| RolStoppable said:
1) The same that happened to other phenomena: Sequels seem to be poised to sell less. Is Pokémon a disappointment after it failed to reach the same numbers as Red and Blue (a.k.a. Green in Japan)? Is Wii Sports Resort a failure because it sold a million copies less than Wii Sports in Japan? Of course not. Phenomena describe huge explosions in popularity that are unlikely to be repeated by more polished and refined sequels, because the freshness is inevitably gone. Feel free to show me Nintendo games that were sequels on the same system and sold more than the initial release on the platform. 2) See above. It's not that the bubble bursted, it's that normality settled in. Pokémon started with over 30m copies in sales and now only maintains about 15-20m per generation of games. I don't consider SM64 a successor, so I don't know how I should answer that question.
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I do, so the phenomenon applies to Mario 64 as well in my eyes. We both read the same data, but interpret it very differently. I gave you my reason why (competition, drastically lost userbase and stolen limelight), and you have yours (alternative control method and completely bastardized gameplay and non-linearity). We don't have data to prove either is wrong, since both theories reflect subsequent sales patterns. However, I do expect bottom up disruption of the 3D Mario branch if Nintendo perseveres and makes the 3D flavor as great as it was meant to be.
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3) Super Mario 64 wasn't a sequel though as we know today. Numerous 3D Mario games got the chance to prove themselves as successors to Super Mario Bros., but they all failed to reach the sales levels of the New Super Mario Bros. games which by all means are sequels to the Super Mario Bros. series. What I'd like to know is just how many more 3D Mario games need to fail before you are willing to accept that they are not part of the same series. You always keep going back to Super Mario 64 as a game that fell victim to the PlayStation brand, thus hurting the sales of all future 3D Mario games forever. |
Yep, sadly the harm is done. Mario 64 being relatively unpopular (to the general market) and mostly played by the Nintendo fanbase, added to a kiddie image during the 2 gens it defined (for reasons other than it, bar Sunshine), left the branch in a bad state.
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4) In other words, using tie ratios does not lead to consistent results. In some cases it's convenient to use them while in others it's not. You can't just pick to use it when it suits an argument and ignore it when it doesn't. |
Sadly that's the nature of this hobby. We all see the same data, sometimes it can mean one thing, sometimes it can mean another. For that, one needs to take other factors into consideration. For one, it's clear that the fanbase of Brawl was on the Wii as much as it was on the Gamecube (i.e. core Nintendo fans). The same can be said about Zelda TP versus say Wind Waker on the Cube. The same can't be said about Mario, since alot of the SMB userbase (the mainstream) was now on the PS platform.
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5) Here is an alternative theory: The missing Mario market didn't migrate to the PlayStation. Instead it refused to buy the Nintendo 64, because Super Mario 64 wasn't seen as a sequel. How often do you hear people say that they are not going to buy X console until game Y is released? And since Super Mario Bros. is such a huge series, it has a bigger impact than any other game. This would also explain why the Super Mario Galaxy games couldn't reach the heights of NSMB Wii despite enjoying releases on the same console. It would also explain why Super Mario 3D Land is incapable of displaying a sales curve similar to NSMB, despite Nintendo going into overdrive mode with banking on the nostalgia of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. |
@italics. That's mostly the core userbase. Those who bought Mario were the mainstream. They were the same who chose the Playstation for its market appeal and marketing, game type (good sports games, lots of variety) and many other much more important factors at the time.
Also, Mario had already evolved in Mario 3, and a sequel (by what you said earlier) would have probably done less. Hard to compare against SMW since it was bundled, but hey, SMW sold half as many units and it was bunled globally. For SM64 to sell half of SMW without being bundled, that's telling for a sequel.
For underline, my theory also covers that.
| Also, factor in which games get the higher production values. The 3D Mario games are truly treated as AAA releases while the same can't be said about the NSMB titles. Yet the cheaper to make games trounced the more expensive ones on the sales charts. Imagine how it would look like when production values were on par. It certainly wouldn't be a disadvantage for the Super Mario Bros. games. |
This is blue ocean strategy. And though it's a separate topic from where this dialogue has been going thus far (why did 3D Mario fail), I certainly don't disagree with it.
