Okay, NOW Sony's in touble. (FF related)

[Rawtooth]

Actually Jade Empire combat is pretty much done in the real-time fighting game style.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Actually Jade Empire combat is pretty much done in the real-time fighting game style.

It's not "pretty much", it is real-time.

[UCBooties]

Calm the fuck down, I was trying to explain the distinction DPDarkPrimus was talking about. You and IO are the ones that keep bringing up new shit.

And yes, Japanese developers are taking more and more cues from the American developers. I think the results are promising. But no one is ever going to argue that FF 11 and 12 are traditional RPGs.

[Hotfoot]

So in order for an RPG to sell well in Japan, it must be "traditional"?

What were the sales figures for 12, exactly?

[Vendetta]

2.42 million.

A large number, but actually quite a long way short of the peak the series hit on the PS1. Japanese sales of the series have been dropping off for a while now. You have to go back to FFIV to find a main series FF game that did worse. (FFX-2 is a gnat's cock behind as well)

[Ace Pace]

2.42 million.

A large number, but actually quite a long way short of the peak the series hit on the PS1. Japanese sales of the series have been dropping off for a while now. You have to go back to FFIV to find a main series FF game that did worse. (FFX-2 is a gnat's cock behind as well)

Discussed quite well here.

On Thursday Aonuma candidly, and with self-effacing humor, spoke of his period of aimlessness and mistakes that began with the release of The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker, the way in which they reflected the Japanese industry as a whole, and how they led to Nintendo's shift of focus over the last few years.

After Wind Waker, Aonuma concedes, Zelda was a franchise in distress. Although he immediately set to work on a sequel, word soon arrived that sales were far below expectations – particularly in Japan. After studying the market, someone at Nintendo came to the conclusion that the Japanese industry was undergoing what Aonuma termed "gamer drift" – a slow disenfranchising of the core audience, matched with a failure to attract a new audience. Wind Waker, Aonuma realized, fed directly into that trend.

Although stylish, the game design was barely changed over previous Zelda games. In fact, Aonuma realized, the Zelda series as a whole had not seen any "really new ideas" since at least Ocarina of Time. Instead, he and other designers had simply stacked content on top of the familiar template, making the games all the more vertical and convoluted. The result was that gamers familiar with the series were growing bored, while the barrier to entry was getting no shallower.


[snip]


The revelations brought on by Wind Waker were a smack in the face at Nintendo, forcing a change of perspective. Beginning in late 2002, Nintendo's new mission was to reverse the sinking ship that was the Japanese industry by actively combating "gamer drift". The eventual result of this philosophy was the DS, and then the Wii. Their release was still a couple of years off, however.


[snip]



In the end, Aonuma observed, although the game was received well in the US, it still failed to sell to expectactions in Japan. Clearly, he said, that meant there was far more work to do. There is a phrase that Miyamoto often uses: “In many ways, creating something is suffering.”

[Vendetta]

This is another reason a lot of Japanese companies are getting comfy with the Xbox (much to the chagrin of some, the babies on Capcom's forums completely spat their dummies out at the announcement of multi-platform DMC4). It's in a strong position in markets that aren't shrinking.