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Famitsu sales week 16

Woopah

Member
Interesting to see Pro Baseball Spirits coming to Switch (only Switch?) as it’s primarily been a Playstation only franchise on both console as well as portable, besides a one-off on 3ds in 2011.

Konami has mainly been focused on the Mobile version, but it’s nice to see it coming to Switch.
It used to release yearly until 2015, after that the next console version was in 2019 on ps4/vita. This new one will be the first non-mobile version since then.

Is there another PlayStation version coming?
Pro Baseball Spirits 2021 is Switch exclusive, and its an interesting example of how the success of the Switch has changed third party's strategy. Let's look at the recent history of Konami's baseball games:

[platform] Game - (first week) / (ltd)

[PS3] Pro Baseball Spirits 2015 - 63,648 / 125,608
[PSV] Pro Baseball Spirits 2015 - 38,519 / 90,666

[PS4] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2016 - 75,505 / 208,867
[PSV] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2016 - 46,314 / 100,626
[PS3] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2016 - 38,519 / 90,666

[3DS] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball Heroes - 28,145 / 125,946

[PS4] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2018 - 133,555 / 255,850
[PSV] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2018 - 58,211 / 119,754

[NSW] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball - 75,505 / 225,614

[PS4] Pro Baseball Spirits 2019 - 175,189 / 259,227
[PSV] Pro Baseball Spirits 2019 - 44,270 / 70,763

[NSW] eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 - 94,876 / 269,648
[PS4] eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 - 91,547 / 189,649

[NSW] Pro eBaseball Spirits 2021 - ??? / ???

Nintendo has gone from getting chibbi spinoffs to an exclusive mainline game. As long as Nintendo doesn't fuck up in the next few years, they could have the best Japanese third party they've had since the SNES days.
 
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Kerotan

Member
Pro Baseball Spirits 2021 is Switch exclusive, and its an interesting example of how the success of the Switch has changed third party's strategy. Let's look at the recent history of Konami's baseball games:

[platform] Game - (first week) / (ltd)

[PS3] Pro Baseball Spirits 2015 - 63,648 / 125,608
[PSV] Pro Baseball Spirits 2015 - 38,519 / 90,666

[PS4] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2016 - 75,505 / 208,867
[PSV] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2016 - 46,314 / 100,626
[PS3] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2016 - 38,519 / 90,666

[3DS] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball Heroes - 28,145 / 125,946

[PS4] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2018 - 133,555 / 255,850
[PSV] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball 2018 - 58,211 / 119,754

[NSW] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Baseball - 75,505 / 225,614

[PS4] Pro Baseball Spirits 2019 - 175,189 / 259,227
[PSV] Pro Baseball Spirits 2019 - 44,270 / 70,763

[NSW] eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 - 94,876 / 269,648
[PS4] eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 - 91,547 / 189,649

[NSW] Pro eBaseball Spirits 2021 - ??? / ???

Nintendo has gone from getting chibbi spinoffs to an exclusive mainline game. As long as Nintendo doesn't fuck up in the next few years, they could have the best Japanese third party they've had since the SNES days.
Yes but do they also plan to develop a game for the ps4/5?

Nintendo'S terrible 3rd party support for so long is entirely their fault btw.
 

Woopah

Member
Yes but do they also plan to develop a game for the ps4/5?

Nintendo'S terrible 3rd party support for so long is entirely their fault btw.
No PlayStation game is announced at this time. I'd guess that Konami is seeing how PlayStation 5 sales go and how this Switch exclusive does, and then they'll decide whether or not they'll add a PS5 SKU for next year's game.

It definitely is Nintendo's fault for all the bad things they did in the 90s, though they do seem to have recovered from it now. Most Japanese third parties are now fully onboard with Switch, the only questions are whether Sega and Harada will ever get onboard.
 
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noshten

Member
90s seems far away, as from my point of view it seems that Nintendo especially during the Wii U/3DS days has become much better at building relationships with third parties, a lot of indies, and both small and large publishers. Right now getting featured across Nintendo's social media via directs is a key for many of Nintendo's partners, enough so to entirely prioritize the platform - Baseball Spirits is just another sign of this. Game was featured in the Nintendo direct and no doubt they would also help push it in other markets when it launches. Whether it's Olive Town, Shin-kun, Rune Factory 5, Hades, Among Us, Silksong you can see that they have plenty of partners prioritizing the platform. Unlike Rise most of these aren't likely to be a paid-exclusivity deal, rather when we are talking about a pretty big number AA/indie games it makes sense to focus your priorities around the Switch and PC for the launch.

Overall this will be the first year where Third Parties in Japan are at large supporting the system, actually the Switch received far worse support from them compared to the 3DS did in it's first five years on the market. But with basically no competition in the nation as Sony has exited the market due to their decision to drop portables in favor of VR & AAA gaming, they are likely to retain this position for the next few years. Overall I expected this to happen much quicker but most third parties have taken a lot of time to actually adapt to the system. It was indies that have really had the opportunity to grow in the past few years at the expense of Japanese third parties who are finally arriving on the system.

But overall, it's exactly following both what I outlined back in 2017's thread about Credit Suisse's 2022 prediction(Switch to surpass 130m), the only thing that was lacking so far was a this huge Japanese Third Party support

With the way technology and manufacturing prices go down, I personally think the current Switch model will cost them less than $200 to produce by the end of 2018. So if they want they could possibly have a $200 model by the time Pokemon is released.
Granted this will only happen if they've sold over 25 million by the time Pokemon releases. We know that their handheld sales are linked with households buying multiple models - and this will happen with the Switch as the price starts to go down.

In any case I've always expected additional Switch models and supplementary processing devices. With $20 per year subs, Pokemon mainline game, mobile efforts(Animal Crossing), theme parks and licensing of their properties for merchandising and movies/anime to me 2018 is going to be a huge year.

130m by the end of 2022 is not unthinkable but we've got to see how 2018 shapes up and what the pipeline looks like. If they get major Japanese third parties on-board for 2018 and get Pokemon, DQXI, new Yokai Watch, new Monster Hunter all within the next year - I've no doubt we'll see a +6mil year in Japan for 2018, which would be in line with the type of sales DS was doing in Japan. That would get it over 1/3 of total 3DS LTD sales in 2 years. This type of numbers will definitely signal that it will surpass 3DS LTD in Japan in 4-5 years which would show that 130m is something achievable.

In the end for the Switch to do 130m it needs to have a major breakthrough in the mobile market, it's well positioned as a Nintendo tablet you can plug into the TV - it's just a matter of seeing momentum in the holidays and next year. Nintendo need to ensure they have another killer year in terms of software and top it off with flagship titles like Pokemon, SSB and Animal Crossing.

Right now Switch is where I expected it to be in terms of Japanese Third Party support would be in 2018... minus Level-5
The support we've seen since November pretty much puts the Switch into a position that's unprecedented for the device. So far it's been largely Nintendo and indies really selling the system in both Japan and abroad. This will be the first full year where it's poised to get a lot of support from Japanese third parties. Rise really took a long time to come out to what I expected from Capcom but it's finally arrived and seems that it can become their best selling title in Japan of all time, Konami have already achieved this feat via Momotaro.
The major support we are seeing from Capcom, Konami, Marvelous, Koei Tecmo, will be topped off by SMT V, Shin-Kun, and a lot of AA games both reveled and yet to be announced. I'm very much expecting a DQ game to launch on the Switch this year, it's been a while since DQ Builders 2 launched. Also I would be surprised if Bandai don't have at least one major game on the system by the end of the year.

We shall see how this also impacts markets outside of Japan.. it's certainly an interesting year as both the PS5/XSX face supply problems while Switch has entered it's peak year.
 

Kerotan

Member
No PlayStation game is announced at this time. I'd guess that Konami is seeing how PlayStation 5 sales go and how this Switch exclusive does, and then they'll decide whether or not they'll add a PS5 SKU for next year's game.

It definitely is Nintendo's fault for all the bad things they did in the 90s, though they do seem to have recovered from it now. Most Japanese third parties are now fully onboard with Switch, the only questions are whether Sega and Harada will ever get onboard.
Yep good to see. Personally I would like to see most games on ps4/ps5/switch. It's better for the developers and we want them to remain healthy.
 

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity shipments and digital sales surpass 3.7 million copies, Atelier Ryza 2 at 360,000 units


JvA3O42.png



 
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Bodomism

Banned

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity shipments and digital sales surpass 3.7 million copies, Atelier Ryza 2 at 360,000 units


JvA3O42.png



BOTW's spin off sold nearly as much as Zelda Skyward Sword ⚔️.

At this point BOTW brand is bigger than Zelda brand.
 

Bodomism

Banned
Screenshot-2021-04-26-22-39-51-30.png


Chad Konami is aiming for another best selling 3rd party publisher crown in 2021.

Meanwhile SQE, Bandai Namco, and SEGA are aiming to be the worst selling publisher of 2021.
 

Woopah

Member
Should see a PS5 in top 10 next with with Judgement. Its got a cheap prices so will help its legs, but its also a port so that might hurt its legs. We'll have to see.
Yep good to see. Personally I would like to see most games on ps4/ps5/switch. It's better for the developers and we want them to remain healthy.
If we look at the big 6 of Japanese third parties, I think three of them are showing how to go multiplatform in good (but different) ways

Koei Tecmo (the "spread" model): KT is pretty much putting everything on Switch and PlayStation. We're seeing this with Atelier Ryza 2, Winning Post 9 2021, Samurai Warriors 5 and Dynasty Warriors 9 Empire. The only exceptions are when Nintendo or Sony are directly involved in the project (such as Nioh collection or Buddy Mission Bond)

Capcom (the "focused" model): Capcom has divided its resources between Switch-focused projects (Monster Hunter Rise, Monster Hunter Stories 2, Resident Evil: Outrage) and PlayStation-focused projects (Village, Pragmata, Monster Hunter World 2) to take advantage of both ecosystems

Square Enix "the "hybrid" model): SE does a mixture of the above. Many projects are spread across both ecosystems (Trials of Mana, World Ends with You Neo, Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories). Hiwever it also has PlayStation-focused projects (FFXVI, Forspoken) and Switch-focused projects (Triangle Strategy, Octopath Traveller 2).

I think Sega and Namco could benefit a lot from following the "spread" model instead of what they are currently doing (Atlas following the "focused" model does make sense though).

Screenshot-2021-04-26-22-39-51-30.png


Chad Konami is aiming for another best selling 3rd party publisher crown in 2021.

Meanwhile SQE, Bandai Namco, and SEGA are aiming to be the worst selling publisher of 2021.
None of them can take the worst selling publisher crown from Level 5 ;)
 

ethomaz

Banned
After the last earning calls I changed my mind with digital ratio.
In Q4 79% of the game sold were digital on PS consoles.

Japan should be at least in 50% imo... not 30% like I guesstimated before.

COVID-19 really did something I never expected... we are like 5 years ahead the schedule... I expected to see 80% digital in 2025 or late.
Physical trackers or change to support digital or become irrelevant.

PS. The wonderful of the average is that some regions should be having over 90% digital to the average be 79%... we know Japan should be below the average.
 
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Woopah

Member
After the last earning calls I changed my mind with digital ratio.
In Q4 79% of the game sold were digital on PS consoles.

Japan should be at least in 50% imo... not 30% like I guesstimated before.

COVID-19 really did something I never expected... we are like 5 years ahead the schedule... I expected to see 80% digital in 2025 or late.
Physical trackers or change to support digital or become irrelevant.

PS. The wonderful of the average is that some regions should be having over 90% digital to the average be 79%... we know Japan should be below the average.
It was much higher than I expected. Will be interesting to see if this is a permanent change now or if the ratio will be different once lockdowns end.
 

MagnesG

Banned
After the last earning calls I changed my mind with digital ratio.
In Q4 79% of the game sold were digital on PS consoles.

Japan should be at least in 50% imo... not 30% like I guesstimated before.

COVID-19 really did something I never expected... we are like 5 years ahead the schedule... I expected to see 80% digital in 2025 or late.
Physical trackers or change to support digital or become irrelevant.

PS. The wonderful of the average is that some regions should be having over 90% digital to the average be 79%... we know Japan should be below the average.
A welcomed change for sure.
 
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