Jay520 said:
|
That's exactly the case.
Use logic here. Sales and quality have a positive correlation. The opposite, to say that Sales and Quality have no correlation, makes no sense. To say this you have to say that a game that sells really well might be a bad game, and that would mean people buy bad games. Consumers are always savy, so it makes no sense to say that they might buy bad products. They will always buy good products.
Now take ICO. Some people like it, but most people do not. It never broke any sales records. This doesn't mean it's a horrible product. It does mean it lacks that quality to really break out in the market. People don't want to run a girl though a castle. But they do want to smash turtles and grab flagpoles. Thus, they buy Mario and buy system to play Mario. In this case, Mario is far and above a better quality game. It give the consumer benefit, and people just keep buying them and buying them.
The problem with the game, and a reason it can't break out of the "Cult classic," is because of assesability. ICO to many people is too weird and may not be that fun. The content doesn't make sense to them. It's not easy to just get into. You may say it's a game of high quality, but these are all problems with the product. The consumer immediatly recognizes those problems and moves to another game. The difference here is that ICO sparkels while Mario glows. The sparkles may attract a few people, but it is the glow that distinguishes the game and makes it an instant classic.
There are exceptions to every rule, but for the most part, if a game sells well, than the game is of high quality. I'd say the excetion is things like hype or even a lack of marketing. Nintendo has neither of those, which goes to show their quality.
