Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: Japan’s #1 is Here to Stay

I can’t help but look sad upon seeing Nippon Ichi Software in their current state.

It’s admittedly not entirely their own fault. Though Disgaea: Hour of Darkness became their first serious hit inside and outside Japan, they didn’t overly rely on the franchise during the PlayStation 2’s heyday. They still took chances on new properties like Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, and Soul Nomad and the World Eaters, all of which sold well.

A pity the PS2 era ended, as NIS’ luck ran out along with that system’s fade from existence. Disgaea aside, they’ve had plenty of trouble establishing new hits. Disgaea 3 did well on PlayStation 3, but they subsequently shifted their resources to PSP with Zettai Hero Project, which sadly sold below expectations despite its amicable Super Sentai charms. It was after this when they started running into serious financial issues, declaring that if Disgaea 4 on PS3 didn’t sell to their expectations, they wouldn’t be in business much longer. Fortunately, it did well, which is why I can talk about them in the present tense.

Yet it sadly didn’t take long for the same problems to rear their head and apparently put NIS in bad shape again. They’ve released plenty of games lately, but the only titles selling especially well are new games and ports in the Disgaea series. The Guided Fate Paradox was their attempt at selling ZHP’s gameplay concepts in a different, harem angel-filled trapping, but it sold similarly. Their other titles have fared even worse, with games like Battle Princess of Arcadias, Z/X, and the recent release of The Great Edo Blacksmith not doing well at all. Alternatively, Shin Hayarigami and The Firefly’s Diary performed OK, but not good enough to make up for the others. Though The Witch and the Hundred Knight sold fine (despite being critically maligned), that was cancelled out by the game being in development hell for so long.

Now they’re relying on Disgaea again to fix everything; specifically, Disgaea 5 for Playstation 4 — or so it seemed. The PlayStation 20th Anniversary issue of Dengeki PlayStation featured a number of comments from developers and publishers about their future plans, but NIS President Souhei Niikawa had something different to say compared to the others. “If Disgaea 5 doesn’t sell as planned then we might not still be in business the year after,” he said, as translated by a member on NeoGAF. If the sales estimate is really 150,000, that doesn’t seem likely considering no other game in the series has sold that amount. That it’s releasing on the same day as Bloodborne after that game’s delay (March 26th) only makes things worse. The fiscal year for the video game industry ends on March 31st, meaning a number of companies want, or need, to go out with a bang. Delaying it isn’t an option.

We recently learned that One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 is also releasing that day, for PS4 in addition to PS3 and Vita. Talk about rubbing it in.

Turns out, it was all a false alarm. An NIS America representative clarified that Niikawa was only joking, and that the company actually isn’t in financial trouble. That makes sense, because the first signs of actual financial turmoil wouldn’t come from the president mentioning it in a video game magazine. We’d receive that kind of info from a financial briefing first.

Nevertheless, the above info shows how they could easily find themselves in a precarious position unless they establish some new hits outside of Disgaea in the near future. Having a string of games fail to light up the charts in Japan (which doesn’t take much these days) isn’t good for the longevity of a company, and hopefully they have the opportunity to this. They’d really be in horrible shape if their audience got sick of Disgaea. Of course, I’m assuming establishing a franchise is even possible on dedicated platforms in the country these days, because the whole market is in a disheveled state.

While 150,000 seems like an overly optimistic sales estimate, you can bet that Nippon Ichi will be promoting it as hard as they can until the end of March, so they can try and reach it. There’s currently nothing other than Disgaea 5 on their upcoming release list, so they’ll presumably announce more games soon.

A western version Disgaea 5 was confirmed at TGS, and should release sometime during the summer. Expect NIS America to start promoting it after its Japanese release, since titles like The Firefly’s Diary, The Awakened Fate Ultimatum, and, uh, Criminal Girls: Invite Only are higher priorities at the moment.

P.S. Besides, they can’t go down before releasing an Asagi game, right? Right.