Japanese Gamers, Retailers, Developers Sum Up 2003

Thanks to Game Science for their news story compiling the results of an end-of-year survey in Japanese videogame magazine Famitsu. Among the intriguing results: the most popular game of 2003 for readers was Namco's GameCube RPG Tales Of Symphonia, with another GC title, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, coming in second, and Square's Final Fantasy X-2 for PS2 was voted the most disappointing title of the year. Elsewhere, game developers and shops voted Western-developed Grand Theft Auto III the game that "sold better than your expectations", and Square Enix's Final Fantasy XII is the most-awaited Japanese title of 2004 among developers, retailers, and gamers, with that company's Dragon Quest VIII firmly ensconced in second place. Finally, as an aside, the Game Science site has collected a neat conglomeration of Happy New Year postcards from Japanese game developers.

Comments

Top 2 most popular games in Japan?

[gasaraki]

But I thought Gamecube was dead? At least, if you read helf the articles that seem to get posted on games.slashdot, that's probably what you'd believe.

Re:Top 2 most popular games in Japan?

[Zangief]

By some reason, American media is trying to present the gamecube as a dead console, and Nintendo as a company ready to fall in bankruptcy. This is hardly so, since they dominate the portable market, and are second (and by far lately) in the console war.

The Gamecube is alive and kicking, and if xbox were the console of another company, like sega, xbox would be dead. There is no real reason to own a xbox now; if you love FPSs, you should get a PC, for almost the same price.

Re:Top 2 most popular games in Japan?

[iainl]

"There is no real reason to own a xbox now"

Not true at all, I'd say. The exclusive titles are good fun, by and large, it frequently has the best version of multiplatform things, and the online experience is, for me, far superior to either the PS2's muddled and inconsistent attempts or the culture of cheating and other infantile behaviour on the PC.

None of which is to disregard the fun that can be had with either of the other two consoles, of course - my personal most played of 2003 are Midtown Madness 3, Psyvariar and Soul Calibur II; one on each of the consoles.

Re:Top 2 most popular games in Japan?

[edwdig]

In Japan, the GameCube sells about as many consoles per week as the Xbox sells in an entire year. Weekly GameCube sales are also on average about 75% the level of PS2 sales. The GameCube isn't doing bad in Japan at all. It would probably be a lot closer to the PS2 if the PS2 didn't have a year and a half jump on the GC.

Bashing GameCube is the trendy thing to do, but it's not very accurate. Nintendo's games and well made 3rd party games (i.e. Soul Calibur 2) sell really well for the GameCube. The only stuff that doesn't sell well on the GameCube is half assed ports of multiplatform games. Publishers get confused and blame Nintendo for the GameCube version bombing when they released it 6 months after the PS2/Xbox versions and it looked better on the PS2 (which is a lot less powerful).

Re:Top 2 most popular games in Japan?

[edwdig]

I wouldn't say most games play best on the Xbox. *Very* few people find the controller comfortable. Even the Controller S is awkward.

Jumping from the PS2 to the GameCube or Xbox will give you a huge increase in graphics and a large decrease in load times. The jump from GameCube to Xbox is very small.

Such hope is kind of sweet, really

[iainl]

So, they award the latest Final Fantasy game the title "most disappointing this year" and still regard the next one as their most anticipated game? Kind of odd, really. But then, Eidos want to make another Tomb Raider game too, so its not exactly unique thinking.

trailer

[qbproger]

for those of you interesting in a Tales of Symphonia trailer without having to sign up for gamespot one can be seen here:
http://www.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_tale sofsymp honia.html