Topic: Official Sales Thread

[stevey]

Quote
Ocarina of Time - 7.60 million
Legend of Zelda (Original) - 6.51 million
Link to the Past - 4.61 million
Adventures of Link - 4.38 million
Wind Waker - 4.35 million

That can't be right, were is Link's Awakening?!?

[Luigi Dude]

Links Awakening

North America - 2.24 million
Japan - 540,000
Europe - 1.05 million

Total 3.83 million

Links Awakening sold 3.83 million copies worldwide.  I was only posting the Zelda's that have surpassed the 4 million mark which Twilight Princess just did.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Quote
Originally posted by: Luigi Dude
I was only posting the Zelda's that have surpassed the 4 million mark which Twilight Princess just did.

Can you just post the data for all the Zelda games.

[IceCold]

Quote
If Nintendo fanboys ever put their money where their mouth is...

I think couchmonkey has Nintendo shares. Bastard.

[Dryden]

Hah hah - I did some more research on Nintendo's American traded stock...
Turns out that the $35.75 price is actually worth an eighth of a Japanese traded share.  Also, Nintendo is prohibitively expensive - the minimum investment is 100 shares.  So market price $35.75 x 8 x 100 = $28,600 minimum investment.  Sooooooo.... good for couchmonkey?

[oohhboy]

Pretty good set up if you ask me. Gives the stock price stability and keeps out the speculators. It brings in real investors who are in it for the long run.

[Luigi Dude]

Quote
Originally posted by: BlackNMild2k1

Can you just post the data for all the Zelda games.

OK, I'll go in the series order to show how popular it's been in it's lifetime.

The Legend of Zelda (Original)

North America - 3.80 million
Japan - 1.69 million
Europe 1.02 million
Total - 6.51 million

Adventures of Link

North America - 2.22 million
Japan - 1.61 million
Europe - 550,000
Total - 4.38 million

Link to the Past

North America - 2.46 million
Japan - 1.16 million
Europe - 990,000
Total 4.61 million

Links Awakening

North America - 2.24 million
Japan - 540,000
Europe - 1.05 million
Total - 3.83 million

Ocarina of Time

North America - 4.08 million
Japan - 1.46 million
Europe - 2.06 million
Total - 7.60 million

Links Awakening DX

North America - 1.02 million
Japan - 510,000
Europe - 690,000
Total - 2.22 million

Majora's Mask

North America - 1.89 million
Japan - 740,000
Europe - 730,000
Total - 3.36 million

Oracle of Ages/Seasons (Both games are counted as one in the sales data)

North America - 1.81 million
Japan - 1.03 million
Europe - 1.15 million
Total - 3.99 million

Link to the Past GBA Version

North America - 1.67 million
Japan - 340,000
Europe - 570,000
Total - 2.58 million

Wind Waker

North America - 2.44 million
Japan - 860,000
Europe - 1.05 million
Total - 4.35 million

Minish Cap

North America - 830,000
Japan - 270,000
Europe - 240,000
Total - 1.34 million

Twilight Princess Wii Version

North America - 1.55 million
Japan - 560,000
Europe - 970,000
Total - 3.08 million

Twilight Princess Gamecube Version

North America - 850,000
Japan - 40,000
Europe - 280,000
Total - 1.17 million

Both version of Twilight Princess Total - 4.25 million


I dont have the numbers for Four Swords Adventures on the Gamecube because VGcharts only lists the sales of games that have sold over 1 million copies.  So that makes Four Swords Adventures the only Zelda to not break the million mark.

[Ceric]

I'm sort of surprised to see that Adventures of Link sold almost as much as Link to the Past.

[Luigi Dude]

Well considering how popular the original was back in the day, it's not too surprising.  Back then there wasn't much for videogame media and so most people bought games without really knowing what they were about.  Most of the people that bought it probobly thought it would be like the original only to be surprised when they started playing for the first time.  

[Ian Sane]

The Gamecube version of Twilight Princess alone actually outsold Minish Cap in North America.  That's pretty neat.

The difference between the North American and Japanese sales of Wind Waker is pretty big.  Funny considering that the general assumption at the time was that Japan would be more accepting of the graphics style.

Zelda hasn't broken a million in Japan since Ocarina of Time (Oracle of Ages/Seasons shouldn't count since it's two games and logically neither one broke a mil).  Nintendo was right about gamer drift over there.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Before the rest of the Zelda series as we know it existed, The Adventure of Link wasn't a "travesty" or even the odd one out.  It was 50% of the series.  I don't recall ever encountering bad opinions of it until the World Wide Whine took off while I was in college.

[stevey]

You forgot to add Dx and four swords to their total, so their real sale numbers are

Ocarina of Time - 7.60 million
A Link to the Past - 7.19 million
Legend of Zelda - 6.51 million
Link's Awakening - 6.05 million
Adventure of link - 4.38 million

and loz, lttp, and oot all should be higher still due to the VC...

[IceCold]

Then do we count Animal Crossing sales in the original Zelda (even though you can only get it with AR)?

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: PartyBear
Before the rest of the Zelda series as we know it existed, The Adventure of Link wasn't a "travesty" or even the odd one out.  It was 50% of the series.  I don't recall ever encountering bad opinions of it until the World Wide Whine took off while I was in college.

Or maybe it was because you couldn't get any other opinions than those around you? Personally I hated (well maybe hated is too extreme, more like severely dissapointed) the game the moment I started playing it back when it was new, it paled in comparison to LoZ and felt rushed out the door. Not to mention there must have been an outcry that you were not aware of or they would have stuck with the same formula instead of going back to the LoZ style in Link to the Past.  

[UltimatePartyBear]

Quote
Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
Or maybe it was because you couldn't get any other opinions than those around you? Personally I hated the game the moment I started playing it back when it was new, it paled in comparison to LoZ and felt rushed out the door. Not to mention there must have been an outcry that you were not aware of or they would have stuck with the same formula instead of going back to the LoZ style in Link to the Past.

Back before we had the Internet to tell us which games to hate, we had to rely on these things called magazines.  They were chiseled in stone and really hard to carry around, but they were good enough to get a sense of the gamer zeitgeist.  It also does not necessarily have to have been an outcry that led Miyamoto and his team to change things again in the next game.  Miyamoto has demonstrated a penchant for change for change's sake, and sales of Zelda II were not much lower than sales of A Link to the Past, according to Luigi Dude's findings.  I don't believe that many people bought the game before they heard how different it was from either a friend or a stone slab.

[Louieturkey]

Quote
Originally posted by: stevey
You forgot to add Dx and four swords to their total, so their real sale numbers are

Ocarina of Time - 7.60 million
A Link to the Past - 7.19 million
Legend of Zelda - 6.51 million
Link's Awakening - 6.05 million
Adventure of link - 4.38 million

and loz, lttp, and oot all should be higher still due to the VC...

Plus, Zelda 1 & 2 were released on the GBA under the NES Classics label.  So those numbers should also be higher.  I know at least 1 copy of Zelda 2 was purchased.   I for one loved that game and still do to this day.  

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: PartyBear

Quote
Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix
Or maybe it was because you couldn't get any other opinions than those around you? Personally I hated the game the moment I started playing it back when it was new, it paled in comparison to LoZ and felt rushed out the door. Not to mention there must have been an outcry that you were not aware of or they would have stuck with the same formula instead of going back to the LoZ style in Link to the Past.

Back before we had the Internet to tell us which games to hate, we had to rely on these things called magazines.  They were chiseled in stone and really hard to carry around, but they were good enough to get a sense of the gamer zeitgeist.  It also does not necessarily have to have been an outcry that led Miyamoto and his team to change things again in the next game.  Miyamoto has demonstrated a penchant for change for change's sake, and sales of Zelda II were not much lower than sales of A Link to the Past, according to Luigi Dude's findings.  I don't believe that many people bought the game before they heard how different it was from either a friend or a stone slab.

Still back in the NES days people bought games more so based on how "cool" it looked rather than reviews. Yes there were magazines, but people were much more uninformed than they are now (or when the internet started taking hold). Kids, mostly, made more descisions based on how good the game looked from the back of the box, and since LoZ was a popular game then kids instantly got their parents (or at least tried) to pick the game up.

That is another thing that must be taken into consideration as well, back in the NES days gaming was more of  "kid" thing and thus what determined a good or bad game was much more subjective besides the few magazines here and there. Like I said I played Zelda 2 long before the internet came out and hated the game, and I doubt I was the only one, it was just that those opinions were more openly heard through the internet. Not to mention the fact that Zelda 2 was pretty much rushed out the door, I believe it came out within a year of LoZ and was missing many of the key developers of the original, with it in fact being developed by a separate team. I'm not even sure how much involvement MIyamoto had with the game!

Also here is a quote from Miyamoto himself regarding Zelda 2:

Quote
Superplay: The sequel, Zelda II: Adventures of Link was a very different game. Why was this? And why have you never done anything like it again?

Shigeru Miyamoto: It was my idea, but the actual game was developed by another team, different people to those that made the first game. Compared to Legend of Zelda, Zelda II went exactly what we expected... All games I make usually gets better in the development process, since good ideas keep coming, but Zelda II was sort of a failure...

Superplay: So that's why the third game looked like the first one?

Shigeru Miyamoto: Exactly. We actually see A link to the Past as the real sequel to Legend of Zelda. Zelda II was more of a side story about what happened to Link after the events in Legend of Zelda.

 

[31 Flavas]

Quote
Originally posted by: PartyBear
Before the rest of the Zelda series as we know it existed, The Adventure of Link wasn't a "travesty" or even the odd one out.  It was 50% of the series.  I don't recall ever encountering bad opinions of it until the World Wide Whine took off while I was in college.

Thank you. You said it better then I wanted to.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: 31 Flavas

Quote
Originally posted by: PartyBear
Before the rest of the Zelda series as we know it existed, The Adventure of Link wasn't a "travesty" or even the odd one out.  It was 50% of the series.  I don't recall ever encountering bad opinions of it until the World Wide Whine took off while I was in college.

Thank you. You said it better then I wanted to.

Too bad that even the creator of Zelda thinks it was sort of a failure as well. I'm sorry but the internet did not create all the bad opinions of the game, it was just that we heard from more people than our friends who probably have similar tastes. Sounds like some of Smash's hermit crabbing going on here!

[Smash_Brother]

Nah, PB would have to be slinging personal insults at you for it to be crabbin'.

I think Zelda II is just a love/hate kind of game. The game was a yawn for me, but then again, I played it much later and it could be that it just didn't age well, unlike LttP which was still fun years later.

[31 Flavas]

Quote
Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix

Too bad that even the creator of Zelda thinks it was sort of a failure as well. I'm sorry but the internet did not create all the bad opinions of the game, it was just that we heard from more people than our friends who probably have similar tastes. Sounds like some of Smash's hermit crabbing going on here!

And despite being "sort of" a failure, it sells 4.38 million in a day and age when you could return a game just for sucking.  

[Ceric]

You know what I think is funny about the whole thing?  Out of all the 2D Zelda's , Zelda 2 is the one I think that has the most in common in it's own way with the 3D incarnations.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: 31 Flavas

Quote
Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix

Too bad that even the creator of Zelda thinks it was sort of a failure as well. I'm sorry but the internet did not create all the bad opinions of the game, it was just that we heard from more people than our friends who probably have similar tastes. Sounds like some of Smash's hermit crabbing going on here!

And despite being "sort of" a failure, it sells 4.38 million in a day and age when you could return a game just for sucking.

Not sure where you could return it, I sure never experienced that. Regardless it was still mainly kids who got games for their birthdays, and probably had no intention of returning it regardless of quality. It is quite funny how you completely ignore the fact that the creator of the series said it was sort of a failure, and instead rant and rave about how the internet community is what started Zelda 2 hate. If the creator himself is dissapointed with how it turned out, that should tell you that much of the hate is probably warranted. Not to mention the fact that it was more of a side game, and not meant to be a true Zelda game being developed by a totally different team and released within a year. Not to mention the last time I checked sales do not indicate quality "The Matrix" video game anyone?  

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ceric
You know what I think is funny about the whole thing?  Out of all the 2D Zelda's , Zelda 2 is the one I think that has the most in common in it's own way with the 3D incarnations.

How so? I know some elements from Zelda 2 were used again, but the game shares little to no resemblance to the 3D Zeldas. For one it had lives, two it was a RPG/adventure/platformer hybrid with almost RPGish battle scenes (the mini levels when you encounter an enemy), you also could level up, and more importantly it could not decide what exactly it wanted to be by switching between overworld and side scrolling sections. The game felt like an unpolished mess that could have benefitted greatly by 3 things:

1. Actually having Miyamoto and the lead designers work on it instead of some side team
2. More time in development
3. More of a focus or direction

If there is a game that shares the most resemblence to the 3D games it was LTTP which incorporated a much wider area to explore, consistent design choices, inclusion of two different worlds, emphasizing using weapons found in dungeon to fight bosses, puzzle designs, amongst other things.

[SixthAngel]

Quote
Originally posted by: GoldenPhoenix

Quote
Originally posted by: 31 Flavas

Quote
Originally posted by: PartyBear
Before the rest of the Zelda series as we know it existed, The Adventure of Link wasn't a "travesty" or even the odd one out.  It was 50% of the series.  I don't recall ever encountering bad opinions of it until the World Wide Whine took off while I was in college.

Thank you. You said it better then I wanted to.

Too bad that even the creator of Zelda thinks it was sort of a failure as well. I'm sorry but the internet did not create all the bad opinions of the game, it was just that we heard from more people than our friends who probably have similar tastes. Sounds like some of Smash's hermit crabbing going on here!

This is Nintendo.  Didn't Miyamoto say Mario was a failure at some point because Tomagachi did better?  The game sold less then the first Zelda so of course that is what the creator will say.  
I think it gets so much hate because it is different from the many Zelda games that have since came out, especially for newer Zelda players that went back to play it.