Topic: Will Zelda: Wind Waker break sales records?

[Mingesium]

No game had this kind of pre-order deal. The deal lasts for a good month. I'm hearing insane numbers like 150 pre-orders in one store. That is just nuts. So how is the Zelda buzz in your area? I think that Zelda could break sales records. The pre-order deal, the free game with GameCubes, and player's choice could help Zelda break records.

[BlkPaladin]

It could but I wouldn't get my hopes up. We thought the same thing with SMS. Well Wind Waker is getting a lot more attention it seems and Nintendo has done little in the way of advertising.

[ThePerm]

Well, theres going to be a backlash...and nintendo is gonna feel it. I think after wind waker fails..and it will(even if it is a great game) Nintendo is going to start doing some crazy stuff. Really the man every one in the industry should be fearing in 2003 is Satoru Iwata.

[Mingesium]

I didn't expect SMS to break sales records. SMS did pretty well. It should be pass 1 million by now. Zelda has a chance because I hear pre-orders are bigger than GTA: VC and that game sold at least a million copies in each month since its release.

[epicac]

Nintendo walks away with quite a few nominations.  Check it out!

IGDA Announces Game Developers Choice Awards Nominees

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) announced the nominees for the Third Annual Game Developers Choice Awards, which will be handed out during at a ceremony at the Game Developers Conference on March 6.  The nominees are:

Game of the Year

BATTLEFIELD 1942 (Digital Illusions) GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY (Rockstar North)

METROID PRIME (Retro Studios)

NEVERWINTER NIGHTS (BioWare Corp.)

TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL (Ubi Soft Montreal)

Original Game Character of the Year

Blinx from BLINX THE TIME SWEEPER

Ratchet from RATCHET AND CLANK

Rau from THE MARK OF KRI

Sam Fischer from TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL

Sly Cooper from SLY COOPER AND THE THIEVIUS RACCOONUS

Rookie Studio of the Year

Arkane Studios for ARX FATALIS

Day 1 Studios for MECHASSAULT

Gas Powered Games for DUNGEON SIEGE  

Pipeworks Software for GODZILLA: DESTROY ALL MONSTERS MELEE  

Retro Studios for METROID PRIME

Excellence in Audio

GTA Team for sound design in GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY

Rich Briggs, Latch Brothers, Takayuki Kawagoe, Noah Musler, Hideki Naganuma and Fumitaka Shibata for sound design in JET SET RADIO FUTURE

EA Sound Studio for sound effects in MEDAL OF HONOR: ALLIED ASSAULT

Metroid Team for sound effects in METROID PRIME

Andrew Boyd, Chris Hegstrom and Robb Mills for composition in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS

Excellence in Game Design

Romain de Waubert de Genlis for game design in BATTLEFIELD 1942

GTA Team for game design in GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY

Metroid Team for game design in METROID PRIME

Satoru Iwata, Yoshiaki Koizumi, Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka and Kenta Usui for game design in SUPER MARIO SUNSHINE

Splinter Cell Team leaders for game design in TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL

Excellence in Level Design

Metroid Team for level design in METROID PRIME

Brian Allgeier, Mark Cerny, Lesley Mathieson and Colin Munson for level design in RATCHET & CLANK

Brendan McNamara, Chun Wah Kong and the SCEE Design Team for level design in THE GETAWAY

François Pelland and Team for level design in TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL

Pancho Eekels, Dave Ewing and James Schmalz for level design in UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2003

Excellence in Programming

Mike Biddlecombe, Scott Bilas, Bartosz Kijanka, James Loe, Eric Tams and Chad Queen for programming in DUNGEON SIEGE

Metroid Team for programming in METROID PRIME

Mark Brockington, Scott Greig, Jason Knipe, Don Moar and Don Yakielashek for network programming in NEVERWINTER NIGHTS

Antoine Dodens and Team for graphics programming in TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL

WarCraft III Team for programming in WARCRAFT III: REIGN OF CHAOS

Excellence in Visual Arts

Jonathan Chey, Ken Levine and Team for art direction in FREEDOM FORCE

Shinji Hashimoto and Tetsuya Nomura for art direction in KINGDOM HEARTS

Hokyo Lim, Suzanne Kaufman, Dev Madan, Augie Pagan and Karin Yamagiwa for art direction in SLY COOPER AND THE THIEVIUS RACCOONUS

Nicolas Cantin, Frédérick Gagné and Benoit Sokal for art direction in SYBERIA

Jay Beard, Erik Medina, Jeff Merghart , Dan Mueller and Tim Neveu for animation in THE MARK OF KRI

Excellence in Writing

Denis Dyack and Ken McCulloch for writing in ETERNAL DARKNESS: SANITY'S REQUIEM

GTA Team for writing in GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY

Lukas Kure and Dan Vavra for writing in MAFIA: THE CITY OF LOST HEAVEN

Craig Hubbard and Team for writing in NO ONE LIVES FOREVER 2: A SPY IN H.A.R.M.S. WAY

Clint Hocking and JT Petty for writing in TOM CLANCY'S SPLINTER CELL

An advisory committee from the IGDA will select the recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award, First Penguin Award and the IGDA Award for Community Contribution.

[ShanD]

I'm smack in the middle of Sonyland, so I don't expect much of anything here. I didnt have a trouble getting my gamecube, just waltzed right in without a preorder at 10. I doubt I'll have trouble getting Wind Waker, or the preorder disk.

[3_MaSteRPIeCE]

 I don't really think it would.  I know that it won't pass Th Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of TIme's sales,  but it will be better thatn Majora's Mask's sales.

[ShanD]

I think that it WILL surpass OOTs sales, mostly because GC already has a fairly large userbase, and Metroid, Zelda, and Mario on the same platform may draw in some older gamers who want to relive the NES and SNES days.

[Mingesium]

"surpass OOT sales" That is a bold claim. Zelda: OOT sold 3,543,374 in the US. Only the Grand Theft Auto series has sold more this generation. I expect the game to do 1.5 - 2 million.

[Cerberus]

Well it's #1 for GCN games and #6 for games as a whole in Japan. Many people I know have already pre-ordered, including me. I can't wait.

[Infinitipo]

I can't say anything more than that I hope it does. I'm really looking forward to this game, and want it to do well. all my friends who own a GameCube are getting it.

[JSR]

I really am hopeful that Wind Waker will sell good here. But judging on the casual gamer thinking that WW is kiddy: I’m not sure how well it will sell. Sure, you’ll have the Nintendo fans and the Zelda fans, but Joe Xbox or Joe PS2 will probably not buy a GameCube for Zelda, unless they judge games by gameplay not graphics.

BTW, I do like how Wind Waker looks. Seeing such emotion in the characters is cool. Plus all the effects look great!
 

[3_MaSteRPIeCE]

Quote
Originally posted by: JSR
I really am hopeful that Wind Waker will sell good here. But judging on the casual gamer thinking that WW is kiddy: I’m not sure how well it will sell. Sure, you’ll have the Nintendo fans and the Zelda fans, but Joe Xbox or Joe PS2 will probably not buy a GameCube for Zelda, unless they judge games by gameplay not graphics.

BTW, I do like how Wind Waker looks. Seeing such emotion in the characters is cool. Plus all the effects look great!

I disagree very strongly.  I can spot as gamecube fanboys that say all xbox games suck as xboxers the same.  And Fanboys that say most xbox people and ps2 people only rate games because of their graphics not gameplay.... ^^



the casual gamer WON'T think Zelda is kiddy.  Trust me.  'cause with gamers all grown up these days,  The only people that think games are kiddy are exactly kids (or kid in the brain) themselves.



Stereotyping... is generally not good.  And i go to xbox forums and a majority say they might buy a gcn for zelda.

[ThePerm]

hes not steriotyping...hes just using statistical inference

[3_MaSteRPIeCE]

What statistics say that the casual gamer thinks Zelda:WW is kiddy?

Remember the casual gamer is over 10 years now.  Older gamers are supposed to be more mature and look at things in a non-biased perspective. (not saying a lot are non-biased anyways.)
And the fanboys that say they are too "mature" for things,  are obviously not mture at all.

Besides,  casual gamers probably never knew everything about the n64 and ps2 or indrema.... or that sony is in first place.  you know... they don't really know about companies and statistics and all that.



Also i'm kinda ticked on how he was thinking that Gamecube owners look at gameplay not graphics more than xbox and ps2 owners. (which is probably true since, i must admit, that xbox and ps2 have a much wider base of fans.)  but if the gcn and ps2 owners were all around the 1,000s i bet there will be the exact same amount of fanboys on each side

[Ian Sane]

Wind Waker's sales are limited by how many Gamecube owners there are.  In order to break records several people (as in thousands of people) have to buy a Cube just for Zelda and that sort of variable is difficult to predict.  I think it will sell well and likely will be the best selling Gamecube game but it just has to sell too many consoles in order to break records.

Comparing it to Ocarina sales is silly because the N64 and Gamecube had very different environments to bring the game into.  The N64 had a large userbase for it's first few years.  Remember until late 1997 it was the market leader.  When Ocarina came out there was a good amount of N64 owners who hadn't bought many games recently but had bought the console back in 1996.  Suddenly the "greatest game of all time" comes out on a console they bought a few years ago but haven't given much attention to.  Of course that game is going to sell.  It's target audience is a large userbase starving for a decent title.  The Gamecube is different.  It doesn't have huge successful launch sales to bring up it's userbase.  It isn't in a situation where it's owners are starved for a game.  The situation doesn't lend itself as well to a record breaking success.  First party games always sold huge on the N64 but not so much on the Gamecube.  That's because on the Cube there's a similar sized userbase but more games to choose from so no one HAS to buy a game like Zelda in order to play something worthwhile on the Cube.

[JSR]

Okay, maybe I stereotyped a little too much. But don’t get me wrong, I want Wind Waker to sell well and hopefully it will!  

[Game_Freak]

Quote
Well, theres going to be a backlash...and nintendo is gonna feel it. I think after wind waker fails..and it will(even if it is a great game) Nintendo is going to start doing some crazy stuff. Really the man every one in the industry should be fearing in 2003 is Satoru Iwata.

Excellent post. While i think that The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker will be a HUGE success, i wouldnt be disappionted if it flopped. Why? Because that might be enough to unplug Nintendo's heads out of thier asses (the marketing guys, not the developers, HELL NO). The results would be interesting. Nintendo would go all out and advertise Gamecube everywhere, offer 4 free games with Gamecubes, buy developers left right and center and make quality game after quality game etc. But seriously, i can guarantee that Wind Waker will be incredibly successful, my local store, in AUSTRALIA, has pre-orders for WW sold out! SOLD OUT! I went to pre-order it the other day and they said i couldnt because all 80 copies had already been preordered! I went to a different EB and luckily they had a few left so i did get to preorder it. And also, the pre-order bonus disk hasnt even been announced for Australia yet! It appears that the exact opposite of what i thought would happen is happening, casual gamers really like Wind Waker And also, i think that Nintendo America have an EXCELLENT advertise campaign coming up for Zelda, combined with the bonus disk, buy one get one free deal (GC, Metroid and Zelda for $200 ) and the actual gameplay of Wind Waker and you have the most pre-ordered and possibly the highest selling game in videogame history!

[epicac]

Ready for some highly exaggerated fuzzy math that makes Zelda: TWW look like the second coming of Christ? Thought so.

Right now at  GameFaqs.com they have a poll about whether or not visitors to the site have preordered TWW. As of this post 34,561 have voted. When you take out the 10,865 visitors who don't have a Gamecube system, that leaves you with 23,696 Gamecube owners. Of those people 9,513 say they've already preordered. That's approximately 40%. When we take into account that there are approximately 3,260,000 Gamecube owners in America (whom I assume make up the majority of gamefaqs visitors) to can determine that if the 40% preorder rate holds true for them all, Zelda will sell 1,304,000 copies on preorder alone. If this number seems really, really high it's because it is. I don't think any game has ever surpassed the platinum mark before even being released.

You see, people who visit sites like gamefaqs are more likely to keep up to date on the video game industry than are the 3.26 million Gamecube owners. This means they're not as likely to preorder, perhaps because they're unaware of the preorder bonus disc. At least some of those Gamecube owners are also people who rarely buy or play games anymore as well. So I don't have any faith in these numbers I've thrown around, but it makes you think, doesn't it? This game has the potential to break some preorder records and maybe even some overall sales records.

[Mingesium]

I believe Zelda could top a million. The pre-order deal hasn't started yet and people are already reserving their copy. Also, more people are going to buy GameCubes with the free game and chances are the first game they will buy is Zelda.

[Game_Freak]

http://cgi.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.asp?poll=1157

WOW! Wind Waker is teh popular, i think it will definately break at least one sales record.

[silverwings01]

Whatcha mean the casual gamer won't notice? I can't walk into ANY gaming store in my area and NOT see a Zelda Pre-order poster.  True, it has the Gamecube link on it, but it does have all the letters really big!  

Don't take the casual gamer too lightly.  (err. . . maybe not)  But considering I live in a high X-box populated area (apparently the free games bargain was targeted at suburban maryland. . .) theres a lot of hype surrounding the launch.  A lot more than with Metroid Prime, by the way.

And I hear the free game sale is starting soon.  They'll be adds up for that in a few days, if not already.  People respond to things in predictable ways.  They see FREE and decided that it must be better because its the better deal.  

[RahXephon]

Here is all i can say....... The game is gorgeous, the gameplay flawless, music is perfect.  If the game is what it is supposed to be, and I've played the im store demo which leads me to a 150% yes, then even if teh nubers are only so big now, word gets around.... quickly.  OoT had little backing behind it and it blew up huge too, and i KNOW many people who bought a 64 for that game, i can name 3 off the bat.  On camous too i hear alot on the gaming community, here is the fact, this game will be big.  It will make a large enough splash so the ripples will go out far beyond just the loyals of the gaming world.  And are we forgetting one important factor, the game MAY LOOK NOT KIDDISH, BUT FOR A YOUNGER GENERATION.  A parent looking for the right system to start new gamers off on will ask around and likely find out about Zelda and the gamecube bring a whole new perspective into the game.  It may not be immediate, but the game has somehting for EVERYONE.  Children, teens, adults, and most important parents who are shopping for their kiddies.

[couchmonkey]

I really wish it would break some records, but I don't have high hopes.  The game's sales in Japan were poor, the game was totally eclipsed by Mario Party 4 in sales.  Considering Zelda's new look, I don't think it will do much better in North America.  I personally love the game's graphic design, but I don't think it will achieve much mainstream success with older gamers.  Even though the game is great, a lot of people just can't look beyond the cartoon style, and I know hardcore gamers who haven't even looked at the game since it was first shown at Spaceworld!

Overall, I expect Zelda to do very well, but I don't think the sales will be record-breaking, in fact I don't think they will even meet Nintendo's expectations.  That's a shame for people like me who love the look of the game but hopefully Nintendo will learn something from it and improve the situation next time.

[RahXephon]

i hope they KEEP the cel-shading.  I have always wanted it and now it is here.  I don't me just Zelda either.  The look of a cartoon is just something to cool to pass up.  The people who need to learn from this are the ones who think Zelda should be realalistic.  The spaceworld Zelda was kinda ugly.  I for one was not really that impressed.  I believe that fluidity is much more important than extra realism.  A game should have a sorta flow and i think cel-shading achieves that flow with ease.  I hope they do another zelda cel-shaded, but mix it with the spaceworld.  have a TRUE anime look.  that is what i would like to see.