The truth about Phantasy Star 4 insane price (by Vic. Ireland)

[Black_Tiger]

Also keep in mind that Vic continues to say for the first time another title that he totally was going to bring over, but his stalkers wouldn't let it happen.

Even if he asked about bringing over PSIV, what are the odds that SoJ would have let him, let alone WD being able to afford it?

Did you know that WD totally completed localization on games like Cosmic Fantasy 3, but chose not to release or show them to anyone ever? Did you know that WD was so talented, that they completed arcade oerfect ports of King of Monsters and World Heroes for TG-16 Super CD, even though nothing has ever been show after the initial title screen mockups? Vic was totally going to release them, but once Hudson decided to do a few Neo Geo ports for the Arcade Card in Japan, they illegally revoked his license to publish them, I guess just out of spite.

[Team Andromeda]

But Story of Thor also had the benefit of being an Action JRPG. So not really a nitche genre.

RPG's in general were/was a niche genre back them and a action RPG would stand a better chance of selling too. Also look at Lunar II on the Mega CD it cost over $3 million dollars to make ,cost the Japanse gamers close to 10,000 Yen back in 1994 (a massive amount back then, never mind now) and still cost nothing like the price of PS IV for the Western version (ok its a CD but Lunar II production vales were massive for a 16 bit title) . Super Mario RPG even on the Snes and Cart didn't cost as much . PS IV price inthe USA was insane and nuts.

I think both SOA and VIC aren't telling the full truth

[Flygon]

It does feel a bit difficult to believe that RPGs were a niche genre. Afterall, the RPG-related scene on PC was pretty damn large.

Just because it was difficult to produce JRPGs for consoles of the era, doesn't mean Western RPGs weren't a huge as hell business, afterall.

Don't forget the Western ports or new games the Mega Drive got, from Western RPG game engines or mechanics.

[Thief]

RPG's in general were/was a niche genre back them and a action RPG would stand a better chance of selling too. Also look at Lunar II on the Mega CD it cost over $3 million dollars to make ,cost the Japanse gamers close to 10,000 Yen back in 1994 (a massive amount back then, never mind now) and still cost nothing like the price of PS IV for the Western version (ok its a CD but Lunar II production vales were massive for a 16 bit title) . Super Mario RPG even on the Snes and Cart didn't cost as much . PS IV price inthe USA was insane and nuts.

I think both SOA and VIC aren't telling the full truth

Not sure if we should be comparing JRPG market on Genesis with the SNES in terms of which had more market for this genre.

[Sik]

It does feel a bit difficult to believe that RPGs were a niche genre. Afterall, the RPG-related scene on PC was pretty damn large.

Just because it was difficult to produce JRPGs for consoles of the era, doesn't mean Western RPGs weren't a huge as hell business, afterall.

Don't forget the Western ports or new games the Mega Drive got, from Western RPG game engines or mechanics.

PC was pretty much the system for all the extremely complex games.

[maxi]

Not sure if we should be comparing JRPG market on Genesis with the SNES in terms of which had more market for this genre.

It shouldn't, SoA never intented to make them popular, even because the MD's hardware advantage could do little to improve the genre over Snes, and the reason for this on the Saturn we all know.
What he said about SoA's strategy to boycott PS4 makes a lot of sense, they would not lose money, at least in a expressive way, because of the price AND could use the number of sales to argue against SoJ to keep the games out. In that period RPGs were a hell of underdog genre and, from what I remember, they only started to receive attention from the masses when the 5th generation was already in the market. Plus, they had that ridiculous pattern to create/bring games with the intention to counter mainly Nintendo franchises, not the case here.
Now this makes truth about his claim? No, but I personally would keep it with some salt over all we have. "WD being axed because of SoA decision to screw them" doesn't deserves two cents of me just like the affirmation "Victor Ireland said so it can only be BS".

[Black_Tiger]

It shouldn't, SoA never intented to make them popular, even because the MD's hardware advantage could do little to improve the genre over Snes, and the reason for this on the Saturn we all know.
What he said about SoA's strategy to boycott PS4 makes a lot of sense, they would not lose money, at least in a expressive way, because of the price AND could use the number of sales to argue against SoJ to keep the games out. In that period RPGs were a hell of underdog genre and, from what I remember, they only started to receive attention from the masses when the 5th generation was already in the market. Plus, they had that ridiculous pattern to create/bring games with the intention to counter mainly Nintendo franchises, not the case here.
Now this makes truth about his claim? No, but I personally would keep it with some salt over all we have. "WD being axed because of SoA decision to screw them" doesn't deserves two cents of me just like the affirmation "Victor Ireland said so it can only be BS".

The Genesis' hardware advantages could make RPGs that the SNES couldn't compete with if the SNES actually had art and animation heavy games. The fact that most SNES JRPGs were generic cookie cutter style only made it all the easier for theoretical higher resolution Genesis JRPGs loaded with art and animation and actual variety to feel like a generational leap over what the SNES actually got.

As for Vic, he has all the symptoms of a pathological liar. The fact that he is telling yet another far fetched story which paints himself as the pioneering visionary held back only by a conspiracy of jealous nemeses is in itself proof that it isn't true or is based on something as simple him remembering that PSIV is a game which exists. At this point, all of his stories are the same single tall tale, with different variables plugged in.

[retrospiel]

Fact: (J)RPGs were not among the games SOA enjoyed to have to invest money into. When a game got greenlit by their staff (or enforced by SOJ, like Sonic) then SOA and SOE had to pay their share in the development cost as this was factored into the cost for the physical media by SOJ. Now consider SOA's marketing focusing entirely on cringe-worthy late 80s hipness for an early 90s audience. Explains why a pastel-colored game about a young boy who can only talk to cutely drawn animals or a game about a blue-haired Arabian manga girl and her flying Pepelogo thingy doesn't have a place in SOA's most-wanted list of games. They were all about Kids on Site and Make My Video at that time.

[Gogogadget]

To be fair, they weren't entirely wrong. Today's cult classics like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound didn't exactly fly off the shelves.

It was Sony that made RPGs cool, not Nintendo

[tomaitheous]

just like the affirmation "Victor Ireland said so it can only be BS".

But Vic has a track record for BS. So much so, anything comes out of his mouth is immediately suspect. I don't think you're looking at this objectively; I think you've kinda made up your mind already and Vics narrative fits close enough with your belief. Done and done.

[Flygon]

Now, I'm not saying whether or not Vic is telling the truth, but from an economic perspective, it actually makes sense. SEGA of America wouldn't want to fuss around putting the time and effort into localizing Phantasy Star IV, because they felt their resources could be better invested elsewhere.

Now, if we run with the theory that SEGA of America really didn't want Working Designs working on the game, because they'd still make more money from localizing it themselves rather than letting it get outsourced, several things begin to make sense. But, if there was nobody else considering running for the rights to localize Phantasy Star IV, there was no real incentive for SEGA of America to do so.

Now, this is pure speculation, but an attempt by me to rationalize the explanation/theory given.

Time and manpower are limited resources. You put them into what is most profitable. If you have multiple project vacancies, more than there are people, you go for the most profitable projects. Phantasy Star IV was profitable, but not as profitable (In SEGA of America's view) as other projects they were able to pipeline.

[Obviously]

To be fair, they weren't entirely wrong. Today's cult classics like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound didn't exactly fly off the shelves.

It was Sony that made RPGs cool, not Nintendo

Yeah, even if people want to say that the SNES was "the RPG system" in hindsight it was still a niche genre at the time. The number of JRPGs that stayed in Japan greatly outnumbers what we got and it's not like they were all lousy ones that weren't worth translating.

[Team Andromeda]

To be fair, they weren't entirely wrong. Today's cult classics like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound didn't exactly fly off the shelves.

It was Sony that made RPGs cool, not Nintendo

Good point .

[Team Andromeda]

The Genesis' hardware advantages could make RPGs that the SNES couldn't compete with if the SNES actually had art and animation heavy games.

I don't agree the Snes had better soundhardware more colours and the slow pace nature of turn based RPG's meant the MD's CPU advantage didn't really come into it .

[Team Andromeda]

But Vic has a track record for BS. So much so, anything comes out of his mouth is immediately suspect.

What more than Tom Kalinske?. I don't agree with everything Vic says but can you explain why PS IV cost so much for the USA when 24 Meg carts game at the time were not uncommon and PS 4 not the biggest translation job . I know one could say about the game production costs , but I think Lunar II had one of the biggest production costs of any 16 bit Mega Drive RPG and the USA version didn't cost anything like PS 4 and even Super Mario on the Snes didn't cost as much as Nintendo games always tentded to cost more

Mind you I think PS IV was a cock up by both SEGA Japan and SOA: the price of the game in the USA was madness and totally with out reason . Plus the game should have been a Mega CD title like it meant to be - Thanks for nothing SEGA Japan .