Ouka Games (Visions of Mana) is shutting down
- Thread starter John Elden Ring
- Start date
This is what you get for marketing your niche jrpg with Xbox. Metaphor Refantazio is next.
Metaphor will sell most on PS5. I don't think Xbox marketing will change anything.
I hope not. Metaphor is my most anticipated game for the rest of the year and I know it's gonna slap. The Persona/SMT franchises are one of the best out there.
I just hope that when the poor pre orders/sales come through due to the crappy xbox marketing deal, Sega will be smart enough to never do that shit again.
Of course will change.
Even Playstation does marketing, it is big part of the industry because it is effective way to reach millions of people.
100% it will effect sales as it won't reach as many people as it could have out of hardcore bubble.
Why did square enix released this on Xbox but not on Nintendo? That’s a huge mistake
Funny how no one is ever offended on behalf of Nintendo for games being exclusively off their console right? Almost as if the media only have a hate boner for one platform
But Xbox was supposed to save JRPGS!! That's what all the stupid people keep telling me!!!
70% of 500K is a lot less impressive than the 70% of 2 million Metaphor could've likely sold in its first 2-3 months if PlayStation had the marketing deal.
It's not about PS getting most of the sales or not. It's the Xbox marketing deal preventing any mention of a PlayStation version and also cutting down total sales potential of the game, that's more of the concern here.
If and when Metaphor underperforms in B2P sales, people will inevitably blame PlayStation gamers for not buying enough copies, even though a lot of them wouldn't even know the game existed on their platform due to Microsoft's marketing deal excluding any mention of PlayStation altogether.
It'd be like Xbox or PlayStation getting an Ace Attorney marketing deal but forcibly remove all mentions of Nintendo as a platform for the game. Then act surprised when the new game sells 50% less (or more) than the previous one. No duh when you omit the main platform the game tends to sell on
70% of 500K is a lot less impressive than the 70% of 2 million Metaphor could've likely sold in its first 2-3 months if PlayStation had the marketing deal.
It's not about PS getting most of the sales or not. It's the Xbox marketing deal preventing any mention of a PlayStation version and also cutting down total sales potential of the game, that's more of the concern here.
If and when Metaphor underperforms in B2P sales, people will inevitably blame PlayStation gamers for not buying enough copies, even though a lot of them wouldn't even know the game existed on their platform due to Microsoft's marketing deal excluding any mention of PlayStation altogether.
It'd be like Xbox or PlayStation getting an Ace Attorney marketing deal but forcibly remove all mentions of Nintendo as a platform for the game. Then act surprised when the new game sells 50% less (or more) than the previous one. No duh when you omit the main platform the game tends to sell on
Last edited:
This was likely planned well in advance, And come on its not like a mana game will be a super smash hit, its a niche jrpg series and I bet even atelier has more fans than mana. You can add in the xbox marketing with no switch release and its a recipe for failure, Shame the game does look very pretty.
They had the numbers from preorders, trailers/social media and launch sales to retailers plus sales of recent simlar games. In additional to internal reviews (both from gamedevs and PR members who previously were in the gaming press), gaming media reviews and feedback from playtesting with players of their target user group. And more things I may forget now.
With all that, top publishers have a pretty good estimate of the range of sales they'll get. But normally publishers and investors have patience with their teams and don't expect to have a big success with the first game of a studio. If they shut it down goes beyond the quality or performance of the first game, it's because they don't have confidence on the people in charge of that studio, they think that don't have the potential for the long term even if introducing important changes there.
This is also compatible with them thinking that the economy or market is evolving in a way that will negatively affect the type of products this team can make, or their relationship with them (as would be in the case of USA blocking their minion countries from having business with China as they did with Russia, or as would be the case of the US/euro/yen heavily collapsing highly damaging the western+Japanese economy).
They got done dirty. Decent launch and reception for a niche jrpg.
Nay
Trials of Mana
Launch Satuday's CCU peak - 11,551
Launch Sunday's CCU peak - 11,998
When you factor in that Steam's presence in Japan/China/Asia is much increased from 2020 to 2024, that's not great at all. Especially since this is a new title with seemingly more budget than the previous outing(at least that's what the scope/visuals suggests).
Then you had the fact that there's no Switch version and yeah... Huge sales regression from the last product in the franchise.
Edit: A few words, some typos.
Last edited:
