[Shadow Fox]

Originally posted by TheGame
Lets see, where is the developer Rareware based? How long after Microsoft purchased them did sales turn around? I think that UK is bias in a sense too, but thier baby went to Microsoft, and they are following.

Then by your excuse you just made, Nintendo shoud've still tanked in the UK even after the release of Smash DX, right? I mean, since you're basically blaming this on a second-now-first-party devver, surely the loss of Rare would've done them in.

It didn't. Care to explain why else Smash DX seems to be the only saving grace for GCN?

BTW, Rare didn't leave Nintendo until mid-September; so why was Xbox doing well until then, eh?

No reason? LOL

First of all, use American made games as examples,

OK, why is Fifa doing well on Xbox in Japan?

we allready know anything with the name Nintendo on it is going to sell successfully at worst.

That's not true; and you know that. Stop exaggerating, before I begin to name the flood of failures both companies have released.

Also, did you see some of the reviews for Animal crossing? It ranged everywhere from a 3.0 to an 8.5. If it wasn't for the fact that Nintendo made it, it wouldn't have been popular anywhere.

OK, you wanna keep exaggerating. Explain how Animal Leader sold NOTHING in Japan, yet coming from the same company, and was released TWICE (N64/GCN). Animal Forest/Crossing, on the other hand, sold fairly well in Japan on N64 as well as it's GCN sequel. Both are by Nintendo, are they not? Legend of Dragoon wasn't that hot in Japan either, yet it rocked the USA, regardless of being primarily developed internally at SCEA.

Find an excuse for those.

Let a game like that be on Xbox, and a new fresh developer make it, it wouldn't have enjoyed the success of the GCN version no matter how you look at it.

Who said anything about "fresh new developers"? My whole point is that Xbox doesn't have as many games that work well in Japan as GCN/PS2 do, and IF IT DID, the console would sell well there, regardless of this "bias" you claim is the dominant force. Crossgate, a MMORPG/RTS hybrid is doing stellar in Japan; but it's by a US developer, though published by Enix. There are too many variables to even declare bias as being real.

Bottom line: If the games were on Xbox, they will sell, not "they aren't selling because the audience is biased", but eh...

But this has nothing to do with bias in this case, it simply has to do with who is developing the game and not how good or bad the game is.

I'll say this again, look at Crossgate, Fifa/World Cup, Gundam, etc...Bandai definately isn't a great name per-se; same with EA in Japan. Yet, the games sell. This is nowhere near "simple" and it has alot more to do with how good or bad the game is in that market as opposed to who made the damn thing. If Midway made a Gundam game and shipped it to Japan, do you really think it WON'T sell well?

Also, Xenogears has a cult following...

What the piss?!!! Xenogears being mistaken for XenoSaga and vice-versa? Where the hell did you get that excuse from? Link?

The Japanese audience is more aware of upcoming titles than we are (and have been for years), IMO...how the hell did you come up with that??

if that were released on Xbox (still a japanese game so please don't give a dumb reply) it would still sell. Or, then again, more fans may have paid attention to the fact that Xenosaga isn't a sequal to Xenogears, and it would hae failed. But because it's on Ps2, people seem to blind themselves to that fact. Hell, some people probably are ignorant to the fact that Square didn't even develop the game this time around.

In JAPAN, people are this ignorant? Enough to help PS2 sales go thru the roof in the homeland? Right...

You're really making no sense now, and your point is even more skewed than before- if you're trying to make one here...

But it's all maybes...

So you aren't sure? Or do you know for a fact XenoSaga sold well in Japan because of an oversight? Link?

people think Xenogears/Square when they see Xenosaga. Maybe that thought force would havge been different had to been released on Xbox.

Alot of maybe's going on now, since you stated it as fact a few quotes ago...

Did Ps2's launch line up compete with DC's "plethora of available titles" when it was launched? No, but ever single damn Ps2 was off the shelf.

And if you look at the sales charts during that time, copies of Tekken Tag went right off the shelves with it.

I'll say this again: GAMES.

Well, let me do like you and say "read above"

Likewise.

*claps*

I agree 110%. Ps2 and GCN have name recognition, and that's basically why thier games sell better.

Moreso than the fact that they are actually good (to the Japanese audience, anyways)? Why didn't Orta sell oodles in Japan based on this, yet Tecmo sold better with DOA3?

If Tao Feng is released in Japan, the game will probably get decent sales (being a fighter, and a decent one- which sell well in that area)...

But I'm not dropping the bias angle... because time and time again Japan proves not to go for US made games, no matter how well they do at gamerankings.com

Read above; and once again think about Fifa's performance, Crossgate, and [insert Disney game here] that are made by US design teams or published by a US publisher.

I mean, you can sit here and say you don't like Halo, and I can sit here and say I don't like Metriod.... but most people do, and Japan is not buying it, why? Like I said over and over, give me a better reason than bias against american made games. We both know the bad sales have notta to do with game quality.

And I'll say this again, since you seemed to avoid it: What First-person game has sold well in Japan, regardless of who developed it?

I find it easy to relate poor american made game sales in Japan to poor American made console sales in Japan.

I don't know how you can say that when certain sales for Xbox did well, and certain American made games sold well and still continue to sell in Japan. With that fact, derive this notion.

??? Umm, you lost me. Try explaining it in different words, one more time.

Imagine this:

-Xbox, GCN and PS2 don't have Final Fantasy, Gundam, Pokemon, Winning Eleven, Soul Calibur, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, etc...

-Dreamcast does.

-Dreamcast would be the console of choice.

Is that clarified now?

No, I recall poor Japanese console sales, and half decent US console sales. While the game sales stayed atop Ps2 until it's death. Ps2 still outsold DC week to week from the day it was launched.

"Poor"?? I don't recall DC selling less than 50k a week until well after PSO was released in 2000. And yes, DC was still rocking PS2 with Sakura Wars alone, even during the release of FFX, even though the console had surpassed the DC in install base by then.

Read above, that doesn't explain why more Ps2's got into homes than DCs in that time period before DC's death. Of course DC held it's little head start, but for those months Ps2 smacked the DC.

Yes it did; and your install base=more sales pose ends right there; regardless of PS2 outselling DC in hardware, the software still remained high until well after Sega's departure from console manufacturing-FACT.

Head starts don't count.. Month to month Ps2 beat DC in hardware sales.

"Don't count"? This isn't some fourth-grade football game; you wanna set rules for a debate now?

Seriously, DC still was the DOMINANT console- no if's and's or but's about it.

More units sold=more people to sell games to.

Explain how no Sakura Wars game has sold as well as those on DC, with a larger installed base? Hell, explain how it outsold FFX in Japan...

Woah woah woah... I gave more factors than just hardware in success. Here's a quote:

"timing, pricing, hardware features, and games equally"

And here's another, that's very contradictary to what you just said:

"And I repeat yet again, a main factor, not the only factor..."

And also

"I think it had much more to do with hardware power and features, or lack there of..."

This was what I was denouncing; and why are you saying this here if it's really about "other factors as well" in your mind? Guess you forgot to type the rest there, eh?

How do you know it's the bundle that helped sell the console?

Because I have the NPD data sheets that specifically state the Xbox bundle accounting for 3 million units sold of the 5 million Xboxes to-date. Why do you think otherwise?

I know it can't hurt, but I'm sure many people didn't buy an Xbox just to get JSRF and SegaGT.

Well maybe not- maybe they just bought the thing BECAUSE IT WAS THE ONLY XBOX SYSTEM AVAILABLE, or maybe just because they just wanted the games as collectors' items or something...

Whille gamers now basacally get two games of choice to battle that Xbox with. You have to admit, if you didn't have a console this generation and you were trying to decide on which to buy and you had $250, chances are you (as I) would sway GCN's way due to freedom of selection period.

No, I wouldn't- there's only a selection of FOUR games, The Game. If you don't want any of those four, you're still in the same rutt as the majority of the existing Xbox audience now.

err, read above

And once again- likewise.

You get your personal choice, that's why GCN's deal would be better. Some people would rather just buy a GCN with Mario for $200 over Xbox and those free pre-selected games. So a GCN with one game of choice is a better deal to some people than Xbox with 3. It just depends on what you want/like. You get more freedom in Nintendo's camp though.

Suppose your opinion on this IS true- what's your point? You said "games aren't the major factor, right"? Why should it matter what two games you get, eh?

season is still a factor. In UK GCN was released at a time where it had a fair chance to catch up... in Japan Xbox was released a bit too late to take any fire from GCN. This holdiday season was the true test, Xbox won in one place, and GCN won in the other.

And numbers are still numbers. How do you figure GCN had an "advantage" if both Xbox and GameCube sold the same amount during GCN's head start in Japan, and Xbox's head start in the UK? Sounds pretty even to me...

it no more of a factor than Price. If GCN costed $2000 and the games were $4000 a peice Bill gates not many peeps will buy it. Just like if the games aren't popular enough, or just not good enough.

And here I meticulously quote you again:

"And I repeat yet again, a main factor, not the only factor..."

You're not even agreeing with yourself, let alone with me. WTF?

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, having good games could possibly be the biggest thing to drive console sales, but DC proved it isn't.

Then what was keeping the damn thing afloat after it launched? Hardware sales of itself only, and NO GAMES? Does the DC not have more console sales now than that of Nintendo and Microsoft worldwide?

Elaborate, especially since the only thing that killed DC was Sega's own failures with the Saturn and other financial issues internally.

if Sega had such hevy losses, why bother making a new console? Heavy losses isn't what killed it, Ps2 is.

Bad planning, and spending going on with foreign relations, or did you know that? Sega sold more than enough consoles for profit, yet they weren't making any, even with all the software sales on top of that. Sega was still in the hole- no two ways about it.

PS2 could've not released and Sega would still be in the same trouble they're in now, like it or not- there isn't a single publication that agrees with you on this one.

If what you say is true (which it damn-sure isn't), why the hell were games still selling oodles after PS2's launch UNTIL Sega went bankrupt?

What point are you trying to get at? For every console to fail there are thousands of people who like it, and for every console to succeed there are thousands of people to hate it. So yes, consoles with weak game quality by many people's standards do succeed.

You didn't answer my question: NAME ONE; one console that had overall poor selection of games/quality and SUCCEEDED.

Now, that's why game quality isn't even what I talk about when I mentioned games as a factor, it more of name recognition.

And if this recognition was the case, then every Tecmo/Capcom and Sega game would've sold just as well on Xbox as they have on PS2/GCN in Japan. Hardly true. Next.

Quality is random, one person's trash is another person's treasure.

Not random when games sell in the excess of 1 million+ units. Next.

There is no true way to define game quality without polling all the gamers who own consoles.

Good point- which also aludes to mine; more Xbox games that CATER to the Japanese audience will sell the console, since it's all on opinion anyway- regardless of it being an American-made console.

Lets say game sales are the poll of quality... then why is Metriod considerd one of the best games of all times, and NFL 2k3 rated higher than Madden 2003 at most reviewing sources?

Good point; but a popular game is still GOOD to whoever buys it- being "quality" to them. Gundam isn't nowhere near quality in my eyes, but I assure you the Japanese market will beg to differ.

Game quality has a lot to do with it, but that doesn't mean a quality game will sell, and a crappy game won't sell like crazy.

Once again, this quality depends on mass opinion in that area. Alot of Famitsu scores that are very bad in Japan end up with big press over here and vice-versa.

Have you checked GBA's game attach rate? GBA's success doesn't really come from game quality does it? GBA doesn't have to release a good game for the next nine months to stay afloat.

Have you seen the game sales of GBA? There's not one top-ten that doesn't include a GBA game that lists it as a console. The attach rate isn't well for the same reason as PSX- too many bloody games, though favorites like Golden Sun, Castlevania, etc help and move even more GBA's (like that horrible outbreak we call Pokemon).

Have you also checked Ps2's attach rates around the demise of DC? In Japan there was less than one game sold for every console sold. Yet it still pumped out more hardware, and got Sega in such a scared state that they had to quit.

And have you checked out how many people own GTA3, Sakura Wars, Metal Gear Solid, and Madden? Like GBA, there are ALOT of games out, and unfortunately only a select few get all the sales. What console tops nearly every sales chart (besides GBA)? Too many units amongst a dozen games, while the rest suffer.

Good... so you agree with basically the only point I'm trying to get accross.

Which one, this:

"And I repeat yet again, a main factor, not the only factor..."

Or this:

"timing, pricing, hardware features, and games equally"

I agree with the former, but not the latter.

-Official Ninja of [coming soon]...