"It's laughable to see people suggest that if this had somehow come to the 360, it would've magically sold far better than it did. The fact is, similar SRPGs on Xbox 360 have performed worse in their first month in the US (Operation Darkness: 3K, Zoids Assault: 8K...."
Well, let's be honest here--Operation Darkness is a 5th rate game all around. It wasn't the fact that it was an SRPG that it sold poorly--it was the fact that they released a demo that was outright terrible and turned off just about everyone that had even thought about renting it. That game never had a chance in the first place. Zoids, well, they missed that boat by about seven, eight years. I remember seeing that on Cartoon Network many years ago, but as far as I'm aware, it isn't even on television anymore... and likely hasn't been for three or four years.
My point for bringing up the sales of those games was not to equate them in terms of quality but rather that there's simply no precedent for Sega to release it on the 360, as if that would magically make it a million seller. It wouldn't be. The rest of your post is spot on and very much related to the sales of Vesperia and Eternal Sonata that I brought up- the genre just has a hard time selling in the current market, possibly for several reasons. As such, I don't think a port to the 360 would've made this sell much better (and my prediction was 50K combined).
I've also noticed that reviewers don't seem to know how to handle this one. First, most sites were delayed in actually getting a review up (Giant Bomb, come on). But even if you do read the reviews, they're all full of praise top to bottom, with a few minor quibbles here and there. Then you look at the review score and it'll be an 8 or 8.5; all that praise and THAT's the review score given? People should read reviews instead of just looking at the number, sure, but since most don't, praising the game top to bottom and not giving it a top-tier score is an injustice. It just seems like reviewers are saying, "Well, it's a really good game....but it's a niche genre and most gamers like shooters, so I won't give it a score equal to top-tier shooters." Stupid.
I know that Sega has released some turds since the demise of the DC, but if you have a PS3 on hand, try out the demo. If you like the demo, you'll probably like the rest of the game. I think it's great.
Allow me to snicker for a bit at all the people who thought that the teaser was MGS4 for the 360 simply because it was in green. Seriously, it's a color- you associate it with the 360, not everyone.
I was right in saying it was for the iPhone, but I really thought it was going to be Metal Gear Acid. Too bad, because I think it would fit the platform better.
Granted nobody wants to play Singstar, this proves that they are capable of doing it. But as others have said, there's no economic benefit to doing so. I could forsee a day where PS2 games are sold via PSN to cover the costs of developing an emulator (and generally coding an emulator to one game is easier since the issue of compatability is basically gone). Perhaps they could even sell, for a significantly smaller fee, just the emulator for people who have the discs, but I'm being really hopeful there.
It's laughable to see people suggest that if this had somehow come to the 360, it would've magically sold far better than it did. The fact is, similar SRPGs on Xbox 360 have performed worse in their first month in the US (Operation Darkness: 3K, Zoids Assault: 8K...these numbers come from VGChartz, and if you can cite a better source, I will gladly accept it). By comparison, 33K is a massive triumph. Even those other JRPGs that are exclusive (timed or otherwise) haven't pulled giant numbers in the US; for reference, Eternal Sonata pulled 56K its first month and Tales of Vesperia had about 85K. No JRPG this generation has moved tons of units in North America, frankly. I think if the game had been multiplatform, we'd be looking at sales of around 50K.
Better? Sure, but not spectacular.
Other users have cited the real problems -no marketing -released at a super busy time of the year and was lost in the shuffle -some suggestive evidence that few copies were actually printed -SRPGs (especially Japanese ones) aren't popular at all -gaming tastes in the US seem to be geared towards action/FPS
It's too bad, because I had to pay extra money to import it since there was no Asian release. But it was easily worth the cash. I've only put 10 hours in, but it's great. I'd be playing more, but I have a few PC games to polish off and next month I'll go back to the US, where I won't have my PC but will have the PS3...seems like a good time to really dig into it.
The pricing of all next-gen games is a sham. Here in Asia, games that get an official release here (not Japan, the rest of Asia) are at least $10 lower, sometimes $20 than the standard American pricing. That's both PC and console, though typically more often with console games. I hate when I have to listen to PR speak from companies/defenders of publishers about how the pricing is fair. Clearly companies have no problem accepting less money in some parts of the world.
As far as discrepancy in pricing with more specific titles, you do see some stratification. Rise of the Argonauts is retailing at $40 for PC; GTA4 is as well. Disgaea for the PS3 released at $40. The reason you see such standard pricing, I think, is because companies don't want their product to be perceived to be inferior. A customer looks at Game A at $60 and Game B at $40, he/she may assume that Game A is the better game. Plus, if consumers have accept $60 as standard pricing, even if you make a subpar game, the extra money from selling it $60 is probably more than the increased sales you'd gain selling it at $50.
Also, remember the expression; one man's trash is another man's treasure. You didn't like TFU, but that doesn't mean there aren't gamers out there that would like it better than all the games you listed. I personally thought the demo was garbage, but hey, there's gotta be somebody.
As others said, the CPU will bottleneck you. I have a similar CPU (4600) and it balances reasonably well with a 3850.
I'd personally suggest a more modest GPU (along the lines of a 3870) and save your money for when you're ready to do a complete system overhaul. I wouldn't listen to anyone giving advice about upgrading both at this time unless you're absolutely sure you have the money and spend some more time researching what kind of performance you're looking for. There's no sense in upgrading multiple things unless you know exactly what's on the market, the pricing, and how "future-proof" you want to go.
I had the opposite feeling. I played both CoD4 and WaW at around the same time and I thought WaW was a far better game. At least Treyarch bothered to put a real SP campaign into the game.
I'm not a fan of competitive multiplayer in most games, so if that's your basis of judgement, then I have nothing to argue because I don't care.
I kind of figured this was going to happen, for several reasons really.
1. Market oversauration- Guitar Hero just seems to release tons of iterations. I know that in about a year's span, they put out 3 games (GH3, Aerosmith, World Tour). Similarly, Rock Band took a good idea (DLC) and butchered it by releasing a new game a year after the release of the first. The purpose of DLC is to eliminate/reduce the need for more disc based games, and already they put out a full fledged sequel and the AC/DC track pack.
2. People are probably tired of the hardware. While I'm thrilled that they added more instruments (especially drums), given that it seems to be a all-or-nothing deal with these bundles, people don't want to have several plastic guitars laying around, among the other instruments. I think for this genre to survive, it's going to have to reduce the amount of hardware required per game and with each release, scale back the number of units that are bundles.
3. There's no place left to go. Really, what more could be done with the genre? Sure, after Guitar Hero, people probably thought of the whole band concept...and now? Harmonix didn't seem to really try for anything great (other than being able to import RB tracks into RB2- props to that) and Activision's create-a-song really isn't cutting it. I could see a game like DJ Hero doing reasonably well, but other than that, I just don't see what else can be done with this genre.
I'm actually kind of happy to see these games not performing as well as expected. I'm unable to buy the games since I don't want to move halfway around the world in 8 months trying to lug all the instruments from GH:WT (sorry, I like the RB songs better, but the drums are superior)...so when I finally do make it back, prices will have hopefully lowered significantly.
While I haven't played all the big games, I'm really down to two games.
LittleBigPlanet Grand Theft Auto IV
If I had to throw a dark horse up there, I'd say Valkyria Chronicles. It's excellent top to bottom, but nobody seems to be buying it and major gaming sites either aren't reviewing it (I'm looking at you, Giant Bomb) or just don't seem to know what to make of it. It's like they recoginze that it's great, but it's not from a popular genre, so they're reluctant to give it exceptional scores. Really, read the reviews from around the web- all very positive with very few blemishes...then they give it an 8.5.
Log in to comment