@Witzbold: If franchises are what consumers want then isn't it logical to give it to them? That's how you make money, sell people stuff they want. Sure it doesn't broaden the market, but if it keeps developers fed and gamers happy, what's so wrong about it? I'm not saying that's what I want, but if it works for both parties, wouldn't it be stupid to break the system just for the sake of it?

ara

Surely that's the case with the entire games market, not just Japan. People naturally gravitate towards stuff they know and like, sequels etc.

kiigan

Here's another theory:

Elebits was mediocre and Dewy sucked.

That could be his problem, right there.

Moonshadow101

I like my franchises, and I'm sure all of us have at least one that we're close to. Right now I'm just in the meaty part of FF12 (yeah, I know, bit late to the crowd), and am loving it.

There SHOULD be a balance, though.

phinehas

How can this be a surprise to anyone? It's simple consumerism:

In theory, consumers make rational decisions, yes?

This is why consumers will return to a product line they trust (i.e: found enjoyable in previous installments.)

This is also why consumers get flustered when a newer product in a line doesn't live up to their expectations garnered by their experience with the line's previous products. (e.g: Burnout Paradise, anyone?)

Who is paying this guy???

Aaron-173

@Konatsu: I agree with your remark that we should all give a little more attention to these new IPs. I also gave Zack & Wiki a try and I'm so so glad I did. No More Heroes is next on my list to try out.

sweetie55

@Captain Impulse: Bah! How dare you correct yourself before I have a chance to do it?! ;)

Captain Impulse

@Konatsu: Also, tacking on a name doesn't necessarily mean a game will do well. Lots of Final Fantasy games are hit-or-miss among fans. Everyone has their favorites and least favorites among the series.

While this is true, that doesn't stop the series from selling a bazillion copies with each iteration. Simply having the Final Fantasy name stuck to it guarantees sales.

Captain Impulse

@Konatsu: Actually, reading that, I feel stupid. Main series Final Fantasy games WILL always do well. Their popularity in the long run may differ. As for the spin-offs, they carry the name but don't nearly do as well. Crystal Chronicles was a decent game, but the need for multiple GBAs for multiplayer killed it. I wonder how the other CC games (Wii and DS) are going to do.

Konatsu

I honestly didn't like Elebits. The idea was good, but the repetitive levels/gameplay and silly restrictions on some levels (don't break anything, don't make too much noise, etc.) made it less fun.

I think what he (and some of you) talks about has to do with why Zack and Wiki failed to hit people here. It's a totally new IP, it's very cutesy or kiddy in appearance (thus overlooked by older gamers), and it was poorly advertised. Okami was the same way, but it's going to get another chance on the Wii. Hopefully they'll do a little push in advertising for it, or maybe the previous word of mouth will help.

It really depends on the game and the person playing it, though. I like old and new IPs. Mario Galaxy was enjoyable. They didn't change too much, either. I also like and have been playing Rune Factory. It's a slight change in the usual Harvest Moon formula and I think it's fun. And I still need to play through more of Zack and Wiki.

Also, tacking on a name doesn't necessarily mean a game will do well. Lots of Final Fantasy games are hit-or-miss among fans. Everyone has their favorites and least favorites among the series. The same thing happened to me with Batallion Wars. I thought, "Oh, an action-RTS game set in the Famicom / Advance Wars Universe", but the gameplay and the fact that there's literally no real link to the AW universe or characters turned me off of that real quick.

On that note, I can't wait for the new, gritty Days of Ruin.

I guess what I really need to learn from playing / buying Zack and Wiki is that every new game or IP deserves a little attention in finding out if there's a gem there or not, be it through word of mouth, rentals or just plain buying it and playing it for yourself. That being said, I may have to look into Dewy's Adventure and other games to see if there could be something worth experiencing there that I would normally pass up.

Konatsu

@Captain Impulse:
Exactly. It's hard for a game to post good sales when even people who visit this and similar sites don't even know what it is/when it's released.

shiwasu

The newest franchise of choice appears to be Wii, in fact Wii Fit is sold out in Japan, While Wii Play and Wii sports remain strong on the charts

Avinash_Tyagi

How many iterations do you need then? Is Blue Dragon 2 going to kick ass in sales or does MS have to wait for BD3,4 or 6?

ElPadre

@Witzbold: MGS4, GTA IV, God of War 3, Legend of Zelda (next installment), Mario (same), e.c.t... Not all franchises are bad. :D Just most of them.

NotSoCool

@Plsk1n:

The biggest slice of the pie was for casual gamers last gen too. Madden, The Sims, Maro Party, Halo, etc..

silkylove

@shiwasu: I totally agree with the ad campaigns you mentioned. Advertising is key, but it has to be good advertising. Kane and Lynch's ad campaign turned me off to the game before it was common knowledge that it was crap. A lot of games make it to market without me hearing anything about them. Should I be blamed?

Captain Impulse

@shiwasu: Yeah, it's like this everywhere, but it's a lot worse in Japan. The only new IPs that don't get killed in the charts are generally non-games.

emiaj

Hmm perhaps the problem wasn't so much it being a new IP but consumers struggling to pick a game from the shitfest that is the Wii's library

holytramp

Here's a tip for budding developers wanting to make it big in Japan with new IPs, release it as an "VII"th sequel to a non-existent franchise.

Zero_

Is this what happens when the bigges slice of the pie is for casual gamers? Less new IPs and more franchise titles? This year was great for many developers outside Japan and many new IPs proved their success. I wish Japanese developers would mount up and give us new IPs, I personally can't wait for Lost Odysee and Mistwalker's Gooch's "Cry on".

Plsk1n

What he says is true (and not just exclusive to Japan), but it doesn't mean new IPs can't succeed. Having a familiar name plastered onto a game box is built-in advertising. New IPs don't have that luxury, which just means that they have to market harder. We've seen this happen with the likes of Assassin's Creed, Bioshock and Gears of War, which all had great ad campaigns, imo.

shiwasu

Can this be seen as a reflection of Japanese society? Just a thought when I was reading this.

That Girl Hates You

Well maybe it's that, or maybe it was that Elebits was a rushed game, and Dewy controlled worse than Monkeyball on the Wii. I hate it when devs make halfhearted attempts on the Wii and then write it off as "the consumer doesn't want original content." The only devs that have a real beef IMO are Capcom for Zack n Wiki and EA for MoH2. And they don't have that much to complain about either because they didn't market their games.

silkylove

I always become depressed when I recall the sorry fates of original, new IP's like Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil. Sometimes it feels like a game needs a year of solid hype before anyone pays attention to it, and then when it's released some little flaw is discovered and we all proclaim that it 'didn't live up to the hype'. Only ourselves to blame really.

GregoriusH

While it's true that the franchise is king, there are plenty of recent examples of new IP doing really well, e.g. Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, Bioshock, etc. A game doesn't have to be a sequel to do well, but it does need to appeal to gamers to get noticed (well that and an enormous marketing push).

"Cutesy" games like Elebits and Dewy will not get noticed by gamers, no matter how good they are and they don't get the marketing money either. I personally don't have a problem with "kiddie" graphics, but a large majority of gamers won't look at a game unless it's gritty and realistic looking. Of course there are exceptions, Wii Sports is a new IP and has cartoon graphics, yet it is single handedly putting the Wii in the lead for hardware sales.

PhotoBoy

And this is why the market is going downhill. We are getting too much of the goddamned same thing.

Lets hope he can convince some of the bigwigs to make new IPs again. Since shit you gotta start somewhere.

Elebits was cool too. D:

Witzbold

I'm not so sure I agree with that. New IP's seem to do pretty well in the US, as long as they appear to be quality games. It seems a lot of US game consumers have pretty fine-tuned B.S. detectors when it comes to bad games. Every so often we get fooled, but most gamers these days seem to be able to detect a bad game a mile away.

Captain Impulse

Isn't there a distinct possibility that the games he released onto the Japanese market are actually considered crap by the gamers there.
Maybe not in other parts of the world, but only there.

Franchises have to start somewhere, so blaming the market for that is, to me, illogical.

sauvage

REALLY!? I thought Final Fantasy was revolutionary all 700 million times a game came out.

Superstar90

The solution is simple, put a damn 2 at the end of any new IP title... Here ya go! Still you can always create a prequel later if your title does well.

slimky

@inphanta: "He is very much mistaken if he believes lack of appreciation for new IP is Japan-only thing."

Take a look at the best selling titles of last year, there are quite a few new IPs. Even as titles like Bioshock and Mass Effect are spiritual successors to successful titles, not really any different that Final Fantasy games for example, just released under a new brand.

ara

@nya-chama:
*emo!!!!!

the lack of edit button just makes me want to slash my wrists!

nya-chama

This just reminds me how horrible Zack & Wiki and No More Heroes did, I'll be imo for the rest of the day now because the world truly sucks...

nya-chama

He is very much mistaken if he believes lack of appreciation for new IP is Japan-only thing.

As for his games, I actually thought Elelbits was a very good game. However, it was destined to not be a success in the west by virtue of its visuals, as generally, western gamers are more obsessed with "realism" and seem to dissolve vampire-style when they see a colourful game. I haven't played Dewy, but that's because I thought it looked twee and generic.

As for new games, I still don't understand why Konami hasn't even THOUGHT OF making a Castlevania game for the Wii, using the remote for sword swipes/whip blows.

inphanta

From what Square has to say, i don't think they are going to look to what Japanese gamers want as much as they used to in the future.Development in the West is booming and that's where Square-Enix has set it's sights it seems.

SUGARAY

Mario Party 8. Minna no Golf 5. Metal Gear Solid 4. Final Fantasy 13.

I wonder what'll happen when they reach the weird numbers...like 69.

Forelli_Boy

This is the stupidest thing I´ve ever read.

I mean.

Japanese gamers like franchises, we like them too.

But in order to BUILD a franchise, somehow, you gotta start from scratch.

Every famous franchise was once a new game. This is ridiculous.

lucasreis

They say new IPs do well in the West, but I don't think that's true. The ones cited above, while technically not sequels, are very derivative. (I'm not saying they're bad, just that they have lots of aspects in common with other well-known games.)

Mass Effect: If you know a Bioware game, you know exactly what to expect
Assassin's Creed: Prince of Persia with killing
Gears of War: A standard FPS with duck-and-cover gameplay
Bioshock: A standard FPS with RPG elements and a story

And these are longer descriptions than necessary. But the point is, not only are the games advertised and hyped well, but when you see a 30-second commercial for Assassin's Creed, you really know exactly what to expect from the game, because it's similar enough to other games you've played.

It's harder to describe what one does in Elebits or Dewy. Elebits is a mishmash of a few different game-types: people compared it to Half-Life 2, Katamari Damacy, Pikmin, etc. As a gamer, how do you take those three games and combine them and say, "OK, I know what I'll be doing in this game."

If you try to determine whether you'll enjoy Bioshock, you first ask, "Do I like FPS games?" If you don't, you won't like it. If you do, you'll probably like it. It's much harder to determine whether you'll be one of the people who really love Elebits or one of the people who isn't impressed. Dewy has the same type of issue.

And anyone who says these games didn't sell well because they didn't get high review scores is obviously wrong. Zack & Wiki says hello.

sxp151

@lucasreis:
Of course each franchise has to be built from scratch. What you, and many others in this thread, are failing to focus in on the point that he is making his comments about the Japanese market, not the Western market. New IPs have a much tougher time cracking into the core gaming market in Japan than they do in the West. Look at games like Lost Planet, Dead Rising, Okami, and No More Heroes (which I pray sells like hotcakes when it is released out West later this month).

Sure, these games and other new IPs that come out of Japan can be franchises, but it is because they sold well in the US and Europe, not Japan. This article and the newer Square-Enix article should be merged together, since they go pretty much go hand-in-hand.

SpishackCola

I'm sorry, but the guy developed two poorly-marketed titles, on the WII no less, and I'm supposed to take his word? Let's see how his games do with even a mid-range marketing campaign on the PS2 or 360. The problem with Wii game sales has been well documented on Kotaku and elsewhere. Guy just seems to be be trying to find an excuse for his complete lack of foresight.

@lucasreis: My thoughts exactly. This is why UbiSoft is where it is now. It took a chance with Assassin's Creed, and now they have a new franchise. The good companies are always looking for the next big franchise.

RawSteelUT

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Konami is barely relevant in today's market. I would expect them to be bought out or absorbed within the next two years.

elpierce

@Captain Impulse:

I completely agree with that comment. Could not have said it better myself.

I try new IP's in the Genres I like. But do not normally tread outside of the Genres I enjoy.

--Core--

@DrFresh: Except the FF games are selling off the NAME being the same. Whereas the majority of people buying Bioshock aren't going to even know about System Shock or their connection. The same goes for Jade Empire, Kotor, and Mass Effect.

Lackshmana

compared with america,
we yankees like to have new ip's, new ideas, change. Our whole culture reflects it, except maybe the south.

theprof00

I don't know how it took him so long to figure this thing out, being of Japanese nationality.
@RawSteelUT and Everyone else not living in Japan:
Japan sticks very closely to things that have proven success, hence why xbox never did well and ps3 is doing great despite its position at the moment. It is all about consistency.
Check out this graph [www.geert-hofstede.com]
If you take a look at it there is one in particular called UAI (uncertainty avoidance index). This is a trend that is pretty much central to japanese culture, as well as in mexico. New things brought by new developers in any shape or form, are hard to accept...
In fact had the Wii not carried the Nintendo logo, i doubt it would be doing as well there.
So, yes he is right, and you should stop bashing him for "making excuses", however he is a little slow on the uptake, and he should realize that a sequel to either of his games would do better.

theprof00

My God, it took TWELVE Final Fantasy sequels and a bajillion spinoffs for this guy to figure it out?

Gunhaver

Anyone who calls Mass Effect or Bioshock 'new IPs' is missing the point. Those games are so obviously iterations of past products that it doesn't matter whether the characters are 'new' or not.

By that logic, every Final Fantasy is a new IP because the characters and settings are different.

DrFresh

Elebits was a poorly implemented game based on a great idea. It could have been a word of mouth hit, but there are a lot of issues that take away from the fun of the game, like the doors and the clutter becoming unmanagable and having to collect the elebits when they have a certain mood. Katamari Damacy got noticed because of the stylish visuals, but it became a hit because the gameplay was great. Word of mouth means a lot when it comes to cultish games, especially when you have no advertising, and if your game has gameplay flaws, no one will recommend it.

kingofallcosmos

@TearsandScreams: Just to add, I'm not saying the heritage was the only reason for those games succession, many new people bought those two as well, not only the old fans. So they clearly re-branded well, and were appealing to Xbox360 gamers.

ara

@TearsandScreams: And some kid who fell in love with System Shock 2 would still be buying BioShock, as well as KOTOR fans Mass Effect. Those games have clear heritage and it was known to all who follow the gaming media of any kind, always mentioned in every big article about those two. They were labeled from the very beginning as being spiritual successors.

ara

@Lackshmana: Apologies for repeating exactly what you just said.

TearsandScreams

@DrFresh: They're not though. Because whilst the games are similar to what's come before certainly, they're selling off of their own back. Some kid who fell in love with Final Fantasy at 5/6 or 7 could well still be buying 13 regardless. Where as the name 'Mass Effect' is in effect new. It's a brand name rather than the game itself, and in that respect Mass Effect and Bioshock did well to establish a brand.

TearsandScreams

Hmmm. This isn't the first time that a Japanese dev has made commments like this. And we honestly know this to be true if we simply pay attention to what sells big in Japan.

Do RPG's that are not FF, DQ or KH sell even half of what those do? A third? Seriously, this is what he's talking about.

What surprised me was the lukewarm reception to Lost Odyssey in Japan. If it had a FF name on it, it would've EASILY sold a million copies. But it didn't sell even as much as Blue Dragon (no Toriyama, of course) even though reviews in Japan were very good.

This story (along with the S-E one about Japanese core gamer market being weak) should really help us to see that THOSE WHO ARE IN THE KNOW understand that the Japanese market is just not near as important anymore when it comes to generating revenue in gaming.

DARTH_TIGRIS

NEWSFLASH! :P

GorbyGipper

No Shingo; gamers purchase games which are GOOD. Simple as that.

asianmacker

No More Heroes as well, guys... *sniff*

Sabre_Justice

Elebits and Dewy? That's the big example of this "phenomenon?" No offense, but those weren't even that great. If you can't sell a modern day's "great" videogame concept, it's not necessarily because it's "original" and not part of a franchise. And as far as Konami games on the WIi goes, the support is a poor compared to what they've offered the PS2 and will offer the PS3. Step it up. If you want solid examples of what hardcore gamers on the Wii want, it's something along the lines of Metal Gear Solid or Silent Hill. Perhaps a next gen Snatcher or something along those lines. All these Nintendo=kiddie parallel effort is stale and has been stale since the Cube era.

questworld