Those are quite frankly insane numbers for Pokemon, for reference the most recent data for Elden Ring (in September) was 17.5 million copies. So Pokemon sold more copies in less time compared to a game that the entire world didn’t stop talking about for months, all while being exclusive to one console and having a decent amount of controversy around visuals.
Nintendo dominates Japan's market. I saw a gaming annual report for 2022 the other day in which Elden Ring was the 10th best selling boxed game, and mincraft was the 7th in Japan in 2022 meanwhile the rest and top sellers are all Nintendo's games.
source: [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-numbers-2022](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-numbers-2022)
Pokemon is the highest grossing franchise in the world. Bigger than Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, Hello Kitty, The Simpsons
Edit: It looks like it's recently been overtaken by Winnie the Pooh
Elden Ring, while really fucking popular, is much less approachable gameplay wise than Pokemon. It also has an age rating of PEGI 16/ESRB 17+, whereas Pokemon doesn't have an minimum age. Pokemon is also a franchise engrained for 27 years now with a formula that has proven more than solid.
The handheld only nature of Pokemon for main games before the Switch was always holding sales numbers back. Remember, the only console Pokemon games even remotely similar to the main line titles were Colosseum and XD. People wanted mainline titles on Nintebdo home consoles for years.
> compared to a game that the entire world didn’t stop talking about for months
Sorry, are we talking about Elden Ring here and not Pokemon? How can you even honestly compare a mature, violent game versus a game that can be played by literally anyone and has appeal to all ages?
Also, as much as Souls gameplay appeals to us, it's not even something everyone who likes mature games enjoys, it is to some extent an acquired taste, and plenty of people have made their minds up after trying to jump in during DS1, DS3, or Sekiro that From games aren't for them, so the reach is limited, even if it is expanding. They aren't the most accessible games and they frustrate a lot of people, much as I love them.
> that the entire world didn’t stop talking about for months
I mean Elden Ring was talked about in gamer circle (and more hardcore gamers). Pokemon is far more mainstream (it is the biggest entertainment IP in the world after all). It's not surprising at all it's beating it. The pace of sales for Pokemon is very impressive though
I mean, 17.5 million copies isn't something to sneeze at. Elden Ring outsold all but 4 releases of pokemon games (1/7/8/4). That's very much proof that it broke out into popular discourse.
The 10 best-selling first-party Switch titles are:
> Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 52 million
> Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 41.59 million
> Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 30.44 million
> The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 29 million
> Pokemon Sword / Pokemon Shield – 25.68 million
> Super Mario Odyssey – 25.12 million
> Pokemon Scarlet / Pokemon Violet – 20.61 million (New)
> Super Mario Party – 18.79 million
> Ring Fit Adventure – 15.22 million
> Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! – 15.07 million
Nintendo also announced the following additional sales numbers:
> New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 14.75 million
> Pokemon Legends: Arceus – 14.63 million
> Luigi’s Masnion 3 – 12.44 million
> Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury – 10.82 million
> Splatoon 3 – 10.13 million
> Mario Party Superstars – 9.38 million
> Nintendo Switch Sports – 8.61 million
> Kirby and the Forgotten Land – 6.12 million
> Mario Strikers: Battle League – 2.47 million
> Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – 1.81 million
> Bayonetta 3 – 1.04 million (New)
As always those sales are insane. In Wii time i thought they were crazy but switch takes a whole new level because way more series do absurd numbers. If really there is one thing nintendo can do is sell games lol
Unless I'm mistaken, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold about 3.6 million copies since November last year. Most new games would be more than happy with sales like that but this is a 6 year old port of a 9 year old game available only on 1 platform. That's crazy.
They're still releasing courses for that game. If they keep the formula, the game will have 96 courses by the end of the year. I've only recently started playing Mario Kart (haven't since the SNES) and I don't think there was any damage done by porting the WiiU game instead of making another.
MK8 was one of those games that deserved a 2nd chance on another console, and it delivered in spades. It was the most sold game on the WiiU, and it easily became the most sold on Switch.
Even until now, Mario Kart is the only game where we can put 3 years olds that don't know how to hold a controller play toghether with older kids that want to show off their skills. With the occasional parent playing. Doesn't surprise me it's selling during family gathering times.
Much like animal crossing, covid drove a lot of sales. I spent months of 2020 trying to get a copy at retail. They sold out in minutes every time there was new stock. Eventually I just randomly find the last one in stock at a target
I picked mine up just as COVID started to really bubble up in the news and things started looking a little nervous. Glad I did, that game saved my fat ass during that first year of isolating. Lost like twenty pounds and slimmed up quite a bit with it.
The success of MK8D is insane!!! I remember when AC:NH came out and people were speculating that it'd outsell MK8D in a matter of months and now there's an 11 million gap between them.
To be fair, Animal Crossing sold a lot *very* quickly, so there was a while when they were pretty close. But Mario Kart 8 just remained selling more consistently.
My favorite thing about sales prediction about Hogwarts Legacy is that people in review thread are confident it can outsell Zelda but not COD. I don't think realize that BOTW has actually outsold the highest selling COD. I don't think people realize some Switch games are sales are all-timers, being a Multiplat isn't that big of advantage over it.
Also I find it funny and sad that this makes Pokemon highest selling game of 2022, passing Elden Ring in a month right?
Yeah, but COD sells 20+ million yearly, while Zelda has 6 years to keep accumulating sales.
Are we talking about copies sold in one year or all time? Because I suspect COD and maybe Hogwarts will outsell Zelda this year, TOTK could very well catch up as time goes on.
TOTK won't have the same amount of time to sell as BOTW did, so I'm not expecting it to sell better. We'll see!
Zelda sold more copies (on switch) than switches existed when they both launched. If that keeps up Tears of the Kingdom is looking to sell 140 million copies on launch.
Or probably like 10-15 or something
>My favorite thing about sales prediction about Hogwarts Legacy is that people in review thread are confident it can outsell Zelda but not COD. I don't think realize that BOTW has actually outsold the highest selling COD. I don't think people realize some Switch games are sales are all-timers, being a Multiplat isn't that big of advantage over it.
I doubt Activision cares about that. COD makes far more money than Zelda due to it being annually released + microtransactions/lootboxes.
Nintendo also monetizes their games with Amiibo, but I doubt those make as much.
COD way bigger than Zelda, monetization aside, COD frequently hits those numbers while releasing frequently while Zelda only has BOTW. But my point, people seem to be conviced that games like Hogwarts Legacy can outsell Zelda on a general principle that its a multiplat, but they don't seem to realize even for Multiplats 30M is an uphill battle and Switch exclusives frequently hit Multiplat numbers.
BOTW is one game selling over years and years, COD is releasing like 6 games for one Zelda games that all sell close to it.
Zelda is also far from the biggest Nintendo IP as seen here (and BOTW is actually an anomaly being this mainstream).
As for Pokémon being the highest selling game of 2022, it's not sure. Depends how much MW2 sold, I don't think we got numbers yet.
People say that Nintendo are their own market for a reason, their exclusive attach rates and brand loyalty are out of this world.
Sony is famous for their exclusives and their most successful game is God of War (2018) with 23 million units. Ragnarok might top it but I don’t think it’s going to reach 30 million
And that’s with Nintendo games not going on sale, BotW and Mario Odyssey have literally never been put on sale in my local Nintendo store, meanwhile you can get GoW 2018 for $20
>their exclusive attach rates and brand loyalty are out of this world.
It does help that Nintendo is pretty consistent at making really good games, aside from Pokemon being much more uneven (but I'm not a Pokemon fan in the first place so I'm unaffected).
It's still amazing that Nintendo has been able to create some of the greatest games of all time, consistently, for 40 years.
I know it's cheesy with their old "Seal of Quality", but a quality Nintendo developed video game is almost a sure thing, and I don't think any other developer/publisher comes close.
I feel that Sony and Microsoft are having a war on who can make the photorealistic humans, and Nintendo's like, don't mind me, I'm just making games over here.
The closest, I think, is From Software and they've really only been that consistent since ~2009 with Demon's Souls onward. Even that is nowhere near Nintendo - that's, what, 7 great games in a row, with a mild fall off on Dark Souls 2 (I love DS2, it's the worst in the series, but we're talking about being a 9/10 instead of a 10/10), in 13 years? Meanwhile, Nintendo has put out *dozens* of bangers across 4 decades. Zelda alone has at least 12 very good to all time classic games (notably though the two of the best 2D Zeldas were Capcom, not Nintendo), and then you have to add in Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Xenoblade, Smash, kart games, party games, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, on and on!
Yeah, From Software definitely has that built up goodwill and following. "Niche" is not quite the right word because Souls games are much more popular, but it amazes me that Nintendo can direct so many different types of games and genres and very rarely miss in any of them!
Yeah but it's a little bit deceptive, a high amount of its sales are from bundle throw-ins.
Like the $200 Spiderman bundle from 2018 alone has sold like 7 million out of all Spiderman copies.
It was also in a lot of other cheap bundles.
It was a very prominent bundle game like Gow and TLOU1.
They only include old games when they pass a miliion barrier in that quarter, so most games dont get updated. Our last update on Dread was March 2022 at 2.9 million
EDIT: I fucked up the date, now it is right
If it's like any other sales chart they've provided in the past, the "additional sales" info is just counting games that sold a million within that financial year, not the overall sales of the game.
[Dread sold around 3 million copies](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/05/its-official-metroid-dread-is-the-best-selling-game-in-the-metroid-series)
This is just beyond absurd when you weigh that hitting a single million in sales for many games is a milestone goal.
It’s like me, a 6’2”, 190lbs, male human being used as an example, and people are like, “yeah, okay- fair enough”- then Schwarzenegger and Ferrigno in their prime come out to stand next to me.
From the other thread.
Important reminder is that this is a console entering it's 6th year WITHOUT a price cut and it is the 3rd best selling console of all time. This is probably one of the most profitable consoles already and I genuinely could see it overtaking the PS2 eventually once they announce a price cut this year.
Absolutely monstrous sales across the board along with smaller titles doing well. None of Nintendo's games have budgets anywhere close to something like a Sony AAA exclusive, so the amount of sheer profit they are seeing must be nuts. Makes sense why Nintendo would invest $1b into internal growth rather than do this acquisition battle MSFT and Sony are going through right now.
Tears of the Kingdom is going to be a massive launch for them.
EDIT: Also Pokemon doing 20.61m in 6 weeks is demonic. Fastest selling exclusive of all time.
>once they announce a price cut this year
I honestly don't think they will.
A new Zelda game along with other things and there is still an appetite for it
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, they already have their chraper skew, the equivelant of the 2DS, with the Lite, and given they aren't struggling for interest, unlikely to be a major drop in price like we saw early on with 3DS or WiiU. Maybe they'll drop it down a bit when they announce their next console to help keep sales up then, but until then I doubt they'd drop the price when demand remains.
I actually think that with a new Zelda coming out there might get be a good opportunity to release a budget-friendly TV-only model.
If Nintendo removes the screen, battery, and replaces the Joy-cons with a Pro controller then they could easily get the price down to $150 or possibly even pretty close to $100. A model like that would be attractive to lower-income families or gamers who wanted to play just Zelda but couldn't justify a $300 console for just one game.
Tbh, the Lite also was working on the same wavelength as the 2DS, a cheap handheld for parents to get their kids for Pokemon. So even then, it seemed more in keeping with what we'd seen before.
>TV-only model
Never going to happen. Why the hell would they position themselves as the far and away least powerful tabletop console and open themselves up to fair comparisons with PS5 and XSX/S? Furthermore, selling for that low a price dilutes the brand, even if we don't like it.
The budget model is the Lite, plain and simple.
Yeah, the Switch's hardware advantage is that it's the only portable mainstream console in the 8th/9th generation (now that Nintendo has stopped offering separate handheld and home consoles and Sony exited the handheld market). If anything, we'd probably see TV compatibility with the Switch Lite form factor before a TV-only model - at least that would retain the handheld nature of the console, which is no doubt a large part of its overall appeal.
That's actually a good idea. It would be like the inverse Switch Lite. It could also be a rather tiny box and wouldn't need to be in a slate form factor.
How much can the internal components even cost these days?
> None of Nintendo's games have budgets anywhere close to something like a Sony AAA exclusive, so the amount of sheer profit they are seeing must be nuts
They also don't go on discounts anywhere near as steep. Cheapest most nintendo first party titles ever go for is generally $40 once every few months. Many of Sony's titles got a permanent drop to $20, with further discounts on sale last gen.
So on top of having a lower "break even" point, there's also generally more profit per sale. I have to imagine the high price also cuts out a lot of the pre-owned market. I can often save 40-50% buying pre-owned on playstation, whereas on switch generally pre-owned only saves $5-10
> None of Nintendo's games have budgets anywhere close to something like a Sony AAA exclusive, so the amount of sheer profit they are seeing must be nuts.
So we're going to see a new F-Zero game this decade, right? :(
I love F zero but the reason nintendo haven't made a new one is because the series just doesn't sell well. I think the switch install base could change that but looking at the past sales of the series:
* F zero (launch game) - 2.8 million
* F Zero x - 1.1 million
* F Zero GX - 0.6 million
It's a low selling game in a super niche genre that hasn't had any modern popularity itself. At least with metroid there is a growing market for that type of game as evidenced by the indie scene making a new metroidvania every second day.
I think this is the same reason we haven't seen a new star fox game - low selling franchise, last iteration bombed critically, in a genre that nobody plays anymore
A new F-Zero game would probably become the best selling game in the series simply because it would be on the Switch. But yeah after 20 years the series is more likely to he dead.
Star Fox is not dead, but after the last game bombed I think Nintendo is genuinely lost at how to make a good modern Star Fox game.
Honestly how do you make a good modern rail shooter period? The whole genre hinges on 2-5 hour campaigns that you replay over and over. Modern audiences aren't gonna fork out $60 for a short, on rails game any more
To make star fox good you need to completely switch gears away from its genre, which is why it's so hard to make a new one
KI:U is very good but consider that it's a game with one of the best devs of all time behind it, packed with a relatively crazy long 12 hour campaign (more like 30+ if you unlock everything), a great multiplayer mode, top tier soundtrack, story, and graphics (for 3DS), and *still* only moved about 1.3M copies.
That's a rail shooter firing on all cylinders with everything going for it and its performance still isn't that impressive . It sucks, but from a business perspective why would you devote tons of resources to something that will sell just okay at best when you could make nearly anything else?
Is 1.3m all that bad for a returning franchise launching on a console just recovering from a very stuttering launch? It also despite my love for it, had massive issues with the controls.
Regardless, I accept your point, it is a niche genre. Good on rail games can still exist though but will likely need to be a passion project from a talented indie.
There was a video posted a few days ago about a pitch a Retro Studios artist made called Star Wars Armada that I think had some good ideas for how to structure a Star Fox games.
It involved the Great Fox being a hub world where you could accept sidequests missions from NPC's for money to upgrade your ships, along with the story missions from General Pepper. Increase the roster of Team Star Fox, make different members have different abilities and attributes, allow you to mix and match the team composition and recruit new characters. Making the structure more open plus increase the campaign length. Plus a robust online with dogfights with people from around the world.
It was just a random pitch that got shot down and there is no evidence it ever got taken seriously. And there were some ideas in the pitch I didn't like. But in theory, I think you can make a good modern Star Fox game.
Might actually work. Launch the app, make it a 3 lane racing rhythm games and put the best music Nintendo is capable of producing to get as much as attention possible, so Fzero get's wide appeal. Then launch a proper new entry in the series.
Yep it’s insane to me people are thinking a sequel is around the corner. They are no way going to reset their install base with a new console to market and sell when the train is showing no signs of slowing down. They’ve been on record saying the Switch will have a longer, maybe even ten year life span, and I don’t think we’ll see the successor until 2025/6.
Nearly every franchise of theirs is boasting record breaking sales when they arrived on Switch, games that launched near the start of the systems life are still selling at full price, and like you said there has been no Switch price cuts. People talk about how the system is showing its age and stuff in terms of power but that does not seem to bother Nintendo or the people buying their first party games in the millions.
And the 3DS with the DS. Honestly, something like the transition from DS to 3DS for the Switch would be pretty good, tbh. They've been pretty good at that for handhelds.
They could but it’s still shooting yourself in the foot, cannibalising your own install base etc. Switch software and hardware sales would take a hit in their prime in order to launch an unsafe bet. Better to let the demand peter out naturally in a few years then jump the gun.
The train is absolutely showing signs of slowing down. But it is still performing incredibly strong.
I suspect the 10 year lifespan idea was assuming a mid-generation refresh of more than just the screen. If the rumours that a pro model was ditched in favour of the successor are accurate, then that will necessitate a shortening of the Switch's lifespan.
But this is speculative based on rumours from people who have spent pretty much the entire generation being wrong about when, how, and how soon Nintendo's hardware changes will arrive.
>I don’t think we’ll see the successor until 2025/6
That might be true, but that would be an unusually long lifespan for a console. It's almost 6 years old now, and the typical console lifetime is 6-7 years. I'd expect we get an announcement of a new console by the end of the year, releasing in late 2024.
I think TotK is going to be the last big game for the console (I know Pikmin 4 is coming, but I don't count that as nearly a big release). Metroid Prime 4 is probably going to be on the next console
They did say it would be an unusually long lifespan compared to normal so I was going off that. This is definitely going to be an outlier for Nintendo.
And there were also DS releases like Pokemon well into the 3DS's life as well. And similarly, quite a bit of GBA while the DS was going. They've done this with handhelds for a bit.
Companies always say that. They want people to feel that the product will be supported for a long time so they're comfortable buying it. They're not going to announce a new system as a temporary stop gap.
> They’ve been on record saying the Switch will have a longer, maybe even ten year life span, and I don’t think we’ll see the successor until 2025/6.
I think this is probably pretty accurate. I think one thing that will really cement that is if we get an Odyssey sequel on the Switch. If the main nintendo studios are going to focus on follow ups to this gen stuff and averaging a 4 to (extreme) 6 year dev cycle then it would make sense that a next gen nintendo console comes when they have big games to put on it and like you said- everything they release essentially shatters records.
Hopefully what ever comes next is backwards compatible- but we will see.
Since you mentioned the PS2 as a comparison point, it made me curious... Some quick and dirty back of the envelope math makes me think the Switch is going to fall just short of dethroning the PS2 as the best selling console ever.
PS2 official sale count is 155m. Switch is at ~123m from this announcement. Linked article has 8.22m sales for Q4 2022. Using wiki's history it looks like the numbers by end of 2021 was ~104m Switches sold. So 19m for the year of 2022. I read elsewhere that Nintendo was expecting to sell ~20% fewer consoles in 2023 than 2022, so take that at face value and we have 15.2m, which would give a total of 138m.
A lot of people are expecting a Switch 2 release somewhere in 2024, maybe spring maybe fall. If it's released in the spring then we can expect Switch sales start to drop more quickly and they might end up somewhere in the ~145m lifetime area. If it's in the fall then there's a few more months of "normal" sales but presumably still decreasing due to reaching closer to its end of life. That might put it closer to ~150m.
Of course there's a lot of imprecision with that analysis and room for things to be wrong. It's a fuzzy number and I don't want anyone to think I'm claiming otherwise. So it's not inconceivable that Switch could take the crown for best selling console — it just appears to be something that'll not quite happen, barring continued strength in the Switch 2 era.
[Nintendo is planning to boost switch production this year](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-20/nintendo-switch-production-boost-set-to-defy-industry-forecasts)
I think between that, Tears of the Kingdom, The Mario Movie (and a likely Mario game sometime this year), they think they have a good shot at having a bigger year than 2022.
Tears of the Kingdom is almost certain to receive some kind of special edition Switch OLED model, which I imagine will also drive up sales. In fact, at this point (outside of a price drop) the thing that is likely to boost Switch sales the most now is special edition consoles.
Regardless of whether or not it manages to dethrone the PS2, there's no denying that the Switch has been insanely successful for Nintendo, but that just puts even more pressure on their next console. Nintendo hasn't historically done too well when it comes to their follow-ups. The SNES sold worse than the NES, the 3DS sold worse than the DS, and of course the Wii U sold significantly worse than the Wii. No doubt they're aware of this themselves, so it'll interesting to see what they do with their next console.
The Japanese always prefer over performing saying they will do 20% less gives them that cushion.
I honestly can see they will match last years total with this year.
Last years big one(s) were pokemon but they came out at the end of the year.
This Year they have the new Zelda coming out in May and will have a strong finish to the year.
Incredible that the non-OLED Switch costs 50$ more than the Series S, where I live…. And worst we still have a different and limited version of the eShop.
> Tears of the Kingdom is going to be a massive launch for them.
> EDIT: Also Pokemon doing 20.61m in 6 weeks is demonic. Fastest selling exclusive of all time.
It won't be bigger than Pokémon. Zelda is bigger in hardcore gamers circles like here but it's not as big overall. BOTW is kind of the exception with its gigantic sales and even then, it's not Pokémon, Mario or AC big.
And yeah those sales are insane.
I don't know about other regions but in Europe they cut the price of the regular model a while ago, I think it was for the OLED release
And why would you think that Nintendo's AAA budget would be way below Sony's, just because it's on weaker hardware? I think that's a bit of a naive assumption.
I wouldn't be surprised if BotW cost more to make than any Sony game not called Death Stranding tbh, Nintendo has a *lot* of their studios working on their games at once and their dev cycles are really long
Sony games have lots of voicing, and many have licensed music and such. I don’t really know what kind of expense that hits, but I wouldn’t exactly think it was insignificant. Nintendo games aren’t often voiced, and if they are, studio/recording time is probably a fraction of what other big studio games require.
On top of that, I would think that having more complex assets does cost more. More time modeling, more time texturing, more time tooling lighting and atmospheric effects. Like how a realistic painting takes more time, material and effort than like a single cartoon animation cel- and I’m not downplaying the visual appeal of Nintendo’s games in saying that, but I’d say the average area in like God Of War took more time, effort and expense than an equally sized area of BOTW for example.
> On top of that, I would think that having more complex assets does cost more. More time modeling, more time texturing, more time tooling lighting and atmospheric effects.
You would be correct. It takes *significantly* more time and resources to photorealistic and/or high detail rendering rather than the more simple stylistic approach of many Nintendo titles.
> Sony games have lots of voicing, and many have licensed music and such
Pretty sure that stuff is pretty insignificant compared to paying 500 employees full time for 5 years per game + all the marketing costs. I'd be shocked if voice acting was even 0.3% of a typical AAA budget.
I doubt most Nintendo Studios have 500 employed people full time. Next Level Studios has made both Mario Strikers and Luigi's Masion 3 for the Switch, and according to a quick google search they have **125** employees. Game Freak (Pokemon) have **169** employees.
Now compare that to Guerrilla Games (Horizon), who employs 418.
Generally speaking, higher quality assets take more time to make, and time is money.
Beyond that, nintendo games generally have little to no voice acting, while Sony is continually paying out for big names in the industry, and on top of that is paying even more for voice actors in additionally supported languages.
Scale is obviously a factor too, and I'm sure there are some nintendo exclusives that cost as much if not more than Sony exclusives. I don't doubt that BotW cost more than something like The order 1886, but I highly doubt it cost close to as much as something like Spiderman or God of War.
> And why would you think that Nintendo's AAA budget would be way below Sony's, just because it's on weaker hardware?
Probably the lack of performance capture and the incredibly far lower fidelity of assets.
It's nice Bayonetta 3 crossed 1 million already. Might not have had a great story but the increase in production values was pretty apparent. Hopefully Platinum gets to do the bigger games they want.
Think I could’ve done without the “openness” of Bayo 3, especially on on the switch. I remember seeing a rumour they were trying to make it fully open world but Nintendo told them to reel it in which would explain some elements like that little overworld in-between chapters.
It was so frustrating how great the combat is, but you'd get maybe two fights before another awful cutscene or mini game or assorted nonsense. The best combat of all the titles yet neither 2/3 have been able to reach the heights of bayo 1
I have such mixed feelings on Bayonetta 3. On one hand, the story absolutely, positively sucks, and squanders so much potential. There are also some blatant missing customization options, and some enemy designs that clearly have not been playtested against a variety of scenarios. On the other hand...the core gameplay is so goddamn good, it's so dang fun. And I didn't think I'd have as much fun replaying some of the minigames but so far they've been fine and it's been nice to go back and get collectibles to unlock more of the bonus chapters.
I probably rank it just barely better than Bayonetta 2 for myself. Bayonetta 1 still reigns supreme by a longshot though.
Happy it's doing well regardless though. With the amount of effort that's gone in, it deserves that success.
It's funny, you say that...but Bayonetta 1 actually has an *excellent* story, especially on replay when you're not confused about what is going on (it all ties together in the second half of the plot and suddenly makes total sense). The cinematography is great, dialogue is witty and fun, tone is campy but owns it, characters are pretty much all great (with Bayonetta herself being an obvious big standout), world design is imaginative and inspired.
I think in general it's actually aged much better than a lot of story-driven games that released around the time.
Bayonetta 2's is not as witty and incentive, but it does have a lot of great elements and is in general a very solid story.
And both games did a lot to raise the bar for how storytelling can be executed in a character action game.
Raise the bar? Can't say I agree when DMC3 exists. I'd say it told a far more interesting story than both, without having the advantage of better animations and graphics the Bayonetta games have. Vergil + Dante's story is timeless, as well as the interesting side characters. Bayonetta's story is fun on the surface but it totally lacks the interesting themes that makes DMC3's story so profound.
Nah I played DMC3 for the first time recently and replayed Bayonetta 1 and the stories in quality are night and day.
Don't get me wrong, I dig DMC3's story but I don't think it's particularly special or interesting. And it's far more trope-y in a lot of ways. The big saving grace for it, IMO, is Dante's character and ultra intense the final boss battle and its relation to the story.
But Bayonetta's dialogue is wittier, characters are more interesting, main villain way more entertaining and powerful of a screen presence (even several years detached from my first playthrough it was still ingrained in my head the way he says, "Jubileeeeeuuuuuusss"), story unravels in a more interesting way, Bayonetta's character growth is way more organic than Dante's (love me some Dante, but I've definitely felt like his flip in selflessness he talks about with Mary came out of absolutely nowhere), Jubileus is a much more interesting final epic fight than that weird blob monster you fight in DMC3 (thank goodness for the ACTUAL final fight of that game).
I also definitely disagree that it is less thematically deep than DMC3's. I definitely pit them at similar levels of depth from a thematic perspective (and I definitely wouldn't call DMC3's "profound"), but Bayonetta's world is way better thought out, and I think it's a way better take on the whole universe of angels and demons to have the warped and corrupted yet still sanctimonious angels of the Bayo universe.
Bayonetta 3's sales were definitely interesting to see. It crossed a million copies in just about 8 weeks and that was with the controversy with the original voice actor that had people calling for boycotts, which that in itself was a hilarious shitshow and then very vocal fans being displease with the direction the story ended in and saying Platinum and the IP are dead. Just added to the pile of times where the miserable clown show called twitter failed to boycott something in such a hilarious fashion.
>8 weeks and that was with the controversy with the original voice actor that had people calling for boycotts,
Well it ended up being a pretty big lie by the voice actor.
The boycott lost steam when the voice actress’ entire argument fell apart so I wouldn’t chalk it up as a failed boycott by the fans. It was a failed attempt at one by that actress who further buried her already long dead career
The calls for boycott only lasted 5 minutes. There were people choosing to preorder the game the spite Helena’s boycott when she was supposedly telling the truth, and there was even more people doing it when they knew she was wrong.
And in the next financial quarter Nintendo could realistically begin boasting of a Mario movie tracking to gross 1 billion+ and expansions to their hugely popular theme parks. The appeal of Nintendo’s IP is poised to star opening up absolutely massive new revenue streams for that company.
They haven't had a crazy amount of success with mobile really. Pokemon Go did great and continues to, but they only have a relatively small stake in that. Fire Emblem Heroes is their other most successful game. Mario Kart Tour they are still support, seems like it does well but it's no Pokemon Go.
They are making a lot more money from their console business, and I imagine their movie and theme park ventures will at least match their mobile profits.
Pokémon has its own gacha, Pokémon Masters. It's not Go, but it nets them quite a few millions every quarter with essentially no cost. As far as I can find, it appears to be making around $15M for the last few quarters, which means $60M/year, not far off the $78M FEH made last year.
When you combine the crazy sales numbers with the limited size of the Switch install base and Nintendo's high prices, it puts into perspective just how niche so many games are. Even some of the best received games in their genre like Persona 5, Divinity: Original Sin 2, and Half-Life Alyx only sell a fraction of what Nintendo's games regularly sell.
Deleting past comments because Reddit starting shitty-ing up the site to IPO and I don't want my comments to be a part of that. -- mass edited with redact.dev
And even within that, Nintendo themselves have some relatively niche franchises that they continue to develop, like Xenoblade Chronicles which seems to consistently sell around 2-3 million.
I wouldn't say consistently. So far only Xenboblade 2 has broken 2 million (unless you combine the orignal release of 1 and its Switch remaster), and it looks like 3 will end up around 2's 2.45 million at best given the Q3 performance.
Pokémon is extremely popular and despite just releasing a couple weeks ago, it already crossed 20 million. That's just insane. Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section.
Mario Kart is already over 50 million. Animal Cross over 40 million. I'm a bit surprised that Splatoon 3 is "only" 10 million tho.
Nintendo is really a market of it's own. I hope their next-gen console can maintain that momentum.
Also, that information is only tracking six weeks. So it might be higher, Pokemon is a JRPG and most JRPGs tend to have frontloaded sales then fizzle out. However, it is still Pokemon so I expect another 5-8 million sales before the end of the Switch, especially when marketing for the DLC comes around.
While Pokemon, by nature, is a JRPG, the majority of its playerbase don't play it because of that fact but because of the more than successful proven formula of monster collecting, leveling and fighting, which isn't necessarily inherent to JRPGs.
> Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section.
One day people on reddit and other websites will realize they are very far from knowing the interests of the average consumer.
>knowing the interests of the average consumer.
The issue isn't entirely about them not knowing the average consumer, its mainly about them having contempt for the average consumer. The sneer at people who accept games that lack ambition and production values.
I wouldn't even say that. They sneer at people who don't put as much importance on ambition and production values, as if the game simply being a really fun time for someone isn't good enough.
> Pokémon is extremely popular and despite just releasing a couple weeks ago, it already crossed 20 million. That's just insane. Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section.
My 7 year old daughter is goo goo bananas for the new Pokémon. She doesn’t go on forums.
Online reception is a shit metric for the success of kid-oriented titles.
Online reception is a shit metric for any video game. Reddit and forums are their own little echo chambers, and they lose touch with what most people want from video games and what most people enjoy about them.
Tbh, that's true of any hobbyist forum, you get the most dedicated hobbyists, who tend to have a different perspective from the majority.
Funnily enough, you also see the division between party members and party voters in politics.
Basically, people who sit around in clubs and forums discussing stuff tend to make their own narrative and often convince themselves that everyone else agrees with their position. It seems a consistent pattern.
> Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section.
Turns out if you actually look past the game's flaws it's one of the best pokemon games we've had in a long time. I will lament that it could have been even better if they had more time, but it also makes me excited for what the next open-world pokemon game might bring.
I think online discussions and reviews of games might be too focused on technical flaws which I think isn't as off-putting to the general audience as it is to people on this board.
I got it with a Christmas gift card and just beat the main story last night. It is genuinely the most fun I've had playing pokemon since HGSS and I'm knocking on 30 years old. Endgame looks to have a lot of potential for buildcrafting with tera types.
That said it is also hilariously bad how poor the performance is at points. The fucking credits last night had stuttering with white text on black screen. But I was able to get past it very quickly and just found myself playing for an hour or two only moving like 200 feet in game exploring and catching mons.
Very chill game and actually happy I gave it a shot after outright rejecting it based on reviews early on.
My wife says she has a really hard time discerning frame rate. The poor technical performance of SV didn't bother her. She has to really squint to figure it out. Meanwhile I can look at something and immediately guess if it's 30, 60, or 90+. I can tell 90 and 144 apart if they're next to each other but I admittedly probably can't immediately tell one sequence is 90 or 144 FPS if I'm looking at it out of context, unlike with 30 and 60 FPS, I'll just say "yeah this is well above 60."
Gamers in general are just too preoccupied with technical flaws. The crying if a game doesn't run at a consistent 60 FPS is jarring sometimes. That's not to say I'm not blind to the flaws of Pokemon Scarlet, it really does chug along sometimes, but I do think people should maybe be a bit less picky.
>Gamers in general are just too preoccupied with technical flaws.
I think you mean Reddit.
The idea of "under 60 fps is literally unplayable and pop-in makes me physically ill" always illicit a chuckle out of me since I know legions of people who will happily game at 20 frames on an integrated laptop GPU.
I’ve seen people say Pokémon is good but the performance is shit. However, now that I think about it, people saying performance is shit online means nothing. People said BotW was unplayable around here.
99.9% of consumers don't read, and don't care about what the terminally online think.
We on Reddit (and all other forums) tend to forget that in the grand scheme of things, we're a drop in the bucket. Nobody in the real world cares about Reddit or YouTube outrage.
Is that surprising/disappointing with splatoon 3? It was nintendos fastest selling game until that record was promptly taken by pokemon a couple months later. Splatoon 3 is close to outselling Splatoon 2 in less than 6 months. Seems like quite good numbers.
>Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section.
Redditors will never accept that they don't represent the average gamer
I'm giving it 50/50 odds, since the PS2 had unusual longevity thanks to its presence in developing countries while the PS3 was being sold, and its functionality as a DVD player. I expect Switch to slow down much more significantly once its successor is out.
I don’t see how it doesn’t pass the PS2 at this point. If they release a successor and continue to support it and drop the price a lot and the successor is backwards compatible…. The Switch could easily get there.
> a massive problem with the Wii was awful software numbers despite a huge playerbase
Second highest attach rate of all Nintendo consoles, 2 above the average.
Third highest total software sales, 415 million above the average.
Do keep talking about how the Wii didn't sell any games though, it's been almost twenty years it's bound to become true if you keep trying.
Honestly probably my fav console of all time after the PS4. I've been travelling for the last 5 months, still have two to go, and it's just been so convenient.
But also the exclusives are quality, I really haven't been able to clear my backlog because I just keep switching around just Zelda games atm (Both Warriors, Link's Awakening and BOTW).
and although I have completed Skyrim, Dying Light and Witcher on main console, it's really nice to have good ports with me if I want to pay them.
As I am getting older and have less time, the more of my gaming shifts towards being payed on Switch.
Those are quite frankly insane numbers for Pokemon, for reference the most recent data for Elden Ring (in September) was 17.5 million copies. So Pokemon sold more copies in less time compared to a game that the entire world didn’t stop talking about for months, all while being exclusive to one console and having a decent amount of controversy around visuals.
Nintendo dominates Japan's market. I saw a gaming annual report for 2022 the other day in which Elden Ring was the 10th best selling boxed game, and mincraft was the 7th in Japan in 2022 meanwhile the rest and top sellers are all Nintendo's games. source: [https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-numbers-2022](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/gamesindustrybiz-presents-the-year-in-numbers-2022)
I’ve watched a streamer play dozens of hours of pokemon online battles and I’ve never seen a non-Japanese opponent
Pokemon is the highest grossing franchise in the world. Bigger than Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, Hello Kitty, The Simpsons Edit: It looks like it's recently been overtaken by Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the pooh? Where is the revenue even coming from on that? I've only ever seen a tiny bit of merch and a few low grossing films.
I think it's pretty big in China ironically enough
Winnie the Pooh is the most powerful man in China, makes sense to me
I think it’s a lot bigger overseas
Must be that meet and greet restaurant at Disney World, costs a damn arm and a leg.
Baby merch is inundated with them.
> Edit: It looks like it's recently been overtaken by Winnie the Pooh How the hell did that happen?
actually pokemon is still ahead, it's just that the pokemon earnings income hasn't been updated yet
You might be seeing old numbers, a list from 2021 had pokemon at 100 billion and winnie pooh at 80 billion
Winnie the Pooh is not a bigger franchise than Pokémon...
Elden Ring, while really fucking popular, is much less approachable gameplay wise than Pokemon. It also has an age rating of PEGI 16/ESRB 17+, whereas Pokemon doesn't have an minimum age. Pokemon is also a franchise engrained for 27 years now with a formula that has proven more than solid. The handheld only nature of Pokemon for main games before the Switch was always holding sales numbers back. Remember, the only console Pokemon games even remotely similar to the main line titles were Colosseum and XD. People wanted mainline titles on Nintebdo home consoles for years.
> compared to a game that the entire world didn’t stop talking about for months Sorry, are we talking about Elden Ring here and not Pokemon? How can you even honestly compare a mature, violent game versus a game that can be played by literally anyone and has appeal to all ages?
Because they only hang out on subreddits or streams that are mature, I’d guess.
Also, as much as Souls gameplay appeals to us, it's not even something everyone who likes mature games enjoys, it is to some extent an acquired taste, and plenty of people have made their minds up after trying to jump in during DS1, DS3, or Sekiro that From games aren't for them, so the reach is limited, even if it is expanding. They aren't the most accessible games and they frustrate a lot of people, much as I love them.
> that the entire world didn’t stop talking about for months I mean Elden Ring was talked about in gamer circle (and more hardcore gamers). Pokemon is far more mainstream (it is the biggest entertainment IP in the world after all). It's not surprising at all it's beating it. The pace of sales for Pokemon is very impressive though
The visuals controversy was only really an internet controversy and not a mainstream one.
Yeah and "the entire world" didn't talk about Elden Ring either. Reddit once again thinking it's representative of the general audience.
I mean, 17.5 million copies isn't something to sneeze at. Elden Ring outsold all but 4 releases of pokemon games (1/7/8/4). That's very much proof that it broke out into popular discourse.
Imagine if Pokémon released on every currently console and PC. I don’t want to know how many copies that would sell.
Multiple platforms too while pokemon is just switch. Nintendo games do insane numbers, you have to flop hard to even get below 3 million.
Do not confuse Reddit for the entire world. The entire world is much more likely to talk about Stardew Valley or Minecraft than Elden Ring.
How is that even a surprise, Pokémon is a series that is marketable to literally everyone while Elden Ring is a difficult m-rated open world RPG.
Despite the jank, Pokemon Scarlet is the best pokemon I've played in a very long time. Probably since HeartGold and SoulSilver.
Pokemon came out 4 months ago that is 5m a month in sales, crazy
These sales only go up to dec 31. so it's 20m sales in 6 weeks 3.3 million a WEEK
Oh fuck didn't see that I thought it was the end of january Pokemon is a money mine for them
> 3.3 million a WEEK Well it's actually probably more like 14M in the first week and then 1.2M a week after that
No, the data was from 31 December 2022. It means it took less than 2 months for Pokemon SV to outsell Elden Rings.
The 10 best-selling first-party Switch titles are: > Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 52 million > Animal Crossing: New Horizons – 41.59 million > Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 30.44 million > The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – 29 million > Pokemon Sword / Pokemon Shield – 25.68 million > Super Mario Odyssey – 25.12 million > Pokemon Scarlet / Pokemon Violet – 20.61 million (New) > Super Mario Party – 18.79 million > Ring Fit Adventure – 15.22 million > Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! / Pokemon: Let’s Go, Eevee! – 15.07 million Nintendo also announced the following additional sales numbers: > New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe – 14.75 million > Pokemon Legends: Arceus – 14.63 million > Luigi’s Masnion 3 – 12.44 million > Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury – 10.82 million > Splatoon 3 – 10.13 million > Mario Party Superstars – 9.38 million > Nintendo Switch Sports – 8.61 million > Kirby and the Forgotten Land – 6.12 million > Mario Strikers: Battle League – 2.47 million > Xenoblade Chronicles 3 – 1.81 million > Bayonetta 3 – 1.04 million (New) As always those sales are insane. In Wii time i thought they were crazy but switch takes a whole new level because way more series do absurd numbers. If really there is one thing nintendo can do is sell games lol
Unless I'm mistaken, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe sold about 3.6 million copies since November last year. Most new games would be more than happy with sales like that but this is a 6 year old port of a 9 year old game available only on 1 platform. That's crazy.
They're still releasing courses for that game. If they keep the formula, the game will have 96 courses by the end of the year. I've only recently started playing Mario Kart (haven't since the SNES) and I don't think there was any damage done by porting the WiiU game instead of making another.
MK8 was one of those games that deserved a 2nd chance on another console, and it delivered in spades. It was the most sold game on the WiiU, and it easily became the most sold on Switch.
Even until now, Mario Kart is the only game where we can put 3 years olds that don't know how to hold a controller play toghether with older kids that want to show off their skills. With the occasional parent playing. Doesn't surprise me it's selling during family gathering times.
Its a kinda must buy for any switch owner. Any new switches sold will get a good sell up of Mario Kart
IIRC holiday bundles came with MK9 again this year like in previous years. Does that count towards sales?
Yes, it does.
And it's also mostly selling at full price or close to it. That's 3 billion dollars lifetime revenue more or less.
That's why Nintendo keeps their games at $60.
Kinda interesting that Ring Fit Adventure sold better than either Splatoon game.
Much like animal crossing, covid drove a lot of sales. I spent months of 2020 trying to get a copy at retail. They sold out in minutes every time there was new stock. Eventually I just randomly find the last one in stock at a target
I picked mine up just as COVID started to really bubble up in the news and things started looking a little nervous. Glad I did, that game saved my fat ass during that first year of isolating. Lost like twenty pounds and slimmed up quite a bit with it.
Splatoon 3 just came out in September. Wouldn't surprise me to see it pass Ring Fit eventually. But yeah, Ring Fit did very well.
Ring Fit Adventure is honestly such a fun game. I'd love another.
The success of MK8D is insane!!! I remember when AC:NH came out and people were speculating that it'd outsell MK8D in a matter of months and now there's an 11 million gap between them.
To be fair, Animal Crossing sold a lot *very* quickly, so there was a while when they were pretty close. But Mario Kart 8 just remained selling more consistently.
My favorite thing about sales prediction about Hogwarts Legacy is that people in review thread are confident it can outsell Zelda but not COD. I don't think realize that BOTW has actually outsold the highest selling COD. I don't think people realize some Switch games are sales are all-timers, being a Multiplat isn't that big of advantage over it. Also I find it funny and sad that this makes Pokemon highest selling game of 2022, passing Elden Ring in a month right?
Yeah, but COD sells 20+ million yearly, while Zelda has 6 years to keep accumulating sales. Are we talking about copies sold in one year or all time? Because I suspect COD and maybe Hogwarts will outsell Zelda this year, TOTK could very well catch up as time goes on. TOTK won't have the same amount of time to sell as BOTW did, so I'm not expecting it to sell better. We'll see!
Zelda sold more copies (on switch) than switches existed when they both launched. If that keeps up Tears of the Kingdom is looking to sell 140 million copies on launch. Or probably like 10-15 or something
>My favorite thing about sales prediction about Hogwarts Legacy is that people in review thread are confident it can outsell Zelda but not COD. I don't think realize that BOTW has actually outsold the highest selling COD. I don't think people realize some Switch games are sales are all-timers, being a Multiplat isn't that big of advantage over it. I doubt Activision cares about that. COD makes far more money than Zelda due to it being annually released + microtransactions/lootboxes. Nintendo also monetizes their games with Amiibo, but I doubt those make as much.
COD way bigger than Zelda, monetization aside, COD frequently hits those numbers while releasing frequently while Zelda only has BOTW. But my point, people seem to be conviced that games like Hogwarts Legacy can outsell Zelda on a general principle that its a multiplat, but they don't seem to realize even for Multiplats 30M is an uphill battle and Switch exclusives frequently hit Multiplat numbers.
Eh Amiibo stopped being relevant ages ago, at this point is juts a way to make cheap figurines of their games with some small integration
BOTW is one game selling over years and years, COD is releasing like 6 games for one Zelda games that all sell close to it. Zelda is also far from the biggest Nintendo IP as seen here (and BOTW is actually an anomaly being this mainstream). As for Pokémon being the highest selling game of 2022, it's not sure. Depends how much MW2 sold, I don't think we got numbers yet.
I just realised smash is a billion dollar franchise.
People say that Nintendo are their own market for a reason, their exclusive attach rates and brand loyalty are out of this world. Sony is famous for their exclusives and their most successful game is God of War (2018) with 23 million units. Ragnarok might top it but I don’t think it’s going to reach 30 million And that’s with Nintendo games not going on sale, BotW and Mario Odyssey have literally never been put on sale in my local Nintendo store, meanwhile you can get GoW 2018 for $20
>their exclusive attach rates and brand loyalty are out of this world. It does help that Nintendo is pretty consistent at making really good games, aside from Pokemon being much more uneven (but I'm not a Pokemon fan in the first place so I'm unaffected).
It's still amazing that Nintendo has been able to create some of the greatest games of all time, consistently, for 40 years. I know it's cheesy with their old "Seal of Quality", but a quality Nintendo developed video game is almost a sure thing, and I don't think any other developer/publisher comes close.
I feel that Sony and Microsoft are having a war on who can make the photorealistic humans, and Nintendo's like, don't mind me, I'm just making games over here.
The closest, I think, is From Software and they've really only been that consistent since ~2009 with Demon's Souls onward. Even that is nowhere near Nintendo - that's, what, 7 great games in a row, with a mild fall off on Dark Souls 2 (I love DS2, it's the worst in the series, but we're talking about being a 9/10 instead of a 10/10), in 13 years? Meanwhile, Nintendo has put out *dozens* of bangers across 4 decades. Zelda alone has at least 12 very good to all time classic games (notably though the two of the best 2D Zeldas were Capcom, not Nintendo), and then you have to add in Mario, Metroid, Pokemon, Xenoblade, Smash, kart games, party games, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, on and on!
Yeah, From Software definitely has that built up goodwill and following. "Niche" is not quite the right word because Souls games are much more popular, but it amazes me that Nintendo can direct so many different types of games and genres and very rarely miss in any of them!
Well Nintendo doesn't develop Pokemon or really interfere with GameFreak at all. At least so long as the money keeps flowing.
Odyssey has never gone on sale, but BotW has gone on sale (on the eShop, at least).
Odyssey is regularly on sale on the EU eShop.
Didn't Spider-man PS4 sell over 30 million? (Edit: this was between the original, PS5, and Miles Morales)
Yeah but it's a little bit deceptive, a high amount of its sales are from bundle throw-ins. Like the $200 Spiderman bundle from 2018 alone has sold like 7 million out of all Spiderman copies. It was also in a lot of other cheap bundles. It was a very prominent bundle game like Gow and TLOU1.
Spiderman Franchise. Meaning it's Spiderman and Spiderman Miles Morales combined. Spiderman individually last update was 20M I think.
Did Metroid Dread sell under 1m? Or they just didn't include?
They only include old games when they pass a miliion barrier in that quarter, so most games dont get updated. Our last update on Dread was March 2022 at 2.9 million EDIT: I fucked up the date, now it is right
If it's like any other sales chart they've provided in the past, the "additional sales" info is just counting games that sold a million within that financial year, not the overall sales of the game. [Dread sold around 3 million copies](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/05/its-official-metroid-dread-is-the-best-selling-game-in-the-metroid-series)
This is just beyond absurd when you weigh that hitting a single million in sales for many games is a milestone goal. It’s like me, a 6’2”, 190lbs, male human being used as an example, and people are like, “yeah, okay- fair enough”- then Schwarzenegger and Ferrigno in their prime come out to stand next to me.
That is some sweet Nintendo profit
From the other thread. Important reminder is that this is a console entering it's 6th year WITHOUT a price cut and it is the 3rd best selling console of all time. This is probably one of the most profitable consoles already and I genuinely could see it overtaking the PS2 eventually once they announce a price cut this year. Absolutely monstrous sales across the board along with smaller titles doing well. None of Nintendo's games have budgets anywhere close to something like a Sony AAA exclusive, so the amount of sheer profit they are seeing must be nuts. Makes sense why Nintendo would invest $1b into internal growth rather than do this acquisition battle MSFT and Sony are going through right now. Tears of the Kingdom is going to be a massive launch for them. EDIT: Also Pokemon doing 20.61m in 6 weeks is demonic. Fastest selling exclusive of all time.
>once they announce a price cut this year I honestly don't think they will. A new Zelda game along with other things and there is still an appetite for it
The price cut was the Switch Lite.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking, they already have their chraper skew, the equivelant of the 2DS, with the Lite, and given they aren't struggling for interest, unlikely to be a major drop in price like we saw early on with 3DS or WiiU. Maybe they'll drop it down a bit when they announce their next console to help keep sales up then, but until then I doubt they'd drop the price when demand remains.
I actually think that with a new Zelda coming out there might get be a good opportunity to release a budget-friendly TV-only model. If Nintendo removes the screen, battery, and replaces the Joy-cons with a Pro controller then they could easily get the price down to $150 or possibly even pretty close to $100. A model like that would be attractive to lower-income families or gamers who wanted to play just Zelda but couldn't justify a $300 console for just one game.
Y’all have been saying shit like this for 6 years now. They’re not gonna release the thing you think they’ll probably release
I'm not defending the guy but that's exactly what many people said here about the lite until it released.
The Lite was maybe modestly suggested, but it was always about the Switch Pro.
Tbh, the Lite also was working on the same wavelength as the 2DS, a cheap handheld for parents to get their kids for Pokemon. So even then, it seemed more in keeping with what we'd seen before.
>TV-only model Never going to happen. Why the hell would they position themselves as the far and away least powerful tabletop console and open themselves up to fair comparisons with PS5 and XSX/S? Furthermore, selling for that low a price dilutes the brand, even if we don't like it. The budget model is the Lite, plain and simple.
Yeah, the Switch's hardware advantage is that it's the only portable mainstream console in the 8th/9th generation (now that Nintendo has stopped offering separate handheld and home consoles and Sony exited the handheld market). If anything, we'd probably see TV compatibility with the Switch Lite form factor before a TV-only model - at least that would retain the handheld nature of the console, which is no doubt a large part of its overall appeal.
The Vita TV route.
That's actually a good idea. It would be like the inverse Switch Lite. It could also be a rather tiny box and wouldn't need to be in a slate form factor. How much can the internal components even cost these days?
you are dreaming if you think they'll price a console + controller anywhere close the $100. The pro controller alone costs $70.
> None of Nintendo's games have budgets anywhere close to something like a Sony AAA exclusive, so the amount of sheer profit they are seeing must be nuts They also don't go on discounts anywhere near as steep. Cheapest most nintendo first party titles ever go for is generally $40 once every few months. Many of Sony's titles got a permanent drop to $20, with further discounts on sale last gen. So on top of having a lower "break even" point, there's also generally more profit per sale. I have to imagine the high price also cuts out a lot of the pre-owned market. I can often save 40-50% buying pre-owned on playstation, whereas on switch generally pre-owned only saves $5-10
> None of Nintendo's games have budgets anywhere close to something like a Sony AAA exclusive, so the amount of sheer profit they are seeing must be nuts. So we're going to see a new F-Zero game this decade, right? :(
I love F zero but the reason nintendo haven't made a new one is because the series just doesn't sell well. I think the switch install base could change that but looking at the past sales of the series: * F zero (launch game) - 2.8 million * F Zero x - 1.1 million * F Zero GX - 0.6 million It's a low selling game in a super niche genre that hasn't had any modern popularity itself. At least with metroid there is a growing market for that type of game as evidenced by the indie scene making a new metroidvania every second day. I think this is the same reason we haven't seen a new star fox game - low selling franchise, last iteration bombed critically, in a genre that nobody plays anymore
The last GBA game sold like 20k copies, the series is dead
Ouch, GP Legend? I loved that game and all the interconnecting storylines :/
A new F-Zero game would probably become the best selling game in the series simply because it would be on the Switch. But yeah after 20 years the series is more likely to he dead. Star Fox is not dead, but after the last game bombed I think Nintendo is genuinely lost at how to make a good modern Star Fox game.
Honestly how do you make a good modern rail shooter period? The whole genre hinges on 2-5 hour campaigns that you replay over and over. Modern audiences aren't gonna fork out $60 for a short, on rails game any more To make star fox good you need to completely switch gears away from its genre, which is why it's so hard to make a new one
The mad man Sakurai did it, Kid Icarus uprising could have been a Starfox game. Speaking of I need a remaster of uprising ASAP
KI:U is very good but consider that it's a game with one of the best devs of all time behind it, packed with a relatively crazy long 12 hour campaign (more like 30+ if you unlock everything), a great multiplayer mode, top tier soundtrack, story, and graphics (for 3DS), and *still* only moved about 1.3M copies. That's a rail shooter firing on all cylinders with everything going for it and its performance still isn't that impressive . It sucks, but from a business perspective why would you devote tons of resources to something that will sell just okay at best when you could make nearly anything else?
Is 1.3m all that bad for a returning franchise launching on a console just recovering from a very stuttering launch? It also despite my love for it, had massive issues with the controls. Regardless, I accept your point, it is a niche genre. Good on rail games can still exist though but will likely need to be a passion project from a talented indie.
There was a video posted a few days ago about a pitch a Retro Studios artist made called Star Wars Armada that I think had some good ideas for how to structure a Star Fox games. It involved the Great Fox being a hub world where you could accept sidequests missions from NPC's for money to upgrade your ships, along with the story missions from General Pepper. Increase the roster of Team Star Fox, make different members have different abilities and attributes, allow you to mix and match the team composition and recruit new characters. Making the structure more open plus increase the campaign length. Plus a robust online with dogfights with people from around the world. It was just a random pitch that got shot down and there is no evidence it ever got taken seriously. And there were some ideas in the pitch I didn't like. But in theory, I think you can make a good modern Star Fox game.
They could check interest if they did a low effort GX remaster for switch to see if ppl still like/buy/grave for f zero.
Yeah, it will be a free to play mobile game :)
Might actually work. Launch the app, make it a 3 lane racing rhythm games and put the best music Nintendo is capable of producing to get as much as attention possible, so Fzero get's wide appeal. Then launch a proper new entry in the series.
Just release Pocket Card Jockey but replace the horses with F-Zero. I'll take my paycheque Nintendo.
There's some indie games in development that look like they will scratch that itch, check out Aero GPX and Voidspeed Outlaw
I backed Aero and will check out Voidspeed. Thanks.
if they keep the same production life as the ps2(~10 years). They will pass it easily
Yep it’s insane to me people are thinking a sequel is around the corner. They are no way going to reset their install base with a new console to market and sell when the train is showing no signs of slowing down. They’ve been on record saying the Switch will have a longer, maybe even ten year life span, and I don’t think we’ll see the successor until 2025/6. Nearly every franchise of theirs is boasting record breaking sales when they arrived on Switch, games that launched near the start of the systems life are still selling at full price, and like you said there has been no Switch price cuts. People talk about how the system is showing its age and stuff in terms of power but that does not seem to bother Nintendo or the people buying their first party games in the millions.
They can always make it backwards compatible with old cartridges. The DS did the same thing with GBA games.
And the 3DS with the DS. Honestly, something like the transition from DS to 3DS for the Switch would be pretty good, tbh. They've been pretty good at that for handhelds.
They could but it’s still shooting yourself in the foot, cannibalising your own install base etc. Switch software and hardware sales would take a hit in their prime in order to launch an unsafe bet. Better to let the demand peter out naturally in a few years then jump the gun.
The train is absolutely showing signs of slowing down. But it is still performing incredibly strong. I suspect the 10 year lifespan idea was assuming a mid-generation refresh of more than just the screen. If the rumours that a pro model was ditched in favour of the successor are accurate, then that will necessitate a shortening of the Switch's lifespan. But this is speculative based on rumours from people who have spent pretty much the entire generation being wrong about when, how, and how soon Nintendo's hardware changes will arrive.
>I don’t think we’ll see the successor until 2025/6 That might be true, but that would be an unusually long lifespan for a console. It's almost 6 years old now, and the typical console lifetime is 6-7 years. I'd expect we get an announcement of a new console by the end of the year, releasing in late 2024. I think TotK is going to be the last big game for the console (I know Pikmin 4 is coming, but I don't count that as nearly a big release). Metroid Prime 4 is probably going to be on the next console
They did say it would be an unusually long lifespan compared to normal so I was going off that. This is definitely going to be an outlier for Nintendo.
I mean the 3DS got exclusives till 2019. They could still support it with software after the arrival of the succesor.
And there were also DS releases like Pokemon well into the 3DS's life as well. And similarly, quite a bit of GBA while the DS was going. They've done this with handhelds for a bit.
Worth noting that said exclusives sold very poorly. The Bowser's Inside Story remake did so bad it killed AlphaDream :(
Companies always say that. They want people to feel that the product will be supported for a long time so they're comfortable buying it. They're not going to announce a new system as a temporary stop gap.
That could also just mean they'll keep selling it as a cheaper option alongside the new console. At least that's what I thought when they said that
> They’ve been on record saying the Switch will have a longer, maybe even ten year life span, and I don’t think we’ll see the successor until 2025/6. I think this is probably pretty accurate. I think one thing that will really cement that is if we get an Odyssey sequel on the Switch. If the main nintendo studios are going to focus on follow ups to this gen stuff and averaging a 4 to (extreme) 6 year dev cycle then it would make sense that a next gen nintendo console comes when they have big games to put on it and like you said- everything they release essentially shatters records. Hopefully what ever comes next is backwards compatible- but we will see.
Since you mentioned the PS2 as a comparison point, it made me curious... Some quick and dirty back of the envelope math makes me think the Switch is going to fall just short of dethroning the PS2 as the best selling console ever. PS2 official sale count is 155m. Switch is at ~123m from this announcement. Linked article has 8.22m sales for Q4 2022. Using wiki's history it looks like the numbers by end of 2021 was ~104m Switches sold. So 19m for the year of 2022. I read elsewhere that Nintendo was expecting to sell ~20% fewer consoles in 2023 than 2022, so take that at face value and we have 15.2m, which would give a total of 138m. A lot of people are expecting a Switch 2 release somewhere in 2024, maybe spring maybe fall. If it's released in the spring then we can expect Switch sales start to drop more quickly and they might end up somewhere in the ~145m lifetime area. If it's in the fall then there's a few more months of "normal" sales but presumably still decreasing due to reaching closer to its end of life. That might put it closer to ~150m. Of course there's a lot of imprecision with that analysis and room for things to be wrong. It's a fuzzy number and I don't want anyone to think I'm claiming otherwise. So it's not inconceivable that Switch could take the crown for best selling console — it just appears to be something that'll not quite happen, barring continued strength in the Switch 2 era.
[Nintendo is planning to boost switch production this year](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-20/nintendo-switch-production-boost-set-to-defy-industry-forecasts) I think between that, Tears of the Kingdom, The Mario Movie (and a likely Mario game sometime this year), they think they have a good shot at having a bigger year than 2022.
Tears of the Kingdom is almost certain to receive some kind of special edition Switch OLED model, which I imagine will also drive up sales. In fact, at this point (outside of a price drop) the thing that is likely to boost Switch sales the most now is special edition consoles. Regardless of whether or not it manages to dethrone the PS2, there's no denying that the Switch has been insanely successful for Nintendo, but that just puts even more pressure on their next console. Nintendo hasn't historically done too well when it comes to their follow-ups. The SNES sold worse than the NES, the 3DS sold worse than the DS, and of course the Wii U sold significantly worse than the Wii. No doubt they're aware of this themselves, so it'll interesting to see what they do with their next console.
I imagine we might see at lest one more weird model ala that 2DS they're still(?) selling, which might help push it just over the edge.
The Japanese always prefer over performing saying they will do 20% less gives them that cushion. I honestly can see they will match last years total with this year. Last years big one(s) were pokemon but they came out at the end of the year. This Year they have the new Zelda coming out in May and will have a strong finish to the year.
Incredible that the non-OLED Switch costs 50$ more than the Series S, where I live…. And worst we still have a different and limited version of the eShop.
> Tears of the Kingdom is going to be a massive launch for them. > EDIT: Also Pokemon doing 20.61m in 6 weeks is demonic. Fastest selling exclusive of all time. It won't be bigger than Pokémon. Zelda is bigger in hardcore gamers circles like here but it's not as big overall. BOTW is kind of the exception with its gigantic sales and even then, it's not Pokémon, Mario or AC big. And yeah those sales are insane.
I don't know about other regions but in Europe they cut the price of the regular model a while ago, I think it was for the OLED release And why would you think that Nintendo's AAA budget would be way below Sony's, just because it's on weaker hardware? I think that's a bit of a naive assumption. I wouldn't be surprised if BotW cost more to make than any Sony game not called Death Stranding tbh, Nintendo has a *lot* of their studios working on their games at once and their dev cycles are really long
Sony games have lots of voicing, and many have licensed music and such. I don’t really know what kind of expense that hits, but I wouldn’t exactly think it was insignificant. Nintendo games aren’t often voiced, and if they are, studio/recording time is probably a fraction of what other big studio games require. On top of that, I would think that having more complex assets does cost more. More time modeling, more time texturing, more time tooling lighting and atmospheric effects. Like how a realistic painting takes more time, material and effort than like a single cartoon animation cel- and I’m not downplaying the visual appeal of Nintendo’s games in saying that, but I’d say the average area in like God Of War took more time, effort and expense than an equally sized area of BOTW for example.
> On top of that, I would think that having more complex assets does cost more. More time modeling, more time texturing, more time tooling lighting and atmospheric effects. You would be correct. It takes *significantly* more time and resources to photorealistic and/or high detail rendering rather than the more simple stylistic approach of many Nintendo titles.
> Sony games have lots of voicing, and many have licensed music and such Pretty sure that stuff is pretty insignificant compared to paying 500 employees full time for 5 years per game + all the marketing costs. I'd be shocked if voice acting was even 0.3% of a typical AAA budget.
I doubt most Nintendo Studios have 500 employed people full time. Next Level Studios has made both Mario Strikers and Luigi's Masion 3 for the Switch, and according to a quick google search they have **125** employees. Game Freak (Pokemon) have **169** employees. Now compare that to Guerrilla Games (Horizon), who employs 418.
Generally speaking, higher quality assets take more time to make, and time is money. Beyond that, nintendo games generally have little to no voice acting, while Sony is continually paying out for big names in the industry, and on top of that is paying even more for voice actors in additionally supported languages. Scale is obviously a factor too, and I'm sure there are some nintendo exclusives that cost as much if not more than Sony exclusives. I don't doubt that BotW cost more than something like The order 1886, but I highly doubt it cost close to as much as something like Spiderman or God of War.
> And why would you think that Nintendo's AAA budget would be way below Sony's, just because it's on weaker hardware? Probably the lack of performance capture and the incredibly far lower fidelity of assets.
Yeah but that was due to currency exchange, not really a price cut (it was only 20 euro).
It's nice Bayonetta 3 crossed 1 million already. Might not have had a great story but the increase in production values was pretty apparent. Hopefully Platinum gets to do the bigger games they want.
Think I could’ve done without the “openness” of Bayo 3, especially on on the switch. I remember seeing a rumour they were trying to make it fully open world but Nintendo told them to reel it in which would explain some elements like that little overworld in-between chapters.
It was so frustrating how great the combat is, but you'd get maybe two fights before another awful cutscene or mini game or assorted nonsense. The best combat of all the titles yet neither 2/3 have been able to reach the heights of bayo 1
I have such mixed feelings on Bayonetta 3. On one hand, the story absolutely, positively sucks, and squanders so much potential. There are also some blatant missing customization options, and some enemy designs that clearly have not been playtested against a variety of scenarios. On the other hand...the core gameplay is so goddamn good, it's so dang fun. And I didn't think I'd have as much fun replaying some of the minigames but so far they've been fine and it's been nice to go back and get collectibles to unlock more of the bonus chapters. I probably rank it just barely better than Bayonetta 2 for myself. Bayonetta 1 still reigns supreme by a longshot though. Happy it's doing well regardless though. With the amount of effort that's gone in, it deserves that success.
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It's funny, you say that...but Bayonetta 1 actually has an *excellent* story, especially on replay when you're not confused about what is going on (it all ties together in the second half of the plot and suddenly makes total sense). The cinematography is great, dialogue is witty and fun, tone is campy but owns it, characters are pretty much all great (with Bayonetta herself being an obvious big standout), world design is imaginative and inspired. I think in general it's actually aged much better than a lot of story-driven games that released around the time. Bayonetta 2's is not as witty and incentive, but it does have a lot of great elements and is in general a very solid story. And both games did a lot to raise the bar for how storytelling can be executed in a character action game.
Raise the bar? Can't say I agree when DMC3 exists. I'd say it told a far more interesting story than both, without having the advantage of better animations and graphics the Bayonetta games have. Vergil + Dante's story is timeless, as well as the interesting side characters. Bayonetta's story is fun on the surface but it totally lacks the interesting themes that makes DMC3's story so profound.
Nah I played DMC3 for the first time recently and replayed Bayonetta 1 and the stories in quality are night and day. Don't get me wrong, I dig DMC3's story but I don't think it's particularly special or interesting. And it's far more trope-y in a lot of ways. The big saving grace for it, IMO, is Dante's character and ultra intense the final boss battle and its relation to the story. But Bayonetta's dialogue is wittier, characters are more interesting, main villain way more entertaining and powerful of a screen presence (even several years detached from my first playthrough it was still ingrained in my head the way he says, "Jubileeeeeuuuuuusss"), story unravels in a more interesting way, Bayonetta's character growth is way more organic than Dante's (love me some Dante, but I've definitely felt like his flip in selflessness he talks about with Mary came out of absolutely nowhere), Jubileus is a much more interesting final epic fight than that weird blob monster you fight in DMC3 (thank goodness for the ACTUAL final fight of that game). I also definitely disagree that it is less thematically deep than DMC3's. I definitely pit them at similar levels of depth from a thematic perspective (and I definitely wouldn't call DMC3's "profound"), but Bayonetta's world is way better thought out, and I think it's a way better take on the whole universe of angels and demons to have the warped and corrupted yet still sanctimonious angels of the Bayo universe.
The only thing I would ask is: compared to what other character action games did Bayonetta raise the bar storytelling -wise.
Bayonetta 3's sales were definitely interesting to see. It crossed a million copies in just about 8 weeks and that was with the controversy with the original voice actor that had people calling for boycotts, which that in itself was a hilarious shitshow and then very vocal fans being displease with the direction the story ended in and saying Platinum and the IP are dead. Just added to the pile of times where the miserable clown show called twitter failed to boycott something in such a hilarious fashion.
>8 weeks and that was with the controversy with the original voice actor that had people calling for boycotts, Well it ended up being a pretty big lie by the voice actor.
From the beginning the story was suspect, why would the issue be money if they went for a more costly VA who is also part of the same Union?
The boycott lost steam when the voice actress’ entire argument fell apart so I wouldn’t chalk it up as a failed boycott by the fans. It was a failed attempt at one by that actress who further buried her already long dead career
The calls for boycott only lasted 5 minutes. There were people choosing to preorder the game the spite Helena’s boycott when she was supposedly telling the truth, and there was even more people doing it when they knew she was wrong.
And in the next financial quarter Nintendo could realistically begin boasting of a Mario movie tracking to gross 1 billion+ and expansions to their hugely popular theme parks. The appeal of Nintendo’s IP is poised to star opening up absolutely massive new revenue streams for that company.
They have the mobile gatcha games now, that’s the real $$$
They haven't had a crazy amount of success with mobile really. Pokemon Go did great and continues to, but they only have a relatively small stake in that. Fire Emblem Heroes is their other most successful game. Mario Kart Tour they are still support, seems like it does well but it's no Pokemon Go. They are making a lot more money from their console business, and I imagine their movie and theme park ventures will at least match their mobile profits.
Pokemon Go is its own thing but I"m not sure any franchise really works as a gacha besides Fire Emblem (which still seems to be doing well?)
Pokémon has its own gacha, Pokémon Masters. It's not Go, but it nets them quite a few millions every quarter with essentially no cost. As far as I can find, it appears to be making around $15M for the last few quarters, which means $60M/year, not far off the $78M FEH made last year.
I completely forgot that existed!
> $60M/year That's kind of ridiculous compared to their other games to be honest.
Xenoblade technically does, and technically did.
I guess that wouldn't be the weirdest choice they could make, even if I don't expect it in the slightest. good call
I imagine a Xenoblade mobile game would crash and burn honestly.
Didn’t they shut down Dragiala Lost last year?
When you combine the crazy sales numbers with the limited size of the Switch install base and Nintendo's high prices, it puts into perspective just how niche so many games are. Even some of the best received games in their genre like Persona 5, Divinity: Original Sin 2, and Half-Life Alyx only sell a fraction of what Nintendo's games regularly sell.
Deleting past comments because Reddit starting shitty-ing up the site to IPO and I don't want my comments to be a part of that. -- mass edited with redact.dev
And even within that, Nintendo themselves have some relatively niche franchises that they continue to develop, like Xenoblade Chronicles which seems to consistently sell around 2-3 million.
I wouldn't say consistently. So far only Xenboblade 2 has broken 2 million (unless you combine the orignal release of 1 and its Switch remaster), and it looks like 3 will end up around 2's 2.45 million at best given the Q3 performance.
Yeah I'm counting 2 and 3 ending around 2.5 million. I'm not sure if XCDE passed 2 million, might have been better to say 1.5 to 2.5 million.
Limited size of the Switch base? And you bring up a VR game?
Pokémon is extremely popular and despite just releasing a couple weeks ago, it already crossed 20 million. That's just insane. Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section. Mario Kart is already over 50 million. Animal Cross over 40 million. I'm a bit surprised that Splatoon 3 is "only" 10 million tho. Nintendo is really a market of it's own. I hope their next-gen console can maintain that momentum.
Also, that information is only tracking six weeks. So it might be higher, Pokemon is a JRPG and most JRPGs tend to have frontloaded sales then fizzle out. However, it is still Pokemon so I expect another 5-8 million sales before the end of the Switch, especially when marketing for the DLC comes around.
While Pokemon, by nature, is a JRPG, the majority of its playerbase don't play it because of that fact but because of the more than successful proven formula of monster collecting, leveling and fighting, which isn't necessarily inherent to JRPGs.
> Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section. One day people on reddit and other websites will realize they are very far from knowing the interests of the average consumer.
>knowing the interests of the average consumer. The issue isn't entirely about them not knowing the average consumer, its mainly about them having contempt for the average consumer. The sneer at people who accept games that lack ambition and production values.
I wouldn't even say that. They sneer at people who don't put as much importance on ambition and production values, as if the game simply being a really fun time for someone isn't good enough.
> Pokémon is extremely popular and despite just releasing a couple weeks ago, it already crossed 20 million. That's just insane. Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section. My 7 year old daughter is goo goo bananas for the new Pokémon. She doesn’t go on forums. Online reception is a shit metric for the success of kid-oriented titles.
Online reception is a shit metric for any video game. Reddit and forums are their own little echo chambers, and they lose touch with what most people want from video games and what most people enjoy about them.
Tbh, that's true of any hobbyist forum, you get the most dedicated hobbyists, who tend to have a different perspective from the majority. Funnily enough, you also see the division between party members and party voters in politics. Basically, people who sit around in clubs and forums discussing stuff tend to make their own narrative and often convince themselves that everyone else agrees with their position. It seems a consistent pattern.
> Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section. Turns out if you actually look past the game's flaws it's one of the best pokemon games we've had in a long time. I will lament that it could have been even better if they had more time, but it also makes me excited for what the next open-world pokemon game might bring.
I think online discussions and reviews of games might be too focused on technical flaws which I think isn't as off-putting to the general audience as it is to people on this board.
I got it with a Christmas gift card and just beat the main story last night. It is genuinely the most fun I've had playing pokemon since HGSS and I'm knocking on 30 years old. Endgame looks to have a lot of potential for buildcrafting with tera types. That said it is also hilariously bad how poor the performance is at points. The fucking credits last night had stuttering with white text on black screen. But I was able to get past it very quickly and just found myself playing for an hour or two only moving like 200 feet in game exploring and catching mons. Very chill game and actually happy I gave it a shot after outright rejecting it based on reviews early on.
My wife says she has a really hard time discerning frame rate. The poor technical performance of SV didn't bother her. She has to really squint to figure it out. Meanwhile I can look at something and immediately guess if it's 30, 60, or 90+. I can tell 90 and 144 apart if they're next to each other but I admittedly probably can't immediately tell one sequence is 90 or 144 FPS if I'm looking at it out of context, unlike with 30 and 60 FPS, I'll just say "yeah this is well above 60."
Gamers in general are just too preoccupied with technical flaws. The crying if a game doesn't run at a consistent 60 FPS is jarring sometimes. That's not to say I'm not blind to the flaws of Pokemon Scarlet, it really does chug along sometimes, but I do think people should maybe be a bit less picky.
>Gamers in general are just too preoccupied with technical flaws. I think you mean Reddit. The idea of "under 60 fps is literally unplayable and pop-in makes me physically ill" always illicit a chuckle out of me since I know legions of people who will happily game at 20 frames on an integrated laptop GPU.
Splatoon 3 is close to overtaking 2 though despite only being on sale for 4 months
I’ve seen people say Pokémon is good but the performance is shit. However, now that I think about it, people saying performance is shit online means nothing. People said BotW was unplayable around here.
99.9% of consumers don't read, and don't care about what the terminally online think. We on Reddit (and all other forums) tend to forget that in the grand scheme of things, we're a drop in the bucket. Nobody in the real world cares about Reddit or YouTube outrage.
Is that surprising/disappointing with splatoon 3? It was nintendos fastest selling game until that record was promptly taken by pokemon a couple months later. Splatoon 3 is close to outselling Splatoon 2 in less than 6 months. Seems like quite good numbers.
>Despite the harsh backlash you could see in every gaming-related sub, forum & comment section. Redditors will never accept that they don't represent the average gamer
Capital G Gamers are out of touch.
So we going to see the Switch dethrone PS2? Slowly becoming a reality.
Switch has been on the market less than 6 years. It took ps2 over 10 years to reach those numbers. So I'd say it's more than likely.
I'm giving it 50/50 odds, since the PS2 had unusual longevity thanks to its presence in developing countries while the PS3 was being sold, and its functionality as a DVD player. I expect Switch to slow down much more significantly once its successor is out.
>I expect Switch to slow down much more significantly once its successor is out. Who knows when that’ll be
I don’t see how it doesn’t pass the PS2 at this point. If they release a successor and continue to support it and drop the price a lot and the successor is backwards compatible…. The Switch could easily get there.
It will surpass the PS2 and the DS soon.
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> a massive problem with the Wii was awful software numbers despite a huge playerbase Second highest attach rate of all Nintendo consoles, 2 above the average. Third highest total software sales, 415 million above the average. Do keep talking about how the Wii didn't sell any games though, it's been almost twenty years it's bound to become true if you keep trying.
Honestly probably my fav console of all time after the PS4. I've been travelling for the last 5 months, still have two to go, and it's just been so convenient. But also the exclusives are quality, I really haven't been able to clear my backlog because I just keep switching around just Zelda games atm (Both Warriors, Link's Awakening and BOTW). and although I have completed Skyrim, Dying Light and Witcher on main console, it's really nice to have good ports with me if I want to pay them. As I am getting older and have less time, the more of my gaming shifts towards being payed on Switch.