Debuting in Japan over the weekend, the Nintendo 3DS moved 371,326 units in just two days, while top-selling 3DS launch game Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle sold 117,589 copies during the same amount of time.
Japanese consumer site Famitsu, which published the numbers, previously recorded four-day sales of 441,485 units for the original DS and 67,653 for DS Lite, and two-day sales of 170,779 for DSi and 103,524 for DSi XL/LL. The original PSP sold 166,074 systems on its launch day, while PSP-2000 and 3000 shifted 263,538 and 155,720, respectively, in their first four days.
Nintendo initially stocked shops in Japan with more than 400,000 3DSes, and most locations quickly cleared their shelves on the first day, according to a report from Nihon Keizai Shimbun translated by Andriasang.
The platform holder will provide around 1.5 million systems to Japanese retailers within a month of the 3DS' launch, and is already sending out its next shipment.
The 3DS launched alongside eight games in Japan: Nintendo's Nintendogs + Cats (three editions), Level-5's Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle, Capcom's Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Tecmo Koei's Samurai Warriors: Chronicles, Taito's Bust-A-Move Universe, Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer 3DS, Ubisoft's Combat of Giants and Ridge Racer 3D.
Though Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle will not release with the 3DS in North America (March 27) or Europe (March 25), Nintendo, which publishes the puzzle series in the West, will have two additional first-party games in the system's launch roster, Steel Diver (North American launch only) and Pilotwings Resort, to accompany Nintendogs + Cats.
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So I think developers can do just fine with the handheld.
Any numbers to back this up? I remember an awful lot of DS and PSP games in the last years, that sold in very high quantities in Japan and many of them were from small developers/publishers. Apart from Cing I don't remember many closures of developers, who mainly concentrated on the handheld market.
In the last years, games for the handheld market outsold games for stationary devices almost the whole timein Japan, while the development costs were always smaller then for a PS3/XBox360 development.
The 3DS development costs may be higher then the DS development costs, more like developing for the PSP, but they are still much smaller, then for the PS3/XBox360, so I don't understand your argument.
Also bear in mind that a lot of these small time developers come and go without receiving much exposure, but they are still collectively a large part of the domestic Japanese gaming industry and combined have a lot of employees. The big time studios and publishers like Capcom and Square-Enix are going to do well enough on the 3DS and NGP since they can afford the more costly development budgets, but a lot of the small timers wont be able to.
Anyway, these sort of things take a few years before coming fully into effect. We'll see how Japan's industry fairs around 2015 as opposed to now. I expect there to have been a big change by then, but hope for the best.
Trying to forsee the state of japan's industry in general or the games industry in special in 2015 is like trying to forsee the future in a crystal ball.
Next thing left to watch is wither a lack of prudence will not cost them their last vestige of hope, their domestic portable market. I have a bad feeling about that much similar to what I had 5 years ago for consoles, especially given the strategies being prepped then, and now.
20,000 + 10,000 + 5,000 + 2,500 + 1,250 + (625 * 5) = 41,875 sales.
Average sale price for a DS game:5,000 yen. Assume a 25% developer take after publisher and retail cuts, so 1,250 yen/sale.
Revenue: 52,343,750 yen.
Development costs for a modest game in Japan, based on a team of ten people who, when averaging their salaries, earn around 500,000 yen/month each (about $4k/month, since people in the Japanese game industry earn much less than their Western counterparts): 10 people * 500,000 yen/month * 10 month dev time = 50,000,000. Keep in mind that a modest game might not require that many full-time people working on it.
So, in this thought experiment, there's barely a profit and that doesn't even include marketing costs. However, I also cut off all sales after week 10, the labor costs may be overestimated, and I didn't even factor in overseas sales for games that have some international appeal. Additionally, if the 3DS' digital store capabilities have improved, a developer can get a better percentage of revenue by cutting out retail, which would help offset the additional dev costs and increase profit. In this thought experiment, if I increased the labor cost by 50% but increased the developer's share of revenue from 25% to 50% (assuming Nintendo takes only 30%, instead of retail's 50%), revenue would be 104 million yen and cost would be only 75 million yen.
The games, that are Japan only are the games based on animes or mangas, unknown outside Japan, but these games sell usually much better, then in the given example (check the media create charts of the last months to see a whole lot of PSP titles based on animes ruling the Top10).
Fact remains, that handheld games sell better in japan, then games for stationary consoles and they have much lesser development costs (even on the 3DS), so for a developer handhelds are more profitable to develop for.
Capcom just said that they won't be releasing Super Street Fighter IV 3D for download because Nintendo wants download games to be different from retail games in some form.