A Thread to Discuss Our Grievances

[Djungelurban]

Only those aren't big titles in Japan. Disgaea rarely moves more than a few hundred thousand units, Samurai Warriors is the inferior little brother to Dynasty Warriors in both fame and fandom, and Monster Hunter has never sold very well on consoles. When Suikoden V came out in Japan, it was the best selling franchise out of anything else that launched in the same week. Suikoden IV and Tactics already did more damage to the franchise than Tierkreis could ever hope to achieve.

Ehum... What? Are you like stoned? Samurai Warriors 2 came out the day after Suikoden V and in it's first week 316365 units vs Suikoden V's 129755. It kerb stomped pretty much anything else... Monster Hunter 2 was a week before so the number was lower (only 75420) but the combined sales was 443101 (based on what I know about Monster Hunter I'm pretty sure most of those people were still busy playing Monster Hunter a week later). Disgaea sure, that game came in after Suikoden (only 101458), but that's still alot of units sold that I would rather see Suikoden not compete with.
Had Suikoden been released two weeks later it would have been a week before FFXII for sure, but in the week itself, the fiercest competition it would have had was Sakura Wars 1 & 2... That game didn't even reach 12000 units...
Seriously though, not calling Samurai Warriors and Monster Hunter (even if it's console) big titles in Japan? Do you know anything?

[LanceHeart]

Sorry, I had under-estimated their relative popularity at the time.

Even then, the key demographics for Suikoden V are likely not very similar to what it was up against. Compare that with Tierkreis going up against the 500K+ selling Dissidia and 120K+ selling Tales of Hearts and you can see how that game got a far worse launch week than Suikoden V, which Konami deliberately delayed Tierkreis into. There were five 100K+ sellers in Media Create's charts that week, one of them a crushing RPG series' anniversary game and one direct competitor from a bigger franchise. The only RPG it barely beat that week was Ragnarok Online DS, yet another direct competitor.

When you look at lifetime Japanese sales for the series, Suikoden IV's sales were maintained higher and longer than Suikoden V, selling 311K versus 192K. Short of delaying the game by half a year, there was no way to move Suikoden V out of its actual launch date and remotely match IV.

[Djungelurban]

Personally I would have released it in the last week of March. That was two weeks after FFXII, which should be enough of a gap, especially considering how quickly Japanese RPG fans tend to play through RPGs and also since that game didn't exactly please everyone... Also, of the new releases that week... There were a lot of them for sure, but almost nothing as far as RPGs go, I mean the biggest seller was a freaking football game?! And didn't the game go gold in December the year before? I have a vague memory of that... And if that's the case, that should be plenty of time for them to release the game earlier than they did. Like for example the week before Monster Hunter, that week was almost completely void of games, with only Siren 2 making a minor dent (didn't even reach 50000)... That would have been a perfect time to release it. No direct competition and apart from Ar Tonelico two weeks earlier (which really, no one cares about that, especially since it was a no IP at the time) it would have been the first RPG of note of the new year.

[KC_MCDOHL]

That's unfortunately where we're at: The people who are still buying Suikoden games are interested in the name alone, not the elaborate world or most non-RPG gameplay mechanics from the "old series".

Whoever still calls Tierkreis and the PSP game spinoffs aren't paying attention to Konami's own PR and media. They consider Tierkreis to be a major release, much like the newer PSP game. Expect to see them appear in official encyclopedias and official "main series" art collections, unlike Suikogaiden, Card Stories, and Tactics. That's pretty much all that matters at this point. While it's a cause of much grief on our part, we won't be changing Konami's mind anytime soon. Especially since most old fans have moved on from Suikoden and the few who still care about the "old series" are outnumbered by those who don't.

I disagree here. It is my understanding that the vast majority of fans inside Japan are, like us, desperate for Suikoden to return to its former storyline and far outweigh the minority of fans who were introduced to Suikoden through Tierkreis (or actualy prefer Tierkreis).

Although I agree that Konami DO consider Teirkries a major release and that the vast majority of those interested in this new game are interested, mostly, in the name alone.

So I would still call these games 'spin offs' and wont be too harsh with Konami until I see what they do with Suikoden VI. Any more of these non-related spin offs past this point, however, would be verging on rediculous. In my opinion.

[LanceHeart]

Personally I would have released it in the last week of March. That was two weeks after FFXII, which should be enough of a gap, especially considering how quickly Japanese RPG fans tend to play through RPGs and also since that game didn't exactly please everyone... Also, of the new releases that week... There were a lot of them for sure, but almost nothing as far as RPGs go, I mean the biggest seller was a freaking football game?! And didn't the game go gold in December the year before? I have a vague memory of that... And if that's the case, that should be plenty of time for them to release the game earlier than they did. Like for example the week before Monster Hunter, that week was almost completely void of games, with only Siren 2 making a minor dent (didn't even reach 50000)... That would have been a perfect time to release it. No direct competition and apart from Ar Tonelico two weeks earlier (which really, no one cares about that, especially since it was a no IP at the time) it would have been the first RPG of note of the new year.

You're also forgetting that there are severe sales slumps that occur regardless of what launches. Choosing the wrong week in Japan is about the equivalent of launching practically any game right after Christmas or during summer in North America. When you're outside of the "sweet spot", you end up with weeks like the one before Suikoden PSP's launch, where the top seller was a 40K selling Resident Evil game in its second week.

Also, you're the one underestimating football games this time around. The big release just prior to Suikoden IV's was a Winning Eleven game which already amassed more sales in one week than any Suikoden game in its lifetime.

[Djungelurban]

Actually, the football game was "Let's Make A Football Team!"... Which was a new IP, apparently not very good and also not a direct competitor to Suikoden... Winning Eleven would have been another thing entirely, but it was Let's Make A Football Team...

[LanceHeart]

Wait, was that Suikoden V's competitor or IV's? Because IV had Winning Eleven come out four weeks prior.

That's also another problem with Konami: They tend to not release a new game from more than one franchise every two to three weeks. That has always been a problem for them: They have so many vastly different properties and don't want to hurt themselves. That means they often launch games with awkward timing simply because they literally sacrifice smaller or new properties because they just happen to have Metal Gear, Winning Eleven, Silent Hill or Castlevania coming out that month.

[Celedril]

I don't know KC, I tend to lean toward what Lanceheart says, especially when you consider that the original team is disbanded. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but I think Konami has done a good job of slowly pulling the rug out from under fans of the originals. While many Japanese fans likely do want the old series to return, Konami has consistently shown with these new releases, what you would call spin-offs, are not spin offs but the direction in which they want to take the series. They, at least to me, want to take the name and use it to launch the Suikoden series into a different bracket of sales. This is clear to me from the shift in gameplay and storylines.

I do agree with KC though that most fans who have played through the series want it to go back to the way it was.

I don't think we're going to see VI, or if we do it will be like recent games and likely unrelated except in its basic framework. It's years between releases, and if the current PSP game is selling as well as it seems (I had to go to 3 different game stores before I could get one even a week after it opened...though that might be due to location) they're not going to go back anytime soon. They're going to merrily continue with the growing fanbase who know only these new iterations. This is the opinion I've formed based on what they're doing marketing-wise.

Likely they saw the "relatively" poor sales of past games (IV and V) and decided that to keep the series solvent they needed to change direction. This accords, at least to me, with the much heavier anime influence and their decision to discard highlights of the series like mass battles and a focus on the true runes (which most fans love, but are not 'traditional' fare for JRPGS, which is clearly what Tsumugareshi is trying to be).

Now don't jump on me about the anime thing. I know they've always used anime. I'm no anime scholar, but you can't look me in the eye and tell me that I and II were as anime-feeling as the most recent iterations. Even the dialogue in the new PSP game is so much different, so...I don't know, toned down, cutesy. That's just my opinion though, feel free to differ.

[luceys]

Marketing has always seemed to be a huge issue for this franchise. Discovering Suikoden is something most fans are proud of because of how under-the-radar the releases have been. Probably not the best business model for Konami, however.

[LanceHeart]

I keep getting the feeling that advertising the games in any "traditional" fashion (TV, billboards, trailers with movies, celebrity endorsements, etc.) would cost them more money than they would gain back from them. Besides, do you really want them to start advertising and bringing in new fans when they're currently making games that are so far removed from the original series?

That's what I hate about the current position the entire franchise is in: We can't guess nor will Konami reveal their plans for the franchise, which means we don't know which course of action is the best to revive the old world while not killing off the franchise entirely. It could very well be that Konami doesn't even want to or can't* go back and would rather see the franchise be retired.

*I know that I had a fairly interesting conversation in the past with people arguing that Konami "definitely" has caretakers of the original world's information and cohesion. With the news that Konami completely disbanded their Suikoden team, let alone their entire RPG division; all of that information could very well be lost forever or nobody even knows/cares that it still exists.

[luceys]

I keep getting the feeling that advertising the games in any "traditional" fashion (TV, billboards, trailers with movies, celebrity endorsements, etc.) would cost them more money than they would gain back from them. Besides, do you really want them to start advertising and bringing in new fans when they're currently making games that are so far removed from the original series?

In an industry heavily reliant upon name recognition and release timing I don't think you can really downplay the role of marketing.

[Celedril]

I don't think he is downplaying the role of marketing; rather the opposite. If they do a better job marketing at this point in time, it will be for these new games, which most of us wish they would stop making and return to the original series' concepts. In this way marketing is of the utmost importance...which is why he doesn't seem to want them to do a better job of it at this point, because if they do, it will be for games far-removed from the canon series. Better marketing will only lead to more iterations in the current direction. If they go back to the original storylines, more power to them! Market away, I say. As things stand, I find myself hoping they stay away from a huge marketing push of anything recent.

And I think he's right. A full-on marketing campaign would certainly help increase name recognition, but in the case of Suikoden the ends probably wouldn't justify the means (in Japan at least).

[KC_MCDOHL]

I don't know KC, I tend to lean toward what Lanceheart says, especially when you consider that the original team is disbanded. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but I think Konami has done a good job of slowly pulling the rug out from under fans of the originals. While many Japanese fans likely do want the old series to return, Konami has consistently shown with these new releases, what you would call spin-offs, are not spin offs but the direction in which they want to take the series. They, at least to me, want to take the name and use it to launch the Suikoden series into a different bracket of sales. This is clear to me from the shift in gameplay and storylines.

I do agree with KC though that most fans who have played through the series want it to go back to the way it was.

I don't think we're going to see VI, or if we do it will be like recent games and likely unrelated except in its basic framework. It's years between releases, and if the current PSP game is selling as well as it seems (I had to go to 3 different game stores before I could get one even a week after it opened...though that might be due to location) they're not going to go back anytime soon. They're going to merrily continue with the growing fanbase who know only these new iterations. This is the opinion I've formed based on what they're doing marketing-wise.

Likely they saw the "relatively" poor sales of past games (IV and V) and decided that to keep the series solvent they needed to change direction. This accords, at least to me, with the much heavier anime influence and their decision to discard highlights of the series like mass battles and a focus on the true runes (which most fans love, but are not 'traditional' fare for JRPGS, which is clearly what Tsumugareshi is trying to be).

Now don't jump on me about the anime thing. I know they've always used anime. I'm no anime scholar, but you can't look me in the eye and tell me that I and II were as anime-feeling as the most recent iterations. Even the dialogue in the new PSP game is so much different, so...I don't know, toned down, cutesy. That's just my opinion though, feel free to differ.

I dont really buy into this 'Suikoden team disbanded'' thing though. I think most people made a mountain out of a molehill. Konami simply were not making any new Suikodens (at that point) so simply moved on the Suikoden staff members to other projects. Perhaps some employees left the company also. Anyway, if you think about it there hasnt even really been a ''Suikoden Team'' since the days of SII/III. So I think the ''disbanded'' news was full of misunderstandings and false observations.

Also, I wouldnt say that Konami has consistently shown us that they want to take the series in a new direction. But I am scared, of course, that they are. There have only been 2 games since SV so, in my opinion, that isnt consistent. It is just as easy to say that Konami arent in a financial position to make a main title Suikoden at the moment so are throwing these 'spin offs' at us meantime. However, one does worry that we now have two of these 'spin offs' that arent even set in the main Suikoden world. Especially after the back lash they recieved after the release of Tierkries ...what are they thinking? Maybe it is time to panic. But maybe it isnt. Its easy for us to get carried away here.

But, I think we all agree that Suikoden is in bad shape. Therefore, together, we can atleast try to change that. I think that it is vital that we try to get the series back on track. That is what I believe.

I really agree about the marketing strategies, also. This is something Suikoden has always lacked and I would be fully behind Konami finaly throwing some wieght behind advertising and marketing Suikoden properly ...but not the new games. I think, as others have said, that could have the adverse effect.

[Hirathien]

KC, a team that has become disbanded can once more come to be a team. It's not a permament thing, just look at Soul Calibur V, their Project Soul team was disbanded but put back together.

[KC_MCDOHL]

That was almost exactly my point. I think a mountain was made out of a mole hill for the reason you suggest, amongst other reasons, therefore I dont really buy into it being such a big problem. It wouldnt be hard for them to get many of the Konami staff members back together once they had finished their other projects and/or a decision was made to make another Suikoden. Which is probably what has happened with this new game.