Hmm...chances seem pretty slim. What type of Japanese gamer would you have to be to own ONLY a Wii last gen? Probably not one who would ever buy a Yakuza game....I could have told Sega that. Had this title come out on the Wii U at the same time as the PS3 version, I think it could have done better. But how well do you expect a recent "port-of-a-port" to do?
If Nintendo really had a hand in this, then it was a dumb decision on their part. To really have made waves, the new Edo Yakuza game should have come to Wii U.
Japan is not a home console market, the previous generation the dominate platforms were handhelds, this generation, and more specfically this year, the Nintendo 3DS and the Playstation Vita are the best selling console this year, so it is possible a person may have owned one console and one handheld. As I said, it was a test for the market to see if anyone who purchased a Wii U would be interested in Yakuza and let's be honest, software sales even for core titles have been abysmal so I am not sure if it did launch with the Playstation 3 version it would do much better.
Ishin may have come to the Wii U at some point, or even further spinoffs to the series, it all is Nintendo trying to court popular titles home console experience on the system, but this performance is not going to encourage SEGA to invest in the platform with this particular brand.
All that it will do is make SEGA ponder why they should even bother with a Wii U version if the demograph already exists on the Playstation 3 with no major expansion coming to the Wii U.
Hmm. Interesting. Though I don't think there's much of a hope of it hitting Yakuza 1/2 numbers.
They will not, but the series has not experienced a 50% decline either, perhaps 20% - 30% decline thanks to Japan shifting from home consoles to portables.
Final Fantasy games and Dragon Quest games sell millions. Their ports don't always even do well.....the audience of ports is fairly limited. Yakuza is a popular Japanese franchise but my point is that it's not one where a port of 2 old games is guaranteed to be a huge success.
The title was never intended to be a hugh success, by most accounts it would have been a failure at the shipment that was sent out (10,000 units) not even 50% of that low target will be achieved.
Considering the fact that Yakuza 4 essentially only "broke even" at the 500,000 mark, (IIRC) I'm not sure how you could even consider labeling a 100,000+ seller on an HD system as "solid."
That was Yakuza 3 which had to develop a new engine at the time. Just like how Gears of War 2 costs a lot less than Gears of War 1 despite having more content, the groundwork was laid out in the previous games. Same with Yakuza 5, most of the work was already done in Binary Domain.
I was speaking broadly, most games in Japan are solid sellers at 100,000+ tend to be handheld titles, but those titles do exist on the Playstation 3 too. Konami's Pro Baseball series, From Software's Armored Core series and Koei's Dynasty Warriors sidegames.
But I do not think budget should have any reflection on what is considered solid sales, Tomb Raider failed to meet turn a profit Square at over 3 million sales, that should not mean that sales considered less than solid, it is exceptional. And Yakuza is consistently one of the best selling series in Japan, calling it a solid seller would be labelling most of Japan's software sales as underperforming.
Ah, I see.
What I said was;
By "some people" I wasn't referring specifically to you.....didn't mean for you to take it as such.
Ah that clears things up.
For a publisher like Sega, profits come from a dedicated fanbase buying their games. The Total War fanbase is certainly happy with the franchise (and Sega, presumably) and that has been a consistently profitable business for them. That is a dedicated fanbase.
Other aspects of Sega has lost this dedicated fanbase over the years and I'd definitely argue that their games' sales have suffered as a result. Capcom is learning that very same thing; it used to be that many Capcom games were guaranteed at least a certain degree of success by their very name alone. No longer the case. Having a dedicated and happy core fanbase, especially for smaller, more niche publishers, is crucial, IMO, to their continued success.
I know it's brought up continually, but a company like Atlus, like Sega, doesn't always have the money to spend big dollars on marketing. But Atlus' fanbase is almost like its own community, and they reliably buy their games regardless.
Capcom is more successful now than they have ever been. Where was this dedicated fanbase to support Okami, God Hand, Viewtiful Joe 2 etc amongst other games?
The same for SEGA minus their hugely successful Mega Drive period.
The dedicated fanbase does not exist on a scale that can support a major company, you go back and see their sales history. People like two or three SEGA franchises but a universal fanbase is and has always been minor.
Nor should SEGA be compared to Atlus. $1 million profit is a major accomplishment for Atlus, to a major company like SEGA it would be considered a failure. SEGA is globally like the sixth or seventh biggest third party publisher, trying to pigeon hole them into Atlus' status is ridiculous since they have four titles that outsell Atlus' whole output whilst a further two titles that usually better the sales of any given Atlus title.
