Wind Waker Most Pre-Ordered Game in History

March 12, 2003, 10:35 am EST
Total comments: 19

Rumor has it that those bonus discs might have something to do with it.

Gamers Take Detour from Vice City and Head to Hyrule; The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker Generates Record Pre-Sell Numbers

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 2003--Since it was first announced, The Legend of Zelda®: The Wind Waker™ pre-sell program for Nintendo GameCube™ has captured the hearts and attention of gamers across the country.

Still two weeks from launch, more than 560,000 Zelda fans have reserved their copy of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and received the nearly sold-out limited-edition disk featuring two playable, full-length games originally for the Nintendo® 64: The Legend of Zelda®: Ocarina of Time® and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest, for a suggested retail price of $49.95. This makes The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Nintendo's most successful pre-sell program in history.

"The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is the most anticipated video game in Electronics Boutique's history based on our pre-orders, even outpacing last year's Grand Theft Auto: Vice City," says Jerry Madaio, vice president, merchandising, Electronics Boutique. "And the number of pre-orders is still growing! Clearly, this game's appeal is so wide, that it is a 'must-have' for any Nintendo GameCube owner."

"Given the history of the Zelda series, we expected overwhelming interest, and this solidifies the ever-growing phenomenon and attraction gamers have to the characters and story," explains George Harrison, senior vice president, marketing and corporate communications, Nintendo of America Inc. "It doesn't matter which system you own, gamers across the world respect and anticipate the launch of any Zelda game and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a killer application that will move hardware."

Launching March 24, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is an epic adventure that will have the character Link sailing the high seas and searching for clues to his sister's mysterious disappearance. The game is brought to life with incredible toon-shaded visuals and a unique facial animation system. Link's eyes not only show his emotions but also provide hints and spot danger, inspiring a sense of wonder in players of all ages. Connect the Game Boy® Advance, via the Nintendo GameCube Game Boy Advance cable, and players can summon the mapmaker Tingle to uncover hidden secrets to help Link in his voyage.

To date, worldwide sales of The Legend of Zelda series have surpassed 36 million software units.

Talkback

Fammy2000March 12, 2003

Ah, the bonus disc worked on me.

Should I give up hope that the WW disc will be gold in some sort?

Berto2KMarch 12, 2003

I have heard that that the 4 million for Vice City was either for worldwide, or for resellers. Not to customers like this. Either way, an astounding job by Nintendo.

Ian SaneMarch 12, 2003

This news is so important they posted it twice!

Good for Nintendo and I'm glad such a unique promotion as giving away a free game worked so well. Maybe it will make this sort of thing more common. I sure as hell don't have a problem with that.

The bonus disc is easily the reason this game had such strong pre-orders. I'm a huge Zelda fan but even I had no original intention of pre-ordering. Game demand in my area is low enough that I don't have to bother to pre-order to get myself a copy.

I think Wind Waker has a pretty good chance of being the best selling Cube game to date considering it has sold over 500,000 copies before it has even been released.

inkMarch 12, 2003

Umm, 4 million MIGHT be the TOTAL SALES of vice city worldwide; but there is no way in hell that it had that many pre-orders.

nolimit19March 12, 2003

yea cuz it is barely at 4 million world wide now. i think it may have reached 1 million in the us, but i really doubt it was anymore then that.

MingesiumMarch 12, 2003

Vice City sold 4,672,060 as of Jan. in the US. It sold like 1 million plus its first month. I think that someone made up the 4 million number.

NintegaMarch 12, 2003

Very good news. If it takes a free game to get people not to miss a great game, I'd say a job well done Nintendo. I hope it doesn't stop there. Let's see the sales after it's release. Only 2 more weeks to go.

mouse_clickerMarch 12, 2003

I'm starting to worry along the same lines as Michael- this preorder campaign may have made preordering the game SO desirable, just about everybody planning on buying the game have already done so. 500,000+ is definetly a lot for preorders, but in terms of overall sales, it's pretty poor, especially for Zelda, which generally sells 1 million+ in both Nintendo and Japan. What if actual sales of the game are pretty bad, seeing as just about everybody's preordered it? I'm not saying the game will sell like crap, just that I'm worried the bulk of WW's sales have already been preordered.

Fammy2000March 12, 2003

I still think Zelda has sales left after the pre-order madness. Although it will effect the initial sales (it would have sold well the initial weekend anyway -- maybe now we will have more of the initial shipment sold as pre-orders instead of walk-ins) I still think sales will be strong throughout the year. Kinda like SSBM. I'll go out on a limb and say it will sell more than one million copies this year.

GamefreakMarch 12, 2003

Of course it has sales in it left. Ocarina of Time pre-sold 325,000 units, which was the record until Vice City came along. It went on to sell 8 million+ worldwide (N64 version only of course). I'm sure far more than 600,000 people plan on owning wind waker. Let's see....around 4 million or more (guesstimate by me) own Ocarina of Time in the US, so that's about 4 million or more than might not want to Ocarina of Time disc since they have already played the game. Your average joe might not care about the hard more that is master quest. Anyway, at almost 600,000, Wind Waker is already in the top ten US GCN games in terms of sales, if not top 5. It will definately go on to become number 1 and I have no doubts that it will sell 1 million in the US very quickly. Wind Waker is already a million seller worldwide including preordered copies, joining SSBM, Luigi, Rogue Leader, Mario, Metroid, and whatever else has added up to a million now. I'm sure things like Resident Evil, SFA, and Pikmin are a million too. Oh yeah duh and Sonic is most definately a million seller worldwide...

SPhil64March 12, 2003

Woo! I figured this would be one of Nintendo's largest preorder sales in history. I mean, why wouldn't it be? And 4 million for a preorder of Vice City? That just sounds a little too large for me to believe.

DjunknownMarch 12, 2003

hmmm.... Good News right? I guess anyone else who STILL says this game won't sell because of graphics have a foot in their mouths. Over half a million (not just the Nintendophiles) say other wise. The promo obviously worked; and to all the naysayers I have this to say:

Know your role and shut your mouth!

Hopefully this will sell some Cubes.

ruby_onixMarch 12, 2003

Quote
"..and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is a killer application that will move hardware."

They know that games move hardware (it what they've always done for Nintendo).

They know that free games move hardware (their latest Metroid promo, and what those Sega games are doing for the XBox).

They know that free games will move games (Zelda preorders).

So if Nintendo wants to move more hardware, why aren't we seeing more free games?

I mean, we can't always expect them to give away $50 games like Metroid Prime for free, or they wouldn't make any money on them, but why aren't we seeing at least Wave Race: Blue Storm coming free with the GameCube? How much is Wave Race selling right now? If it was just packed into the GameCube box with a cardboard sleeve, I can't see it really adding more than $5 to the cost of the Cube.

I'll tell you why we aren't seeing this. Because if Nintendo was giving us free games, we'd be that much more entertained and content. And less likely to drop $50 for a new game (or $30 on the "outdated" stuff).

If Nintendo's really serious about getting rid of the idea that they aren't capable of pushing large amounts of hardware anymore (which at the moment I really think is just a harmful image legacy of the cart-based N64), they're going to have to get more serious about it and take on some more short-term risk.

Or they might just get lucky and Zelda:WW will do the job for them (although I'm not so confident that will happen).

At least that's my opinion right now.

cmoneyMarch 12, 2003

cheers everyone!

MarioMarch 12, 2003

If anything the cel-shading has helped sales alot more than hurt them. Everyone is digging the graphics of this game, EVERYONE, coz theyre friggin awesome, man i cant wait for this game... BEST GAME EVER!

Cube-Follower007March 13, 2003

I haven't pre-ordered the game because where I live you can just walk to the store on the first day and half the shipment will still be there,and I have already played OoT on 64 so I don't care about the Bonus discs.

AzuleMarch 13, 2003

Yay, I hope this translates into solid Wind Waker sales, not just a huge nastalgia for N64 games.

kholdstareMarch 13, 2003

This is such coolness, and I for one love the idea of N64 games being included with GCN games. Ever since I got my cube there has been nowhere to plug my beloved N64 into, so haveing N64 games on a Cube disc means I can just use the one console.
Way to go nintendo! The Success is well deserved.