Nah man, one Japanese publisher failing to develop an internal engine clearly means every Japanese publisher will fail at it, we just gotta ignore the ones who hasn't failed.
Cold Steel 1-2 bombed on PS4 in Japan, yet that didn't kill Falcom's PS4 support. They were the 4th ports just like Ys VIII Switch too.
Well, there won't be that many PS4 users in Japan who neither owned a PS3 nor Vita.
they aren't spending any porting costs. they don't make ports themselves or even publish them for that matter
How many Falcom fans in general didn't own a PS3 or Vita? Why do years late 4th ports of Falcom games only become a unique audience potential indicator with Switch and not PS4?
Why would Switch be unique from Vita, where the majority of it's audience migrated? We saw from CS3/4 and Ys IX sales that audience certainly didn't move to PS4.
So you're saying Cold Steel 3 looks like this?
Because I wanted to be fair and realistic. That's also why I used native hardware screenshots rather than emulator stuff.
Are they wondering then why their PlayStation audience halved?
No because they get profit with licensing and merchandising goods. They make profits and do not worry for Lost Sales.
The point was with Ys VIII Switch is it was a years late port and the 4th version of the game. It apparently becomes a focal point for sales potential despite those factors, as if context regarding the release isn't at all relevant. Nevermind overseas it outperformed the other 3 versions combined and is arguably what led to Ys VIII becoming Falcom's best selling title in their history.
Yakuza/FF/GT/RE/etc weren't really reliant on PSP/Vita sales with their mainline installments though. That's sort of exactly the point, looking to where that handheld specific audience went.
I should probably clarify I'm not arguing against your position on this, you see the obvious strategic move that lends itself and the same conclusion that NIS, Gust, Idea Factory, Experience, Mages and other similarly sized PSP/Vita focused Japanese game makers almost universally came to. Go multiplatform; PS4, Switch and (for overseas) PC. What I'm arguing against is Kondo's position (and by extension) Falcom's position on that.
How could that even be possible when 90% of their games skip the system? Falcom's high domestic revenue take is pretty well known and it makes sense given it's the only region they selfpublish in.
Falcom is kinda small and multiplat development might be too much for them, they simply pick PlayStation as primary target (for better or worse).
they have a small but consistent base because of several reasons, they where on par with squaresoft and enix in the early days but never made the jump to consoles until the PSP days, fully jumping on console development when the PC market completely collapsed. And then they try to be fully self sufficient which is the bigger factor slowing down growth, someone actually asked about that year. Kondo and Kato prefer paying for investments out of the pocket rather than taking a loan with the bank.
nobody is creating a new crystal engine, this decision is a direct result of having issues with their old engine and phyre not being able to handle their wishes either, they informed themselves with other engines, Epic tried to court them. And in the end they decided it would be more cost efficient to build a new engine themselves. They already have expertise with this.
isn't that always the case?
Oh sure, and in many cases those sales had to be earned by building and cultivating an audience by actually bringing games to Switch even when they were being outsold 2:1 or 3:1 in the early days of the platform. Just the same as many of those same developers did on PS4 too several years earlier with similarly low upfront ratios.
Kondo's actually used this bandwidth defense before but it's pretty amusing when (1) other similarly sized and even smaller yet equally prolific studios are managing PS4/Switch multiplatform releases, (2) multiplatform support magically didn't seem to be a staffing issue when it came to Falcom making games across PS3/Vita/PS4 and (3) it also doesn't appear to be an issue with outsourced catalog games they're now bringing to PS4 but not Switch (Ao/Zero, Celcita). It's an excuse that falls flat on face value with even the tiniest bit of research and one everyone should see through really.
And thats totally fine - im just commenting on those developments as an outsider looking in, they sure have good enough reasons of why they think going with their own engine is a good use of their resources.
Cold Steel 1-2 bombed because they was ports from PS3/PSV.
Yes, just like Ys VIII Switch was a port from PSV/PS4. That's sort of the point.
Yes but i think that even if Falcom games would be release on PS4 and Switch at the same time, PS4 sales would be much higher.
At this point yes but if they'd started on Switch earlier and cultivated an audience there like they did for PS4 then they'd probably be pretty similar now. And if they'd done that important base building then CS3 might not have massively declined in sales from CS1/CS2 like it did.
CS3-4 had big drop in sales because game was only on PS4 vs PS3/PSV. BUT:
Ys IX was also a similarly big decline from Ys VIII. Again, there's an obvious reason for this and an obvious way to mitigate it, one that basically every other midsize and smaller Japanese publisher has already figured out.
thErE'S An oBvioUs ReasoN FOR thIS AnD an oBVIous WaY tO mItigAtE IT, oNe ThAT bAsIcaLlY eveRY OTHER MIdsIze AnD SmalleR jApANESE pUBLiShEr hAs aLreAdy FIgUReD oUt.
So you just stopped attempting to argue and just started screaming like a petulant child?
Graphics aren't their strong point. If you're in for them then you're playing the wrong game(s).
So you're saying Cold Steel 3 looks like this?
I'd like to know how your average Falcon employee day lasts. With so many titles on their hands (I assume Tokyo Xanadu 2 is also planned), I hope they aren't in a state of permanent crunch.
I think CS1 has reached the 1M milestone (to my knowledge the only Trails game that has done so).
Did I step in a Media Create thread by mistake?
