What Do You Get When You Add Bayonetta and No More Heroes 2?

gah, get used to it
the one thing you can take from it all is that there wont be a console with market as stupid and ill-informed as wii owners

dont read into this im not saying every that owns a wii is stupid
they are also women

i tried to do my part in buying 2 copies of bayonetta on the PS3, then denying my friend a copy so in turn making him buy his own.

Not to say it isn't a shame about games not doing so hot in the first month but did you really expect much otherwise? Reviewers tracked by metacritic have a different audience than the people who are targeted with Just Dance, so that could explain the dichotomy there. Bayonetta and No More Heroes 2 both appeal to fewer people, especially when compared to something designed to the lowest common denominator like Army of Two. That said, this is just the first month. Hopefully, both do well in the long term.

^ It's just a sad state for AAA Japanese game development. Even when Japanese developers put out a really great product this generation, it still doesn't seem to sell.

Bah.

Though this is undoubtably bad news I think we also are going to have to pay attention to the long-term numbers. I really think that Bayonetta is going to have a much longer tail than Just Dance and Darksiders. Ultimately, though, Bayonetta dis not get the same publisher support as Darksiders which was very evident at PAX.

I think we should also blame David for broadcasting Just Dance, and people are just stupid for buying Boringsiders. Exactly why people are overlooking these Japanese AAA games? Is it because they think it's "weird" to own a Japanese game? Or is it because of some bullshit excuse for passing such sublime and under-rated (yes, Bayo is still under-appreciated by MANY) games? And people like Nick would love a game (ahem, Dante's Shitferno/Boringsiders) where you're a roids man with a giant weapon, tearing up shit like paper.

Yeah, Im not surprised. Its because of people like them that buy shitty/gimmicky games that the Wii still exists. :/

Apparently recycled shit and gimmicks> Uniqueness and originality. At this rate gaming companies will just stop trying new things and we'll just be stuck playing the same games over and over just with a different title slapped onto the game. :|

These numbers just prove everything is so hopeless in this industry sometimes. In the end the hobby we love is a business and what sells always prevails. Why put the ideas, time and effort into ambitious projects if a dance simulator, clunky co-op game and the 2 year old Mario Kart is gonna sell 5x it. Japanese developers can't have much faith in our American market anymore...and on all accounts they shouldn't, they keep getting burned.

I honestly don't know about Bayonetta having long-term legs sales wise either. The people that want that game own it by now. If it was a slow year I could see a good amount of people picking it up at a discount price in April or May maybe (Valkyria last year is a good example of this). But people have their money and minds on God of War 3, Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, and Final Fantasy 13...hell even Dante's Inferno. Bayonetta is once again lost in the shuffle, exactly what the didn't want to happen by releasing in October as originally planned, and it happened regardless.

I would buy bayonetta if I had the cash - Oh well.

^ Sadly your probably right. Toss Battlefield:BC2 into that mix as well. Some titles just don't stand a chance. Yakuza 3 is gonna drown.

Unfortunately, universal good reviews alone aren't enough to stimulate sales for a particular game. Hype and good reviews together are a winning combination, but either one on its own isn't enough to cause huge spikes in sales.

I actually find it kind of unfortunate that that's all it takes, mostly because I think that rating anything based on any kind of points system is arbitrary and ineffective as a method for critiquing. It's oversimplified and doesn't account for differing tastes among gamers casual and hardcore alike. Plus, all the big publications that review games are owned by EA, Gamestop, so on and so forth. It'd be REALLY easy to tip consumer bias toward a game that a company wants to sell (or wants to not sell) with the top reviewers on their payroll.

yea.. look at the list of games Platinum Games has created.. they were outsold by all a large number of games released on their same month. will that ever change? i doubt it.

yea.. look at the list of games Platinum Games has created.. they were outsold by a large number of games released on their same month. will that ever change? i doubt it.

@_@ doube post :|

Of course something like Blandsiders sold better than Bayonetta.

The current generation of western gamers don't know how to approach zany japanese games like No More Heroes 2 and Bayonetta. They're used to "serious" games where you play as Buff McManly with the gravely voice who's gonna shoot and slice shit up and save the day while taking himself far too seriously. In other words, stories and characters that someone like Nick would think is "amazing".

I know countless of people who not only didn't get Bayonetta, but they also didn't "get" it(not saying this is Nick, the Nick analogy is over now). They didn't understand it or understand how to approach it. They instantly dismissed the character because they didn't understand that you're not supposed to take her seriously, since she doesn't take herself very seriously. They weren't "in" on the zany, charming, campy part of it that seems to be lost on so many western gamers these days. Because her name isn't something badass like "War", she's not a roidrage guy and doesn't have the exact same fucking gravely voice as every other bland character these days- they have no idea how to take in all the over-the-top shit and purposely cheesy one-liners that she's spewing. Some of them thought they were expected to find her seriously "sexy" so they went into anti-mode as some nerds do when they see a female that they think is supposed to BE sexy and started pointing out flaws in her appearence. "lol she's so ugly, her head is so small and her legs are so long. not sexy at all. shit game". No shit? It's a video game character in the most fucked up universes ever. She's a charicature, she's not supposed to be the girl-next-door type. She throws buildings at enemies and rides a motorcycle on a flying missile. Her over-the-top looks matches her over-the-top behaviour. You're not supposed to marry her or even BE her, she's not a mute like Gordon Freeman. No, you're supposed to learn how to control her crazyness and just get on this insane ride while laughing along WITH the developers who dared to have a sense of humour and make a game that didn't take itself seriously all the time and was different from most of the shit companies are making nowadays. Any semblence of a serious plot or character in Bayonetta was only there to serve as a contrast to the zany character of Bayonetta, something for her to play off on.
Games like Bayonetta aren't about the "story" anyway. They're about the character and the shit that the character can do. It's a character-action game.

Like someone once said "Playing a video game for the story is like eating soup because you like the spoon". While I don't think this applies to all games(no way!), it certainly applies to games like Bayonetta.

I agree with you on many of the points you have made dickhead, I still don't think your "Nick analogy" is accurate or fair. I really enjoyed Bayonetta and my problems with the game were not with the crazy story or the ridiculous characters. I really got a kick out of all of that. I do whole heartedly disagree with you on your soup analogy however. Games are an amazing form of entertainment with limitless room for creativity when it comes to storytelling and immersion. Games like Mass Effect and Heavy Rain prove this and dismissing that aspect because you think games should only be about fun gameplay mechanics is lazy in my opinion. I think gameplay and storytelling should both be analyzed and criticized equally.

My "Nick analogy" was pretty lighthearted and wasn't so much about Bayonetta but more about the types of games you like ,and most western gamers today like. Hence why I said "Nick analogy ends here", but I assume you missed that?. I know what you liked and didn't like about Bayonetta.

Regarding the soup analogy, as I clearly said, it's not my analogy. And I don't think you read past the actual analogy as I said: "While I don’t think this applies to all games(no way!), it certainly applies to games like Bayonetta."
I'm not sure how you could miss that too.

But still, nothing I said was meant to offend you or anything, not that I think you were offended, you just clearly misread/didn't read at all, some of my post.
I got nothing but love for the 4pp!

"New Moon" has 44 on Metacritic and it ended up being one of the highest grossing movies of all time. Bad taste isn't restricted to just the game industry.

Actually, Heavy Rain jumped ahead of Just Dance on the Amazon Best Seller list. Last time i checked the list was
1. Heavy Rain
2. Just Dance
3. Bioshock 2
4. FF13

Hmmm...that is very upsetting. Well...they can have their time on the spotlight for now but in the end it's just going to be forgotten like every other kind of fad and that it's the really good games that people will still keep playing and still keep talking about for a long time.

By the way...I got Bayonetta maybe a week ago and I love it. ^-^ I'm still playing it trying to get better and better.

I guess you still reviews games because despite the endless sea of crap that is games, on any system, you stumble upon really awesome games every now and then that just make playing and reviewing them worth while.

Well you can blame Tween girls. as Ubisoft said, they are a large part of the market now.

I am a bit worried about Heavy Rain also, coming from a small company, who have spent such a large budget, but I do have some hopes for it, seeing news of how it is rakning in the top 10 at retail, but at the same time I know its both a new IP and too niche, and if you look back, games like those don't sell particularly well if they arent appealing to a large number of people.

These great Japanese titles, being released here and getting low sales numbers, is a major influence these days for Japanese developers to produce games with much more of a western audience in mind, while I don't like this approach it's what seems needed to be done in order to get a decent slice of the sale pie.

Nick, I disagree with you when it comes to judging story and gameplay in the same way. They each play a different part in a game, and yes they both do affect the game as a whole, but each in they're own part.

I understand you're emphasis on story when playing a game, but not all games intend that the story be a large part of the game.

Now back to the original post. I agree with you brad that the PS3 Bayonetta was disregarded by many of the PS3 owners. I think it was because of the large sections in reviews were wording it as though the PS3 version was deemed unplayable.

As depressing as these sales figures are, this isn't something new. Most of the best and unique games out there sell poorly, unless they have some kind of "hook" (intentional or not) that the casual gamer can superficially grasp onto. Unfortunately that usually results in people praising great games for the wrong reasons; but hey, at least the studios behind them are making some money - you kinda have to pander to the masses somewhat to see success in this world.

It's not like people aren't aware of a lot of great, underrated games. A lot of the "awareness" just tends to come long after the fact. Reviews and word of mouth certainly helps; I'd imagine that 4pp have helped convince many people to pick up games like Bayonetta and Valkyria Chronicles for instance, even if it were only 20 people, that's better than nothing, and I'm sure there will be more to come if they keep up the word. In 10 years time people will still be talking about those games, people will still be playing them, new people will always be seeking them out (and likely paying ridiculous sums of money for them on ebay..) etc., so they won't go unappreciated in the long run. From a profit standpoint it's a little bit too late though... as the commercial shelf-life for games is very short. Honestly, the people late to the party who care about supporting these great developers would be better of pirating their games and sending the devs a personal check.

Saying that Bayonetta was one of those games where story wasn't a focus is pretty blind in my opinion.

If Bayonetta is one of those games where story wasn't important, then how come there are hours of boring cutscenes and a whole novel's worth of cringeworthy dialog?

You can say that story doesn't matter for a game like... say, Quake 3, or sports games. But when a developer makes a point to put story into a game and it ends up being poopy, I'm not simply going to turn a blind eye and say "Well that game wasn't about the story anyways".

As for the sales figures, it's pretty standard by this point. It's more of a cultural thing in a lot of ways. Western developed games sell better in the west and Japanese games generally sell better in Japan. The same goes for reviews, if you take a second to compare the reviews JRPG's get in Japan to the reviews they get here, there is a definitive skew.

Now this may be more anecdotal than anything and I don't have any statistical evidence to back this up (so school will naturally reject this completely) but... I feel like western consumers are actually more open to japanese games than japanese consumers are to western games.

The big Japanese titles still see demand here in the west, but games like Gears of War, Mass Effect, Dragon Age etc. don't get the same reception in Japan even though in terms of popularity, these titles could easily compare to the big name Japanese releases.

I remember a while back when Hideo Kojima talked about merging western and japanese design philosophies and I really want to see this happen more. I feel like consumers are becoming too shut-in towards the old games they're comfortable with, as a result, good games sell poorly and consumers don't even recognize what they're missing.

Intentional logical fallacies at it's finest right there. Nobody said the story isn't "a focus" in Bayonetta, the story just wasn't THE focus. The main focus in Bayonetta is clearly the combat. And anyone who's playing Bayonetta "for the story" and being disappointed is more than worthy of that disappointment.

I love a lot of the stories I have experienced in video games. But in my eyes; video game storytelling is still at an infant stage for it's medium. Compared to movies, the video game industry is barely past Charlie Chaplin mute-comedies when it comes to sophistication and reaching the potential. And I'm not saying that because I think storytelling in video games just plain suck, but because I believe there is great potential to be had with interactive storytelling and we still have a long way to go. Companies like Bioware and Team ICO are doing it right though in my opinion. Ironically, in completely opposite ways.

The main mediums to go to when it comes to plot and dialogue are still books and films. If you're looking for a good, deep, engaging and otherwise sophisticated story that's where you should turn. Not Bayonetta. That's utterly wrong even within the medium of video games where there are actual innovators that are using the interactivity of the medium in clever ways. Not saying Bayonetta need to match Bioware in storytelling since it innovates in totally different aspects within it's own genre. Just like an RPG will never have nor necessarily need the tremendous focus on combat that Bayonetta has, Bayonetta doesn't need the sophistication and interactive storytelling from something like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age. Would it hurt? Probably not. But it still isn't the focus and realistically speaking, it doesn't need to be. It's a mechanics-based video game.
Video games like Super Mario, Lumines, Burnout Paradise, Blazblue, Left4Dead, Super Stardust HD or Counter-Strike are perfectly capable without a story, or even a good story.. Hell, even Diablo 2 and Zelda. These are games that just like Bayonetta are perfectly capable on being masterpieces within their genres without necessarily having a good story or any story at all. Sure, some of them do have a story. Blazblue has a 15 hour campaign full of confusing plot elements and hilarious dialogue, but does it need it? is this why people love these games? Do people give a shit about Blazblue for it's story or because it's an Arksys game and they love Guilty Gear?
No need to answer any of that.

All the games you listed in your last paragraph are games that don't even try to put forth a story (with the exception of maybe BlazBlue and Diablo 2). Quite similar to how I pointed out Quake 3 as a game where story didn't matter, because there was essentially no story.

Bayonetta tried to put forward an interesting story and didn't do it's job, at least not for me.

I guess in a sense I'm saying that if you're going to weave a story into your game, actually put effort into it, otherwise it's just taking resources away from what could or should be the main aspect of a game.

Games like Mario, Lumines, Zelda etc. spend hardly any time on their story. I just feel like maybe developers should prioritize a little better. There's no point in wasting time and money on story if a large majority of players are going to be reaching for the "Skip Cutscene" button.

I agree that storytelling in video games is still in it's infancy, but in a sense I feel like if a developer isn't going to bother working out a good story, they should just focus on making what does matter work better. In Bayonetta's case I think it's just me wishing the third act wasn't utterly horrid.

I also feel that unless we hold video games to a higher standard as far as storytelling goes, we probably won't see much growth in that department. Sure Bayonetta is a great experience and incredibly fun to play, but if it's not going to try and compete with storytelling, why bother making all those cutscenes.

My argument here is similar to my argument as to why games shouldn't tack on multiplayer, the main multiplayer games on the consoles are games like Modern Warfare 2, Halo and the like, because developers spend a large amount of time working out great multiplayer. A game that just throw in multiplayer is just taking time away from polishing a worthwhile single player experience to create a mediocre multiplayer experience.

Well, Bayonetta has already went platinum selling over a million copies. I don't believe it's the hate for the game that caused people to not get it on the ps3, but I believe it's more of the anger that the 360 supposedly looks better (supposedly because I've only played it on the ps3 therefore I can't make my own comparison). You know how some people can be butthurt because this game doesn't look as good on this system as another.

I also believe it's the western market's attitude towards games like Bayonetta. They see it as just a woman and how she's not suppose to be cool like Kratos. They see a game that's not all vicious and blood thirsty and more silly than anything and they don't like it.

I'm at a crossroads with Bayonetta. On one hand, I've wanted to buy that game ever since that first teaser trailer and I played the shit outta the demo, but regardless of how perfectly playable the game is, I don't want to support Sega for rushing out a crap port. I mean, if they get away with it, what would stop other companies from doing the same? I want to support Platinum Games, I really do, but damn Sega is in the way. I want to buy the game used and just send 60 bucks to Hideki Kamiya in a letter or something.
As for Heavy Rain, I always believed that game would be a commercial failure. There isn't a large enough audience for games where first person shooting isn't involved anymore. I will be picking up that game, though.

so much hate for darksiders?

Just because its not as good as bayonetta (in your opinion) does not mean its a bad game. I simply appeals to a larger demographic.

Honestly think about this from a marketing prospective. What kind of people ARE (not should) going to be attracted to a game like bayonetta? the game is about a sexy witch, fighting angels with her hair (or at least what the game is perceived to be about)I'm gonna guess its not a large minority.
People in general do not what new and different things, as a race we are mostly conservative in our outlook, a game like bayonetta is so different from anything else that some of the few people who acknowledge the games existence simply don't want to try it. That is why if given a choice most people would rather buy a shooter like army of two than bayonetta.
And most people will beleive that being a soldier in a gritty action game is simply cooler than being sexy vixen bayonetta as they cannot see through that image to the badass underneath.

Personally, I'm glad to see a game developer getting punished in the sales by building (whether through sub-contracting or in-house) a shitty port. I'm a businessman, and I totally get the need for building games cross-platform. But the product needs to hold up and be nearly indistinguishable in terms of quality between the product. Otherwise, the prices need to reflect the differences (e.g. XBox version $59 USD, PS3 $49) to meet demand. Nobody wants to spend the same amount of money for the inferior product. Hopefully developers and producers will learn from this example.

Too bad it had to be this developer to be the example...