Sakai's Lack of Confidence: Does it bother YOU?

[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]

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.

[landman]

Compared to Phantasy Star Portable, a downgraded PSU port for the PSP, Phantasy Star Zero, a totally original game for a far more popular system, around 700k vs 100k sales, I understand they think the game was not a success in Japan, so they may think about the future of the games in DS depending on the sales outside of Japan, a far large market, but that not always has more sales for some games (specially Phantasy Star games) but they still "hope" that it will sell for the DS here.

Personally, I'd ratter see PSØ in another console and not the DS, the most outdated console in the market, the game has great art production that I would love to see with proper graphics (since day one I played the game I've been hopping in a port for XBLA/PSN, with beautiful 3D environments and cell shaded characters...)

[Arikado]

Compared to Phantasy Star Portable, a downgraded PSU port for the PSP, Phantasy Star Zero, a totally original game for a far more popular system, around 700k vs 100k sales, I understand they think the game was not a success in Japan, so they may think about the future of the games in DS depending on the sales outside of Japan, a far large market, but that not always has more sales for some games (specially Phantasy Star games) but they still "hope" that it will sell for the DS here.

Personally, I'd ratter see PSØ in another console and not the DS, the most outdated console in the market, the game has great art production that I would love to see with proper graphics (since day one I played the game I've been hopping in a port for XBLA/PSN, with beautiful 3D environments and cell shaded characters...)Don't talk crap about the DS, that's where all the games are at in my opinion.

Sure it might not be the best graphics but gameplay is what matters to me, I don't miss your point of having a nice Phantasy Star game on a next-gen console or whatever, but don't hate on the DS it's an awesome console. :P

... Plus the DS isn't THAT BAD looking either, take the new DQ for example!

inb4 DQ9 would've been better on a next-gen console.

EDIT: PSZ is a good example that the DS is where the cool games are. :P

[landman]

I think the DS is great for owendan, rub rabbits, and phoenix wright, anything that does not use the touch screen is here because of the sales, not because it's the best fitted system, and the only funcion of the touch screen in PSØ is the visual chat, no shortcuts (except for maps and chat) that affect gameplay, the same game could be controlled on a NES pad.

[Arikado]

I think the DS is great for owendan, rub rabbits, and phoenix wright, anything that does not use the touch screen is here because of the sales, not because it's the best fitted system, and the only funcion of the touch screen in PSØ is the visual chat, no shortcuts (except for maps and chat) that affect gameplay, the same game could be controlled on a NES pad.How exactly do you chat in PSP:2? I always wondered.

Oh and i'm a big jRPG fan so yeah, DS is where it's at for me at least. :P

EDIT: I FUCKING HATE TOUCH SCREEN CONTROLS! Seriously, I refuse to play any game that uses it. :P

EDIT: I'm glad PSZ dosen't use that feature a lot. (Good news to me.)

[landman]

The same way you used to chat on DC if you didn't have a keyboard, and the same you do in console versions of PSU if you lack the same component.

Wouldn't you prefer the same RPGs with better graphics? I would with PSØ at least, that's the only one I care for (since Shining Force Feather was awful...)

[Niered]

Really? You hate touch screen controls? I can understand hating waggle, but the touch screen actually works really well in DS games.

[Arikado]

The same way you used to chat on DC if you didn't have a keyboard.

Shit that sounds painful, I remember I got PSO on Dreamcast BACK IN THE DAYS, YO, on the day it came out and no one had a keyboard, was so hilarious it took like 10 minutes to write a line of text since the software keyboard wasn't in qwerty. PSZ chat sounds far better than PSP:2's software keyboard imo.


Really? You hate touch screen controls? I can understand hating waggle, but the touch screen actually works really well in DS games.Yeah I don't know why man but I just don't like it, okay maybe I exaggerated a bit, I DO play games that requires the touch screen control (most games have mini-games or whatever) but some games are like 100% touch control, I don't really enjoy it, i'm a "controller" kind of guy. :P

[Akaimizu]

PSP2 has good macros, and a good way to access them. They also have auto-chat features based on situation. It could get annoying, but I figure most people will be chill with the selections. That way the screen isn't always chatty. It on the other hand, would be very painful to type out new non-macroed text.

I think Sakai is being rather humble about it, but I think it has something to do with dealing with folks overseas. I don't think he has much to worry considering how, overall, successful he is, and he's spear-heading a release that looks to take the PSP by storm, and give them another top chart weekly sales index.

Only thing I think Sega should do is step up the advertisement for the product. It really isn't getting the push it needs over here. Of course, from our perspective, it seems like PSP2 is getting a sales pitch on the level of Modern Warfare 2, over there.

[Mike]

Are sales of PS0 faltering in Japan?
Did it never do well in Japan?
Sales were never great in Japan. And this isn't because they didn't advertise. Current sales are likely miniscule because the game is almost a year old.



Only thing I think Sega should do is step up the advertisement for the product. It really isn't getting the push it needs over here. Of course, from our perspective, it seems like PSP2 is getting a sales pitch on the level of Modern Warfare 2, over there.

I'm not sure what kind of treatment MW2 is getting but PSP2 is getting more attention than PSP1 or PS0 did, at least on the internet front. PSP1 had no blog and some pretty poor commercials. PS0 had no blog but an interestingly designed site, post-launch promotions, and pulled out the star power when it came to commercials and promotions. The commercials featured a popular actor (and now singer), the launch party (which was way bigger than the US PS0 party) had popular comedians and a model (I think), and these celebrities even contributed to the game via importable shortcut chat add ons. PSP2, at the moment, has a blog and Nico Nico channel, and a periodical internet show (featuring some relatively no-name people and everyone's favorite Dragon Sakai). I've seen less commercials on TV for PSP2 than PS0 though.

In the end, remember that you're dealing with SoA not SoJ.

[Zantra]

I was there, he was joking. But if the game sells well enough, we could see a sequel or another console Phantasy Star game.