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RolStoppable said:

5) No, that isn't how Wii Music works. You give yourself a score after your performance and it can be whatever you want it to be.

Swapnote is used, not played. Nobody sees it as a game, but it has its purpose, because right now it's the only way to communicate with other 3DS owners. And it's free, so another big difference.

4) If there was something good under the surface of Wii Music, then the marketing would have been irrelevant as good word of mouth would have picked up. Instead, people hated the title because there was (next to) nothing to like about it.

...

Pikmin was never positioned as a major IP, that's why sales of 1.5 million are okay. Expectations do matter.

I get that Miyamoto was responsible for the lineup (not just launch, but first year) from the way it looks like. It's basically all stuff that he enjoys making. The only odd game is Nintendogs + Cats, but I guess Nintendo's business side insisted that at least one game like it needs to be made. Pilotwings Resort, Steel Diver, OoT 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, SM3DL, MK7, Mario Tennis, Paper Mario, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Luigi's Mansion 2... Miyamoto loves the Nintendo 64/Gamecube era games. That's no secret. Just like it isn't a secret that he doesn't want to make more Super Mario Bros. games. So the lineup looks like Miyamoto got to make the games he wished to make and those he didn't want to make were absent.

If Wii Music sold 20 million copies, it would have obviously been a different game (and a game). Even ideal marketing for Wii Music (whatever that would have been) wouldn't have led to notably higher sales.

Blue ocean audiences really aren't too different from regular gamers. They may play different genres of games (although regular gamers play these blue ocean games too), but they expect the same stuff from a sequel: More polish, more content, more options. In N+C's case (we've gone over this before), the system was priced out of the audience's range and it was pretty much the only game that appealed to that audience, because everything else was aimed at male teenagers. You wouldn't buy an expensive system that only had one game for you either. Nintendo also advertised the game as its main feature being 3D. By now it's established that virtually nobody gives a damn about 3D, so it's an (almost) worthless addition to games. There are now cats in the game, but other than that... I don't know. It seems like Nintendo thought that 3D would do the trick.

Okay Rol, everything here is good. I'll just leave it here because I don't want to argue. But I will say this.

N+C as you said (and yes we did go over it) was launched while the system was targeting early adopters that are not casuals (different from the DS at 150$). But shouldn't it have sold once the system went down in price? Or do you believe the timing was so off it demolished the marketing to adoption momentum? The demo should remarket it, would the upcoming sales be a good metric, or no? I trust your call.

You say there are just cats now... and what 3D. The graphics are fully updated, you say Ninty thought 3D would do the trick, but what do you expect, or mean when you say "more polish, more content, more options". Polish is there, content, idk Cats?, then options I haven't played the game, but how can they not add options. I really doubt people didn't buy it because it wasn't an update to NDogs to be totally honest. I don't know what you're expecting though. Apart from the marketing mishap I understand you're arguing the game itself was not enough, intrinsically. That's where I don't follow. You use sales as the ultimate reference to content quality, but there must be more.

The 3DS lineup, since you're speculating (about Miyamoto tastes to 3DS lineup fidelity), it looks alot like it holds cube-like games. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a Miyamoto selection. When I look at it, it tells me that that lineup is in line with the cube lineup in the sense that it is aimed at the core. LM, SFox64, OOT, and all those you mention seem to be either Nintendo core, or some hybrid between core and casual (Resort, Steel Driver with stylus and gyro controls). In other words, when I see it, to me, it says that it stems from a business decision to cater to the core. You see it as Miyamoto's brainchild. We're both speculating, but which is more faithful to the past? Did Miyamoto launch Blue Storm? Rogue Leader? But those were core exclusives. If you added those to the 3DS list, you wouldn't see the difference with your list. So it's not Miyamoto-bound, but Nintendo-core bound. imho