Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
It is higher than Twilight Princess's first week numbers, but the disparity with the handheld games is disheartening.
Media Create Sales: Week 47, 2011 (Nov 21 - Nov 27)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
Is this...an alternate dimension?
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Well it did about 2x as well as The Last Story...
That's all I've got. Duckroll is right, Japan has completely opposite tastes with the West in terms of Zelda titles, but SS is generally underperforming everywhere from what I've seen.
Having finished it, I do agree that Skyward Sword has the potential to appeal much more to modern Japanese audiences than Twilight Princess. But can we really say that it is obviously apparent in the marketing or in the trailers? No. I agree that word of mouth and legs will be a lot more telling, but for now, at launch, I don't find the low sales surprising because of the historical divide in Zeldas in recent generations.
...
Ack! Now I get it! I guess Zelda's decline from AAA to B is going on worldwide... I think Wii U Zelda will save it, however.
electroplankton
Banned
Probably they simply prefer handhelds over consoles? Zelda is not the only series that has sold way better on portable devices with respect to home consoles.
MH Tri G will do gangbusters obviously but I think the Vita will have a pretty good launch as well. It's new and different enough to spark plenty of interest at the launch but with so much competition in the market and the lack of a "killer app" it will most likely struggle after the initial launch buzz has faded.
Duckroll highlights an interesting sales tidbit regarding Zelda. I didn't realize such a split existed until now. Fortunately Skyward Sword is fantastic and deserves much sucess everywhere.
Duckroll highlights an interesting sales tidbit regarding Zelda. I didn't realize such a split existed until now. Fortunately Skyward Sword is fantastic and deserves much sucess everywhere.
Your excuse for slow-to-start sales is that it is a "core franchise on Wii."
This isn't Monster Hunter or Resident Evil (both of which have faired well on Wii). It's Zelda, a celebrated franchise developed and published by the platform holder, Nintendo.
Regardless of whether 200k is considered a good or bad number, that kind of response to a Zelda title is laughably weak.
StickSoldier
Member
It's a dying Pacman!
Were people expecting like 500k or something?
It needs to be separated by company. :lol
That's only one factor though. I think that looking at the sales of 3D Mario games in Japan, and then looking at how NSMB Wii performed, indicates that it is definitely not just a platform factor, but a very real case of Nintendo audiences in Japan preferring certain types of gameplay over others.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Code:
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|System | This Week | Last Week | Last Year | YTD | Last YTD | LTD |
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| 3DS | 120.920 | 96.219 | | 2.678.016 | | 2.678.016 |nckillthegrimace
Member
Isn't it doing really well in the US?
But Zelda has never been as big as Mario...
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
From now on Celdas will be developed by EAD while PuzZelda will be done by some Western branch like Retro Studios.
electroplankton
Banned
Yeah, of course, but in the case of Zelda it's pretty straightforward, also looking how the series has performed on GBA (which was way less popular than DS); in some cases the popularity of a console acts more strongly but yeah, there are definitely some games that no matter where they come out, they sell.
Well Zelda opened lower than Wind Waker but as it's been said, Galaxy opened lower than Sunshine and ended up selling much better. I'm not sure it's gonna have the same legs as galaxy, but beating Twilight Princess shouldn't be too hard.
What kind of opening were you guys expecting?
What kind of opening were you guys expecting?
frankie_baby
Member
Will vita have a good launch though?yes they'll probably sell whatever they ship but will they actually ship that many? Any more than a couple of hundred thousands and they probably should've launched in at least one more territory before xmas
Monolithsoft!!!!!! OPENWORLDA!!!
Vita will have to ship 400-500k to at least make the 'shipment' press release happen. Not sure how much of it will actually sell, considering that every Santa's Helper is going to be looking for a 3DS (Vita is for adults after all), and a lot of the higher-aged gamers are going to be sucked into MH3G for the time being. Uncharted isn't nearly the strong franchise it is in the west, and 30k+ just to be able to play that or yet another rendition of golf would seem difficult to manage when there's so much else on the table.
You're right about how they've handled the marketing. From the CMs, Skyward Sword looks little different from Twilight Princess. There are definitely two markets for the series, and Nintendo foolishly seems to be pursuing the wrong one (rather than the bigger, or both) in their campaign, almost ignoring the game's attempt to reach both. Perhaps the company should have put more of an emphasis on the game's Wind Waker-style elements, in an attempt to better-capture the attention of that crowd.
But let's not forget that around 2/3 of both Spirit Tracks and Phantom Hourglass' sales were in later weeks. It's likely that word of mouth does a lot more for the series than the company's own marketing efforts.
What? You do know that AAA and B are just marketing terms for what budget the game has had, not anything about how much it sells or the quality of the game.
frankie_baby
Member
I expect that Skyward Sword will have better legs, and with it being the only holiday season title on the Wii it should eventually do quite well. If the audience ends up liking it, it could even outsell Spirit Tracks. I just don't find the first week sales all that surprising given what we already know about Japan's taste towards Zelda games.
Come on, now...
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Yep. Best first week ever in the series history. It also seems to be charting well in continental European nations... I think the only place one could make a credible argument for underperforming is the UK.
That would be ridiculously low...
The only way the first week sales would have been any better would be if Nintendo were to have delivered the commercials in the same way they delivered the game.
Guys, I think Sony is going to ship 30k Vitas in December, and they might not even able to sell it all. FFXIII-2 will probably be lucky to sell 200k in the first week. That's not bad for a spinoff though, since it'll be higher than 4 Warriors of Light and Crystal Chronicles on Wii. Yeah!
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
I would be curious to see what either Monolithsoft or Retro could do with Zelda to be honest.
All the Japanese TVCMs should have been Zelda looking at the camera with her "oh won't you save me?" face.
I would be curious to see what either Monolithsoft or Retro could do with Zelda to be honest.
Graphic-wise you have already seen what Monolithsoft could do with a Zelda on the Wii!
frankie_baby
Member
MAybe a little higher but not much, much more and they'd have been better off with a small sell out launch in either the usa or Europe too
worldwide, it is already most surely a million seller. People exagerate the sales of Zelda. Most Zelda sell 4M lifetime, up to 6M in extreme cases like OOT on N64.
I would be curious to see what either Monolithsoft or Retro could do with Zelda to be honest.
I don't know why, but that just seems wrong. Metroid always felt like a western game, and DK Country came from the UK. Zelda has a very "traditional Japanese" charm to it, and I don't think Retro could pull it off without ignoring it completely and genericising the game somewhat.
Only Nintendo
and maybe Team Ico
thestopsign
Member
I would be surprised if Sony doesn't ship 500k+ PSV this year.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
*drool*
One other thought; maybe neither Wii Zelda game did as well as the DS games because of the motion control requirement? Being a core game and all maybe they don't want to be so dependant on that. Mario Galaxy's motion control was nothing more than the occasional flick, mostly still using buttons. MHTri had CC support... Touch screen controls might not have been as poorly received.
Cygnus X-1
Member
Super Mario 3D Land stopped dropping. 3DS sales entering is crazy-mode.
funny to see that both psp and ps3 dropped whereas 3DS and Wii (a bit) start to rise.
3DS in December will be insane.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
So what bumped Wii sales? Zelda? The season? Was there a new hardware SKU or anything?
Anasui Kishibe
Banned
3DS reached unstoppable status?
MK and MHG3 will solidify its numbers but I believe the new verb has been accepted by the masses. It will sell a steady 80k in the next months
MK and MHG3 will solidify its numbers but I believe the new verb has been accepted by the masses. It will sell a steady 80k in the next months
I think controls are an interesting point. The touch screen controls for the DS Zeldas actually made playing them easier and simpler than ever before. You tap to move, you tap to attack, etc. It was very casual, and the most complex movements involved basically drawing lines on the screen.
On the other hand, Skyward Sword is a really interesting mix of traditional movement controls with relatively complex or advanced motion combat. The sword fighting in particular requires more precision and coordination than ever before, since you have to watch enemy patterns to see which directions they're blocking or moving, and then strike to match.
It's also interesting that a lot of the tools and skills have their own motion control schemes, many taken from Wii Sports Resort. While they are all extremely natural and fun, it remains a barrier of entry for people who aren't great at core videogames and remembering many different rule sets and instructions. Wii Sports Resort tells you the rule for each minigame before you play them, and those are the only rules for that entire minigame. In SS, you have to remember how to control each different tool and be able to pull stuff off as you switch between stuff.
I have no idea if such things will have much of an impact on the actual accessibility of the game for a larger mainstream audience, but they are still factors to consider. I don't think mainstream gamers have anything against motion controls, but it's all in how they are applied and presented.
frankie_baby
Member
If the suggestion of a 750k shipment do mk is true I can easily see 3ds hardware beating 200k
airmangataosenai
Member
Weekly 3DS sales are just bizarre, did they put out a new color? The top game is half of the overall sales for the system and that game was the only one to even chart. Mario Kart will be interesting next week, if these people are really just MH people buying it for MH... will these people ever buy another game besides MH? This is getting ridiculous.
I don't think motion controls have an awful lot to do with it; the hardcore fans will play it regardless, just as they did with Galaxy and other first party fan-desired titles. Like Duckroll's been saying, it's probably mostly the audience divide.
Some analysis: Wind Waker seems to be geared more toward females than males – and possibly also younger players, whereas Twilight Princess is the opposite. There is almost definitely some crossover, but this seems to be the most obvious case.
With Skyward Sword, it looks like Nintendo chose to market this game more towards the TP rather than WW audience, which seems to be an ever-shrinking customer base. Maybe they believe that they have to capture the TP fans early on, while the WW followers will come with time and word of mouth... or maybe they've misunderstood something.
But perhaps the reason for the shrinking TP audience is due to those people moving on to other systems and genres, or maybe they lost interest in the series over time due to other commitments or tastes. On the other hand, WW's appeal is likely larger than ever due to Nintendo's growing female audience.
Anyway, It'll be interesting to look back upon in a few months.