So my fellow Mario fans. Mario 3D Land vs. Galaxy.

[Mr Khan]

Pineapple said:

Mr Khan said:

Pineapple said:

I'll be completely shocked if Mario 3D Land doesn't outsell Super Mario Galaxy. In fact, I'd say it's more likely to sell more than the two Galaxies combined than not to.

I'll also be quite surprised if it reaches anywhere near the critic reception that the Galaxy games did. In the  5th through 7th generation, no handheld ever made 93% on gamerankings. Ocarina of Time 3D made 94% somehow, so the 3DS already has the highest rated handheld game of all time (and it's the same one as the highest rated console game of all time!)

I think a large part of the reason that handheld games generally score lower is that they don't get the hype-inflated scores that some games (like many would say that GTA IV, for instance, got). I doubt Super Mario 3D Land will change the trend and be superhyped for high scores before release.

I'm certainly not that optimistic about sales, but then again we may all be pleasantly surprised.

I agree it won't hit the critical reception though. I'm (obviously from my sig) looking forward to it either way.

Well, it depends on how successful you expect the 3DS to be, I guess. Personally, I think it's likely to see a good 80-120 million. With that base, 16 million isn't out of reach.

But if you expect the 3DS to die out at 60 million, 16 million is a long stretch. For a comparison, here's the Wii and DS.

Wii at 64 million had Mario Kart Wii (20 million), Wii Fit (22 million) at over 16 million, with NSMB Wii (10 million), Wii Sports Resorts (12 million) and Wii Fit Plus (10 million)  later reaching it.

DS at 64 million had Nintendogs (17 million), with NSMB DS (12.5 million), Brain Training (11 million), Brain Training 2 (9 million), Diamond/Pearl (13 million), Animal Crossing (9 million) and Mario Kart DS (9 million) later reaching it.

60 million is the very low-end for the 3DS, agreed? Following the Wii/DS trend, that would lead to 1-3 16 million + titles, and a good 2-4 10 million + titles.

If it makes a hundred million, it could make 6 16 million + sellers.

Of course, that's all speculative, but I definitely don't think 16 million is out of reach for it

I had never given it that much thought, but you do make a compelling argument. 60 million is a good floor because you figure it can't do any worse than PSP's modest success.

My fear was that Nintendo's attempts to hybridize 2d and 3d would create a bastard child that would fail to find a market in between, regardless of the success or failure of the platform it's on, but all the previews seem reasonably jazzed by the approach