Topic: Official Sales Thread

[BlackNMild2k1]

They probably could have released an expansion pack for the PS3 and rode that machine out for another 2 years.... but only if MS was willing to do the same with X360. They both would have been better off because of it. Nintendo would probably still be in the same funk they are too since the Wii U isn't too noticeably improved graphically over the PS360.

[Nile Boogie Returns]

questions here. Is the Wii U capable of matching or improving on the graphics of a game like God Of War 3 or Beyond: Two Souls?  Those are the best I need my games to look so for a dude like me, PS3  would have lasted me forever. 

the order 1886.

[broodwars]

questions here. Is the Wii U capable of matching or improving on the graphics of a game like God Of War 3 or Beyond: Two Souls?  Those are the best I need my games to look so for a dude like me, PS3  would have lasted me forever. 

the order 1886.

Sure. No reason why it couldnt, except Nintendo doesn't make games that look like those.

[Nile Boogie Returns]

They don't? I just thought it was the because systems before WiiU were not capable of HD  not a art style choice. An engine built from the ground up for something like Kid Icarus would have art like GoW, maybe not bloody.

[NWR_insanolord]

If Nintendo actually lets them do something other than DKC I could see Retro doing something like that.

[Ymeegod]

Profit, Nintendo always skipped the "extras" like the CGI is the upcoming SSB even though it generates 100's of millions.  Nintendo reasons for cutting them out were a joke, something like cutting them out because they end up online )  lol.

Retro tried a couple of times to green lit AAA games but so far Nintendo's shot just about all of the down and we ended up DKC which was great.  And Nintendo let go a lot of it's 2nd party studios like Factor 5 (Rogue Sqaudron), Left Field, and even Rare.

Kinda why I not surprised we haven't seen another Metroid Prime game.

[Phil]

Well, that and DKCR vastly outsold each Metroid Prime game.

[BranDonk Kong]

Yes, but it still sold relatively poorly - but also reiterates the whole kiddie thing.

[Stratos]

Retro is probably working on Donkey Kong Country Returns Trilogy for the next Console.

[Phil]

Yes, but it still sold relatively poorly - but also reiterates the whole kiddie thing.

You're referring to the Metroid Prime games, just to be clear, when you say "it", right?

I think what mostly reiterates the kiddie thing are people on the internet, not yourself included.

[NWR_insanolord]

Nintendo really oversaturated the market for Metroid games. Six games in eight years, not even counting spinoff stuff like Hunters and Pinball, is probably too frequent for Mario, let alone something as niche as Metroid.

[shingi_70]

Delays is what is killing the PS4.  Driveclub and Deep Down are still MIA and won't be released until 4th quarter.  Kingdom Hearts III release date is still in the air (Square is supposed to announce something at E3)  The Order and FFXV were pushed back until 2015 along with MGS5. 

Really surprised at Sony, if I was them I would have pushed PS NOW (the ability to stream PS3 titles to ps4) and had a couple of "free" games ready to roll when MK8 and SSBM were released--namely Modnation and Playstation Allstar.
Right now MK8 is being released and Sony doesn't have anything to counter this with (in Japan anyhow, in the west we have Watchdogs).

Don't they counter Mario Kart 8 with the fact that the PS4 will be able to play every major third party game for the fall. Might not help in Japan but in the western market that's a selling points itself.

The Order looks amazballs.

[broodwars]

The Order is quite visually impressive. Unfortunately, just about every bit of gameplay footage I've seen of it looks like a tired knockoff of Gears of War. I'll have to see more of that game before I can commit to picking it up. It's nice to have that studio out of the handheld purgatory they were stuck in, though the Vita could really be using a few games from them right about now.

[shingi_70]

These past fee weeks have led me to believe that gameplay doesn't matter. So the order is good on my book.

Game looks boring as **** like a pretentious gears of war.

[Ian Sane]

The Metroid/DK thing is a good example of how Nintendo doesn't get the concepts of variety or demographics.

DK may sell better than Metroid but it is the same audience as Mario so your userbase doesn't grow.  Let's say Mario and DK each sell 10 copies while Metroid only sells 5.  Nintendo can see that 20 is bigger than 15 so they get Retro to work on DK.  But they fail to take into account how popular Metroid is within its smaller fanbase.  Metroid is a system seller, just with a smaller market.  But that's okay because the really successful consoles typically get their userbase from having a wide variety.  Each little sub-genre has a niche demographic that will buy your console if their needs are met.  System sellers are different for each person.  Who is a dedicated DK fan?  Donkey Kong is Nintendo's second tier platform series after Mario.  I can't imagine there are many people that don't buy a console for Mario but do for DK.

So Mario + DK = 20 sales to userbase of 10.  Mario + Metroid = 15 sales to a userbase of 15.  The lesser hit grows the userbase because it targets a different audience.  And then as the userbase gets bigger the "broader" hits like Mario sell even MORE because those games have a lot of universal appeal.  Not everyone will buy a system for them but they will buy them one they've arrived for a different game.  That's why Mario Kart did jack **** for the Gamecube but was the biggest fucking deal on the Wii.

[Adrock]

1. Metroid isn't a system seller.

2. You're assuming there's no overlap between people who buy Metroid and people who buy Mario which clearly isn't true.

[Ian Sane]

1. Metroid isn't a system seller.

2. You're assuming there's no overlap between people who buy Metroid and people who buy Mario which clearly isn't true.

There is a crossover but I simplified it to demonstrate my point.  Metroid IS a system seller to SOME people.  The game that convinced me to buy a Wii was Metroid Prime 3.  That's my point.  Different people buy a system for different games.  Nintendo just looks at what the biggest sellers are with the broadest appeal and releases those and jack **** else and think things fall into place.  Meanwhile the Wii U is a flop so is that strategy sound?  Can Mario and DK be called system sellers when the console they've been entrusted with selling isn't selling?

Do you know what I bought a PS2 for?  Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.  My brother bought it for Disgaea.  A friend of mine bought a PS1 for Skull Monkeys of all things.  That's how it all works.  But Nintendo just assumes that they have Mario so everyone will flock to it.  So much so that they'll go with two Mario games, two years in a row and then follow that up with a game that plays almost exactly like Mario.  An increasingly homogenus lineup from Nintendo with no third party support is just going to appeal to an increasingly narrower audience.  They need variety to win different people and different demographics over but instead they're squeezing out franchises like F-Zero, Star Fox or Metroid.  They fail to see the value of games like that.

[Nile Boogie Returns]

1. Metroid isn't a system seller.

2. You're assuming there's no overlap between people who buy Metroid and people who buy Mario which clearly isn't true.

There is a crossover but I simplified it to demonstrate my point.  Metroid IS a system seller to SOME people.  The game that convinced me to buy a Wii was Metroid Prime 3.  That's my point.  Different people buy a system for different games.  Nintendo just looks at what the biggest sellers are with the broadest appeal and releases those and jack **** else and think things fall into place.  Meanwhile the Wii U is a flop so is that strategy sound?  Can Mario and DK be called system sellers when the console they've been entrusted with selling isn't selling?

Do you know what I bought a PS2 for?  Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.  My brother bought it for Disgaea.  A friend of mine bought a PS1 for Skull Monkeys of all things.  That's how it all works.  But Nintendo just assumes that they have Mario so everyone will flock to it.  So much so that they'll go with two Mario games, two years in a row and then follow that up with a game that plays almost exactly like Mario.  An increasingly homogenus lineup from Nintendo with no third party support is just going to appeal to an increasingly narrower audience.  They need variety to win different people and different demographics over but instead they're squeezing out franchises like F-Zero, Star Fox or Metroid.  They fail to see the value of games like that.

I agree with most of what you say, although DKC: TF is better than New Mario U in almost every conceivable way. I think that will get fixed in the next couple of months. There is no way to fix this issue overnight and the variety necessary to sustain with the overall gaming populous is sorely lacking. Still, currently Nintendo has the best New-Gen lineup with a better 6-12 months prospect. After that...


I got a Dreamcast for Soul Calibur and if that's the only game I ever played on that system, I would have been happy. Gears for Xbox. Hard to say what game will sell to the masses but it helps if its a classic, or close to it.

[Luigi Dude]

Do you know what I bought a PS2 for?  Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.  My brother bought it for Disgaea.  A friend of mine bought a PS1 for Skull Monkeys of all things.  That's how it all works.  But Nintendo just assumes that they have Mario so everyone will flock to it.  So much so that they'll go with two Mario games, two years in a row and then follow that up with a game that plays almost exactly like Mario.  An increasingly homogenus lineup from Nintendo with no third party support is just going to appeal to an increasingly narrower audience.  They need variety to win different people and different demographics over but instead they're squeezing out franchises like F-Zero, Star Fox or Metroid.  They fail to see the value of games like that.

Pikmin 3
The Wonderful 101
Bayonetta 2
X
SMT X Fire Emblem
Hyrule Warriors

Oh yes, nothing but platformers aimed at Mario fans.

[Adrock]

There is a crossover but I simplified it to demonstrate my point.  Metroid IS a system seller to SOME people.  The game that convinced me to buy a Wii was Metroid Prime 3.  That's my point.  Different people buy a system for different games.

If that's the way you want to go with this then literally every game ever made and will be made is a system seller. The distinction of "system seller" isn't one anymore since we're reducing it to " a game someone, somewhere buys a console for." Using the more traditional definition of "system seller," Metroid isn't one. This isn't favoritism either as Metroid is my favorite series; I like it more than Mario and Donkey Kong combined. While I strongly would have preferred Metroid as a consumer, I think Nintendo and Retro Studios made the right call from a business perspective. Nintendo hasn't trusted the series to carry a holiday season in 10 years and for good reason. Metroid is a supplementary release and if some buy a console for it, that's just a bonus.

Can Mario and DK be called system sellers when the console they've been entrusted with selling isn't selling?

Using both your definition and the widely accepted definition, yes. Wii U would be selling far worse without those games. More to the point, if you replaced either with Metroid, Wii U would probably be selling worse than it is now. Any combination of those three series doesn't change the fact that there isn't enough on the console in general for it to be selling well. Nintendo went with the two with the greatest sales potential.

[Ian Sane]

I maintain the very logical assumption that NSMB and DKC are similar enough that most people that didn't give enough of a **** about NSMB to buy a Wii U would not suddenly be encouraged by DKC.  And the sales figures suggest that that assumption was dead on.  Nintendo's first three attempted killer apps for the Wii U were all of the same genre which is totally putting all your eggs in one basket.  Even if NSMB U sold like hotcakes, what new customers were SM3DW and DKC going to attract when all three games target the same people?  And if one didn't move consoles, NONE of them were.  Either Mario platformers is your killer app or it isn't and having a second or third one isn't going to change your mind.  There would obviously be some potential customers that would want a few games of their favourite genre before making the purchase but it's still very limiting to cater so much to one genre at the expense of others.

I think Nintendo just assumed the Wii U would be a big hit from the start.  NSMB U would be a big success and move systems and then that large userbase would eat up the other platformers that were to come.  And Nintendo Land would be a big hit too and then that same userbase would buy the similar Wii Party U and Game & Wario.  Take the two most popular genres on the Wii and go all in at the expense of all else.  Essentially it's Nintendo's version of Square Enix's stupid FFXIII strategy where years of product development was set in place based on the presumed success of one title.

[Adrock]

Hmm, Nintendo is still trying to reach all the people who like platformers. They may not buy a console for one game, but give them a few they want and they may change their mind. Sure, they could be a few in the same genre or a few in different genres. That said, a single Metroid game isn't what I would call variety. At this stage, releasing games that have the greatest sales potential overall makes the most sense for them. There is no single thing Nintendo could have done differently that would have significantly improved Wii U's standing outside of some Wii Sports-like miracle game/pop culture phenomenon and those just happen; companies can't bank on that.

And I would hope Nintendo assumed they had a hit on their hands otherwise why even bother making a product  they think is going to fail?

[smallsharkbigbite]

If that's the way you want to go with this then literally every game ever made and will be made is a system seller. The distinction of "system seller" isn't one anymore since we're reducing it to " a game someone, somewhere buys a console for." Using the more traditional definition of "system seller," Metroid isn't one.

I think that is what makes coming to market with a bunch of games as important as possible because you never know which game is going to push somebody towards a purchase.  I think the whole "system" seller thing is vastly overrated. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games

Only 40 games have ever sold 15M + according to wikipedia.  Would Nintendo like a game that would move 14 million Wii Us?  Heck yeah they would.  But another 14 M Wii Us and we still have a modern day poorly selling console.  Really only Tetris, Wii Sports, Nintendogs, Pokeman and Super Mario Bros are the only definitive system sellers on this list.  The others are debatable.  Games like the Sims/Sims 2, or PC games in general aren't usually system sellers since most people already have PCs.  Wii Sports Resort/GTA 5 were iterative and already sold to the same demographic that already owned the system.  A game like Call of Duty is released on every system so it's likely not a system seller as it's highly unlikely someone who had no interest in gaming before is going to up and buy a system for Call of Duty. 

[Ian Sane]

Hmm, Nintendo is still trying to reach all the people who like platformers. They may not buy a console for one game, but give them a few they want and they may change their mind. Sure, they could be a few in the same genre or a few in different genres. That said, a single Metroid game isn't what I would call variety. At this stage, releasing games that have the greatest sales potential overall makes the most sense for them. There is no single thing Nintendo could have done differently that would have significantly improved Wii U's standing outside of some Wii Sports-like miracle game/pop culture phenomenon and those just happen; companies can't bank on that.

And I would hope Nintendo assumed they had a hit on their hands otherwise why even bother making a product  they think is going to fail?

I'm not saying they should assume failure but rather just not assume success before it actually happens.  It's like if you started working on a sequel under the assumption that the first game would be a hit but then it ends up being an infamous bomb and you're stuck having spent money and time on a half-finished sequel that no one wants.  A more logical approach on Nintendo's part would be to focus on variety at first and then follow up with more of the same on the stuff that takes off.

You state that Nintendo can't rely on some Wii Sports-like miracle game/pop culture phenomenon but that is what they did.  Everything to this point thus far was set in motion years ago on the assumption that they could recreate the Wii's success from the get-go with NSMB U and Nintendo Land.  If they understood that the Wii was once-in-a-lifetime then they probably would have done things completely differently.

I agree that if they had Retro work on something else instead of DKC it probably would have made no difference for the Wii U but that's more because the console is so fundamentally fucked up.  But in the future, when deciding on what their teams should be working on, variety should be something to consider.  Particularly when you know third party support is going to be ****, it makes no sense to have multiple teams working on very similar games while entire genres are left unaccounted for.  EAD and Retro were effectively working on a redundant projects.

[broodwars]

Do you know what I bought a PS2 for?  Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.  My brother bought it for Disgaea.  A friend of mine bought a PS1 for Skull Monkeys of all things.  That's how it all works.  But Nintendo just assumes that they have Mario so everyone will flock to it.  So much so that they'll go with two Mario games, two years in a row and then follow that up with a game that plays almost exactly like Mario.  An increasingly homogenus lineup from Nintendo with no third party support is just going to appeal to an increasingly narrower audience.  They need variety to win different people and different demographics over but instead they're squeezing out franchises like F-Zero, Star Fox or Metroid.  They fail to see the value of games like that.

Pikmin 3
The Wonderful 101
Bayonetta 2
X
SMT X Fire Emblem
Hyrule Warriors

Oh yes, nothing but platformers aimed at Mario fans.

Only two of which were actually made by Nintendo (Pikmin 3 & X), and only TWO of which have even been released yet (Pikmin 3 & Wonderful 101).  And of the ones that haven't released, 1 has only been shown off using concept art from other games (SMT X Fire Emblem) so it's pretty much vaporware by now. 1 more looks like **** (Hyrule Warriors).

It's also worth noting that the games on this list pretty much sum up the Wii U's entire announced software lineup for the rest of its lifespan.  That's some variety, especially when half of the games on this list use the same bright, cartoony art style (nothing against the art style, but when every game on the Wii U has the same look it gets old).