[AzureBlaze]

From the recent 'interview' that the people who went to the Sega Event got to have with asking Sakai questions...he doesn't come across as that confidant.

Sure, he's this slightly wacky dude here to hype the games and show clips etc. It's great that he's their PR guy and all...but he's a PR GUY! PR people are supposed to be upbeat, confident, etc.

Yet, in the question/answer session the most common theme was "Please buy 5 copies aaah!" Well yes, it'd make them more money but you don't see that being used in the following situation:

Brazil Soccer team:
Please buy 5 tickets to our game! We want to keep playing soccer for you! Eeek! Everyone who is interested needs to buy 5 tix even if they're only in 1 seat! Plzplzplz

You don't hear the above because the team is popular and confident that they'll sell seats and do just fine. They're not begging like the Michael Jackson people were that all TRUE MJ FANS should buy double copies of his latest album because they knew the public at large wouldn't like it enough to encourage MJ and it was never going on the top 40 via normal means.

It makes me think that Sega is going to do less than nothing to promote this game, so Sakai feels it's on terribly shaky ground of being labeled a failure unless everyone trumps up sales by buying copies they don't even intend to play.

Sure Sega has done a nill job in the past promoting anything at all PS related, but it always seems to end up getting bought ok...and I mean, the guy WORKS for Sega? You'd think someone would eventually say something to these people regarding game promotion. The Xbox version is proof enough...it's still populated, was more populated, and continues to be so despite all the mis-management because XBL and MS actually promoted the game in areas that weren't preaching to the choir.

Are sales of PS0 faltering in Japan?
Did it never do well in Japan?
Is he so truly afraid USA will hate ps0?
Does it bother YOU that this is his attitude and theme?

[Nai_Calus]

I didn't really get the impression that he was saying it out of nervousness or lack of confidence, but more as a joke. *shrug*

But I suppose we can't have a game release without 'the sky is falling!'.

[HAYABUSA-FMW-]

Does it bother YOU that this is his attitude and theme?

Quite.

Clearly the industry standard is to tell people to please buy at least 10 copies of your new release.
5 is only half that, multiplied on down, losing so many sales on his foible tongue slip.

It makes me think that Sega is going to do less than nothing to promote this game, so Sakai feels it's on terribly shaky ground of being labeled a failure unless everyone trumps up sales by buying copies they don't even intend to play.

Counting on this as their only marketing strategy, stretchier than Stretch Armstrong. So your point being a history of not enough promotion-more is always better is good, but in jest its not what they are truly counting on. Even if you stretch em again into hoping for word of mouth-passing along a positive word to get friends to buy also.

They're going to hope for that, of course, in addition to promotion elsewhere. Sega of America should be able to answer more questions on how they're going to promote the game, advertise and etc. But then they can only do so much with whatever budget they get to do so.

[Arikado]

You guys should know Sega always been less successful than other consoles.

Nintendo > Master System
SNES > Genesis
PSX > Saturn
PS2/Xbox > Dreamcast

I'm not saying Sega's consoles were more boring, they were only less successful than their competition always so I think it's normal that Sakai is like "SUPPORT SEGA YO!".

EDIT: By the way, they sold as much PSZ as the original PSO on Dreamcast in Japan. (Around 90k copies if i'm not mistaken.)

[Zero Revenge]

Originally Posted by Arikado

EDIT: By the way, they sold as much PSZ as the original PSO on Dreamcast in Japan. (Around 90k copies if i'm not mistaken.)

What? Holy Crap. What is SEGA worried about then?

[Krupp]

According to a vgchartz.com thread:

NDS] Phantasy Star Zero (Sega) - 86,000 / NEW (On it's first week.)

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=55032

Supposedly Phantasy Star Portable sold over 200,000 on it's first day. Considering there are way more Nintendo DS out there than PSPs, 90,000 is decent but it may not be quite what they were expecting.

[Niered]

Maybe SEGA should look into this brand new marketing strategy I heard about...its called advertising.

Honestly though, SEGA is not that worried about this game, and theres a good reason for that. Portable games require very little money to develop, so as long as the game sells even moderately well they're more than re-couping the losses.

[Quintus_The_Force]

All I can do is buy a copy, if it fails, they have nobody to blame but themselves

[pso_crash]

I think they are waiting for the games release before they star advertising. I do think they could be doing a bit more to try a create a buzz though. I've only heard about this game through word of mouth.

[Niered]

They could also finish there website. Honestly, since the picto chat update they have done nothing to it.

Theres gonna be alot of people that walk into a Gamestop, see PSZ, and go to its site looking for info when the damn thing is still unfinished.