Topic: Official Sales Thread

[KDR_11k]

So Metroid is doomed then.

No it's not.  Like I said before Other M is still putting up numbers similar to other games at this point in there lifespans and could have some decent legs as well.

The only part of Metroid that's doomed is Sakamoto being allowed to put lots of cutscenes and FMV's with voice acting in any future installments since I'd imagine Nintendo isn't going to be willing to spend lots of money on big production values for a Metroid game after Other M's start.  But considering that's what you hate the most in Metroid games you should be happy now since any future Metroid game from Sakamoto will have to be mostly gameplay since he won't be allowed to spend a lot on production values.

No, what I hate is forced linearity in a Metroid game. Cutscenes lead to linearity but even without them Sakamoto can and probably will screw Metroid up if he gets the feedback that ripping out the Metroidy bits and replacing them with his "vision" boosts sales.

[Stratos]

Warriors of Rock is doing terrible. Looks like the death of music games is finally here. (Not that it hasn't been approaching for the last year or two)

[NWR_insanolord]

I hope Rock Band 3 does better; it really deserves to sell well.

[Stratos]

The musical instrument rhythm game genre will most likely live or die with Rock Band 3.

[Mop it up]

Hopefully what this means instead is that they will cut down on music games released. Rock Band 3 adds a keyboard, as well as features that bring it closer to what it is like playing a real instrument; the next logical step for the music game genre seems like teaching players how to actually play an instrument. There's still a lot of potential in that area. Scaling back to no more than one game released in a year, but making one with substantial improvements is the way to go; band-specific versions seems redundant, with the possible exception of The Beatles since they're legendary.

[Stratos]

I think Activision has already realized this peril. They have cut back to one release a year it seems. Personally I think Rock Band has it set up better and they had a dedicated core of players downloading songs all the time so they could become more sustainable.

[Chozo Ghost]

So the Wii is in dead last for the month of September? I remember there were months where it was beaten by either the 360 or PS3, but as far as I'm aware of this is the first month where it got beat by both simultaneously. That's not a very good thing to see. It might be getting time for Nintendo to start considering either a price cut and/or a stronger bundled deal so that the Wii can be strong this holiday season. It is great that the Wii is the fastest selling console of all time, but it needs to be acknowledged that it isn't selling so fast anymore. Personally, I blame the drought of games. I thought Nintendo said they weren't going to have the same sort of drought the Gamecube suffered from? Well, maybe the Wii's drought isn't as bad as the GC's was, but this is still ridiculous.

Also, the sales for Other M are disappointing. Other M did get some good TV advertising, so it doesn't make much sense. That was pretty much all Nintendo had for that month too...

[KDR_11k]

I think they don't care if they're outsold by the competition in the monthly charts, they still have the bigger install base by far.

[BranDonk Kong]

Regardless of their install base, I guarantee you Nintendo of America (and Japan I would imagine) is shitting it's pants right now. This is 4 months in a row that Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US, and now Sony is outselling them too. PS3 has outsold Wii for the year in Japan, too. It doesn't matter if you were number one for a long time, now someone is showing you up, so you need to make some changes.

[Guitar Smasher]

Actually, I'm pretty sure they're more concerned with year-over-year growth than their competitors' sales.  How well your competitor does is much less important when you're experiencing solid growth.  Of course, as a console approaches market saturation, software sales become that much more important for profitability.  So if there's any reason to be pant-shitting (which I think there is), it is because of this.

[TJ Spyke]

Regardless of their install base, I guarantee you Nintendo of America (and Japan I would imagine) is shitting it's pants right now. This is 4 months in a row that Xbox 360 has outsold the Wii in the US, and now Sony is outselling them too. PS3 has outsold Wii for the year in Japan, too. It doesn't matter if you were number one for a long time, now someone is showing you up, so you need to make some changes.

Considering how many more people already own Wii's, I don't think it is a big deal. There are fewer potential Wii owners than 360 or PS3.

[KDR_11k]

Also keep in mind that a lot of major Wii titles keep selling for a LONG time after release, all we see here are the top sellers and of course these are mostly dominated by recent releases. We don't know how many titles Nintendo has flying below the radar and how much money those bring in.

[BranDonk Kong]

Doesn't matter if games continue to sell, it just makes look Nintendo look bad to investors to be in last place. The Wii is running out of steam, slowly but surely. I'm sure the next 2 months will be huge once again, but after that it's time for them to start hyping the Wii 2 or Wii HD or whatever it will be.

[Chozo Ghost]

Also keep in mind that a lot of major Wii titles keep selling for a LONG time after release, all we see here are the top sellers and of course these are mostly dominated by recent releases. We don't know how many titles Nintendo has flying below the radar and how much money those bring in.

Actually, that's the problem. The Wii has been resting on its laurels for far too long. You had games like Wii Sports/Resort, New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart, Wii Play, SMG1&2, Wii Fit, etc. and these were great games and all, but that's only like a half dozen games and almost the entire success of the Wii was based on these games and these games alone. Other titles came and went, but these were the ones that stayed on the charts for months (in some cases even years) and sold millions of copies, and that's what the Wii hardware was relying on the whole time.

Well now, all those titles have dropped off the list. I'm sure they're lingering somewhere below the top 10... maybe they're in the top 20 or top 40 now. But the thing is they used to be in the Top 5, and now we don't see them anymore. But my point is the Wii's success was based on these small handful of games for far too long, and now that all these games are old news what does the Wii have going for it right now at this moment? The answer is unfortunately nothing.

[that Baby guy]

Well, at this moment?  Kirby's Epic Yarn.  What does the Xbox 360 have going for it right now at this moment?  The PS3?

You're saying that some Wii games stay on the charts, whereas other Wii games and the general portion of games out there for other consoles fall off the charts right away.

What's the problem here, again?  I kind of missed it while I was playing some of the Wii games Nintendo released this year, and looking ahead to the five or six other titles on the verge of coming out.

[Mop it up]

It would seem that people are really starting to see value in the XBox 360, and this is something Nintendo shouldn't take lying down. If they really hope to continue with the Wii for 2+ more years, then they need to make it a hot-ticket item once again. They can do this by either lowering the price, or offering bundles that include more than just Wii Sports/Resort. Start by adding a second Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk to the basic $200 package, and then it becomes far more complete since you can play all of the Wii Sports games with two people. Then, offer software bundles that include another game, such as New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Wii Fit, Donkey Kong Country, etc. They could also make special colours for these bundles to make them more attractive, like red for Mario, green for Donkey Kong, etc.

As for game sales, XBox 360 games and PS3 titles are always front-loaded, so you have to look at total sales for the big picture. Did you know that not one PS3 game has sold over 5 million copies? Meanwhile, the entire Wii top ten have all sold over 7 million.

[Guitar Smasher]

Doesn't matter if games continue to sell, it just makes look Nintendo look bad to investors to be in last place. The Wii is running out of steam, slowly but surely. I'm sure the next 2 months will be huge once again, but after that it's time for them to start hyping the Wii 2 or Wii HD or whatever it will be.

Depends on how well Skyward Sword performs.  If it's properly executed it could buy the platform another year.  If not, then you're probably right.  Do we know of any other first party games planned for after this holiday season?

[Mop it up]

Mario Sports Mix is coming out in the spring, and Pikmin 3 is supposedly still in development. That's all that I know of for North America. In Japan, a new Rhythm Heaven game and The Last Story are coming sometime in early 2011.

[BranDonk Kong]

Pikmin 3 will be a Wii HD launch title.

[Mop it up]

I doubt they'll move it to their next system but I guess you never know, it could be another case of Twilight Princess.

[Chozo Ghost]

Pikmin 3 should come to the Wii. We have not seen any new Pikmin title for this generation (unless you count the new play control version, which I do not). But the thing I feel the Wii is really missing is some new core franchises. We've seen the Wii Sports and all that, but those are not core games. Pikmin was a new core franchise for the GC, and the GC also got Geist and Luigi's Mansion and a bunch of other stuff. So in that respect the GC is beating the Wii. It sorta feels like Nintendo is happy with the franchises it already has and would rather just milk those than experiment and take the risk of creating something completely new.

Of course, consumers are also to blame for that, because when Nintendo did push out new franchises like Geist did consumers buy it? Not really. So its not totally Nintendo's fault. Nintendo just sticks to its established franchises because they know those are going to sell. But when it comes to something completely made from scratch, who can really tell how its going to perform?

[Peachylala]

Pikmin 3 should come to the Wii. We have not seen any new Pikmin title for this generation (unless you count the new play control version, which I do not). But the thing I feel the Wii is really missing is some new core franchises.

We have not even seen Star Fox yet. Hell, even Hideki Kamiya wants a new Star Fox and he wanted Nintendo to force him to make one.

...I kind of want Pikmin for the 3DS though.

[broodwars]

Of course, consumers are also to blame for that, because when Nintendo did push out new franchises on the Wii like Geist did consumers buy it? Not really. So its not totally Nintendo's fault. Nintendo just sticks to its established franchises because they know those are going to sell. But when it comes to something completely made from scratch, who can really tell how its going to perform?

Geist was a GameCube game, not a Wii game.  Outside of the Wii _____ series (which isn't aimed at us and doesn't satisfy what I'm looking for in games), I'm struggling to think of a single new Nintendo IP on Wii "we" didn't buy (bear in mind that North America never got Disaster: Day of Crisis).  Even ExciteTruck and ExciteBots (if I remember correctly) were just extensions of the Exitebike franchise.  Supposedly, Kirby's Epic Yarn was originally going to be a new IP, but Nintendo decided it wouldn't sell without an established name stitched on.
 
As for Pikmin, if Nintendo isn't going to take the game seriously enough to give it more than a skeleton team, I'd rather they waited for the Wii's successor.  It will need good titles at launch.

[Chozo Ghost]

Geist was a GameCube game, not a Wii game.

I knew that. I don't know why I typed Wii.
 

As for Pikmin, if Nintendo isn't going to take the game seriously enough to give it more than a skeleton team, I'd rather they waited for the Wii's successor.  It will need good titles at launch.

I suspect Nintendo is working on their next console's launch titles as we speak. It is possible that Pikmin is among them, but who knows at this point? We won't hear anything about the games until at least after the console itself gets announced. I think some generic Wii Sports casual type thing is a given, and will probably be bundled with the system itself since that strategy paid off so well for the first Wii. Anything else I guess is just speculation at this point.

[Mop it up]

If reviews are any indication, Geist didn't sell well because it wasn't a good game. Plus it was released late in the GameCube's life, very little games sold at that point. Also, Luigi's Mansion is not a new franchise, it's a spin-off of Mario and a part of that whole franchise.

Aside from the Wii series of games (which are something new that were at least a calculated risk no matter how much some people don't like them), Nintendo have three new franchises on Wii in North America: Endless Ocean, the Art Styles games, and the upcoming FlingSmash. They also revived Punch-Out!! and brought Sin and Punishment to North America. The problem isn't that they aren't creating new IP, it's that many aren't being released in North America. Japan has Captain Rainbow, Takt of Magic, XenoBlade, and Zangeki no Reginleiv, and Europe has Disaster: Day of Crisis. The Last Story will probably soon be on the list too. I've no idea why Nintendo doesn't want to try these games in North America.

Personally, it doesn't matter to me whether a game is an old or new IP; as games like Battalion Wars, Metroid Other M, and Kirby Epic Yarn have shown, Nintendo will experiment within its franchises. At the end of the day, a good game is a good game.

Supposedly, Kirby's Epic Yarn was originally going to be a new IP, but Nintendo decided it wouldn't sell without an established name stitched on.

The sales part isn't really true. It is far from something like Super Mario Brothers 2 which was a completed game with Mario characters tossed in for the North American version.