***Official Viewtiful Joe Discussion Thread*** (1 Viewer)

[BertFalasco]

Been playing the demo a lot and since I am picking it up tomorrow, how about a head start on discussion!

I can't wait for the 10+ hours of sweet innovative gameplay/interface!

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I'm hoping to get this for my birthday next week.

A friend of mine got a sweet VJ bobble head doll with his preorder. I am so freakin' jealous.

 

[Chazz_S]

I don't have it yet, but I am going to get the bobble head as part of my order from gamestop

edit: here's a picture of what the bobble looks like

http://chucks888.freeservers.com/reports/e3swag.html

it's much bigger than I thought it'd be(dvd sets in back for reference), very cool, I think I might keep it rather than ebay it afterall.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

GameSpot's review gave it a 9.2 out of 10.

 

[Peter Manojlovich]

Haven't so much as played the demo, but hey, I was at EB for something else, and I saw this cool laser art cell for VJ, so I said, sign me up for a pre-order. #667 out of 1775 limited edition laser art cells with their own certificate of authenticity and wrapped in clear wrap to save for posterity. Oh, that and a black XL VJ t-shirt. I'm a sucker for freebies. At $49.99 canadian, it's also one of the lowest priced new release titles out there.

Capcom hasn't exactly been putting out winners this year, but it looks like they may have finally turned the corner with VJ. How well it will sell is anybody's guess. Considering, at this late date, I was only the fourth pre-order for VJ at the EB I went to, something tells me that VJ will be at best a cult hit. I know in Japan, where they seem to love off-beat titles VJ didn't exactly rip up the charts.

 

[Steven_V]

GameSpot's review gave it a 9.2 out of 10.

Here are some more scores for the game:

IGN.com: 9.5/10
EGM: 8.5, 9.0, 8.5 (26/30)
GamePro: 5/5
Famitsu: 9, 8, 8, 9 (34/40)
EDGE Magazine: 8/10

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I know in Japan, where they seem to love off-beat titles VJ didn't exactly rip up the charts.

Actually, Capcom had to put an apology on their website because they ran out of stock in the first week, that's how well it sold.

 

[Peter Manojlovich]

Regardless of what you may have read, VJ in japan when last I looked did not sell into six figures in japan. It's that simple. No amount of grandstanding on capcom's part, or short-shipping initial shipments can change those facts. The game itself has fallen off the top 50 list in japan for a while.

No disrespect intended to VJ, but no, it didn't sell well in it's home territority. That's not unusual for the japanese market. This can be a very odd, idiosyncratic market with some very peculiar tastes.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Do you have any numbers? I'm not doubting you, it's just that it got a ton of great reviews in Japan and then sold so well in the beginning that I find it hard that it didn't sell that well.

And even so, the only games in Japan that usually sell more than a million copies are FFs, DQs, and a few other titles.

 

[GlenHaag]

From what I'm seeing through Magic Box, the game did hit 47,000 in it's first week and then dropped off the list two weeks after that.

After reading through a great deal of articles, I did see that it sold out of it's initial shipment. Perhaps Capcom just didn't produce enough. Let's hope we don't see that problem here.

Glen

 

[Peter Manojlovich]

Morgan, before it fell off the charts, I seem to remember VJ having sold some 70k or so copies in japan. When companies like Capcom issue press releases like they do, a lot of the time, they're bogus, attempting to create a situation of artificial scarcity, which will prompt would be purchasers on the fence to go down and pick up the game. You know the old routine, get 'em now, before they're gone. It was that way last year with Vice City, with retailers like EB stating that if you didn't get a pre-order in, you wouldn't be able to get a copy of the game.

Nintendo has actually done fairly well in japan lately, with Kirbys Air Ride, FF:Crystal Chronicles , and Tales of Symphonia all registering sales in excess of 250k. It's not like the old days for nintendo where platinum hits fell off the trees, but still those are respectable stats. VJ is destined to be a cult hit. Even with the freebies, aggressive price point, rave reviews, I just don't see the casual gamer picking this one up, and certainly not the younger gamers despite the cartoon look.

Keep in mind, that nintendo's other recently acclaimed game, F-zero is not setting the charts on fire, either. F-zero was only the fourth best-selling title for the gc in the month of August and registered from what I remember, sales of about 68k. Not bad for a run-of-the mill title, but for a nintendo first party killer-app title, those are disappointing sales figures. Hard core gamers bought f-zero, the casual gamers stayed away. I think the same will hold true for VJ.

Nintendo is in a bad way lately in the US. No big first party hit since Zelda. There are very definite reasons why Nintendo has dropped the price on the gc. Nintendo relies on first party sales for the lion's share of revenue. Third party titles aren't generally selling well on the cube and here nintendo only collects royalties, which they've apparently cut to keep third parties on board.

Case in point, madden. August sales figures for madden were 1.44 million for the ps2, 300k for the xbox and 75k for the cube. Now keep in mind, that royalties average about $8 to $10 per title or at least they did in the past. At any rate, you can see that the coffers are much bigger for the parent companies at sony and ms than for nintendo. And if Nintendo isn't able to pull the numbers that they have in the past for first party efforts, then well, there's trouble brewing. Companies need X amount of sales to cover devopment and marketing costs of a title. Third party royalties are less lucrative than a big first party hit, but they are safer. The worst situation is when your first party efforts underperform and the third party revenue just isn't there. And unfortunately, this is the situation Nintendo is finding themselves in. And it looks there's more trouble on the way.

An early review of Rebel Strike by Game Informer panned the game and certainly has me considering cancelling my pre-order. Mario Kart DD better pull in some big numbers, otherwise this could be a very rough xmas for nintendo. I know I'm way off topic, but it's all grist for the mill.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Alright then, I concede. VJ sold bad and the GameCube's games are selling bad.

Damn, that really sucks. It's such a good game from what I've seen.

 

[Phil Levy]

I'm a huge GC fan and Nintendo supporter, so don't take this the wrong way - but citing FF:Crystal Chronicles as 'respectable' for selling more than 250k copies is a mis-step, IMO. In actual fact, if you exclude FFXI (which has outsold FF:CC regardless, but FF:CC might surpass it), FF:CC is the worst selling game to bear the name "Final Fantasy" in Japan since the NES days. And this is by no small factor either, FF games since the NES have sold in excess of 2 MILLION units in Japan.

I hope this doesn't mean bad things for future FF titles on Nintendo platforms - I keep comforting myself with the fact that I'm sure the production costs of FF:CC were much lower than a traditional FF game (shorter, no CG videos, bare-bones story).

 

[Peter Manojlovich]

Morgan, I wouldn't say VJ sales in Japan were exactly bad, just mediocre. Unfortunately, a lot of very fine games just don't catch on with the general gaming public. I expected VJ to do better over there. Who knows, VJ could be a suprise hit here, but right now I'm not seeing any tangible evidence to support that. Perhaps word of mouth can move titles and give VJ some staying power.

Phil, I'll concede your take on Final Fantasy :CC actually kinda sucking saleswise for a FF title. But this is a title that seems to bear more similarity to a game like Sword of Mana than it does your typical FF rpg. My interest in this title is fairly low regardless. Square seems intent on kiddifying this title to have it appeal to a younger audience.

 

[Damien]

Anyone have some impressions, I know you guys want to see VJ do well but the sales talk(are we Capcom's accountants) are getting a tad irritating.

 

[Steven_V]

Joe sells out once again. At least on Capcom's USA website:

Due to overwhelming demand, we are temporarily out of stock for this item. Place your order now to be the first in line for when we have more stock – which will be later this month.

source: Capcom


Plus I believe the Final Fantasy games that were released on the WonderSwan Color were "the worst selling game to bear the name "Final Fantasy" in Japan since the NES days".

 

[BertFalasco]

Jesus, I just stopped by to post that after 4 stores I finally picked up my copy (EB sold my god damn reserved copy! ) and all I am reading is shit about sales...

 

[Paul_Fisher]

I would kick their ass if they sold my reserved copy.

 

[BertFalasco]

Here is an excerpt from my post on LCVG :

So I go to EB today to pick up my reserved copy and the quiefgoblin tells me they sold off my copy... So from there after smiting them with my sword which I swing right for justice and left for amusement

 

[Phil Levy]

Plus I believe the Final Fantasy games that were released on the WonderSwan Color were "the worst selling game to bear the name "Final Fantasy" in Japan since the NES days".

This is the last I'll say on the subject since I don't want to derail, but I'm obviously not going to count re-releases of past FF games, since I'm sure the PSX re-releases sold less too .

As for VJ - I played the demo awhile back and wasn't particularily impressed, basically I feared the gameplay would just get repetitive in a full out game. However, with all the positive response I am seriously considering picking this one up.