Topic: Official Sales Thread

[Ceric]

I have Freelancer and I agree.  For me I will have to say what really breaks it for me in Freelancer is how you control the ship and the view you are in.  Not nearly as intense.  Just can't beat a joystick for a game like that.  I finally got my hands on the newest Mechwarrior game and I enjoyed all the previous ones but I couldn't play this one because of my lack of joystick.

[Maverick]

What collection to you have, Ceric?  Kilrathi Saga?

[GoldenPhoenix]

I played the Wing Commander games before, don't remember much about them though (In regards to Mech games never cared much for them either!).  

[UltimatePartyBear]

It's possible you played Mech Commander, not Wing Commander.

[Artimus]

Freelancer was so boring. You played for two hours and that was it, you now know exactly how the game works.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Wing Commander 2 is where it's at.

Forget the live actors.

386-POWERED ANIMATIONS ALL THE WAY

[MLS_man_64]

Anyone else notice that the clouds on death mountain are red, when viewing them from the Temple of Time, and Kakiriko Village, but from Hyrule Field they are regular clouds, what is the deal with that, another VC bug perhaps?

[Maverick]

Funny, WC 2 is actually my least favorite main Wing Commander game.  (Trust me I catch a lot of flak for that in the community).  What got me hooked was WC III, IV, Prophecy, and Secret Ops.  But if you're gonna go the old school animation rout, I'll take the original Wing Commander any day.

[IceCold]

The Wii is selling well in Australia too..

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According to an official report, via Vooks, it appears Nintendo's Wii has finally surpassed Sony's PlayStation 2 in Australia. Released on 7th December, 2006 in that territory, Nintendo's new console has sold more than 68,000 units to date, with 17,000 of those coming in 2007 alone. In comparison, the Xbox 360 has sold a total of 153,000 units since launch early in 2006 and has cracked 13,000 units sold so far this year. As for the PlayStation 2, 265,000 units were sold in 2006 and sale tracker GfK states "It's still a very strong console."

Despite being so strong, though, the Wii has finally managed to edge ahead in terms of overall popularity thanks to a supply of strong games, increased hardware stock and people not buying PS2s due to waiting for the impending PlayStation 3. The test will be when Sony's next generation platform launches...

[BlackNMild2k1]

Media Create Feb. 26th - March 4th

01. (PS3, Bandai-Namco) Gundam Musou - 170,725 / NEW
02. (DS, Banpresto) Super Robot Wars W - 139,311 / NEW
03. (PSP, Capcom) Monster Hunter Portable 2nd - 137,851 / 843,132
04. (Wii, Nintendo) Wii Sports - 39,639 / 1,130,376
05. (DS, Level 5) Prof. Layton and the Mysterious Village - 33,957 / 220,673
06. (Wii, Nintendo) Wii Play - 31,702 / 976,288
07. (DS, Bandai-Namco) Iron Left Brain: Mistake Museum 2 - 28,495 / NEW
08. (DS, Square-Enix) Dragon Quest Monsters Joker - 27,236 / 1,201,812
09. (DS, Nintendo) New Super Mario Bros. - 24,545 / 4,193,532
10. (DS, Nintendo) More Brain Age - 22,854 / 4,039,850
~
11. (DS, Nintendo) Animal Crossing Wild World
12. (DS, Nintendo) Picross DS
13. (Wii, Nintendo) Fire Emblem: Goddess of the Dawn - 18000 / 93000?
14. (DS, Nintendo) Mario Kart DS
15. (DS, Marvelous Interactive) Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On
16. (DS, Nintendo) Hotel Dusk: Room 215 - 15000 / 155000
17. (DS, Nintendo) Common Knowledge Training
18. (DS, Nintendo) Wario: Master of Disguise
19. (DS, Nintendo) Brain Age
20. (DS, Pokemon) Pokémon Diamond
21. (DS, EA) SimCity DS
22. (Wii, Takara-Tomy) Naruto: Shippuuden Gekitou Ninja Taisen! EX
23. (Wii, Nintendo) Wario Ware Smooth Moves
24. (PS2, Alchemist) Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - 11000 / 91000?
25. (DS, Nintendo) English Training
26. (DS, Konami) Death Note
27. (DS, Pokemon) Pokémon Pearl
28. (DS, IE Institute) Kanji Brain Test 2M
29. (DS, Bandai-Namco) Heisei Board of Education DS
30. (DS, Sega) Bleach DS 2nd: Kokui Hirameku Requiem

34. (DS, Sega) Love & Berry - 7000 / 903,000
40. (Wii, Nintendo) Zelda - 6800 / 409,000?
49. (DS, ?) Puyo Pop Fever 15th Anniversary Edition? - 4900 / 123,000
55. (PS3, Sega) VF5 - 3700 / 67,000?
56. (DS, S-E) FF3 - 3500 / 999,000
58. (DS, ?) Luminous Arc - 3400 / 42,000
59. (DS, Atlus) Etrain Odyssey (Sekaiju no MeiQ) - 3100 / 70,000  
86. (Wii, Konami) Elebits - 1800 / 52,000

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 - 110,000
Ennichi no Tatsujin - 74,000
Bleach Wii Hakujin Kirameku Rondo - 61,000
Crayon Shin-Chan: Saikyou Kazoku Kasukabe King Wii - 38,000

Top 30:
DS - 22
Wii - 5
PS2 - 1
PSP - 1
PS3 - 1

Wii Play should break 1 million next week. Looks like Sony has finally hit the #1 spot and its even rumored to have doubled their hardware sales too!!! (20k x 2 = 40k)    

[IceCold]

I want Picross

[MaryJane]

So Sony grabs the #1 and #3 spots for it's new hardware pieces, then isn't heard from again until the #24 spot with its "old" hardware.

[Mario]

Ouch, Sony dominating the entire top 30 from above. Looks like third parties know which system to choose now.

[jasonditz]

Wow, Elebits isn't really a big seller, is it?

[Ian Sane]

I don't really care for seeing WiiPlay outsell Zelda.  Not just because I hate to see a great game getting spanked by a collection of tech demos but because of the trend it shows.  Japan seems to have fully embraced non-gaming.  The problem is that since the crash Japan has provided the best games.  If Japan is too focused on non-games then that only leaves Europe and North America for the "real" games.  Or at the very least Japanese developers are going to be designing their gamer games for the western audience.  I don't see that being good for the game industry's longterm health.

The market crashed the last time western game design was king.  A western focus will make companies like EA have even more influence on gaming than they do now.  Western publishers are too focused on fads and catering to the mainstream.  Their games are very often disposable.  No one cares about them a year later when the sequel comes out.  Aside from the fact that would suck from a quality point of view I think too much of that will eventually cause a backlash.  But then I don't see gaming as being truly mainstream friendly anyway.  I think it requires too much effort from the user to truly be embraced by the public like passive activities like music, movies and TV.  The best gaming can hope for is being a fad and relying on youth and hardcore gamers to carry it through the rougher times.  Nintendo thinks otherwise so I may be wrong.  Still I'm concerned.

Hell, even if the mainstream does like games forever who wants an industry where WiiPlay outsells Zelda?  If the East focuses on non-games and the West focuses on EA-style games then who's left to make games for game fans?

[odifiend]

If Zelda had a wiimote packed in, the numbers would be different...  You can't infer anything really telling from the sales of a game with a pack-in at standard price and a regular game.  I would also hope that as Wiis become more available, Zelda:TP will continue to sell into the future.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Ian Sane Hell, even if the mainstream does like games forever who wants an industry where WiiPlay outsells Zelda?  If the East focuses on non-games and the West focuses on EA-style games then who's left to make games for game fans?

The fans of those games need to step up, take out loans, open development houses and make those games themselves, and the Wii presents the absolute best opportunity to do just that.

[couchmonkey]

Sorry Ian, the industry just isn't going to be what you want it to be ever again.  The other option was for Nintendo to slowly become irrelevant while someone else figured out how to tap into the non-gamer market.

The thing is, there will always be hardcore games.  DS has plenty of them.  But just like 2D fighters, SHMUPs, and Adventure games, genres will die in pouplarity.  I believe the humongo-single-player adventure/RPG is the next on the chopping block.  Huge budgets to create 50-100 hour games that only appeal to dedicated gamers... Zelda, Final Fantasy and the rest are going to have to evolve or die.  Dragon Quest IX is already on the "evolve" train by moving to DS and becoming multiplayer.

[BlackNMild2k1]

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Originally posted by: Ian Sane
Hell, even if the mainstream does like games forever who wants an industry where WiiPlay outsells Zelda?  If the East focuses on non-games and the West focuses on EA-style games then who's left to make games for game fans?

Europe?

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Originally posted by: odifiend
If Zelda had a wiimote packed in, the numbers would be different...  You can't infer anything really telling from the sales of a game with a pack-in at standard price and a regular game.  I would also hope that as Wiis become more available, Zelda:TP will continue to sell into the future.

Myabe they should bundle the nunchuck with a Special Edition of Zelda TP that way it will complement all those WiiPlay bundles.

You can't find a controller, so you buy WiiPlay, but now all you have is the controller.
You can't find the nunchuck, so you pick up Zelda too. Now gaming and non-gaming both win.

[odifiend]

That's what I'm talking about, BNM!  If Wiiplay 2: Revenge of the 'Tech Demos' came out tomorrow and was 30 bucks with a nunchuk, you can believe I'd pick that up too.
The timing on the release of Wiiplay was perfect - early so that the 'extra' wiimote would be a huge consideration in its purchase.  Nintendo basically manufactured a one million selling game when it devised the Wiiplay bundle.  Instead of looking at this as an isolated success for Nintendo sales, this is being taken as signal for the crash of gaming as we knew it.  That is such bullcrap.  This gen is looking to be the 'have your cake and eat it too' gen for Nintendo.  There are plenty of game games to go along with the nongames.  What is cool is unlike the past two generations, Nintendo isn't the only one making games for its console.  But let's keep jumping to the most negative conclusions.  That is definitely the most fun...

[jasonditz]

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Originally posted by: Ian Sane

Hell, even if the mainstream does like games forever who wants an industry where WiiPlay outsells Zelda?  If the East focuses on non-games and the West focuses on EA-style games then who's left to make games for game fans?

The non-games market isn't replacing the games market in Japan, it's piggybacking on it. The honest-to-god games market had a slight contraction in recent years there, but it's still a multi-multi-billion dollar industry. Companies like Koei and Square Enix and Namco Bandai and Konami have invested enormous amounts of money in attracting the people capable of making the real games that industry wants.

With apologies to Majesco and Hudson, any idiot can make a Crossword Puzzle simulator or a Sudoku game. Those products have their place and even among gamers they're not totally without interest. It's fine for those products to exist... it's even fine if there wind up being more of those products sold than the real games. The game industry isn't going to vanish.

The talent in the industry is not being steered into non-games. Miyamoto is not making a Wiimote calisthenics program. Yu Suzuki is not making a Japanese to Korean dictionary. Hideo Kojima is not going to make a touch-sensitive sculpture program. Hironobu Salaguchi is not producing a photorealistic simulation of that little game at Japanese festivals where you catch koi with a paper net.

These are the sort of guys the great games have always come from, and they're where the future great games are going to come from.  

[MaryJane]

Once we actually get more "gamers" games expect the sales chart to differ dramatically. As stated the remote with WiiPlay is of course bolstering sales, Nintendo is a smart company I really want to see their end of year financial report, it's probably going to be staggering.

[Deguello]

Ian, take solace in the fact that, even if you don't count Wii Sports and Wii Play as "games," pretentious as that is, Zelda is still the #1 "game" in Japan this generation at this point, at about 410,000 units, which will steadily increase IMO.

BTW Did you Know?  On the SNES, A Link to the Past was outsold by a Dragon Ball Z Fighting game.  Don't act like it's the end of the world.  You pansy.

[Luigi Dude]

Plus there's the fact that worldwide Twilight Princess has sold over 2 million copies.  In America and Europe 2/3 of all Wii owners own the damn game.  At the rate it's going it's looking to be one of the top selling Zelda's of all time.  Actually when you compare it's attachment rate right now and how it's selling there's a good chance Twilight Princess will top Ocarina of Times sales and become the best selling Zelda of all time by the end of the Wii's lifespan.

Just because non games sell better in Japan then Zelda doesn't mean a thing.  Japanese companies like all world companies only care about money.  And when there gamer games put up huge numbers in America and Europe, that's all they need.  They're not going to throw all that away because of Japan when they still have a gold mine in the rest of the world.

[31 Flavas]

Quote
Originally posted by: Ian Sane
I don't really care for seeing WiiPlay outsell Zelda.  Not just because I hate to see a great game getting spanked by a collection of tech demos but because of the trend it shows.

Or is it really that you don't care seeing that "real" video games are just a part of the market? Imagine if there was solid hard tangible evidence that was really hard to discredit or disprove, and it disproved the existence of the Christian God? Do you think a certain percentage of the U.S. population would not care for it? It would shake the very foundation of certain religious extremists. Now don't take from that Ian, that i'm calling you a religious extremist or a video game extremist. But what I am saying is that i'm not surprised that certain groups, even individuals, like you Ian, are concerned about what the popularity of Nintendo's new games means for the future of video games.

I mean, does it mean that your video game beliefs are not important anymore, Ian? Does it means that certain "truths" in the video games world are no longer valid or true? Does it mean that "real" video games will be "compromised" now? In a very real way, I think certain video game blowhards (not that you are one Ian ) are beginning to feel like they are losing power, even perhaps, emasculated.

Even though I'm clearly a Nintendo kind of guy, this isn't as bad as you may envision it could become Ian.

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Japan seems to have fully embraced non-gaming.  The problem is that since the crash Japan has provided the best games.  If Japan is too focused on non-games then that only leaves Europe and North America for the "real" games.  Or at the very least Japanese developers are going to be designing their gamer games for the western audience.  I don't see that being good for the game industry's longterm health.

It only means even more games will be created. And not as in Atari E.T. or Pacman. I'll repeat what I told someone on another game website. This really isn't anything new. The "hardcore" video gamers think they run the show, but they don't. This information is disturbing and jarring only because it is revealing to hardcore gamers who they really are. Just a slice of the pie; perhaps not the majority piece.

There is nothing foul or poisonous about these games to the industry, except to the hardcore ego. The video game sandbox doesn't exclusively belong to you/them now.

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Hell, even if the mainstream does like games forever who wants an industry where WiiPlay outsells Zelda?

And so what if it does? Does it mean Zelda isn't fun because of it? Come now, that's just being ridiculous.

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If the East focuses on non-games and the West focuses on EA-style games then who's left to make games for game fans?

Oh stop it. You're never going to get Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami, etc, to stop make highly graphically detailed games. Besides in the US, you've got Valve, Epic, id Software, etc... You are not going to be deprived of "real" games.