Topic: Game Journalism

[broodwars]

^
When I spoke of the "ports from last generation", I was referring to Okami and the Metroid Prime Trilogy (and for that matter, the NPC titles)...not the rail shooters.  People try and defend those titles not selling by deriding them as "ports of games we already own" (despite RE4 Wii being a port of a game we "already own" but that sold very well), but the overwhelming majority of Wii owners probably never played those games before and there's really no reason they shouldn't be buying them.  They just...don't.

[Kairon]

Well, they didn't really buy the NPC lineup of games from Nintendo either did they?

[BlackNMild2k1]

^
When I spoke of the "ports from last generation", I was referring to Okami and the Metroid Prime Trilogy (and for that matter, the NPC titles)...not the rail shooters.  People try and defend those titles not selling by deriding them as "ports of games we already own" (despite RE4 Wii being a port of a game we "already own" but that sold very well), but the overwhelming majority of Wii owners probably never played those games before and there's really no reason they shouldn't be buying them.  They just...don't.

I think most of us bring up RE4 not because it was a port or whatever, we bring it up because it sold well and we wanted more games like it, not the rail shooters that took it's place.

Besides, RE4 was an upgrade to a game that we already owned and loved, and those of us that double (triple?) dipped on it were expecting more like it. We were bait and switched.

[Deguello]

Probably also didn't help that Capcom actually advertised Okami as a game nobody played.  The banner ad was something like "The best game nobody has ever played."  I mean the whole ad campaign was just defeatist to the max.

[King of Twitch]

Another ubisoft golden oldie: "We made mistakes" - May 30, 2007

Ubisoft has reportedly learned from its mistakes, though, and is promising that the quality of its forthcoming Wii projects will be significantly better.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/792/792772p1.html

[broodwars]

Another ubisoft golden oldie: "We made mistakes" - May 30, 2007

Ubisoft has reportedly learned from its mistakes, though, and is promising that the quality of its forthcoming Wii projects will be significantly better.

Yeah, I'll believe that when i see it, UbiBoll.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Red Steel 2 is the make or break on that comment.
3 years in the making.

[Ymeegod]

Carnival Games: Mini Golf actually broke a million sells too.    Which places it at freaking 5 millionish total which isn't a failure in my book.  Failure for the gamer yeah, but not for the publisher.

Metroid Prime 3 is one of the highest rated games and yet it sales are quite disappointing at 1.5 million.  If this game came out on the Xbox or PS side how many copies do you think would have sold?  I bet it would have been alot more than 1.5 million. 

[Mop it up]

Carnival Games is definitely one of those titles that people say is garbage when really it is just something which doesn't appeal to them. I've played it, and I found nothing broken about it. It delivers what it promises: games you find at carnivals. If you don't want that, then of course you wouldn't like it. So don't buy it. Problem solved.

[Deguello]

Carnival Games: Mini Golf actually broke a million sells too.    Which places it at freaking 5 millionish total which isn't a failure in my book.  Failure for the gamer yeah, but not for the publisher.

Metroid Prime 3 is one of the highest rated games and yet it sales are quite disappointing at 1.5 million.  If this game came out on the Xbox or PS side how many copies do you think would have sold?  I bet it would have been alot more than 1.5 million.

This post is quite confusing.  It's bad that Carnival Games Golf broke a million (according to VGchartz which you are apparently sourcing) thus making it a smash hit success, but Metroid Prime 3's 1.5 million (2 million if you throw Metroid Prime Trilogy in there) is a disappointing bomb?  Man this generation does funny things to people.

[Ymeegod]

We are talking about sales.  How some games utterly bomb even though they scored much higher than the crap that does.

Saddly I doubt Ubisoft is going change their tune.  Just Dance is their Number 1 game and it's freaking awful yet it'll continue to sell.

[Deguello]

So, in your opinion, Metroid Prime 3 was a sales bomb at 1.5 million, but Dogz 2 selling 500,000 and Carnival games shedding a two thirds of its "fanbase" at one million is a justification to make more of that.

I'm still confused.

And yeah I knew it was going to happen with Just Dance.  They'll ignore every game that sold more than 5 million on the Wii and think the one that sold 600,000 or so is a supreme ultimate mega success and the answer to all their problems.  Then they'll drive it into the ground with yearly installments.  Same as before, basically.

[broodwars]

And yeah I knew it was going to happen with Just Dance.  They'll ignore every game that sold more than 5 million on the Wii and think the one that sold 600,000 or so is a supreme ultimate mega success and the answer to all their problems.  Then they'll drive it into the ground with yearly installments.  Same as before, basically.

I think it has more to do with a game selling 600,000 that probably cost about a fraction of that to actually make.  The Wii's (relatively) cheap development cost can be quite the double-edged sword, as it was on both the PS1 and PS2.

And incidentally, Metroid Prime 3 supposedly sold 1.5 million units?  I'm curious how long it took that game to reach those sales numbers, because I'm starting to wonder how many companies can afford to handle the Wii's "slow burn" phenomenon.  I mean, bills have to be paid somewhere, so can companies afford to wait for these games to eventually turn a profit small chunks at a time (especially the AAA stuff)?

[Ymeegod]

And MP sales are being compared to other games of it's calibur.  It's rated the number 1 highest rated game on the WII yet it sales are 35th for the console.  And if you compare it to what games of it type sell on the PS3 or Xbox it's pretty much one sided.  Killzone 2 beats it and that wasnt even an AAA title.

MP3 should have sold MILLIONS and that why I think Big N considers it a disappointment and why it's not even handling the series anymore.  It's sales from the SNES weren't hot neither and it's why Big N discontinued it--Retro was the ones that brought the series back not Big N.  Same for Fzero.  Doubt we'll see an sequel to that anytime soon.  Sega's Fzero GX sold like a whooping 100K even though it was rated high.

[Mop it up]

Just Dance is their Number 1 game and it's freaking awful yet it'll continue to sell.

You wouldn't happen to be judging a game you haven't played, now would you?

[Kairon]

Just Dance is their Number 1 game and it's freaking awful yet it'll continue to sell.

You wouldn't happen to be judging a game you haven't played, now would you?

Thank you Mop It Up.

Man, I remember when GoldenPhoenix and I both got Carnival Games. We were SHOCKED by how not-awful that game was. It wasn't pristine, but it did have some qualities, and a certain stickiness and reward mechanic, which a lot of other games lacked.

Of course, I don't really like golf or minigolf, so I never bothered to investigate the sequel.

[Ymeegod]

Don't have to play a crappy game when I could just look up the reviews.  It's averaging a freakin 5 (less actually).

You don't have to step in crap to know it stinks.

[Mop it up]

Sales > reviews.

When a game sells that much, chances are people like it.

[Deguello]

It's rated the number 1 highest rated game on the WII

I'm pretty sure the highest rated game on the Wii is Mario Galaxy.

And I highly recommend not using VGChartz as a reliable rubric.  Just recently they had to adjust a few title upward by as much as 500,000 units.  They get things way wrong sometimes.

Furthermore, You can't say that X Casual game selling a million is a failure for gaming on Wii and then say X Regular game selling 1.5 million is bad because of notions of what it would sell on other platforms.  That's a complete non sequitir and has nothing to do with the status of games on the Wii, third party garbage, how Nintendo deserves the most sales on the wii because they make the best games, or anything else to do in this thread.

So long as no casual game approaches Zelda, Galaxy, SSBB, or even the "bomb" of MP3 for that matter, then the very idea that Wii owners will just swallow all of this crap from third parties because it's "what they want" is total crap.  That's what this thread is about, not logic-defying blameshift to Nintendo for... making better games and selling more because all those random fickle Wii owners are also somehow diehard Nintendo fans.

(Also, F-Zero GX sold way more than 100,000.  I know you are using VGChartz for this.  And VGchartz said F-Zero GX sold 0 copies in America.  Just looking at this shelf to my right I guess I contributed to infinity percent more sales of F-Zero GX, thus making it the fastest selling game in history.)

[Kairon]

You don't have to step in crap to know it stinks.

*sigh* Don't judge a book by its cover. For example, We Cheer? <3

Sales > reviews.

When a game sells that much, chances are people like it.

Ehhh.... maybe. There could be other factors at play here. Though a long slowburn sales period would be helped by good word of mouth, and severely hidnered by bad word of mouth.

[Ymeegod]

See that's one problem with VGcharts and the others is they continue to count sales even when the product is dropped into the barginbin as the case with Fzero GX.  It sold around 100K during the first two months and the the price dropped right down to freaking $20 or less.  Found my copy for $11.  I think it hit 1/4 million after that. 

And I didn't say BOMB--I said disappointment.  Big N spent more on it than it's other games yet it yeilded the least.  So yeah even Big N said they were a disappointed. 

Most developers would have been happy with 1.5mil, hell jumping for joy but not Big N. 

[Deguello]

See that's one problem with VGcharts and the others is they continue to count sales even when the product is dropped into the barginbin as the case with Fzero GX.  It sold around 100K during the first two months and the the price dropped right down to freaking $20 or less.  Found my copy for $11.  I think it hit 1/4 million after that.

Considering it didn't officially get a price drop until it reached 250,000 in both America and Europe (Player's Choice requirement), I'd say the game has at least sold 6 times the claim of yourself and VGchartz.  Hardly the picture of flop one had hoped.

And don't pretend to know what Nintendo thinks about it.  Just because you assume they're disappointed based on your notion of disappointment, doesn't mean that they are.

So yeah even Big N said they were a disappointed.

Citation needed.

If Nintendo were really disappointed, they'd sell Retro off.  since they are still working on multiple projects (and since MP3 over sold MP2) I'd imagine Nintendo's quite happy with the ROI on Retro and Metroid Prime in general.

[Mop it up]

Sales > reviews.

When a game sells that much, chances are people like it.

Ehhh.... maybe. There could be other factors at play here.

When I read a review of any game, I always have one question: does this game appeal to the reviewer's tastes? Something like Just Dance is targeting a certain audience, and it seems unlikely that somebody who plays videogames for a living, such as a professional reviewer, is a part of that. Here on NWR, Pap64 gave the game a score of 6.5; he seems like the type of person who enjoys such games, so I'm much more likely to take his word over someone on a site like IGN who HAS to review it for his job.

I'm just not sure if it's fair to claim a game like that to be bad. If it delivers what it promises, and if it is enjoyed by its target audience, can it really be considered bad?

[Ymeegod]

"If Nintendo were really disappointed, they'd sell Retro off"  They still made a profit but it's not as high as Big N expects.  Iwata made a few comments at 2009 gdc.  Basically he wasn't happy with sales of Music or Animal Forest and both of these games outsold MP3. 

Fzero GX hit the barginbin which counts at total sales but if you look at NPD numbers back then you'll see less than 100K sold during the first two months the rest came after RETAILERS reduced the price.  ED was in the same boat back then.  Both were considered flops even though the reviews were high.  Also why you haven't heard about an upcoming Fzero game--poor sales = discontinued. 

But I think we got astray from the main topic a bit.

Back to topic --Just Dance fails on alot of levels because the CORE game is broken (the controls).  Why pay money for something that doesn't work like it's supposed to?  Why do I even need it in the first place?  I can dance just fine without it and still look like a tool in front of my friends?  So what the catch?  I can get training videos and better music for much less.

[Ymeegod]

"Pap64 gave the game a score of 6.5"  LOL that's a D bud right on the line of F.  Yeah it sounds like he tried to get his groove on but really there's better choices out there DDR anyone?