Soul Calibur V Sales Discussion

That's what happens when you disappoint half of your playerbase.
Hardcore tournament players may be pleased, but you can't only do a game for them and hope it will end well.

Maybe SCV was an attempt to make extra money with minimum effort before dropping the series. Who knows.
 
Eziwolf said:
That's what happens when you disappoint half of your playerbase.
Hardcore tournament players may be pleased, but you can't only do a game for them and hope it will end well.

Maybe SCV was an attempt to make extra money with minimum effort before dropping the series. Who knows.
Click to expand...

do you have a minimum idea how much netcode and other new mechanics did cost to them?
adding offline features or recicling old character is lot easier.

As its not true they disappointed half their player base..
Simply nowaday people are no more interested in gameplay like it used to be but only in other secondary aspects...
Otherwise street fighter 2 would've been a flop....his story sucks and had the 2 protagonists almost identical.
 
I don't really understand why sales were so poor. I'm not buying the "3 mimics = death to the game" theory.

the game is awesome ... the story is a bit ... lacking. the game has some bugs [what games don't?], but a patch is in the works. the graphics are amazing, the netcode is amazing ... the game is definitely fun. so what gives? no hype ? bad marketing ? [there seemed to be a LOT of advertisement for the game ... a lot more than others like tekken tag 2]
 
Filmedin3B said:
The game can do well without fluff. Story isn't important. The big fighting game series didn't get where they are today because of amazing story modes. It's the core gameplay and how it that transfers into the multiplayer experience that matters. It's more than just the balance and execution you mention in your post. There are other core elements and there are some that SC V doesn't do well. One in particular is training. You have to give players the information and tools they need to get better and SC V does a poor job of that. There's no tutorial on any of the new mechanics (they only get a small paragraph in the manual) and there's not even a tutorial on basic concepts like advantage and disadvantage. Imagine how many new players hopped online, got beat constantly because they didn't know the base mechanics, gave up, and then told their friends not to bother buying the game.
Click to expand...
I see your point bro, but I have to disagree. I think story is incredibly important to drawing in the casuals. Everyone heard, "Yeah, it's a good fighter, but the story and arcade mode absolutely sucks" and they weighed the option of spending their $60 on a less-than-great game versus just waiting for something better, or waiting to see what DLC was released, (which has, so far, been less than stellar), and decided to wait. I'm not saying things like training are unimportant, especially to casuals who don't know they can come on 8wr and learn everything they need to know about the game, but those same people who need the training mode are also very interested in story. And they're the ones who contribute the lion's share of the sales. There are what, maybe 1000 members on this site? Compare that to the number of copies they need to sell.

XionValkyrie said:
I don't think SC is popular enough in Japan to warrant an Arcade Edition. The sales numbers are significantly higher in the West, and arcades have pretty much died out here.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think we can forget ever seeing an arcade release of SC ever again. I don't understand why the Japanese are so in love with Tekken and hate SC so much, but that's the way it is.

darkfender said:
not at all...or at least even if they tried they failed miserably.
Click to expand...
Hm, yes, I've heard some people complain about balance, but when you take the time to... Wait a second, what's this...

ScIV was almost the only fighting game suitable for casual play and onlineplay.
Click to expand...
Every ounce of credibility you had, and every reason I had to respond to you intelligently just flew out the window. SC4's online was TRASH compared to this game. What are you smoking man?

Now we have street fighter IV, Tekken 6, and soon SFXtekken, and tekken tag...
And mass effect 3, kingdom of amalur and lot of wonderful games have been/will be released soon.
Click to expand...
Tekken 6 has pretty much run its course. Tekken Tag won't be out til Christmas. I don't play those other 2D kiddie cartoon fighters, but I guess they do have a following, and maybe people are saving up for SFxT. IDK.

Cadaveri said:
Sadly the damage has been done, theres not much to do to get the sales of SCV to go any higher =/
Click to expand...
I agree. I don't think even DLC will pull up the numbers enough to make this a success.

Hope they learn from their mistake when they make SCVI
Click to expand...
You mean if. And sadly, I'd say it's a pretty big if.

darkfender said:
do you have a minimum idea how much netcode and other new mechanics did cost to them?
adding offline features or recicling old character is lot easier.

As its not true they disappointed half their player base..
Simply nowaday people are no more interested in gameplay like it used to be but only in other secondary aspects...
Otherwise street fighter 2 would've been a flop....his story sucks and had the 2 protagonists almost identical.
Click to expand...
They disappointed a hell of a lot more than half their player base. I'd say they disappointed about 90% of them. Remember, we're the people who would (probably) buy the game no matter what. The other people, who buy most of the copies and ultimately make the game a success or a flop are disappointed.

And I can't believe this game cost them more to make than something like SC3, which actually increased (by a lot) the content from the previous game. Pretty much all the characters, except for Viola and Zwei are clones of the previous game's characters, with even the same win, move, intro, etc. animations. Creation has like at least 90% recycled content, Even Dampierre looks like he was ported directly from BD. Although, considering they hired an outside company to make the abomination that was story mode, (they got majorly ripped off), they probably did spend (waste) a lot on this.

Don't get me wrong, I love the netcode and the game play, but you and I are not really the target demographic to make the game successful. All the casual fags who wish Darth Vader would have come back are. The team lovingly tried to cater to us, and in that they succeeded, but there's just not enough of us to really help the game succeed.

Kane said:
I don't really understand why sales were so poor. I'm not buying the "3 mimics = death to the game" theory.

the game is awesome ... the story is a bit ... lacking. the game has some bugs [what games don't?], but a patch is in the works. the graphics are amazing, the netcode is amazing ... the game is definitely fun. so what gives? no hype ? bad marketing ? [there seemed to be a LOT of advertisement for the game ... a lot more than others like tekken tag 2]
Click to expand...

I agree it wasn't the mimics, though the hype did die down significantly after they announced them. And I don't think casuals buy a game thinking, "Well, it's not so great now, but maybe they'll patch it. Here's my $60." No, they wait til after the patch drops and see if it's worth their money then. And then maybe they'll buy it, if they haven't already lost interest or gotten hyped for the next game coming out. (But I really don't believe a few bugs and glitches turned anyone off of the game anyway. It was more likely the lacking story and other things that appeal to casuals. Also missing characters that may or may not be DLC.) And the graphics are good, but I don't think they're anything groundbreaking compared to other games out there. The netcode is the best thing this game has going for it, and I'd bet the copies that have sold have sold because of that.
 
Hm, yes, I've heard some people complain about balance, but when you take the time to... Wait a second, what's this...
Click to expand...
is there even any doubt? and i am not talking about natsu that is not that good you can check how the people play the game in competitions....and get your conclusions.
The worse have still to come. (people saying they cannot even attempt at BB risking JG to tell one).


Every ounce of credibility you had, and every reason I had to respond to you intelligently just flew out the window. SC4's online was TRASH compared to this game. What are you smoking man?
Click to expand...
before showing how close minded you are, you should try to understand.....
scIV online was trash.
but how was virtua fighter online? ups no online.....
and DoA for ps3? :O on xbl wasn t either that popular

In scIV basically anyone could spam few moves in few minutes...if you take a beginner he won t notice how lag impacts the game.....so yes the game appealed to most casual players.....as this does.
But now people can choose between SF4, tekken and other fighting games.
 
Like others have said, it's gotta be the lack of single-player content. Speaking for myself, I've always been a casual fan of the series who just played the SP stuff and got bored of it within a week. With this game, at first I was pretty disappointed with the lack of SP content and figured I wouldn't play it much. I kept playing quick battles and going online and found myself eventually loving the game, moreso than the ones before it. I feel like this SC actually has the best combat out of all the games. So I went out and bought the guide and joined this site. It's just a shame that many casuals don't even give it a chance.

Frankly, the fighting game landscape has changed since SCIV. Street Fighter IV has been released in that time along with all these other titles. There's just more to attract those casual fans and overall there's probably fatigue setting in for fighting games.
 
darkfender said:
before showing how close minded you are, you should try to understand.....
scIV online was trash.
but how was virtua fighter online? ups no online.....
and DoA for ps3? :O on xbl wasn t either that popular

In scIV basically anyone could spam few moves in few minutes...if you take a beginner he won t notice how lag impacts the game.....so yes the game appealed to most casual players.....as this does.
But now people can choose between SF4, tekken and other fighting games.
Click to expand...
I see now what you're saying, you mean at the time it was released it was the only good online fighter. I get it. But Tekken 6 had about the same quality online.

I still disagree that this game is appealing to casuals. It was made for the hardcore fighting game fans who don't care about story, and unfortunately, that doesn't sell games.
 
tekken was released loooong after scIV and despite being much more popular it didn t sell much more than scIV because scIV was really released in a lucky period.

In game sales the release date plays a HUGE role.

Moreover soulcalibur was made for competitive play, but it appelas also to casual players having a low execution barrier compared to most other fighting games...
Also has CaS.
 
UnseenWombat said:
I see now what you're saying, you mean at the time it was released it was the only good online fighter. I get it. But Tekken 6 had about the same quality online.

I still disagree that this game is appealing to casuals. It was made for the hardcore fighting game fans who don't care about story, and unfortunately, that doesn't sell games.
Click to expand...

SC4 was released before Tekken 6, and SF4:AE, so I'm sure the lack of competition helped to inflate SC4's #'s. In 2008, the fighting scene was probably at its lowest point, where people dogged Tekken 5, SC3, and most competitive players preferred to play last generation games. Online play was still new and scarce. SC4 also had a lot more marketing and the Star Wars/CaS appeal.

I don't think the game is dead yet, because unlike SC4, the online is so good that people are still playing the game a month after its release to try and improve. Whereas in SC4, I think I stopped playing after a month because online was just lag tactics and the game itself was just so slow. The competitive scene is still hyped over the game and is drawing back old SC2 players and new Tekken players (who are mostly just waiting for TTT2, but that's still a long ways away -- and the hope is that they convert to SC fully, as I and many other ex-Tekken players did once werealized how stiff the controls and movement in Tekken is).

I think the early sales were hurt by the blown hype, missing characters, and early reviews of lack of content. But as the price gets reduced (which it already has for Best Buy and Amazon to $40), people who shied from throwing away $60 on an incomplete game will likely end up getting SCV sooner or later. I know several friends who didn't want to pay $60 on SCV because they felt the game was a moneygrab after hearing all the news of it being rushed, or their main character was missing, or they see the similar graphics and CaS and think SC5 is just a rehash of SC4.

But as long as those who bought it are still enjoying it and continue playing, and as the game gets more exposure in major tournaments, I'm sure the sales will pick up. Lowering the price so early to $39.99 is a pretty smart move on Namco's part (even though it pisses off us early adopters), since there's no way this game would sell any copies at full price with SFxT coming out.
 
Games released in January/February are being sent out to die...

Especially in this day and age when Capcom has SOILED the fighting game industry with rushed products. I imagine most casual gamers will think "this game looks rushed, the reviewers say so... since it's a fighting game, there will be a new version in under a year that isn't rushed... I'll wait for that."
 
I'm hoping evo will have some crazy hype for this game so more ppl may want to get into it
 
I hope this is true, that the hardcore tournament people will bring in more sales of the game. I'd hate to have this be the last in the series. I really do think it's a great game, just lacking in what I think the average person wants to see.

Jaxel said:
Games released in January/February are being sent out to die...

Especially in this day and age when Capcom has SOILED the fighting game industry with rushed products. I imagine most casual gamers will think "this game looks rushed, the reviewers say so... since it's a fighting game, there will be a new version in under a year that isn't rushed... I'll wait for that."
Click to expand...

I'm afraid those people may be exactly right too. It happened with MK9 and the "Komplete" faggotry they have going on (The komplete edition is less komplete than the Vita version, WTF). So it looks like everyone else is falling into step. I had thought Namco was above that, but now I'm not sure.
 
Another thing to consider is not every gamer has disposable income or even a job.

And with SFxT coming out in March, or even PS Vita this past week, I'm sure there were also several people who just budgeted that they can't afford SCV and put a higher priority on other releases that they more anticipated.

Plus, right before SCV, we probably had the most ridiculous number of quality AAA games released at the same time, during the holiday season -- Dark Souls, Batman Arkham City, Uncharted 3, Skyrim, etc. Can add UMvC3 to that too even though their sales weren't that great either.

SCV really got released at the worst possible time, and with bad word of mouth to boot. I can understand Namco wanting to get the game out before SFxT, or in time to be considered for Evo, but if this game was released in say May or June, I'm sure the sales would be much better.
 
Conquest mode for DLC.... It will save this game.

Shouldve put it in, in the first place... SUPER FAIL there.
 
I was reading one of the latest issues of Gameinformer and they listed the best selling console games for 2011. In second place was Just Dance 3. SC is never going to have that type of broad appeal w/ females who spend money on gaming software but they definitely could have marketed this version better to tweens. It's pretty obvious that they should have presented more options to entice a younger set that would have then pestered their parents into buying the game. A lot of parents won't even allow kids of that age to play online and there's just not enough buzz over other options--creating a demand w/ a younger set .

Granted, for competitive and online play this version seems to primarily hit the right notes, but it was a self-defeating decision not to be more inclusive in this iteration. At this point, either the online continues to catch on giving the sales some legs, DLC brings in additional revenue or we have to accept that this version appeals mainly to a smaller niche market.
 
I blame it on 3 things.
-reviews. Im seeing a lot of 7's for lack of modes yet mvc3 gets 9's and only has 2 modes.
-17 year skip
-missing characters

In all reality, im enjoying it! But id be lying if i said i didnt care for sales because i want to see sc6 happen. Time for some big DLC banco!

Edit: id buy super SC5 if it included talim and the rest of the missing cast, arcade endings, and more modes.
 
Sad to see poor sales, but in my opinion this game just needs a patch to fix the disconnections there's sometimes in the coliseos and... great online game to me...!

Yeah, I know that Elyseum, Alpha Patroklos, Omega Puhrra and Edgemaster are waste of character slots that could've been used by Hwang, Li Long, Demuth and Chester and but hey you can't please everybody, uh?

There shouldn't a SoulCalibur 6 until 2015.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back