/vr/ - Retro Games

>>9997819
The thing is, most Japanese 3rd party devs left Nintendo after SNES, not just RPG devs. That's why it had no RPGs, no fighters, no SHMUPs, etc.—all the "Japanese" genres were underrepresented on it. Devs got sick of Nintendo's draconian policies, Sony on the other hand was direct opposite and treated the devs really well. When Square jumped the ship, many devs followed them—it was clear that with Square, PS would become the platform of choice for RPG fans.
N64 also sold poorly in Japan. Amerikeks seem to think N64 was some console that defined 5th gen, but in Japan it got outsold by the fucking Saturn. It clearly only got Western games and was geared to 3D action first and foremost. Japan didn't give a fuck about those.
So no one had incentive to make JRPGs for a poorly selling platform with no CD that generally was made for action games and not RPGs—it was pretty much like Genesis of its generation. Except Nintendo also exploited the devs with their cartridge prices.
CDs probably played a role, but few made RPGs for GC either.

>>9710525
Check this thread and this post in particular >>9704254
Over the years Nintendo has pissed everyone off with their retarded practices. They sold publishers carts at a large markup, forced them to buy more than they needed then refund unsold ones, didn't allow them larger carts, etc. That's not even full tory, they used shady anti-competitive practices too iirc.
PS came at the right time and offered devs incomparably better service. Needless to say, everyone jumped the ship ASAP, and Nintendo further fucked up by not including CD which was already gaining traction in 4th gen. (don't forget that Japan was crazy about JRPGs during the 90s, and N64 had almost none.)
Then N64 had weak sales in Japan, PS was outselling it 3 to 1, and even Saturn sold a little better than it did. So even less reason for devs to make games for it.
And later, during the GC era too, devs started complaining Nintendo's 1st party games were simply outselling them, killing the competition. So one more reason to never touch N64.

>>9575994
'97 was already very weak for Saturn in Japan. It still had big games coming out past '97, but still. Given that at one point Sega sold it at a loss, I can see why they pulled the plug on it.

>>9495767
The case of N64 is very interesting though. It showed that Japan didn't care about Mario nearly enough to buy a whole console for him. N64 sold less units than Saturn in Japan. That said, it still had strong game sales. But nowhere near PSX.

>>8160617
In Japan it was surpassing the PSX in sales... until the release of Final Fantasy 7.

>>7740239
Two games from 1998 in the top 5? That's interesting... would like to kow how many Saturn units were sold in Japan between 1998 and 1999. I only have data until 1997.

>>7713410
It all depends on which system would have gotten Final Fantasy 7.

>>7376743
>world could it possibly have succeeded?
Well, it was the better selling system in Japan for a while (more exactly, until the release of Final Fantasy 7). The system had potential to do better in the West, but things just went south in every possible way.

>>7334204
That anon was talking about Japan.

>>7258972
He joined in 1996, but the battle was already lost by then in the West. For once, Sega of Japan did it better than Sega of America.

>>7070883
In the West: Multiple factors (E3 1995, the 32X killed a lot of consumer trust, a lot of Japanese games wouldn't get a Western release, etc).
In Japan: Final Fantasy VII. The Saturn was actually outselling the PSX before FF7 was released.

>>7047193
In Japan, the Saturn was actually beating the PSX until the release of Final Fantasy 7, moment in which the PSX exploded and became unreachable by anybody.

Sega of America had to fail really hard to sell LESS Saturns than Sega CDs.