Pineapple Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Fire Emblem doesn't seem like a system selling title. I was under the impression it was pretty obscure, even in Japan. It's a low-cost high quality game. Fire Emblem is the kind of series that has a very vocal following. If you see lists of the greatest GBA games, how often are one of two of the GBA Fire Emblem games on the list? The FE games make towards the fans feelings that the machine has great games, even if they don't like some of them. Having those vocal long-term fans gives you free advertising and great word of mouth. So essentially, Fire Emblem is an indirect system seller. It doesn't yield immediate system sales, but it yields the fans that help yield system sales. Additionally, the Fire Emblem series actually has a pretty good work-to-payoff ratio. Look at it this way. Intelligent Systems has 123 employees. The team working on Skyward Sword (the next Zelda) has been averaging around 100 people for the last 2 years, and been in development for 2-3 more before that. Skyward Sword has kept 40 people working on the game for 4-5 years, and another 60 for 2. For one game. In comparison, Intelligent Systems will have dished out 4 Fire Emblem games (Radiant Dawn, the 2 remakes, then this one) 4 Warioware games 2 Advance Wars games 2 Paper Mario games And some other minor games that never left Japan The FE games look to be totalling around 1.75-2.00 million (if we assume equal sales for FE13 as RD/SD had, numbers courtesy of VGChartz.com). That's nearly 2 million for less than a third of the company's work (The Paper Mario games definitely have a longer development period than Fire Emblem. Warioware and Advance Wars have similar development periods). So, you have 30% of the sum of the workforce dishing out 2 million. Meanwhile, Zelda has 100% of a slightly smaller, but more skilled workforce making one Zelda game, that's likely to sell 5-7 million (based on The Windwaker, the least popular 3D Zelda, selling 4.5 million and Ocarina of Time, the most popular one, selling 7.5 million). Looking at that, making Fire Emblem games is just a little bit less efficient than making Zelda, judging by a work to sales ratio. (I ended up not fully replying to what you actually said there, sorry about that) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anouleth Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 In the case of the 3DS it could be a system seller since it has a small pool of good games atm, but it isn't an obscure series in Japan. I mean, it was popular enough to get into Super Smash Brothers (though I think Sakurai is a fan of the series, not really sure). He is. He likes to reclass Wrys to Myrmidon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Sage Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 He is. He likes to reclass Wrys to Myrmidon. Don't forget Etzel to Berserker, Malliesia to Swordmaster, and Elice to Archer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ike-Mike Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 This thread is giving me a brain aneurysm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Stalker X Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 Hoping to see some sort of info at during the conference tomorrow. Waking up that early is gonna be a pain. Though,if nothing shows up during that conference, best timeframe I can think of for info to come out is probably December-early 2012. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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