Akihiro Hino, who is the president and CEO of Level-5, has talked at length to Japanese news publication Nikkei Trendy about the future of the Yo-Kai Watch franchise and the sales that the series has accumulated in the United States since it launched last year. Hino says that he has been disappointed with the 400,000 sales in North America and believes that the franchise could have been bigger than it is in the west. Here’s some key points.
- The Yo-kai Watch series made its move to North America in October 2015. While the anime has received favorable television ratings, the game itself has been stuck at around the 400,000 copies mark for sales in North America, and Hino says that looking at it from a Yo-kai Watch perspective, that’s not nearly enough.
- It takes time for things to start catching on in North America. At the moment, Level-5 is putting together a plan of having things bloom like a flower in half a year or a year from now. While not much is shared about these plans [for Yo-kai Watch], Hino says the idea is to have North America get content that Japan has yet to see, or some content before Japan, or at the least at the same time Japan gets it.
- Yo-kai Watch’s third film will feature both live action and anime parts. They had originally wanted to go with a full-CG film, but it would take two years to produce and same for a full live-action film. Their goal is to release a new film each year, and thought of ways to make that happen, including its whole story.
- Yo-kai Watch 3 takes place in foreign lands and will see a renovated map. Hino feels that it’s a discourtesy to use the same map for a new RPG. While the third installment contains some Yo-kai data from the previous game, the company CEO didn’t want to make it using just that alone. The ROM size is said to be about double that of Yo-kai Watch 2.
- After releasing their smartphone app Yo-kai Watch PuniPuni, Hino and the company has been astounded by its success. Level-5 will focus more on smartphone compatibility, and Hino even goes on to mention that he hopes to see all future titles from the company be compatible with smartphone, meaning he wants all future console titles have a way to be played via smartphone. Hino expects to have some kind of rule on how these console games will be carried onto smartphone, but he has realized that kids today are starting to play games on smartphone and felt a change in generation when looking back not so long ago when all the boys in first grade would only talk about the Nintendo 3DS. He feels that smartphone presence in the industry will only continue to grow.
- After the big bang that is Yo-kai Watch 3 in 2016, Hino believes that the rest of the year will see a big pause for the Yo-kai Watch series. He feels that 2017 and beyond will see the start of many new things.
- Level-5 is opening a Tokyo Studio where they will work on voice recording and video distribution. The voice recording studio will be around the level of a film production company’s, and Hino wants to be able to do all the voice-recording in-house with the new studio. The advantage of that is being able to have more freedom in booking voice talents with an in-house voice recording studio. That also means having in-house engineers so they can make changes whenever needed or pack in some last minute work, overall seeing a great improvement in quality. As for the video distribution studio, Level-5 will be able to take advantage of it by having talks about their work and such in programs right after an episode of the anime airs. Hino wants to have a program that can help the company communicate better with the fans in mind, while sharing the latest on their work.
400k for the US only is not a bad number and we’re not even counting European sales, which have been decent. For comparison, last time I saw, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate was at 650k. So in no way it’s a bad start, but yeah, Level-5 expected a lot more. I’m glad they have more aggresive plans with western audiences in mind so that YW can be more successful.
How is 400k bad for a new IP?
It’s not, it’s just that it’s not the explosive success that it was in Japan. They were hoping to replicate the full-on frenzy here in the west, whereas here it’s not done poorly, but hasn’t lived up to the full on craze they anticipated.
To be honest, I’m not surprised. It was all right, but I found the battle mechanic disappointing.
It’s good considering most kids don’t even have a3DS.
As a North American 3DS owner, the game just looks too asian for me. That’s the reason I passed on this game. I can’t speak for the rest of my continent, but it’s not hard to imagine that others might have felt the same way.
“Too Asian” Are you too white to eat foreign foods too? You might be pleasantly surprised. But then again it is a kids game. If that’s not your thing, fine. But don’t pull shit like “it’s too Asian”.
Well, I’m not white, but I am a very picky eater. My comment wasn’t meant to be insulting, sorry if it came off that way. The problem isn’t that it’s a kids game. I recently purchased Disney Infinity and jesus christ is it amazing, mostly due to Star Wars and Marvel characters. The characters and art style just clicked with me. The characters in Yokai watch, however, looked too much like anime drawings for me. I don’t know if the game came first or the cartoon, so you’ll have to forgive me if it’s the othee way around. I like Pokemon, which is also made by Japanese developers. But the designs of the characters have an almost universal appeal; they don’t generally look like they belong to a particular country. There are some that do, like the 5th gen starters, have an asian look to them, or Braviary has an American look to it, but they are so few that they actually make them feel unique. To me, and again I don’t mean to offend anyone, the yokai watch cast is the equivalent to having an all white cast in a movie and expect worldwide appeal.
Didn’t do it for me. I just vastly prefer Pokemon and those older Digimon DS games. Designs and gameplay just weren’t up to snuff with those in my opinion.
I really loved Yokai Watch and the freshness it gave to the RPG genre. The battle mechanics are definitely slower and more laid back conpared to other turn based RPGs, but that’s what makes the game fun. It’s a more casual, laid back game that can be played to one’s content. Looking forward to YW2!