may actually come to love if they don't think it's tailored to them.

Imagine you're the guy who gets his news from Game Informer 'cause it's free with the Gamestop discount card. Do you know about Xenoblade? Probably not. Is it your type of game on the system you use the most? Also probably not. Are you going to care when you hear that Nintendo half-assed it and used the British localization because they didn't think people would buy the game?. Probably not.

Nintendo absolutely has to look beyond the small group of people really pushing and ask themselves how much of an audience they can really capture. They need to think about whether or not putting resources into the venture is worth it. I honestly think that they are looking at this as a single (or three) products when it should be an image issue above all else. I think they are making a mistake since they really need to reaffirm to gamers that the next console will include their desires. But as of yet, I see no reason to believe that Nintendo should be "sold" on Op RF if they are looking solely at the sales of each individual title.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

KamikazePotato posted...
Do you seriously think that anyone in America is going to care if a game was localized in Britain. That's very silly.

I'm quite certain that's the case. The Office is a huge hit in the US, but it's not the Office that the British learned to love. Americans do things differently and have different expectations, and (at least in some circles) they don't like non-American accents to boot. It absolutely is silly. But that doesn't mean it's not a financial reality when investing in entertainment products. If Americans appreciated the way things were done in the UK and loved British accents as much as I did, the face of American entertainment would be radically different from what it is. That's simply not the case. If you're trying to sell Xenoblade to someone who isn't already onboard with Op RF, you're not doing yourself a favor by saying "by the way, NoA had no faith in the project so they used the British VAs and colloquialisms that you'd typically only encounter on that island."

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

KimPilgrim posted...
You can claim what you want but there is zero doubt in my mind that any RPG released for the Wii would at minimum double Opoona.

See, here's the thing - you're the only one making claims. I have no clue how much it will sell. I do believe it will sell much more than Opoona, but that's just an opinion that I'm not stating as some sort of fact. If it was a fact, NoA would be privy to that information long before any of us and would make a move on it if it was feasible. Also, I don't know much about Opoona, but it may well have had a much lower localization cost. Also, coming from a smaller company, it may have looked like a better deal. I don't have the information to say that Nintendo is making the wrong decision if Xenoblade is considered only as a single product. It may actually be something destined to relative failure if NoA moves forward on it, and none of us can say otherwise as an actual certainty. The PR fallout, though, makes me think that they should have confirmed a Xenoblade release regardless of whether or not they stood to profit. Even if they would have later gone on to say "see, it was a waste of our time" that's still a whole lot better for the millions who are unsure of the Wii U than "look, we know it's a waste of time whether you disagree or not."

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Brittish localization is not the same as NA localization regardless of it being in English. It's good enough for me and many others, but it will have the effect of "losing" buyers if the British version is released in the US. Blame that on the American consumer.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

No, it's not literally impossible for that to happen. Failing to hit 100k is a realistic probability, even if it's a highly unlikely one. If the numbers said they'd do better than that and that it'd be enough to make a profit I doubt they'd hesitate to localize the game.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

@Ayuyu

With there being a campaign behind this, there is going to be an expectation that Xenoblade (at least) will have much higher pre-order to total sales ratio than normal. If they think one in four eventual sales will come from the pre-order campaign launched by operation rainfall and there are only 10-15k pre-orders, then the numbers just don't support a localization. Even 25k might not justify the effort at that level of expectation. If NoA doesn't think they can make money on the game, NoJ has no incentive to push them.

It's still a mistake for the perception they are creating, the damage it is doing to a segment of their fanbase, but it's one based in fiscally conservative planning. Basically they are saying that the few people pushing for this are a loud but ultimately small part of their fanbase whose opinion could undermine their overall goals. If operation rainfall pushed Xenoblade/Monado preorders to the point that it was a safe bet financially, they'd be all over that. That's clearly not the case.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Actually, all branches of Nintendo answer to NoJ. If NoJ says jump, they jump. NoJ is probably just not saying anything at all on this one.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

There must be some sort of setting where you can... turn that off. I've never allowed such a thing to happen and, as a result, never experienced an automatic shut down.

You should try that, 'cause that's as lern-edd as da microsofts will ev'r dun be.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Achromatic posted...
I guess I'll have to make every random female gym leader his wench to make up for it.

Of course. Of course. ;)

Still, good to see some progress.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Doom enjoys that silly comic book from Japan, but he doesn't like playing second fiddle to anyone.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Consider my boot headed to Florida on a daily basis, then.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Doom is pleased.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Dammit, Chris. It's been five days and you don't even have an idea? Doom has not expended all of his pokemon. There must be some way for him to proceed. Even if it's in... the f-word that is seven letters long (forgive me Doom).

...

*twitches*

...

DOOM IS NOT PLEASED WITH YOUR WEAKNESS AND SHORT-COMINGS. THERE WILL BE NO FAILURE

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

TheConductorSix posted...
I smell a billion dollar movie.

Are you sure your dog didn't drop a load, because they probably have the same smell.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

I was at home when I tried to watch the first movie. I drank to the point that I probably didn't finish it (yes, I was drunk enough not to remember). The second was made out to be worse than the first, and now you're making it seem like the third falls even further (what I expected).

The real hero here is vodka. And intelligent nostalgia, perhaps. Not paying to see that sort of **** should just be automatic at this point, and while I have friends that will/did I will not. Thanks, I guess, though I really didn't need anyone to tell me that things would only get worse. Just, you know, experience and vodka.

Now vodka, that's something that's begging for a sequel.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Civilization 2. If I want a Civ game I'll play 4 (I own two copies) or 5 (yeah), and If I want the pinnacle of the series as it was in that general time I'll play Alpha (mother ****ing) Centauri (the best that ever was). Civ II is really a game that has been outclassed in too many ways.

^5 Gr8CyberMonkey for good taste, btw.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

The odds are stacked in their favor and, eww steak.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Princess Anri posted...
Why the f*** did I post "trouser snake"?

My real answer is lamb.

Or I guess an underage girl but I was underage too.

I don't think cannibalism accounts for age...

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Holy ****, I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read Anri's last post. Racist, perhaps, but more than enough shock value to damn near make me choke on my own laughter.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Well, he's got perfect form on one of the hardest places to plank, they've got weak form (except the guy on the fridge) even though they aren't quite as difficult of positions. And it's not even the fact that two of them have to hold another person up. They need to quit playing to the camera and act like a board, dammit.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

I dunno, Anri...

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/10/planking-e3/

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Tim, you definitely have the worst team in that group. Good luck.

Not a terrible loss, WC, considering the fact that Iraq and Uzbekistan are no where near Japan's level. Both should be equally "easy" wins.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

I would say squid, but a lot of people have said it already, so shark. No one has said shark. Then again, squid has a much weirder taste to me.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Also, which one came in for LBP2?

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

20/25

Missed Rayman, Fable, Mass Effect, Diddy Kong Racing and, sadly, TMNT 4. Those names sure felt familiar, but I just couldn't associate them with a game.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

"It failed to seek its tendrils deep enough to suck the blood from me for life"

I believe there was indeed failure, but I'm not so sure on whose part.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Tag.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Oh good, everything I missed due to the purge is here.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Really? That shocks me. I had a team of three 20's on that side and was able to catch one with ease. Then they sent a second wave on the same try. Keep going for it, though I warn you Paras is not done justice in this game.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Got me a paras after six tries. Thankfully they send them in waves, instead of just one like Pikachu in VF1, so it wasn't hard.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

Fury Swipe is amazing. It makes Mankey soooooooo good.

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!

What's the deal with Brock turning out to be the boss?

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"Principally I hate and detest the animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas and so forth" - Jonathan Swift
BT with the victory!