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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Skyward Sword vs. Twilight Princess (copies sold)

- More competition on the machine, coupled with no increase in software sales, results in less sales per game.

Okay so please link for me why all that is going to cause Zelda to sell less.

I can see a Zelda fan who really wants this game. Goes to the store to buy it, picks it up, but then realizes, "crap, I already bought my 1 Wii game for the year, I guess I'll have to skip it."

Silly, isn't it? People who want Zelda are going to buy Zelda. Overall sales trends don't tell us anything about the sales potential of an individual game.

Firstly, your scenario is quite flawed. A person who goes to the store to buy Zelda will obviously buy Zelda. In order for someone to go to the store to buy Zelda, though, they have to have already made the decision to buy a Zelda game.

Now, what makes a person want to buy a Zelda game? Firstly, he has to be interested in buying a game. Secondly, he has to choose to buy Zelda instead of all the other available games.

The amount of people interested in buying a game isn't increasing (see how there is no increase in software sales), but the amount of games that the person could potentially buy is increasing. Linking what I said to Zelda really isn't rocket science.

Saying that overall sales trends don't tell us anything about the sales potential of an individual game is foolish, to say the least. Sure, it doesn't give us an accurate number, but it tells you roughly how much it's going to sell. It gives a far better view of the situation than anything else we can do. Using overall sales trends is the most accurate thing we can do to estimate it at this point, even though it's quite inaccurate.

Again, you're using weird logic.

You're reversing cause and effect. You're saying the effect of games not selling well is caused by overall software sales being low, when really it's the effect of overall software sales being low that is caused by games not selling.

Overall software sales tell us what has happened, not what will happen. For instance, when I look at 2009 software sales, I don't say "because of this people will buy less games in 2010". I say "there was not enough software released in 2009 that people wanted".

That's true. Aside from the big three releases (Mario, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit), and 2008's evergreen titles, there was a drought of quality releases in 2009 for the Wii. 

In any case, you're hypothesis is backwards logic. A person decides they are going to buy a game, not on the current state of software sales, but on whether the game will be good or not.



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In total TP is the second best selling Zelda game after OOT with 7.4m only 200k short of the latter normally these would be numbers that are hard to gain but this is the Wii tbh, I reckon it can outsell TP with a combination of the Wii having a more establish userbase now then before and Wii games having legs it may become the best selling title in the series the way Nintendo games are performing.



twilight princess easily...nobody (other than a few people) wants the graphics in SS. they should just restart it IMO and make it a true zelda game (Ocarina of time-majoras mask-twilight princess).



toastboy44562 said:

twilight princess easily...nobody (other than a few people) wants the graphics in SS. they should just restart it IMO and make it a true zelda game (Ocarina of time-majoras mask-twilight princess).

We have barely seen anything of game, except the controls. Let 'not like' when we have seen more. 

 



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twilight princess was used to hack the wii, and unfortunately there were people who got the game just for that. i know some people who got the game for that and never touched it again. it's sad but true.

dont know if skyward sword can outsell it or not but i'm sure nintendo will do lots of advertising and make sure it sells well.



mortono said:

- More competition on the machine, coupled with no increase in software sales, results in less sales per game.

Okay so please link for me why all that is going to cause Zelda to sell less.

I can see a Zelda fan who really wants this game. Goes to the store to buy it, picks it up, but then realizes, "crap, I already bought my 1 Wii game for the year, I guess I'll have to skip it."

Silly, isn't it? People who want Zelda are going to buy Zelda. Overall sales trends don't tell us anything about the sales potential of an individual game.

Firstly, your scenario is quite flawed. A person who goes to the store to buy Zelda will obviously buy Zelda. In order for someone to go to the store to buy Zelda, though, they have to have already made the decision to buy a Zelda game.

Now, what makes a person want to buy a Zelda game? Firstly, he has to be interested in buying a game. Secondly, he has to choose to buy Zelda instead of all the other available games.

The amount of people interested in buying a game isn't increasing (see how there is no increase in software sales), but the amount of games that the person could potentially buy is increasing. Linking what I said to Zelda really isn't rocket science.

Saying that overall sales trends don't tell us anything about the sales potential of an individual game is foolish, to say the least. Sure, it doesn't give us an accurate number, but it tells you roughly how much it's going to sell. It gives a far better view of the situation than anything else we can do. Using overall sales trends is the most accurate thing we can do to estimate it at this point, even though it's quite inaccurate.

Again, you're using weird logic.

You're reversing cause and effect. You're saying the effect of games not selling well is caused by overall software sales being low, when really it's the effect of overall software sales being low that is caused by games not selling.

Overall software sales tell us what has happened, not what will happen. For instance, when I look at 2009 software sales, I don't say "because of this people will buy less games in 2010". I say "there was not enough software released in 2009 that people wanted".

That's true. Aside from the big three releases (Mario, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit), and 2008's evergreen titles, there was a drought of quality releases in 2009 for the Wii.

In any case, you're hypothesis is backwards logic. A person decides they are going to buy a game, not on the current state of software sales, but on whether the game will be good or not.


We're going in circles here. You already made this point once before.

You're trying to put this down on an individual level, instead of looking at it for the market as a whole. This is, to an extent, like trying to apply macroeconomics to a single person. It doesn't work that way.

But seeing as you insist on looking at it from a singular view, I'll try to make an explanation like that.

Case is, we know roughly how many games are going to be bought next year. It might change a bit depending on game releases, but it's without a doubt going to be in the 150-200 million range. Seeing as I can't use averages or anything as it's a single person, let's make a scenario. You're a Wii owner, and you have the money to buy 3 games.

In 2008, you're in the store, and end up deciding between Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario & Sonic or Super Mario Galaxy. (I chose these because these are the major games of the year).

In 2009, you're in the store. You can still buy 3 games. Now, the major games are Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit Plus, Wii Fit, Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Mario & Sonic @ Winter Olympics,

In 2010, the games you might buy are Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit Plus, Super Mario Galaxy 2,  Just Dance or Just Dance 2.

Each year, there are more very popular titles you could end up buying. If Super Smash Bros. Brawl had released in 2010, it would have met far harder competition.

And you might think that this is evened out by the increase in installed bases. It's not. This is the sole and only purpose I'm using the total software sales for - what caused them really isn't important right now - to prove that the increase in installbase doesn't really mean anything. There's still equally much software sold as there was in 2008, and there will be roughly equally much sold in 2011.



Pineapple said:
mortono said:

- More competition on the machine, coupled with no increase in software sales, results in less sales per game.

Okay so please link for me why all that is going to cause Zelda to sell less.

I can see a Zelda fan who really wants this game. Goes to the store to buy it, picks it up, but then realizes, "crap, I already bought my 1 Wii game for the year, I guess I'll have to skip it."

Silly, isn't it? People who want Zelda are going to buy Zelda. Overall sales trends don't tell us anything about the sales potential of an individual game.

Firstly, your scenario is quite flawed. A person who goes to the store to buy Zelda will obviously buy Zelda. In order for someone to go to the store to buy Zelda, though, they have to have already made the decision to buy a Zelda game.

Now, what makes a person want to buy a Zelda game? Firstly, he has to be interested in buying a game. Secondly, he has to choose to buy Zelda instead of all the other available games.

The amount of people interested in buying a game isn't increasing (see how there is no increase in software sales), but the amount of games that the person could potentially buy is increasing. Linking what I said to Zelda really isn't rocket science.

Saying that overall sales trends don't tell us anything about the sales potential of an individual game is foolish, to say the least. Sure, it doesn't give us an accurate number, but it tells you roughly how much it's going to sell. It gives a far better view of the situation than anything else we can do. Using overall sales trends is the most accurate thing we can do to estimate it at this point, even though it's quite inaccurate.

Again, you're using weird logic.

You're reversing cause and effect. You're saying the effect of games not selling well is caused by overall software sales being low, when really it's the effect of overall software sales being low that is caused by games not selling.

Overall software sales tell us what has happened, not what will happen. For instance, when I look at 2009 software sales, I don't say "because of this people will buy less games in 2010". I say "there was not enough software released in 2009 that people wanted".

That's true. Aside from the big three releases (Mario, Wii Sports, and Wii Fit), and 2008's evergreen titles, there was a drought of quality releases in 2009 for the Wii.

In any case, you're hypothesis is backwards logic. A person decides they are going to buy a game, not on the current state of software sales, but on whether the game will be good or not.


We're going in circles here. You already made this point once before.

You're trying to put this down on an individual level, instead of looking at it for the market as a whole. This is, to an extent, like trying to apply macroeconomics to a single person. It doesn't work that way.

But seeing as you insist on looking at it from a singular view, I'll try to make an explanation like that.

Case is, we know roughly how many games are going to be bought next year. It might change a bit depending on game releases, but it's without a doubt going to be in the 150-200 million range. Seeing as I can't use averages or anything as it's a single person, let's make a scenario. You're a Wii owner, and you have the money to buy 3 games.

In 2008, you're in the store, and end up deciding between Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario & Sonic or Super Mario Galaxy. (I chose these because these are the major games of the year).

In 2009, you're in the store. You can still buy 3 games. Now, the major games are Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit Plus, Wii Fit, Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Mario & Sonic @ Winter Olympics,

In 2010, the games you might buy are Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit Plus, Super Mario Galaxy 2,  Just Dance or Just Dance 2.

Each year, there are more very popular titles you could end up buying. If Super Smash Bros. Brawl had released in 2010, it would have met far harder competition.

And you might think that this is evened out by the increase in installed bases. It's not. This is the sole and only purpose I'm using the total software sales for - what caused them really isn't important right now - to prove that the increase in installbase doesn't really mean anything. There's still equally much software sold as there was in 2008, and there will be roughly equally much sold in 2011.


You initially made this statement "More competition on the machine, coupled with no increase in software sales, results in less sales per game."

Now I agree with the concept of competition as I did in my original reply to you. This is a real, tangible thing that you have a point in mentioning. What I think you are wrong on is the "no increase in software sales results in less sales per game". As I said before, you are reversing cause and effect.





RolStoppable said:
Pineapple said:

No, you're missing the point. The buying habits of consumers are that they buy 4 games the first year, 3 the next, then 2, then 1. They gradually buy less and less games.

An average person who has owned his Wii for 4 years won't buy as many games as a person who has owned it for half a year. This is why machines tend to see similar software sales in years 3, 4 and 5. Or in the Wii's scenario, year 2, 3, 4 and most likely 5 and 6.

Here's a very, very simple layout of it. I've simplified the numbers (the Wii sells a bit less than 200 million software a year), and I'm just ignoring 2006 and 2007 for now.

In 2008, the Wii sells 200 million software. All of those sales are from games released in 2008.

In 2009, the Wii sells 200 million software. Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit sell 20 million combined, and other 2008 titles account for 10 million more. Thus, there's only 170 million left for games released in 2009.

In 2010, the Wii sells 200 million software. Wii Sports Resorts, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus account for 30 million sales, Mario Kart Wii and Just Dance for another 10, and other titles for another 10. That leaves just 150 million left for titles released in 2010.

And this is going to become even more true in 2011.

So no, it's not backwards.  It's not either of the two scenarios you wrote up. It's a third.

- More competition on the machine, coupled with no increase in software sales, results in less sales per game.

That's a nice theory, but you have to remember that the evergreens released in 2008 really didn't hurt the big games of 2009. In 2010 Super Mario Galaxy 2 was released and its sales weren't hurt by the 2008 and 2009 games.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a good example, because 3D Mario sells usually in the somewhat same ballbark as Zelda, albeit two to three millions higher. Point is, they are both quite big series. What your theory shows is that second and third tier titles are affected more and more in the latter half of a console's lifecycle, but the big hitters remain quite consistent.

Why is that? Because with a fleshed out library there's less of a reason for new and existing owners to buy second and third tier titles, so the average individual sales of such games continue to decrease each year.

The only way Skyward Sword could end up selling below five million units in its lifetime is Nintendo messing up big time, kinda like they did with Other M which really wasn't what Metroid fans wanted.

I missed this post when you first posted it.

You make a very good point with second and third tier titles being affected to a larger degree than first tier titles. I hadn't considered that, and it makes sense.

I disagree that it has no effect, and that it had no effect on SMG2, but the effect might indeed be quite small.



Skyward Sword won't outsell Twilight Princess.. because TP came out as a launch title for the Wii and Skyward Sword is coming toward the ending of its life cycle.