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Why Tellius didn't sell good.... It's not the marketing!


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Is the problem due to the poor sales of Fire Emblem to the lack of marketing? No.

I think FE8 has less marketing.

PoR:
- Two japanese commercials.
- 2005 best games on GameCube ad (european)
- American ad

​- E3 trailers

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RD

- Dawn Brigade trailer (USA - 2007)

- Dutch ad "Lead the revolution!"

- American 2 page ad "The lines are drawn, but every story has two sides"

- Two japanese trailers

- E3 trailers

Why Tellius games did not sell well:

- Too hard for normal gamers (both games)

Por

- releases at the end of the lifecycle from a console who didn't sell well.

Rd

- Casual userbase who played only crap like Wii Sports and Wii Fit. And Mario.

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Did you make this thread because of what was posted in the FE remasters thread?

But you are incorrect on some things here. The marketing was still minimal at best, as there was next to none outside of Japan. PoR is not a hard game, it's actually one of the easier titles in the series (not as easy as Awakening though). RD is pretty hard though, that I'll give you. And PoR being released at the end of the GC's life didn't help it either.

You're forgetting that RD came out in the west close to the time Brawl and SMG came out too, which likely threw a monkey wrench into things as well because people who can't afford to buy all of those could only choose one and surely they'd be picking Brawl or SMG over RD.

So while you're partly correct, you're incorrect for saying that marketing had nothing to do with the low sales.

Another thing, I would not be judging the Wii user base like that if I were you. I'm positive there were plenty of Wii players that played things other than Wii series games and Mario.

Edited by Anacybele
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I love the last point about RD blatantly insulting casual gamers when the versions outside Japan had to be nerfed in difficulty via mechanics like Battle Save and Master Crown promotion being locked to Part 4 (the only way to get 3rd tier in the Japanese version) being released, and unique weapons for the Dawn Brigade.

There's more to it than your apparent blaming it all on casuals.

Looking back on when I played RD for the first time, even those nerfs didn't help all that much in terms of a semi-competent FE player getting frustrated at the learning curve. Especially when I didn't struggle with any of the previous games to that degree.

I understand that I wasn't as good at FE back then, but for a game that tries to hook you in as a sequel to PoR, the difficulty difference was ridiculous.

Edited by shadowofchaos
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Wrong on most accounts.

The Radiant Duelogy bombed because it was released on console; the series was niche to begin with, and the last three titles were on handheld. Couple that with poor marketing, and you've got the worst selling games in the series since Thracia.

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I disagree that being on home consoles had anything to do with it, especially since the Wii was a hot seller. Niche series, poor marketing, and poor release dates/windows were the main factors.

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I disagree that being on home consoles had anything to do with it, especially since the Wii was a hot seller. Niche series, poor marketing, and poor release dates/windows were the main factors.

It was a niche series whose fanbase was on handhelds. And either way, the DS was a hotter seller than the Wii.

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I am a bit insulted about what you are saying about Wii owners ( it was my first home console) and while yes I had Wii fit the other games I have/had for it are all adventure,RPG or JRPG. As to marketing NoA did a horrible job marketing FE prior to Awakening, the only way I found out about FE games was seeing the games in store I had no idea PoR even existed until my friend's brother told me about it and the only advertising I saw for FE was when SD came out and that was TRU and not NoA. As to difficulty PoR is a game I speed run on hard and I rarely play hard on any other FE because I know I am not that good a player. RD is much more difficult but I still loved it even though I stunk at playing it at the time.

Edited by EricaofRenais
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In France we had a single TV ad for both TSS and PoR and if memory serves, it didn't have a single thing relating to the games (not a single screencap or whatever). The ad itself had no sense too.

It was a niche series whose fanbase was on handhelds. And either way, the DS was a hotter seller than the Wii.

Before PoR: 5 games on home and 3 on handhelds.

Edited by Sartek
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Path or Radiance in particular wasn't helped in that compared to its contemporaries it was an ugly game. Games like Resident Evil 4 were showing the true power of the GCN, and PoR just couldn't compete.

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It was a niche series whose fanbase was on handhelds. And either way, the DS was a hotter seller than the Wii.

Before PoR: 5 games on home and 3 on handhelds.

^Read what this guy said. And isn't Archanea supposed to be pretty popular? I mean, there must be some reason it's still gotten a lot of focus even after 20 or so years.

Path or Radiance in particular wasn't helped in that compared to its contemporaries it was an ugly game. Games like Resident Evil 4 were showing the true power of the GCN, and PoR just couldn't compete.

PoR wasn't amazing-looking, no. But it didn't look THAT terrible, come on. And this was IS's very first go at a game with full 3D graphics since canceling the N64 FE game. I would be really disappointed in people who passed up on the game simply because of the graphics. Graphics do not make a game, yo.

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Path or Radiance in particular wasn't helped in that compared to its contemporaries it was an ugly game. Games like Resident Evil 4 were showing the true power of the GCN, and PoR just couldn't compete.

This to this day my brother refuses to play the games because of how ugly they were out of principal he doesn't think that they have any place being priced at $50 (though I payed 60$ for them because game stop overcharged me). I also think many people do not believe that turn-based strategy games had any place on a console at the time. I know it took me years for me to convince my brother that turn-based combat is a reflection thoughtful design the not limitations of hardware.

I also think this review captures peoples attitude towards fire emblem at the time. In the review he literally says that if you were going to buy this game you bought it already.

http://m.ign.com/articles/2007/11/02/fire-emblem-radiant-dawn-review

Edited by Locke087
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Well, I think it shouldn't matter what console the game is on or how powerful it is, turning a game down just because of the graphics is dumb. I remember how people have bashed Zelda: TWW for how it looks and even though I hate TWW, that always disgusted me because the graphics are actually one of the few things I DO like about it. Like I said, graphics don't make a game.

How do you think Nintendo has managed to do well all this time while Microsoft and Sony stay ahead of them in terms of graphical power? Because they focus more on gameplay and other aspects rather than graphics.

Also, IGN there even says RD is great! And imo, IGN tends to give games bad scores for dumb reasons. Like, they gave Pokemon's third gen a bad rating because of "too much water." I agree it has too much water, but that's hardly a reason to give it a low score.

Edited by Anacybele
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Yeah, it was one hell of a time, 2D games on consoles were taboo, and turn based combat was seen as old fashioned. People really were looking for the best and coolest looking games, and RPG's just didn't fit the bill.

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^Read what this guy said. And isn't Archanea supposed to be pretty popular? I mean, there must be some reason it's still gotten a lot of focus even after 20 or so years.

The last games that were released on-console since PoR were Genealogy and Thracia. The former was released in May 1996 and the latter was released in September 1999, and with significantly less exposure than the former. Nintendo consoles also didn't have the same level of backwards compatibility and widespread retro appreciation they do now. And how many people knew about the JP only releases outside of Marth and Roy back in 2005?

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I know I never saw any advertising for PoR-- I stumbled upon it on the shelf at Blockbuster and rented it, and got pretty darn into it. It certainly didn't seem too hard, even without prior FE experience.

When RD came out, there was a cardboard standee or a poster or something at the game store to advertise it, but what killed it for me was that, because the Gamecube we had was still functioning, and money being what it was, there was no upgrading to the Wii at the time, and by the time we did, there were no copies to be found, unless you wanted to drop a hundred bucks online somewhere.

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It didn't help that Path of Radiance had like a year for its print run. Kinda hard to sell copies with such a short window it was released November 15, 2005 and the Wii literally came out a year after.

Now hang on a minute, that can't be why because Fire Emblem games are not generally evergreen titles. Fire Emblem games traditionally sell the bulk of their lifetime sales in its opening month and then drop off the charts.

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Now hang on a minute, that can't be why because Fire Emblem games are not generally evergreen titles. Fire Emblem games traditionally sell the bulk of their lifetime sales in its opening month and then drop off the charts.

Its not the sole reason why but definitely didn't help either. Regardless of whether its a Fire Emblem game or not if something has a short shelf life then it reduces the potential for it to sell well.

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When it's a front loaded product like Fire Emblem you're talking about very small percents. If it were a Mario game, you'd be right on the money, but Fire Emblem uses a different equation.

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I tried looking at GameCube game release dates (specifically looking at Japanese release dates) and the only games I saw that might affect it were Resident Evil 4 (which came out 3 months earlier) and Metroid Prime 2 (which came out a month later)

On the Wii, Twilight Princess came out three months before Radiant Dawn and that's really the only release in vicinity of Radiant Dawn's that might affect it.

So clearly (at least in Japan) it wasn't really competing with other stuff. I think I'll also go with the theory that the install bases for the Tellius games just didn't exist on the consoles they were released for as most RPGs at that time were on the PS2/PS3 and GBA/DS so that's where most RPG fans were

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I never even recalled a single commerical of PoR and RD -- heck, at that time, I never knew that Fire Emblem even exists with my only knowledge of Nintendo at the time was Mario, Pokemon, and Zelda. And if I don't recall seeing a single commercial of PoR and RD on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon (I used to watch TV for entertainment at the time), Nintendo... was not doing something right.

Edited by Roflolxp54
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It should also be remembered that the franchise had been on a downward trend for a long time. FE4 sold less than FE3, FE6 sold less than FE4, 7 less than 6, 8 less than 7, and 9 less than 8. The series was struggling to maintain its fans and attract new ones to replace them.

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1. It was an ugly game, not even comparing it to something like RE4 but something more like Tales of Symphonia which was alot nicer looking game at the time.

2. Direct Sequel, having a direct sequel to an underperforming game is not a smart move, as not everybody who bought PoR was in a rush to buy the sequel (see 3); but people also didn't want in jump in on a direct sequel if they didn't play the first one.

3. PoR is really slow, I was bored by the game because the engine is just too slow. RD fixes that but see 2.

4. Consoles, the Japanese/American JRPG fanbase is just not there on Nintendo consoles, there's just not enough JRPGS to sustain the fanbase so they moved to other consoles. This is even more so true that consoles are not doing well in Japan right now. Star Ocean 5 didn't do that hot (130,000), but still did do alot better than #FE which is around 40,000 retail copies.

5. The PoR/RD difficulty switch, basically NoA really screwed up the difficulty nomenclature (they added a difficulty in PoR, but they removed that difficulty in RD but kept the naming the same), confused the fanbase even more in the states.

a. I honestly didn't like the implication of furries at that time, obviously this is more personal and anecdotal but I wasn't the only one. I also don't like the continued usage of them in Awakening and Fates; albeit in a more limited scope.

Edited by Draxal
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