Author Topic: Reggie says "First-Month" sales don't matter for Nintendo Hardware (Read 7488 times)

Chozo Ghost · « **on:** June 14, 2009, 07:28:20 AM »

http://kotaku.com/5288217/nintendo-expects-the-conduit-gta-chinatown-wars-to-sell-well

Quote

As other Nintendo reps have said before him, Fils-Aime thinks Chinatown Wars may have been counted out too soon by people focusing on its launch numbers. "In the handheld space, with Nintendo platforms specifically — whether it's Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS — the fact is that first month sales really don't matter," he said. "You have a title like Mario Kart, in its first month, a holiday month that did just over 200,000 copies. New Super Mario Brothers, which launched in the summer, did over 150,000 in its first month. Those are not huge numbers, yet both of those have gone on to sell more than four million units apiece and to be in the top 10 total industry titles for the last two years running. So, first month doesn't matter in the handheld space as long as it's a high-quality game, which Chinatown Wars is, has some continuous level of marketing support — whether its retail marketing, consumer marketing, online — as long as you keep the buzz going it will continue to sell millions and millions. And that's my expectation for Chinatown Wars. As long as the team at Take Two and Rockstar give it a long life, it will do very well."

Reggie said he would have liked to have seen higher sales for MadWorld but doesn't think its launch counts out other M-rated Wii games. "The challenge with home console is that for a 'gamer game' you need to have the buzz and the expectation early and you need to support the title for a number of months to drive the sales. On both of those fronts, I'm not sure MadWorld was able to do that."

What do you guys think? Is the Regster right, or should he stick to just kicking ass and leave the thinking stuff to the intellectuals?

Deguello · « **Reply #1 on:** June 14, 2009, 07:49:32 AM »

I think the insanely focused attention the first month (or week) gets is just not good analysis. Word of mouth tends to spread more on market leading consoles.

Guitar Hero is a good example, because most people thought that game flopped in it's first month waaay back in 2004. It just kept steadily selling on word of mouth alone until a franchise was born. Pokemon is another good example, as it totally tanked in it's first few weeks in Japan, but just grew and grew and grew and now it's the most popular RPG ever.

TJ Spyke · « **Reply #2 on:** June 14, 2009, 10:16:01 AM »

I think we are past the days when a game would get most of its sales in the first month. I think Nintendo realizes now that not everyone wants a game as soon as it comes out and may want to get it later. There is also word of mouth with people hearing about a game from other people playing it, and new owners of a system. Somebody just getting a Wii now might want to get Mario Kart Wii, I think this is especially evident with handheld games like New Super Mario Bros. (which managed to be in the top 10 games for 2008 even though it came out back in May 2005).

redgiemental · « **Reply #3 on:** June 14, 2009, 11:27:18 AM »

I think Reggie may be right.

The Wii and DS seem to operate on a different sales cycle than games traditionally.

At least to a certain extent anyway.

A movement to longer-term sales over blockbuster first weeks would benefit consumers in my opinion. Word-of-month sales model benefits games of good quality while first week/month sales speak more about marketing than actual quality.

Chozo Ghost · « **Reply #4 on:** June 14, 2009, 12:28:47 PM »

I really hope that GTA Chinatown and Madworld's sales improve enough to the point where their developers will create sequels on Nintendo hardware. These are M rated games which are in very short supply on Nintendo hardware, so gamers better start buying these in greater numbers so we will see more.

DAaaMan64 · « **Reply #5 on:** June 14, 2009, 01:06:05 PM »

Chinatown Wars sales will improve. I'm not so sure about Madworld's though.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #6 on:** June 14, 2009, 02:19:19 PM »

Mad World was a game with no real point, noone wants that.

DAaaMan64 · « **Reply #7 on:** June 14, 2009, 02:53:55 PM »

Thats BS I love that game.

Mop it up · « **Reply #8 on:** June 14, 2009, 02:54:19 PM »

Game companies want games to be multi-million sellers within the first month so that they can get their money faster.

Ymeegod · « **Reply #9 on:** June 15, 2009, 11:59:37 AM »

That's not really the case. Sure there are exceptions but sales generally only improve when the retailers put the title on the barginbin table (that's how No More Heroes ended up selling). GTA CTW was already $20 like a month after launch and Madworld's MIA at most retailers (making it kinda hard to buy).

M rated games simply don't sell that well on Nintendo products.

Ian Sane · « **Reply #10 on:** June 15, 2009, 01:11:45 PM »

If you think about it the first month is just one sample of data. Are you going to make a prediction based on one sample? You can't see a trend based on just one month. At least if you had two months you could see if the sales were rising, falling or staying the same.

And I maintain my opinion that Madworld would not have sold well on ANY console. It's like an arthouse game. It's just a little too "out there" to have big sales. This is like a record label that makes classical music and wants to expand into the rock market and their first album is a death metal album and they come to the conclusion that their audience isn't interested in rock music. At least go with something that's more marketable before you come to conclusions like that.

NinGurl69 *huggles · « **Reply #11 on:** June 15, 2009, 01:44:07 PM »

TJ Spyke · « **Reply #12 on:** June 15, 2009, 02:12:02 PM »

What the hell is Iwata holding? Obviously not a real sandwich, at least one McDonald's serves in the US (it's about 3X or 4X bigger than their biggest sandwich).

NinGurl69 *huggles · « **Reply #13 on:** June 15, 2009, 02:23:07 PM »

Iwata's packin' meat.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #14 on:** June 15, 2009, 03:18:14 PM »

It looks like plastic or something. The other guy doesn't look as happy as Iwata either.

Stratos · « **Reply #15 on:** June 15, 2009, 03:52:47 PM »

I'm pretty sure that other person is Mr. Yamauchi (sp?) the majority owner and former president of Nintendo. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's the regional director of McDonalds in Japan.

The only problem with leaning on the long burning sales is that retailers have finite shelve space so if the game isn't a big seller right off the bat they will not order more nor give it ANY shelve space. One of my local Fred Meyers had a few copies of Zack and Wiki that were shoved in the lower right corner of the Wii shelve (since Z is at the end of the alphabet) and no one notices the games there. I couldn't find it multiple times because of how hard it is to see down there. I pointed some new Wii owners to it once.

Agreed that Madworld is an artsy game. It was bound to sell average at best. Over the top gratuitous violence plus only being 8 hours long did not bode well for the title. Now, I'll bet if it were longer and/or rated higher overall it might have sold better. Also the disgusting scandal of the PAL version probably killed half or more of the sales it could have gotten there.

NinGurl69 *huggles · « **Reply #16 on:** June 15, 2009, 03:56:00 PM »

You are complete wrong.

Chozo Ghost · « **Reply #17 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:05:27 PM »

Looks like Iwata sold out to "the man" (whoever that is).

TJ Spyke · « **Reply #18 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:09:36 PM »

After a little Google search, it looks like the other guy is Eiko Harada. He is the president and vice-chairman of McDonald's Japan.

Chozo Ghost · « **Reply #19 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:11:07 PM »

So Iwata just sold his company over to McDonalds of Japan in exchange for a cheeseburger?

Stratos · « **Reply #20 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:14:48 PM »

Well, wasn't there a deal where Nintendo DS' could connect to free wi-fi at McDonalds? Maybe this was the press confrence where they announced that.

TJ Spyke · « **Reply #21 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:24:20 PM »

Startos is correct. Last year Nintendo and McDonald's announced a deal where select McDonald's in the Tokyo area would offer free Wi-Fi for the DS. Last month they announced that this deal was expanding to include every McDonald's in Japan.

Stratos · « **Reply #22 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:27:12 PM »

Nintendo sure seems to really like McDonalds. They did the N64 stations there as well. Kind of ironic that the company responsible for getting players to move and get healthy while playing games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit partner up with a junk food/fast food place.

EasyCure · « **Reply #23 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:29:08 PM »

Quote from: Stratos on June 15, 2009, 04:27:12 PM

Nintendo sure seems to really like McDonalds. They did the N64 stations there as well. Kind of ironic that the company responsible for getting players to move and get healthy while playing games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit partner up with a junk food/fast food place.

no its not. Who do you think bred the fat hardcore gamers of yesterday into the lapsed casual fit-concious gamers of today!?

BlackNMild2k1 · « **Reply #24 on:** June 15, 2009, 04:30:49 PM »

Where else would you feel like moving around so much after eating than McDonalds?
That stuff makes my blood feel thick.

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Author Topic: Reggie says "First-Month" sales don't matter for Nintendo Hardware (Read 7488 times)