Super Mario 3D World has the lowest first week sales of any 3D Mario game.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/36080
Super Mario 3D World debuted second in Japanese sales charts with 99,588 units sold.
Bested by Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 14, which managed to sell over 250k copies, Super Mario 3D World's sales were quite low compared to other Mario games. Its sales placed it as the lowest debut of any 3D Mario game in Japan, below Super Mario 64 DS. In comparison, the best debut was Super Mario Galaxy 2 on the Wii with over 330k games purchased.
The Wii U was the third best selling system the past week at 21,002 units sold, below the 3DS at 63,709 and the Sony PlayStation Vita at 21,044 (42 units more than the Wii U).
Does this include digital sales? If not, does this number have much relevance at all?
The only reason this Mario might have been more received then NSMBWU that I can think of is that 3D Land had massive first week sales when released and did very well. Thus, a much larger and grander follow-up to a game that had a lot of demand should expect big numbers also and move more units. I do think that 3D Land helped push more systems in Japan but as everyone notes, that's because handhelds are the systems that seem to be what sell there.
Well we should know in a week from now how well 3D World did in North America. Nintendo always releases some statement during the first week of December saying how well their big titles and systems sold on Black Friday. Since the 3DS has Pokemon and the much cheaper 2DS, we know Nintendo will have a good Black Friday thanks to that.And if Iwata sees his shadow there'll be six more weeks of winter.
So if their statement only mentions the 3DS, then we'll know 3D World and the Wii U did poorly on Black Friday and the system is looking to have a bad holiday season. If they give numbers for 3D World and the Wii U, then they both had a good Black Friday and the Wii U should have a good holiday season in North America at least.
So yeah, that's going to be the big news for next week.
I will counter all those arguments with the statement that 3D Mario is not something the Japanese audience wants. They want 2D Mario. 3D Mario is what the West wants.
Why can't the assumption be that 2D Mario is awesome, 3D Mario is awesome, so a hybrid Mario would be awesome. I'm sure we could argue whether 3D Mario is more complex, but platforming is platforming. No Mario has ever been as complex as 80% of the games released now-a-days.
Plus, I don't know what you are looking for anymore. They release a hybrid Mario that many people love and gets almost all 9-10 reviews and you say they dumb it down. If they'd have released a direct sequel to M64 you would say they've ran out of ideas and just release the same old crap you played years ago. What would make you happy? A gory FPS like everyone else comes out with? If you know someone with a Wii U try the game before you dismiss it.
M64 was amazing and worth all the 10's it got for the time it was released and I'm sure Nintendo will go back to that style at some point. 3D World impresses me with the way it changes up the level design and really keeps things interesting. I think the cat suit is the best powerup since the cape. They can do alot with the fixed camera perspective. Sometimes a level is more like M64 and other times it is more like NSMB. They put alot of work into this title. The fixed perspective leads to better platforming than M64 and allows them to hide items better in my opinion. I like this title. They might make 1 more or they might move on but I'm glad they made this. And I'm glad I've bought a Wii U even if it doesn't get all the games the other consoles get.
How did Super Mario 3D Land sell in Japan? If it underperformed there then we can say that Japan doesn't really want any sort of 3D Mario.Super Mario 3D Land is the best-selling 3D Mario in Japan, and it actually sold the most during its first week than the others. I'm not sure why Super Mario Galaxy 2 was on the top of the list when it sold a little less than 3D Land.