Yea I’m shocked! Not sure what this means that a last-gen console gets better treatment than a current gen one for the same game.
It probably just means it’s cheaper to do the limited-edition thing with PS2 discs rather than Wii discs. Is my guess.
Actually the reason is much simpler than that: there was no such thing as Sakura Taisen 5 for the Wii, until NIS America paid to have it made.
There’s no Japanese version of ST5 on the Wii ¬ñ it’s been an English version from the start. It would cost NIS America more money to produce a Japanese sub version: money NIS America kinda doesn’t have anymore. They spent it all to make an English Wii version.
The PS2 gets a Japanese version, because there was a Japanese version to make it from. Wii owners should be HAPPY they got ST5: because the Japanese didn’t at all. 
(Although they might down the road, since NIS America has made one).
That only sort of makes sense, I guess. Kind of. I did know ST5 never had a Wii version, which (obviously) meant NIS America decided to have the port made. But it seems to me that it takes almost as much work to make a Japanese Wii version, given you already made an English one - as it did to make the Japanese-with-English-subtitles PS2 version, given the Japanese version already existed.
I’m surprised it’s THAT much cheaper to do the code changes to the PS2 version that would be required, than to make the code changes to the Wii version. In either case it seems to me to involve mainly loading different audio tracks into the game’s script. The fact that the Wii version that’s English-with-English-subtitles did not exist before NIS America made it is … well, it’s true but - they DID make it. It exists. Why would the additional cost of making it do the small extra thing be lopsided for one console vs another?
It seems to me that they said “we can only afford to pay to do the changes / run the additional testing to one version”, and decided to make said version be the PS2 version. Making a new version costs money, and I can understand having to kill one of the dual-language format versions for financial reasons. They ARE taking a big risk on this, after all. But I can’t see going with a dual-language PS2 version being significantly cheaper than the equivalent Wii version.
Not as simple as replacing audio files and saying “look we’re done.”
I know it isn’t. (Largely, it is just script revisions, but there’s also testing.) My point is, it doesn’t seem like something that would jive: the added expense of the extra PS2 version versus the extra Wii version seem like they should be approximately the same amount of work, therefore, it should be the same amount of cost.
In fact if they DID create an English-language-with-Japanese-dialog they could release it in Japan and call it Sakura Taisen International Edition -__-
Well the PS2 version gets two copies of the game, an artbook/poster, and fancier packaging. That alone would cost more money in of itself. Does it cost $10 more? Can’t say… only NIS America knows what the costs were for that. However $30 is a very competitive price for a Wii game. Most others cost $40 to $50 a copy. The battle plan for NIS America, could be to have a low price for Sakura Wars 5 on Wii, to better sell the title to Wii owners. Works for Walmart and BestBuy. Remember that Wii currently has a better “customer loyalty” thing going for it, in terms of any single title getting more of the install base to buy it. They might expect to sell more via Wii than PS2.
I think it also bears mentioning, that NIS America could be paying more license costs to use the original Japanese voice acting, thus charging more for the game that has the Japanese version.
I guess that $30 as a target price for the Wii might be a good reason to do it. Anyone who’s enough of a fan to want the original Japanese VA already has a PS2 anyway. Only doing a LE for one console makes sense (for all the reasons you outline). It just struck me as odd that the one to get said version is the PS2 edition and not the Wii.
Evidently Amazon and GameStop will not stock an official strategy guide for Sakura Taisen 5. Therefore it will only be available via digital or print on demand:
http://www.doublejumpbooks.com/yabbse/i … pic=6298.0
Suckage… but that’s the dark side of retail. At least there will be one.
Game release data has been changed to March 30th:
http://www.nisamerica.com/index.php?nav … Vol41.html
True. But there’s profit to be found in strategy guides.
Also there are times when strategy guides contain information only a dataminer or the devs would know (in The SIMS for example; how objects actively radiate demand, instead of it being a passive response by the Sim). Of course that information eventually gets plagiarized - for want of a better word - and obtainable for free via GameFAQ’s… but such information probably would never have been known (or discovered much later) without the official strategy guide mentioning it. Of course it’s not always that way… one can learn more about Pokemon from the various Pokemon fan sites, than the official guides would dare to reveal (hidden traits, stat manipulation, etc) - but there are times when a strategy guide is better than the online sources, until they take it from a strategy guide.
I get a strategy guide for a game I really like, to further support the game. Naturally that probably stems from the fact, that most Japanese games make more off the merchandising than they do the actual game, and can have greater influence on the chances of a sequel.
On a consumer note though: Gamestop and Amazon won’t carry guides for titles they believe won’t sell. Therefore Gamestop and Amazon, by refusing to carry a guide, are stating their opinion that Sakura Wars will fail. We all know how niche Disgaea and Harvest Moon games are - and you can (or at least could when they were new) buy guides for them from both. 
Purchased stategy guides are also useful for games like Star Ocean if you want to go pickpocketing, games with complex, but detailed cave-like maps that don’t always follow nice neat rows (many rpgs) or games with complex creation systems like Persona or Mana Khemia. For the former, it is due to the fact seeing a visual reference is a lot easier to figure out than trying to discribe the persona, especially when there are a number of screens in a town with multiple ways of linking and a lot of people in each. For the second, it has to due more when you have some unusual dungeon structures and need to know speciifc points not easily desrcibed with ASCII text. The third, the charts designed with ASCII text for those items generally aren’t as easy to follow as those they print in books.
The strategy guides I’ve mostly purchased are for Mana Khemia and Star Ocean. I also have Working Design’s Arc the Lad hardbound edition as it came with my purchase. I may get the Lunar one for the PSP if I think its quality, even though I don’t need it. A lot of these are for the artwork.
D-Day. The game was released nationwide.
According to a lot of sources: NIS hasn’t been doing as well as it would have liked financially. If this game bombs… well… we might be seeing less “experimenting” from them on this front. However if it turns a profit, they might start dipping into other titles.
Surprisingly the SCEA didn’t object to the game after they saw a demo of it - they did originally object when they heard it was Sakura Taisen though… so Sony still has issues against “dating sim” titles. 
However a success of Sakura Wars might convince them otherwise in the long term.
Of course on the Nintendo side of the house, they didn’t care. Nintendo isn’t NAZI about games that try to be different.
Kinda curious to see if it sells better on Wii or PS2…
I’d expect the PS2 version to get a boost from all the people wanting the limited edition with the Japanese VA work.
If they split it out among PS2 standard - PS2 special - Wii, that would be interesting to see.
Their profit dropped by more than 90% recently. Ninety percent. They spent a lot of money on this, which I presume partly accounts for their financials. If this game tanks, they will be in some serious trouble.
Here’s RPGamer’s thoughts on the game and they seemed to like it:
Got my copy and told my friend about it. He was going to pick the PS2 version up eventually, but after I told him it was a dating sim in addition to an RPG he moved it up his list since he wanted to try one that wasn’t eroge in English and i figured this might be a good intro one for him. I hope he gets it before the end of April as that is the magic 30-day date company’s look for.
Seems so, but doesn’t think it’ll do well do to the more competative market today. I don’t know about this one.
[color=#00FFFF]++[/color] It is the only dating sim game to come out on the English market for a console in years (since Thousand Arms for the PS1) - ingoring Persona, Rune Factory, Harvest Moon, Azure Dreams, etc which aren’t true dating sims or dating sim/rpgs, ie an untapped niche market
[color=#00FFFF]++[/color] It is a well known title in the VN community
[color=#00FFFF]+[/color] PS2 version has a limited edition which is relatively cheap ($40 as opposed to $50 or $60) and a cheap Wii version ($30)
[color=#00FFFF]+[/color] There is an anime for it in English so the name recognition might be slightly higher than one without such.
[color=#00FFFF]+[/color] It is among the last title, and a major one, to be launched for the PS2. For people who don’t have a new system and looking for a new title, until LotR title comes out in August, this is it (and there are people who still have only last gen systems).
[color=#FF0000]-[/color] Some people are just put off by the dating sim aspect
[color=#FF0000]-[/color] Some people are just put off by the anime aspect
[color=#FF0000]-[/color] The review is right, there are more games coming out today than in the past.
[color=#FF0000]–[/color] The market is a niche market; just how niche and how
much the market is willing to shell out hasn’t been seriously tested in years.
[color=#FF0000]–[/color] This is coming at a time when many people have moved to other systems.
Probably some more i forgot to mention. You get the picture though as there are about as many things going for it as against it. I can’t really see the dated aspect of it affecting it all that much because either people will just not like the premise to begin with and thus almost nothing anyone does will appease them or they will likely have very little to compare it to and thus not seem like it was a 5-year-old game.
If this truly is the worst game in the series, I weep for the fact that the other 4 weren’t brought over. I understand that longtime fans of the series don’t like 5, but since this is my first time playing a Sakura Taisen game, I’m just absolutely floored at the overall quality of everything in this installment. Full anime cutscenes, lip-synched, breathing, blinking paper dolls, voices, mini-games during certain sections, cgs… basically the works. It’s amazing I got 2 discs for $40. I’m playing with the idea of bumming around the English copy, but I also suspect that if I do, my friends won’t buy the game, they’ll just try to bum my copy for multiple playthroughs.
I’ve finished the first 6 chapters, and I’m just having a blast with this. And to go back to an earlier post in this thread, the lack of a strategy guide kinda blows to be quite honest. There are a ton of decisions in this game and the only real indicator that you’re on a route thus far is the trust menu with the 6 main heroines. I’m just wondering if/why there are trust decisions for other characters in the game if the 6 main girls are the only romance-enabled ones. I guess it adds to the overall replay value of the game, but knowing who is/isn’t available would be nice.
I don’t really know what the reviewers beef is with the save function though, I don’t think I’ve gone more than 30 minutes without a save option, and with the quick save function, there’s really no reason to ever miss an opportunity to quick save before a decision since they’re telegraphed with an obvious “Well…” or “What should I do…” right before the decision comes up. The combat isn’t exactly the hardest SRPG I’ve experienced, but it’s definitely quality, and tbh it seems to me that Valkyria Chronicles kinda built on the mobility = combat time formula. Not to say they outright stole it or anything, but I’d bet that there were some ST fans in that office.
Anyway, I’ve got to get to bed, it’s been just about forever since I’ve played a game late enough into the night to make me worried if I’m going to be able to wake up for work the next day.
A friend of mine told me, it was hard finding copies of ST5 on Wii. He had to travel to six Gamestops, before he found one. At first I was elated, thinking that ST5 was selling like hotcakes, because I saw similar statements on various game forums. But something in the back of my head, said there was something wrong: so I made a call to a Gamestop contact . This is what he told me:
In other words, the reason why Wii copies are so hard to find, is because retailers only got one or two copies: not because it’s a best seller. This information quite frankly sucks, because it means ST5 has low shelf exposure.
Week 1 sales data has been released: 6,110 copies for Wii and 20,575 copies for PS2. Total is thus 26,685 copies.
Just for comparison: in Japan first week sales for ST5 was 96,366 (for PS2 alone of course). The American PS2 sales, is equal to the number of DQ4 and DQ5 that sold on DS in America on Week 1. Also roughly the same number of titles sold for Disgaea 3 on the first week. Low Wii sales at least, can be attributed to the fact that few retailers are carrying it (or carry very many). Maybe Week 2 sales will be better… but it’s doubtful.
Did better than Brooktown High at least… less than 2000 of those sold during Week 1.
Still… considering that the Lunar remake for PSP sold 42,960 on Week 1 - and that’s seen as a niche release - this is not promising news.