Should Namco Bandai re-assign Dragon Ball as its flagship franchise?

 by BLS: Tim » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:08 am

At the moment, Tales is Namco Bandai's flagship franchise; ironically, it is a rather niche series... in America! Yes, we still remember what Mr. Baba said about certain Tales titles... they will stay Japan-only.

On the other hand, Dragon Ball...

--made by Akira Toriyama (who also did the artwork for Square Enix's Dragon Questand Chrono Trigger)
--anime was made by Toei Animation, who also brought us Sailor Moon, Digimon, Cutie Honey, Saint Seiya, Shinzo, Pretty Cure, Voltron, Yu-Gi-Oh! (season zero, the one featuring Seto Kaiba with green hair), Mazinger Z, **** Teacher Nube, Zatch Bell, Slam Dunk, One Piece, to name a few
--20 years of name recognition

 by Devil's Advocate » Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:43 am

I'm not sure what you mean. Namco Bandai has more or less been keeping it's lineup diverse. Up until last fiscal year Dragon Ball was it's biggest hitter and thats from Asian and European sales alone. It was finally eclipsed by Soul Calibur, Active Life and We Ski. So pretty much what you'll see is more Wii titles and maybe more big budget fighters. But the main Dragon Ball games will always sell well even with minimal press I don't think it needs to become the face of NBG.

 by BLS: Tim » Sun Jul 05, 2009 10:16 pm

Frankly, seeing how Dragon Ball is more profitable than Tales, the designated flagship franchise, it is sensible for Namco Bandai Games to make Dragon Ball as the "face," so to speak.

Here are the following that Dragon Ball has going it for itself that I can name, right off the bat:

--about 25 years of name recognition, on a worldwide scale
--Akira Toriyama's magnum opus
--cash cow (this is the very reason why I want Namco Bandai Games to have Dragon Ball as its flagship game franchise)
--mainstream recognition (do I really HAVE to resort going to memes, to show my point? <_<)

On the other hand, here are the reasons why Tales should relinquish the flagship status to Dragon Ball, which I can say right off the bat:

--Tales of Phantasia GBA tanked in sales
--Tales, in America, is under far below Final Fantasy, in terms of name recognition
--Tales is a PR project

 by Devil's Advocate » Mon Jul 06, 2009 10:22 am

You're not listening to me, Dragon Ball has always been more popular that Tales in terms of global revenue, even before they acquired the U.S. rights. So what I'm saying is there is nothing to prove. Namco Bandai is trying to find it's identity but they can't put all their hopes on Dragon Ball. Dragon Ball isn't their own product, it's just a tremendously successful character product. If you turn that into your image and something happens to your license it could be a repeat of what happened to Atari. They have a hand in hand relationship with Sunrise for Gundam since Bandai Visual now produces the anime. Tales was made by Namco itself so they can also get behind that. But at the end of the day turning Dragon Ball into your shining star isn't really smart but more so the series really doesn't need to be put on such a pedestal. It does it's job of making money and that makes Funimation, Viz Media, Toei Animation, Shueisha/Bird Studio and Namco Bandai very happy. Making money on a product you don't have to promote is always better than using it to make a name for yourself. This way they can focus on promoting other titles and brands that need the nurture.

 by BLS: Tim » Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:38 pm

Mystic Gohan wrote:1)You're not listening to me, Dragon Ball has always been more popular that Tales in terms of global revenue, even before they acquired the U.S. rights. So what I'm saying is there is nothing to prove.

2)Namco Bandai is trying to find it's identity but they can't put all their hopes on Dragon Ball.

3)Dragon Ball isn't their own product, it's just a tremendously successful character product. If you turn that into your image and something happens to your license it could be a repeat of what happened to Atari.

4)They have a hand in hand relationship with Sunrise for Gundam since Bandai Visual now produces the anime. Tales was made by Namco itself so they can also get behind that.

5)But at the end of the day turning Dragon Ball into your shining star isn't really smart but more so the series really doesn't need to be put on such a pedestal.

6)It does it's job of making money and that makes Funimation, Viz Media, Toei Animation, Shueisha/Bird Studio and Namco Bandai very happy.

7)Making money on a product you don't have to promote is always better than using it to make a name for yourself.

8)This way they can focus on promoting other titles and brands that need the nurture.

1. Pardon the fact I played the role of Captain Obvious here, but when I used that as a reason to support the notion of having Dragon Ball as Namco Bandai's flagship game franchise, it just alarmed you more.

2. "Finding its identity?" Is that the reason why I keep on seeing other Namco Bandai-owned games, being localized by other companies, namely Atlus USA and XSEED Games?

3. I thought that Namco Bandai's involvement with the game and toy rights root all the way back in the 80's, long before the merger. Huh, I guess I was too shortsighted to see Atari's fate, being a warning on how not to "put all eggs in just one basket."

4. I could've sworn Gundam is an in-house franchise, seeing how long before the Namco-Bandai merger, it was the Bandai half's flagship, and not to mention that the Bandai half bought out Sunrise, before G Gundam was first aired in Japan. As for Tales, it's not doing Namco Bandai games enough service, on a worldwide scale. Worse, other niche specialists, who offer Namco Bandai "insurance policies," in the form of buying licensing rights, were shunned off!

5. I guess having it as the designated cash cow would be enough, then.

6. Now, who gets to air the show on American airwaves?

7. That's what free advertising is for.

8. I wonder when will be the day that NBGA will promote Super Robot Wars in North America, seeing how its sister company, Bandai Visual USA, currently owns the American anime rights for the SRW OG OVA and Divine Wars. I can go on with this for a long, long time, but I'll just mention Super Robot Wars for now.

 by Cool_man 17_7 » Tue Jul 07, 2009 2:13 pm

Ace Combat should become the flagship franchise...it has the most dedicated fans and is the only reason a lot of people know about the Namco brand...Ace Combat also it Namco's best seller...I'd say AC all the way!

 by Devil's Advocate » Tue Jul 07, 2009 3:35 pm

BLS: Tim wrote:1. Pardon the fact I played the role of Captain Obvious here, but when I used that as a reason to support the notion of having Dragon Ball as Namco Bandai's flagship game franchise, it just alarmed you more.

2. "Finding its identity?" Is that the reason why I keep on seeing other Namco Bandai-owned games, being localized by other companies, namely Atlus USA and XSEED Games?

3. I thought that Namco Bandai's involvement with the game and toy rights root all the way back in the 80's, long before the merger. Huh, I guess I was too shortsighted to see Atari's fate, being a warning on how not to "put all eggs in just one basket."

4. I could've sworn Gundam is an in-house franchise, seeing how long before the Namco-Bandai merger, it was the Bandai half's flagship, and not to mention that the Bandai half bought out Sunrise, before G Gundam was first aired in Japan. As for Tales, it's not doing Namco Bandai games enough service, on a worldwide scale. Worse, other niche specialists, who offer Namco Bandai "insurance policies," in the form of buying licensing rights, were shunned off!

5. I guess having it as the designated cash cow would be enough, then.

6. Now, who gets to air the show on American airwaves?

7. That's what free advertising is for.

8. I wonder when will be the day that NBGA will promote Super Robot Wars in North America, seeing how its sister company, Bandai Visual USA, currently owns the American anime rights for the SRW OG OVA and Divine Wars. I can go on with this for a long, long time, but I'll just mention Super Robot Wars for now.

1) Yes it did, for the reasons below. We all know Dragon Ball sells extremely well but because of my subsequent points I don't think it's really the best move.

2) I assume you re talking about some of the Namco RPG and Banpresto RTS games. Well, thus companies have made a name for themselves for reaching out to the niche audiences. Namco Bandai on the other hand is looking for bigger fish to fry. Thats why you only see the big budget Gundam games come over here. The SD series on Wii never really made it past it's first installment.

3) You're right, Bandai has pretty much been more or less the exclusive holder of rights until the early 2000s when the game rights went to Infogrames and the hobby rights to Irwin. Now that they have all they rights back in their bosom they can work better with it, but at the end of the day it's still a license awarded to them by the rights holders of the anime.

4) Sort of thought the same thing. In fact I'm not too up to date on the situation but I do see the "licensed by Sunrise" logo on the Dynasty Warrior Gundam games. So the brand is still in business, I'm not sure how that plays out but. They could just be a subsidiary or Bandai Visual who are allowed to keep their name but I'm not sure. But again it wasn't really homegrown like Tales was but that didn't stop them from making it the face of their animation and toy/hobby businesses.

5) If it does it's job why not?

6) As far as I'm aware Cartoon Network still holds those rights but they could have long since expired.

7) Which is exactly why Namco Bandai has a YouTube channel now. They still run ads for the games on Japanese TV of course. The last Dragon Ball game advertised on U.S. TV was Burst Limit and that sold really well. So I think you'll still see advertising but you don't have to promote it as much to get it to sell. A game they will probably be promoting in the near future would be Ben 10 since they have now acquired D3 Publisher.

8) Yeah there are a lot of things that need promoting. They may not feel any real sense of urgency since A) they sell really well in Japan as it is and B) mechs are not as much of a trend anywhere else in the world.