PS3: It Only Does Tales

PS3PSP Sun, Sep 5th, 2010, 2:57pm EDT by Shawn

When Namco Bandai revealed in late July that they were bringing not just the newest Tales title to the PS3, but a port of the recently-released Tales of Graces to the console as well, with nary another platform in sight. Many were left wondering what this meant for the series, which since Tales of the Abyss has been jumping around from platform to platform with its mothership titles. If you follow the sales figures however, it starts to become very clear what Namco Bandai's aims are and what effect they have on both the Eastern and Western releases of the games.

The data for the above graph comes from our Tales Studio's Debt: What It Means For The Series article, which was garnered from the raw sales figures given out by Namco Bandai for Japan-only sales. While many might be drawn to the severe dip following Tales of the Abyss, the issues started long before that.

The first game in the series, Tales of Phantasia on the Super Famicom (Super NES in the West), sold a respectable 550,000 copies, which at the time was quite impressive. The quality of the game alongside the inclusion of vocals, which hadn't been tried on the system on that scale until then, was a key factor in the staggering sales of Tales of Destiny on the PlayStation, which was just shy of a million copies sold at 900,000. While the next two titles in the series, Tales of Eternia and Tales of Destiny 2, didn't approach the same level (one could attribute Destiny's astronomical sales to a fluke), they sold more than Phantasia's total sales.

Read more of our analysis in the full story.

Tales Studio's Debt: What It Means For The Series

MusingsPS3X360WiiPSPDS Mon, Jun 21st, 2010, 5:58pm EDT by Shawn

For those who have been following the Tales news as of late, you likely already know that Namco Tales Studio is in severe debt, barely covering their short-term debts and with long term debts almost four times their current reserves. With all this uncertainty, one question naturally comes to mind --- how will this affect the series from here on out?

According to their balance sheets, Namco Tales Studio's current assets plus their fixed assets are around 6.6 million, with their current liabilities just barely below that amount at 6.5 million Yen. While this might not sound all that bad considering the current lackluster state of RPGs in this next-gen era, the long-term liabilities and the shareholder stakes in the company are around 22-23 million --- almost 400% of what Namco Tales Studio could pay. In effect, if the shareholders were to all cash out at this moment, it would effectively "kill" the developer four times over. While this kind of debt can be expected from a start-up company, it is quite shocking for a long-running company to amass this amount of debt.

It is important to note that after 2006 Namco Bandai fully owns the studio after buying the remaining shares from Telnet Japan, so some of these debts could have been passed on from Namco Bandai to hide some of their own debt, which was widely reported when the publisher announced they would be restructuring the company as well as decreasing its workforce.

More analysis after the jump.

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PS3: It Only Does Tales

Tales Studio's Debt: What It Means For The Series