Support NeoGAF

[Astral Dog]

Then I hope you're content with Zelda games selling so badly that Nintendo quits making them.

Jesus christ.
Let Zelda find its own path

Spoiler

new artstyle looks nice

 

[TwEE-N-Toast]

The Zelda series is one that's based on Western medieval lore and Western RPGs.

The ones that are most successful are the ones that do the most to be appealing to players in the West.

The sooner people accept both of these truths, and accept that they're both closely hewed to the future viability of the franchise, the closer we'll be to a Zelda series that's as consistently good as it's possible to be, without 5-year waits between each one that really aren't justified by the final product. It'll also push the industry as a whole in a positive direction if Zelda can be a leading franchise again, since they'll be forced to follow its lead just like it's being forced to follow Skyrim's now.

Until then, it's a story that needs to be told over and over again until Nintendo gets it.

Damn straight!

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

The new Zelda look like its based on Japanese story though. Zelda has changed, look at the new one looking more like the mothafuckin Legend of Ashitaka

 

[georly]

The new Zelda look like its based on Japanese story though. Zelda has changed, look at the new one looking more like the mothafuckin Legend of Ashitaka

Skyward sword was JP as fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Enemy designs like yokai and oni.

 

[LegendofLex]

Jesus christ.
Let Zelda find its own path

Aonuma already correctly identified what the two potential paths are:

We knew that we had to create a Zelda game that would live up to expectations of fans in North America, and that if we didn’t, it could mean the end of the franchise.

I am simply agreeing with him.

Spoiler

I personally love the new art style in Zelda U, and as my avatar indicates I love TWW as well. My opinions on this matter are not chiefly motivated by my personal tastes, just by a critical view of what makes the series tick.

 

[SirPenguin]

The Zelda series is one that's based on Western medieval lore and Western RPGs.

The ones that are most successful are the ones that do the most to be appealing to players in the West.

The sooner people accept both of these truths, and accept that they're both closely hewed to the future viability of the franchise, the closer we'll be to a Zelda series that's as consistently good as it's possible to be, without 5-year waits between each one that really aren't justified by the final product. It'll also push the industry as a whole in a positive direction if Zelda can be a leading franchise again, since they'll be forced to follow its lead just like it's being forced to follow Skyrim's now.

Until then, it's a story that needs to be told over and over again until Nintendo gets it.

I hemmed and hawed at your previous points, but I think you nailed it on the head with this one. Well stated.

 

[DownGrader]

My hopes are just that amiibo/mii are forever their own thing (one born on wii and one born on wii u) and in no way impact naming going forward. Rather, they become a brand of their own and are just another nintendo IP that can work on/with any product going forward.

Kimishima said that NX is neither a Wii U successor nor a 3DS one. I am totally expecting a totally new branding, like with Wii and Nintendo DS lite.

In fact, currently it's the most exciting part of an upcoming reveal. I don't mind Wii/DS branding, but I'm getting tired of it. I am used to Nintendo coming up with a myriad of brands and design languages. And Wii clearly didn't work as a multi-generation brand like Nintendo hoped.

 

[SomeRandomWeirdGuy]

I quite like the current art style for the most part, but I feel that Nintendo's desire to always innovate and reinvent their core titles is what's going to screw Zelda in the long run. Skyward Sword was a great game, but the silly enemy and boss design made enemies completely unthreatening, and the art style wasn't exactly where most consumers want their big budget adventure games to look like.

Zelda doesn't need a new gimmick each game. Expanding upon and refining what makes Zelda great is all they need to do.

My ideal would be basically TP, but with a better overworld, better story, less weird NPC designs, improved combat, more use of dungeon items outside the dungeon you find them in, and obviously modern graphics. Take what you have, make it bigger and better, and don't make its art style something the people who need to buy the game for it to succeed won't like.

 

[DownGrader]

Zelda doesn't need a new gimmick each game. Expanding upon and refining what makes Zelda great is all they need to do.

Zelda doesn't need a new gimmick each game, but one can only expand so much on Ocarina of Time formula.

 

[Milly Osworth]

How did this end up a zelda thread? Year of NX!

 

[MCN]

I quite like the current art style for the most part, but I feel that Nintendo's desire to always innovate and reinvent their core titles is what's going to screw Zelda in the long run. Skyward Sword was a great game, but the silly enemy and boss design made enemies completely unthreatening, and the art style wasn't exactly where most consumers want their big budget adventure games to look like.

Zelda doesn't need a new gimmick each game. Expanding upon and refining what makes Zelda great is all they need to do.

My ideal would be basically TP, but with a better overworld, better story, less weird NPC designs, improved combat, more use of dungeon items outside the dungeon you find them in, and obviously modern graphics. Take what you have, make it bigger and better, and don't make its art style something the people who need to buy the game for it to succeed won't like.

The funny thing is, Twilight Princess was Nintendo doing exactly that to Ocarina of Time.

 

[JobenNC]

But anything would be better than Wii. We need a completely new branding.

I hope they pull a Mario Kart and suddenly call it the Nintendo 7.

 

[georly]

Zelda doesn't need a new gimmick each game, but one can only expand so much on Ocarina of Time formula.

I wonder if people consider 'changing up/removing the formula' a gimmick.

 

[udivision]

I hope they pull a Mario Kart and suddenly call it the Nintendo 7.

4K > 7 > 4 > 1.5 > 1

 

[LegendofLex]

Zelda doesn't need a new gimmick each game, but one can only expand so much on Ocarina of Time formula.

The big problem with the Ocarina of Time formula is that it revolves too much around items and puzzles.

Make the items too weird, and the game becomes weird.

Make the items too standard, and the puzzles become too repetitive since they all follow the same pattern.

The best place for Zelda to innovate is by improving immersion. If you look back at what Miyamoto suggested as a starting point for Twilight Princess, he wanted them to start with riding on a horse through the field, and for the team to make it possible to have battles on horseback in the field. That was clearly a strong concept that resonated with people, and it was all about immersion.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Comparing TP sales to SS sales is incredibly disingenous IMO. Remember, TP was a wii launch title, and pretty much the big core one at that. It also has benefitted a ton from tail sales throught the wii's lifespan. SS on the other hand, launched at the end of the wii's life cycle when interest for the console was at an all time low, especially among the core demographics that buy Zelda games. SS also didn't really have time to benefit from long tail sales because the wii was pretty much dead by the time it was released, never mind the years that came after

 

[MuchoMalo]

The Zelda series is one that's based on Western medieval lore and Western RPGs.

The ones that are most successful are the ones that do the most to be appealing to players in the West.

The sooner people accept both of these truths, and accept that they're both closely hewed to the future viability of the franchise, the closer we'll be to a Zelda series that's as consistently good as it's possible to be, without 5-year waits between each one that really aren't justified by the final product. It'll also push the industry as a whole in a positive direction if Zelda can be a leading franchise again, since they'll be forced to follow its lead just like it's being forced to follow Skyrim's now.

Until then, it's a story that needs to be told over and over again until Nintendo gets it.

So, you're saying that Nintendo should pick an art style (and it has to be a gritty, realistic one) and gameplay style and stick with it, and release games every 2-3 years instead? Well, if Zelda UNX flops relative to the series and install base, I'll believe you. I think that motion controls are what hurt SS though, since people hate those and it got bad word of mouth due to it.

 

[DownGrader]

I wonder if people consider 'changing up/removing the formula' a gimmick.

If the new gameplay direction won't be further expanded by the next Zelda game and we will go back to OoT formula (who knows?), I think they will.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Wats yur fqvorite pokemon

mine is bblubasore

 

[GustyGardens]

It was announced as a temporary name and they kept it.

Really? Damn, I don't remember that at all. Good to know!

 

[Mory Dunz]

SS also needed motion +


Speaking of decline, 3DS Zeldas have been relatively consistent with other handheld Zeldas (outside of Phantom Hourglass and Oracle games). Despite being the worst selling handheld by some margin.

 

[Hero of Legend]

Really? Damn, I don't remember that at all. Good to know!

Same with DS actually.

 

[Aaronrules380]

SS also needed motion +


Speaking of decline, 3DS Zeldas have been relatively consistent with other handheld Zeldas (outside of Phantom Hourglass and Oracle games). Despite being the worst selling handheld by some margin.

This is also a good point. I feel SS actually did at least on par with TP when we take into consideration the actual circumstances behind their launch

 

[Mory Dunz]

This is also a good point. I feel SS actually did at least on par with TP when we take into consideration the actual circumstances behind their launch

Yeah it's hard to conclude anything. If you get what I mean.


But dang, it'd be hard to argue that if SS and TP were reversed (as in, SS was launch, didn't need motion +, but the game and artysytle were the same. And TP was 2011, needed motion +, but had its same artstyle and gameplay) that the numbers would not have been a lot different


edit: I mean, couldn't one argue that TP should've done even better considering it had the "western style everyone wanted" and was one of the few must haves for the Wii at launch. And come out on two consoles.

 

[LegendofLex]

Comparing TP sales to SS sales is incredibly disingenous IMO. Remember, TP was a wii launch title, and pretty much the big core one at that. It also has benefitted a ton from tail sales throught the wii's lifespan. SS on the other hand, launched at the end of the wii's life cycle when interest for the console was at an all time low, especially among the core demographics that buy Zelda games.

This might be true to some extent, but the degree to which it's true is really exaggerated and doesn't explain the gap in sales between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword:

Wii games shipped in the system's first holiday/first two quarters: 28.84 million
Wii games shipped in the holiday/two quarters surrounding SS's release: 65.92 million

There shouldn't have been any reason why a Zelda game couldn't have outpaced Twilight Princess during those years given that the software as a whole was outpacing the software at launch.

Also, Skyrim released during the same year (and with about the same gap since Oblivion), and obviously did phenomenally better than its own predecessor despite coming out later. It's all about the buzz the game is getting.

So, you're saying that Nintendo should pick an art style (and it has to be a gritty, realistic one) and gameplay style and stick with it, and release games every 2-3 years instead? Well, if Zelda UNX flops relative to the series and install base, I'll believe you. I think that motion controls are what hurt SS though, since people hate those and it got bad word of mouth due to it.

It's gonna be really hard to rate Zelda U/NX's art style since the big buzz around the game is about it being open world and that factor may have big independent influence on its perception.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Comparing TP sales to SS sales is incredibly disingenous IMO. Remember, TP was a wii launch title, and pretty much the big core one at that. It also has benefitted a ton from tail sales throught the wii's lifespan. SS on the other hand, launched at the end of the wii's life cycle when interest for the console was at an all time low, especially among the core demographics that buy Zelda games. SS also didn't really have time to benefit from long tail sales because the wii was pretty much dead by the time it was released, never mind the years that came after

Its proabably the damn dumbest argument anyone can use really when Links Crossbow training set the charts on fire lol


edit: Lex stop bruh.. how many Wii's were out there in its first holiday vs when around SS was released. Use the logic

 

[B4s5C]

I hope they pull a Mario Kart and suddenly call it the Nintendo 7.

Probably won't do that since Mass Effect has a lot of N7 branding I believe.

 

[Aaronrules380]

This might be true to some extent, but the degree to which it's true is really exaggerated and doesn't explain the gap in sales between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword:

Wii games shipped in the system's first holiday/first two quarters: 28.84 million
Wii games shipped in the holiday/two quarters surrounding SS's release: 65.92 million



It's gonna be really hard to rate Zelda U/NX's art style since the big buzz around the game is about it being open world and that factor may have big independent influence on its perception.

This ignores that the number of titles was much, much greater at the time of SS release as well. And again, tail sales are incredibly important, and TP had the benefit of the wii's full life span to augment it's launch sales, whereas the same can not be said for SS at all

 

[LegendofLex]

edit: Lex stop bruh.. how many Wii's were out there in its first holiday vs when around SS was released. Use the logic

You can't have it both ways.

Either the interest in the console was low and that's why the game sold less...

or the number of Wiis out there was much larger and the game could have sold much better.

This ignores that the number of titles was much, much greater at the time of SS release as well. And again, tail sales are incredibly important, and TP had the benefit of the wii's full life span to augment it's launch sales, whereas the same can not be said for SS at all

More games shipped in the 1 year after TP launched than the 1 year after SS launched, though. Why did SS sales drop like a rock after its first quarter when it had way less competition than TP?

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/number_of_titles_e1512.pdf

 

[Aaronrules380]

Its proabably the damn dumbest argument anyone can use really when Links Crossbow training set the charts on fire lol


edit: Lex stop bruh.. how many Wii's were out there in its first holiday vs when around SS was released. Use the logic

Link's Crossbow training also launched during peak wii era, and mainly sold as a result of being bundled with the zapper (and while SS was bundled with a Wii remote plus, that tech had already been out for a long time before SS, and the value of the peripheral was much less considering the wii was already dying at that point)

 

[Mory Dunz]

This might be true to some extent, but the degree to which it's true is really exaggerated and doesn't explain the gap in sales between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword:

Wii games shipped in the system's first holiday/first two quarters: 28.84 million
Wii games shipped in the holiday/two quarters surrounding SS's release: 65.92 million

There shouldn't have been any reason why a Zelda game couldn't have outpaced Twilight Princess during those years given that the software as a whole was outpacing the software at launch.

Also, Skyrim released during the same year (and with about the same gap since Oblivion), and obviously did phenomenally better than its own predecessor. It's all about the buzz the game is getting.

Is this comparing holiday sales of 2006 with that of 2011 correct?
Of course the software sales in 2011 would be substantially higher. Given the install base and 10s and 20s of leggy franchises that were out in 2011 and not in 2006. So I'm not sure what that's supposed to indicate.

But what games were contributing to 2011 sales? I mean, Wii was still pulling good software numbers after wii u released, but it's hard to argue it was the "core" audience. Games with Just Dance, Wii Sports, mk wii, nsmbwii were selling a lot. The argument that is usually made is that the core audience moved on by then, which is where zelda falls under. But the games that appeal to more broad audiences (like the ones listed) kept selling.

 

[Mory Dunz]

You can't have it both ways.

Either the interest in the console was low and that's why the game sold less...

or the number of Wiis out there was much larger and the game could have sold much better.

has anyone been saying the interest in the console in late 2011/early 2012 was high????

 

[Aaronrules380]

You can't have it both ways.

Either the interest in the console was low and that's why the game sold less...

or the number of Wiis out there was much larger and the game could have sold much better.



More games shipped in the 1 year after TP launched than the 1 year after SS launched, though. Why did SS sales drop like a rock after its first quarter when it had way less competition than TP?

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/number_of_titles_e1512.pdf

Because the wii was already a dead console at that point. And you can't just consider the games launching at that point, but also all the games that launched earlier as well. Skyward Sword was competing with a far greater library than TP, because TP ONLY COMPETED WITH TITLES THAT CAME OUT AT THE SAME TIME OR LATER.

 

[MuchoMalo]

This might be true to some extent, but the degree to which it's true is really exaggerated and doesn't explain the gap in sales between Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword:

Wii games shipped in the system's first holiday/first two quarters: 28.84 million
Wii games shipped in the holiday/two quarters surrounding SS's release: 65.92 million



It's gonna be really hard to rate Zelda U/NX's art style since the big buzz around the game is about it being open world and that factor may have big independent influence on its perception.

And you think that gap is entirely the result of art style, and not related to SS using controls that core gamers hate or TP having more hype leading up to release, being a launch title among a rather small number of good core games, launching when Wii was the new hype thing, and being positioned as the successor to possibly the best game of all time?

My point is that there are too many factors to consider here for you to just pick "artstyle" and say that's the reason its sales were mediocre, especially since Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass outsold it and SS outsold Majora's Mask.

 

[maxcriden]

But those are the best ones.

Sometimes, yeah, but here it just seems inappropriate to compare their holiday to a tawdry sex act.

 

[Neoxon]

Probably won't do that since Mass Effect has a lot of N7 branding I believe.

Plus there's the fact that, assuming Nintendo goes the shared platform route, there hasn't been 7 Nintendo handhelds (I think there's been only 6).

 

[LegendofLex]

Is this comparing holiday sales of 2006 with that of 2011 correct?
Of course the software sales in 2011 would be substantially higher. Given the install base and 10s and 20s of leggy franchises that were out in 2011 and not in 2006. So I'm not sure what that's supposed to indicate.

SS shouldn't be specifically suffering from interest being low due to the end of the Wii's life cycle while Wii as a whole has more market activity. If interest in Wii was lower than at launch, then market activity should be lower than at launch. That wasn't the case.

And it shouldn't fail to sell over a long period when by all accounts even TP was selling better five years later than SS did after it launched. Looking at TP's current LTD sales of 8.85 million (https://www.nintendo.co.jp/titles/20010000019307) as of September 2015 and comparing that to the 7.14 million sales it would have had as of March 2011, that's like 1.71 million copies that Twilight Princess sold between 2011 and 2015.

Did SS even come anywhere close to that after its first quarter? Last I heard it sold something like 400k copies after December 2011. If interest in Wii among core gamers was the problem, how did TP have such a strong tail even at the same time that SS was struggling to sell? And, yes, I know there was a Nintendo Selects release for TP, but SS was pretty heavily discounted, too. (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=521637) The only answer I can think of is that people liked TP but didn't care about SS.

Because the wii was already a dead console at that point. And you can't just consider the games launching at that point, but also all the games that launched earlier as well. Skyward Sword was competing with a far greater library than TP, because TP ONLY COMPETED WITH TITLES THAT CAME OUT AT THE SAME TIME OR LATER.

Sure, but that doesn't explain why TP was by all appearances beating SS even while the two were out at the same time.

And you think that gap is entirely the result of art style, and not related to SS using controls that core gamers hate or TP having more hype leading up to release, being a launch title among a rather small number of good core games, launching when Wii was the new hype thing, and being positioned as the successor to possibly the best game of all time?

"Entirely the result of art style"? No. There are lots of things going on with SS that would have failed to appeal to the North American market besides art style.

 

[Aaronrules380]

SS shouldn't be specifically suffering from interest being low due to the end of the Wii's life cycle while Wii as a whole has more market activity.

And it shouldn't fail to sell over a long period when by all accounts even TP was selling better five years later than SS did after it launched. Looking at TP's current LTD sales of 8.85 million (https://www.nintendo.co.jp/titles/20010000019307) as of September 2015 and comparing that to the 7.14 million sales it would have had as of March 2011, that's like 1.71 million copies that Twilight Princess sold between 2011 and 2015.

Did SS even come anywhere close to that? Last I heard it sold something like 400k copies after December 2011. If interest in Wii among core gamers was the problem, how did TP have such a strong tail even at the same time that SS was struggling to sell? And, yes, I know there was a Nintendo Selects release for TP, but SS was pretty heavily discounted, too. (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=521637) The only answer I can think of is that people liked TP but didn't care about SS.



Sure, but that doesn't explain why TP was by all appearances beating SS even while the two were out at the same time.

This is completely false though. Look at this date for the fiscal year ending March 2012.https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2012/120427e.pdf. TP isn't on the list at all. SS is also by far the highest selling new game on the list. But the ones that were really beating it were the casual friendly, evergreen titles. It's ludicrous to argue that the wii's demographics weren't heavily shifted away from the core (the people who buy Zelda games) by that point in it's life compared to it's first year

 

[mavo]

Plus there's the fact that, assuming Nintendo goes the shared platform route, there hasn't been 7 Nintendo handhelds (I think there's been only 6).

6 if you count the N3DS and the GBC as different consoles.

 

[MuchoMalo]

"Entirely the result of art style"? No. There are lots of things going on with SS that would have failed to appeal to the North American market besides art style.

Then how can you say definitively that it was the biggest factor?

 

[Silent_Ocarina]

I think it's difficult to attribute Twilight Princess's success only on its more western style. There are many other variables in play.

 

[Aaronrules380]

And once again, TP did not require an extra peripheral to play, SS did. And while SS was bundled with the motion plus at launch, it wasn't later on, which definitely plays into its
tail sales after the wii era compared to TP

SS was also much more divisive because of it's motion controls, not it's art style. And TP had more word of mouth at that point due to a much larger audience prior (Word of mouth will be affected more by total volume of voices rather than percentage, so even if both games got 60% good word of mouth, TP still had double the number of voices praising it)

 

[Mory Dunz]

SS shouldn't be specifically suffering from interest being low due to the end of the Wii's life cycle while Wii as a whole has more market activity.

And it shouldn't fail to sell over a long period when by all accounts even TP was selling better five years later than SS did after it launched. Looking at TP's current LTD sales of 8.85 million (https://www.nintendo.co.jp/titles/20010000019307) as of September 2015 and comparing that to the 7.14 million sales it would have had as of March 2011, that's like 1.71 million copies that Twilight Princess sold between 2011 and 2015.

Did SS even come anywhere close to that? Last I heard it sold something like 400k copies after December 2011. If interest in Wii among core gamers was the problem, how did TP have such a strong tail even at the same time that SS was struggling to sell? And, yes, I know there was a Nintendo Selects release for TP, but SS was pretty heavily discounted, too. (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=521637) The only answer I can think of is that people liked TP but didn't care about SS.



Sure, but that doesn't explain why TP was by all appearances beating SS even while the two were out at the same time.

TP being nintendo selects, and SS needing motion control +

And by TP not needing something extra motion control +, it could've had more casual appeal, or at least impulse buy appeal.


Wasn't this originally about Zelda dying though because it's not medevial lol. And not SS vs TP...

 

[oti]

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/...dc-2007-presentation-the-fate-of-wind-waker-2

Incidentally, in the past twelve years since then, Nintendo still hasn't been able to come up with a solution for growing the franchise (or more accurately plugging the huge leak of players) that doesn't revolve explicitly around pleasing the North American market, and they haven't fixed the "gamer drift" problem the series has in Japan.

Add face rubbing.

Spoiler

Don't add face rubbing.

 

[Shion]

They could sell out but they won't. And thank goodness. Zelda should remain Japanesey through and through. There are other ways they can appeal to the West.

So, according to your logic, every single pre-Aonuma Zelda was a "sellout".

Ironically, this includes Zelda 1 (the game that gave birth to the series) and Ocarina of Time (one of the most acclaimed Nintendo games ever).

Comparing TP sales to SS sales is incredibly disingenous IMO. Remember, TP was a wii launch title, and pretty much the big core one at that. It also has benefitted a ton from tail sales throught the wii's lifespan. SS on the other hand, launched at the end of the wii's life cycle when interest for the console was at an all time low, especially among the core demographics that buy Zelda games. SS also didn't really have time to benefit from long tail sales because the wii was pretty much dead by the time it was released, never mind the years that came after

This didn't stop games like Super Mario Bros. 3, God of War, The Last of Us and GTA 5 from doing huge numbers.

At the end of the day, it's all about capturing people's imagination, everything else is secondary at best.

The Zelda series is one that's based on Western medieval lore and Western RPGs.

The ones that are most successful are the ones that do the most to be appealing to players in the West.

The sooner people accept both of these truths, and accept that they're both closely hewed to the future viability of the franchise, the closer we'll be to a Zelda series that's as consistently good as it's possible to be, without 5-year waits between each one that really aren't justified by the final product. It'll also push the industry as a whole in a positive direction if Zelda can be a leading franchise again, since they'll be forced to follow its lead just like it's being forced to follow Skyrim's now.

Until then, it's a story that needs to be told over and over again until Nintendo gets it.

Nailed it.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

SS shouldn't be specifically suffering from interest being low due to the end of the Wii's life cycle while Wii as a whole has more market activity. If interest in Wii was lower than at launch, then market activity should be lower than at launch. That wasn't the case.

And it shouldn't fail to sell over a long period when by all accounts even TP was selling better five years later than SS did after it launched. Looking at TP's current LTD sales of 8.85 million (https://www.nintendo.co.jp/titles/20010000019307) as of September 2015 and comparing that to the 7.14 million sales it would have had as of March 2011, that's like 1.71 million copies that Twilight Princess sold between 2011 and 2015.

Did SS even come anywhere close to that after its first quarter? Last I heard it sold something like 400k copies after December 2011. If interest in Wii among core gamers was the problem, how did TP have such a strong tail even at the same time that SS was struggling to sell? And, yes, I know there was a Nintendo Selects release for TP, but SS was pretty heavily discounted, too. (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=521637) The only answer I can think of is that people liked TP but didn't care about SS.



Sure, but that doesn't explain why TP was by all appearances beating SS even while the two were out at the same time.



"Entirely the result of art style"? No. There are lots of things going on with SS that would have failed to appeal to the North American market besides art style.

You will never know or be able to pinpoint skyward swords sales outcome. Theres a ton of factors. Yall be letting the sales get to yall head. If that was the case why didnt Nintendo make another realistic artstyle? I mean.. damn

 

[Wandering Robot]

How did this end up a zelda thread? Year of NX!

It might get closed at this rate. 😥

Speaking of which, will there be a new thread soon for the fiscal year meeting? There might not be must to discuss, but hopefully that "not much" amounts to the name. I had a dream last night that Nintendo named it the "Nintendo Transform," and I was so mad that I went to my parents' house and complained to everyone inside.

 

[Aaronrules380]

So, according to your logic, every single pre-Aonuma Zelda was a "sellout".

Ironically, this includes Zelda 1 (the game that gave birth to the series) and Ocarina of Time (one of the most acclaimed Nintendo games ever).



This didn't stop games like Super Mario Bros. 3, God of War, The Last of Us and GTA 5 from doing huge numbers.

At the end of the day, it's all about capturing people's imagination, everything else is secondary at best.



Nailed it.

It's not just a matter of being end of life. It's a matter of being an end of life, CORE game on the wii at a point when the vast majority of that demographic on the console had long since moved on. The wii's demographics were never comparable to the NES or other systems.

And none of those games required an extra peripheral either, one that everyone knew was only useful in like, 2 other games and unlikely to be used ever again

 

[LegendofLex]

This is completely false though. Look at this date for the fiscal year ending March 2012.https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2012/120427e.pdf. TP isn't on the list at all.

TP didn't sell a million copies between March 2011 and March 2012.

But it sold more than a million copies between March 2011 and September 2015, more than five years after it launched, which is how it got from 7.14 million sales (5.82 million on Wii according to https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2011/annual1103e.pdf + 1.32 million on GameCube according to https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2007/070427e.pdf)* in March 2011 to 8.85 million LTD sales (according to https://www.nintendo.co.jp/titles/20010000019307).

*I've also seen a 1.59 million number for TP GameCube according to http://zeldadata.com/zeldadata_SalesInContext2014.html, but I don't know what the source is. That'd bring the 7.14 million number up to 7.41, but wouldn't really change the underlying point.

I'm not saying TP sold more during 2011 than SS did during its entire life. I said TP sold more since 2011, many years after it launched, than SS did during the years that followed its initial holiday. SS sold 3.52 million copies between launch and March 2012, but after that it seems pretty clear that TP must have been outselling it on the regular to get to the current LTD sales. So people were buying TP instead of SS.

Then how can you say definitively that it was the biggest factor?

Citation needed?

 

[maxcriden]

"Hello, everyone. This is president Tatsumi Kimishima with some updates on Zelda. We have decided to delay the new Zelda for Wii U to 2017 in order to make it more like my favourite game in the series, Wand of Gamelon. However, in order to properly celebrate 30 years of Zelda and give you a tease of what's to come we are planning on offering Philips CD-i software on Wii U, starting with classics Wand of Gamelon and Faces of Evil this holiday. Please be excited. ...Oh, and NX is cancelled."

If he said this even as a joke I'd pee a little from laughing so hard.

Kimi-san... Time to drop the megatons!