Soul Calibur V Sales Discussion

Aside from all the obvious stuff stated. This shows a trend for FGs. The next game to confirm this trend is SFxT. And that trend is that FGs are a niche market. Quite frankly what happened in 2008 was a hell of a surprise. SC4 sold 2 million copies in a WEEK. That's something else. However, you can not mass produce fighting games every year and expect to make a profit. The casual consumer is where all the sales come from...doesn't matter how improved the mechanics are if the single player experience isn't there sells will eventually drop.
People can buy FPS every year because they come with a compelling single player experience for the hardcore story fans, and mulitplayer for the hardcore competitors. In addition if you can play one FPS, you can play every other one on the market.

It is required that you learn new mechanics for each FG. So they also lack accessibility.

I expect all fighting games coming out in the next 2 years to sell less than 2 million copies. However, Capcom is a marketing power house so SFxT might do better than I expect...But I doubt it out sells MK9. Also Capcom's shenanigans with Super/arcade versions have made a lot of consumers lose their trust in them.

Namco sucks at marketing. IMO project soul didn't fuck up with the time skip. They had an idea, Namco didn't give them time or the resources to fully achieve it...they paid the price.
 
KingAce said:
Namco sucks at marketing. IMO project soul didn't fuck up with the time skip. They had an idea, Namco didn't give them time or the resources to fully achieve it...they paid the price.
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Exactly. Had they got more time - it could be very different.
 
KingAce said:
Namco sucks at marketing. IMO project soul didn't fuck up with the time skip. They had an idea, Namco didn't give them time or the resources to fully achieve it...they paid the price.
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even if they did give them more time for the game
time skip would still be a major problem
they dont like mildle aged women
so farewell
Sophitia
Cassandra
Taki
Xianghua
Setsuka
Seung Mina
maybe only Talim would return
only because of the time skip,you can be sure that there will be a lot of unhappy/angry fans
 
I think losing character models is not a big deal (like sophie, cassie, X, taki or setsuka), losing playstyle's (Zas, Talim) on the other hand is a problem. I think no one would have argued if SC5 would have had a new version of those chars styles.
 
SophitiaForEver said:
even if they did give them more time for the game
time skip would still be a major problem
they dont like mildle aged women
so farewell
Sophitia
Cassandra
Taki
Xianghua
Setsuka
Seung Mina
maybe only Talim would return
only because of the time skip,you can be sure that there will be a lot of unhappy/angry fans
Click to expand...
To me the time skip is probably the least of the factors effecting sales. The actual problem with it was the execution. The main story came to center around pyrrha and patroklos...however if executed right it would have involved every character on the roster. I can leave without X and the Alexander sisters especially sophie have really out lived their purpose in this series. I think all these characters are gone but there is no closure for fans. It's simply "Hey! it's a time skip this character is old this character is dead, move on."

I definitely think if executed right many fans would have forgiven the time skip. But I doubt that stopped them from buying the game.
 
You know what I remember from SCIV's promotion and hype? Every 2 weeks/month before release they'd reveal some characters and everyone gave a shit and noticed.

For SCV no one gave a shit, the game barely registered on the internets for some reason, until Ivy showed the girls in an advert. Then RAYGE!

Instead I remember my Facebook getting a load of videos of top players playing the game. Plus on Xmas day 2010 (I think) a message from Dashii on the twitters confirming SCV.

Plus I mean you have people raving about Capcom fighters (SFXT, UMVC3) that came out around SCV. That didn't help

Major difference. Maybe the game was made cheaper in an attempt to get more profit, dont think it worked. Hopefully it did make a nice bit of money, enough for a sequel, though.

Or at least some sort of cross promotion thing. SC vs Darkstalkers? or Street Fighter? or Tekken? Or Mortal Kombat? Or some obscure anime I dont even care about? Something like that I guess...
 
Tell two friends about the game. Word of mouth is perhaps the best way to help Namco sell some games. 200,000 initial buyers + 200,000 copies from friend #1 + 200,000 from friend #2 = JUSTICE!

Crossovers are overrated. I would not be interested in an SC game that has some crossover. Unless it's Soul Calibur vs. Timekillers.
 
ChaosK said:
I think losing character models is not a big deal (like sophie, cassie, X, taki or setsuka), losing playstyle's (Zas, Talim) on the other hand is a problem. I think no one would have argued if SC5 would have had a new version of those chars styles.
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would you have say the same if Tira wasnt in sc5 and was replaced by character who is nothing like her?
that will mostly never happen because she dont age but just imagine if it was the case

KingAce said:
To me the time skip is probably the least of the factors effecting sales. The actual problem with it was the execution. The main story came to center around pyrrha and patroklos...however if executed right it would have involved every character on the roster. I can leave without X and the Alexander sisters especially sophie have really out lived their purpose in this series. I think all these characters are gone but there is no closure for fans. It's simply "Hey! it's a time skip this character is old this character is dead, move on."

I definitely think if executed right many fans would have forgiven the time skip. But I doubt that stopped them from buying the game.
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right executed or not ...i can 100% assure you that many fans will not forgive the time skip and their favorite characters
you can call them fanboys/girls but money is money and if their reasons for playing sc games was because their favorite characters were in it,if they dont like the replacement for their favorite characters...
i can assure you that they will not buy the game for sure
explain me why they would buy the game if they dont like the replacement for their favorite characters?
you can take me as an exemple

i followed the serie since SoulEdge for Sophtitia and later for Cassandra too
now they are both gone,my favorite characters are the S&S one and i dont like Pyrrha and Patroklos
so i have no reason to play sc5 and if Sophitia(i dont care if she is dead,Hephaestus can bring her back to life) and Cassandra dont return in the next one...
farewell next gen SoulCalibur and i know a lot of fans will do the same because of their favorite characters
this decison does not make me happy at all because SCgames are my favorite one

for me its easy "17 years time skip"=missing characters =a lot of unhappy/angry fans for sure=less money for Bamco
they should have done a complete reboot with an new name(like GuiltyGear --->BlazeBlue) instead of the time skip

ps: i apologize in advance for my awful grammar ><
 
SophitiaForEver said:
snip
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You (and a lot of other people) might not agree with me or like what I have to say, but if you don't like the series anymore just because your favorite character isn't there anymore, then chances are you were never a fan of the series at all. It seems like you were just a Sophitia/Cassandra fan, not a Soul Calibur fan. Playing the games since the first installment doesn't mean anything, because if the characters were left behind before SCV came around, you wouldn't have followed it for a long as you had. If a main or a favorite character was gone in another game, the only logical thing to do was to get to learn someone else. Nothing comes out of doing the same thing for years. Sophitia's legacy is passed through Patroklos and Phyrra. Even if they're not the most liked, they're still more than capable of being enjoyed by fans of any of the Alexandra sisters. Most of the hate for this game isn't just to it feeling rushed; it's that it's different.

Imo, I think they should've just done a 5 year time-skip instead of the 17-year one. Among the veterans, hardly anyone changed during those 17 years. Most of the returning characters didn't age at all and those who did act too similar to how they were 17 years ago. I also don't think they should've done the "new-generation" campaign either, because most of the 'new' characters are either just improvements of old movesets (Xiba, Leixia, Natsu), literal incarnations of older characters (Yoshimitsu, Astaroth, Nightmare) or both (Aeon).

The timeskip would've worked if there was a transition from the SCIV events into what goes on in SCV. All we're given is a brief summary of what happened in a character's backstory and what their connection was to a character, but that was it. There was no sense of closure for anyone who didn't make the roster and we're not given a reason why we should care about someone like Natsu, other than be being Taki's student. This is all that happened as far the the prologue goes:

Nightmare appears and creates Astral Chaos
Siegfried fights Nightmare
Siegfried kills Nightmare and destroys Soul Edge.
17-years-later....

That's literally all we're given in the game. We're not told about what happened after that fight. It does seem like they did the timeskip because it benefited Tekken, but what worked for one doesn't always work for another.
 
SophitiaForEver said:
would you have say the same if Tira wasnt in sc5 and was replaced by character who is nothing like her?
that will mostly never happen because she dont age but just imagine if it was the case
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Yes i would. I think as long you are still able to play the style you have mained for so long, its alright.
No disrespect to your opinion though.
 
CrazyYoshimitsu said:
OBJECTION! No matter how good the game is at a high level. You need that other shit(fanservice) to have a foundation sir. Want an example? Super DBZ!!! What? A DBZ game. CY you crazy. Well...Actually I'm not this time around. Super DBZ is the deepest and most serious fighter the DBZ games have to offer.(Had a pretty good scene in Japan in the arcades btw). Pretty awesome, right Idle? A good serious fighter for us tourneygoers. Where is it now? Well it died in Japan, and never got big here. Why? You won't believe why my good friend. It didn't get big because it wasn't easy as the other ones, and didn't have 100+ characters like the others. Even though both me and you know that those DBZ games with 100+ characters are trash, they sold well and have been a milking machine for Spike.

So, let's bring back to SC5. You're right this game is solid at a high level. But let's think about it a little deeper. It being able to get to the grand stage of EVO is pretty fucking godlike. But that doesn't sell games sadly. Why? Because not everyone is like me or you. They don't want to spend money to go meet with some guys you met on the internet to play a game offline. They want to make dumbass CAS(No disrespect to the people that do a kick ass at making good ones), have a somewhat enjoying single player, and play dat online for hours. SC5 kind of...fucks that up...Really bad...I mean REALLY BAD.

I mean you hype up 17 years timeskip and we kind get force to like Patorklos and his sister Pyrrha. The story to go with it....kind of sucks ass. So yeah...not good. Next, four mimics....do I need to say more? All I'll say is that is a cheap coop out and tells me Bamco was a little lazy down the home stretch.(There are other games that have done this as well. So this isn't rare at all.). Lastly, this game was RUSH! Let's not defend this...the multiple glitches found at the start of the game, while not crazy game broken like the shit in MK9 in the early stages, it still inexcusable and shows a lot of sloppiness. It's highly unprofessional. We shouldn't overlook that.

So, if I have kept your attention for this sir. I bet you think I'm with the casual players on this one. Well....actually I'm just trying to put it into perspective how both casual and competitive can help each other out. That's all. I don't want the characters we want in the game, if they are going to be trash again. It gets annoying after a while someone you have played for a while hasn't been improve on at all.(Talim). I can see what you're talking about. The same goes for the rest of your points. My thing is...if we want this game to stay alive and well, we need those casual goodies NOW. So if we want to play SC6 on the grand stage of EVO. We gotta throw these a guys bone sadly. Why? Because not everyone sees it our way. They don't see, spacing, oki, mix up, combos(maybe), match up data, and tier lists.

But yeah your honor I wish for this case to be dismiss.
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I totally agree with what you are saying, CY. You've just summed up everything about not the only the game itself but everything in between.
 
To be perfectly honest, I took my sweet time buying the game. I actually didn't purchase it until a month after its release. After the final reveals, I was not impressed. More often than not, characters sell a game for me. It's the same with casual fans, too. Project Soul seemed to half ass the roster. Good ideas, but bad execution. Mimics, duplicates, bad reasoning (or no reasoning whatsoever) for removing some characters...

Not to mention the fact that almost all the female characters really got the shaft. Dumbed down or eliminated all together.
 
REPROBEAN_CHILD said:
You (and a lot of other people) might not agree with me or like what I have to say, but if you don't like the series anymore just because your favorite character isn't there anymore, then chances are you were never a fan of the series at all. It seems like you were just a Sophitia/Cassandra fan, not a Soul Calibur fan. Playing the games since the first installment doesn't mean anything, because if the characters were left behind before SCV came around, you wouldn't have followed it for a long as you had. If a main or a favorite character was gone in another game, the only logical thing to do was to get to learn someone else. Nothing comes out of doing the same thing for years. Sophitia's legacy is passed through Patroklos and Phyrra. Even if they're not the most liked, they're still more than capable of being enjoyed by fans of any of the Alexandra sisters. Most of the hate for this game isn't just to it feeling rushed; it's that it's different.

Imo, I think they should've just done a 5 year time-skip instead of the 17-year one. Among the veterans, hardly anyone changed during those 17 years. Most of the returning characters didn't age at all and those who did act too similar to how they were 17 years ago. I also don't think they should've done the "new-generation" campaign either, because most of the 'new' characters are either just improvements of old movesets (Xiba, Leixia, Natsu), were literally incarnations of older characters (Yoshimitsu, Astaroth, Nightmare) or both (Aeon).

The timeskip would've worked if there was a transition from the SCIV events into what goes on in SCV. All we're given is a brief summary of what happened in a character's backstory and what their connection was to a character, but that was it. There was no sense of closure for anyone who didn't make the roster and we're not given a reason why we should care about someone like Natsu, other than be being Taki's student. This is all that happened as far the the prologue goes:

Nightmare appears and creates Astral Chaos
Siegfried fights Nightmare
Siegfried kills Nightmare and destroys Soul Edge.
17-years-later....

That's literally all we're given in the game. We're not told about what happened after that fight. It does seem like they did the timeskip because it benefited Tekken, but what worked for one doesn't always work for another.
Click to expand...

do you really think that i would follow them if SC games were bad?
i love SC serie because of the gameplay,sp content and great character,story (until sc5)
1st thing i wanted for sc5 it was descent replacement for her but no
i have only the choice between an crybaby Pyrrha and psycopath one sorry but no thanks
i hoped that Pyrrha would be more like an brave older sister but no it was impossible because of the fail drama story
they cant force fans to like the new characters/replacement
fans not buying the game because X or X character is missing for me its a valid reason
because for most of them their favorite characters are more than a polygon model ...
and removing their favorite characters was the worst thing to do
unhappy/angry fans = no money
they should have keep them as non canon characters

2 or 5 years time skip is ok but 17 years = destined to fail

APHesterr said:
To be perfectly honest, I took my sweet time buying the game. I actually didn't purchase it until a month after its release. After the final reveals, I was not impressed. More often than not, characters sell a game for me. It's the same with casual fans, too. Project Soul seemed to half ass the roster. Good ideas, but bad execution. Mimics, duplicates, bad reasoning (or no reasoning whatsoever) for removing some characters...

Not to mention the fact that almost all the female characters really got the shaft. Dumbed down or eliminated all together.
Click to expand...

you should take a look a this blog
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Wrenchfarm/too-old-what-soulcalibur-5-says-about-women-221229.phtml
 
Well... some issues have been effectively described and discussed. Now if we could get a special edition of sorts to at least compensate for the shortage of classic players in this version, Namco would definitely be pointing in the right direction.

They wanted to copycat cheap SF style bars, right? well then, how about a Super Alfa Extra blast from the past Soul Calibur V Edition?
 
SophitiaForEver said:
do you really think that i would follow them if SC games were bad?
i love SC serie because of the gameplay,sp content and great character,story (until sc5)
1st thing i wanted for sc5 it was descent replacement for her but no
i have only the choice between an crybaby Pyrrha and psycopath one sorry but no thanks
i hoped that Pyrrha would be more like an brave older sister but no it was impossible because of the fail drama story
they cant force fans to like the new characters/replacement
fans not buying the game because X or X character is missing for me its a valid reason
because for most of them their favorite characters are more than a polygon model ...
and removing their favorite characters was the worst thing to do
unhappy/angry fans = no money
they should have keep them as non canon characters

2 or 5 years time skip is ok but 17 years = destined to fail
Click to expand...

SCV is far from a bad game (and imo Ezio is the best guest they've ever had). You're telling me that it's bad just because Sophitia and Cassandra didn't make it. No offense, but that's just bullshit reasoning. The gameplay is way better now than it has been before. The game isn't unbalanced like SCIV and almost anything in the game can be countered. You've put too much emotional investment in the Alexandra sisters imo. There's nothing wrong with admiring a character, even if it's in a fighting game, but if you don't like the game just because they're not in it, then you're simply not a fan. There's way more to SC than just those two. In a way, you're not a fan of Sophitia or Cassandra either, if you're so willing to pass on their legacy as "crybaby and psychopath". There's a reason why they act this way (Phyrra's misfortune & solitude, Pat's desire for vengeance & justice). The fact Sophitia left a mark in the series by having Pat and Phyrra as protagonists should be more than a good reason to buy the game. They actually play fairly well and are worthy successors to Sophie and Cass, but you're too blinded by nostalgia to give them a chance.

SophitiaForEver said:
you should take a look a this blog
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/Wrenchfarm/too-old-what-soulcalibur-5-says-about-women-221229.phtml
Click to expand...

It's very funny that people are calling this "the Namco rule" (women over 35 get cut off). If you won't buy SCV because of that, then you probably shouldn't bother getting any game made in Japan. This isn't something Namco made themselves; it's embedded in Japanese culture. Throughout Japanese media, you'll notice that there's rarely any female characters over the age of 30. As much as I don't like to recomend this site, read this article

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/06/18/gust-rorona-is-a-loli-as-we-couldnt-stand-making-her-30/

Gust didn't want to make Rorona over 30, so they altered her appearance by keeping her young. They didn't simply make her stop aging; they actually made her look even younger when she's chronologically 30. It's a shame, because they could've made a very compelling 30-year-old woman.

Rororinayoung (1).jpg
Age 17 (Age 14 in Japan)

A12_Rorona.jpg
Age 23

meruru4.jpg
Age 30, but an accidental experiment made her look 12
(I'm not kidding...)

Square Enix did something similar in regards to Aya Brea as well. They felt it was "odd" for a game to star a female who was 38, so they kept her physically 25 because they thought it would keep her cool. I'm not trying to justify this, but compared to other companies, Namco is being a lot more generous than you realize. If this was any other company, Ivy, Hilde, and Tira also would've been cut. They also would've cut the majority of male characters out of SCV too, because Japan seems to love having their series focus on characters in their tweens, teens, and early twenties (30 years is actually 50 to most Japanese companies). If this game wasn't run by PS/Namco, about 85% of the whole cast would've been replaced by new, younger characters that all use the same moveset as the veterans. This only shows how stingy the Japanese gaming industry is, because they're not willing to take risks and want success based on how the west handle things. Since this is a cultural issue, it's not even going to take the fall of the Japanese gaming industry itself for it to change (it's also present in television, film, anime, and manga too). So what can you do? Just buy whatever series is of good quality.
 
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