Lego city undercover sales

[Sommernacht]

sethnintendo said:

Sommernacht said:

S.Peelman said:

It most definitely didn't bomb. Combined and alligned it's first week is 100k and it's at 160k now plus downloads. On a userbase of 3m and while being a casual game ('for kids', as you put it), that not bad in any sense. This game will have long legs, will definitely reach 500k and has a good shot of reaching at least a million. Moreover, the game more than doubled WiiU hardware sales. I think everybody's happy for now.

By what definition is Lego City Undercover a casual game? This is a large scale open world game with tons of collectibles, bonus objectives etc. I also don't think this was solely aimed at children - the sense of humor and all the hints and jokes about old school tv shows and movies would say otherwise.

After seeing this at E3 I was not excited about the game at first but I decided to buy it because there is literally nothing coming up for me on WiiU within the next few months. So far this game is awesome - definitely a pleasant surprise. It's (too) easy to put this off as a children's game but even when you read some of the reviews you will see how much fun the (adult) journalists had with this game

But what's with all the stories about shortages? It seems to be affecting an awful lot of Nintendo games lately. Is this their strategy to promote digital downloads? If so they had better included a larger storage on WiiU... I just can't believe Nintendo is suddenly unable to provide enough discs to supply demand created by a mere 3 Mil. WiiU owners worldwide...

GTA could be labeled as a casual game.  I mean most people that play GTA besides the ones that actually want to beat it just go on a rampage (talking about friends playing in front of friends).  Sure you can take turns completing missions but what usually happens is just a rampage fest.  The whole casual/hardcore split is pretty fucking stupid in my opinion.  A game could be casual or hardcore depending on the person and play style.  Take Animal Crossing for example.  Most would probably label it as a casual game.  However, I know plenty of people that play it hardcore and put more hours into the game than most people put into multiplayer games like Halo, CoD, etc... 

Can't say too much about the shortages.  Shortages for MH3U and Fire Emblem make a little sense.  They didn't believe the game would be in high demand or sell as much so they didn't ship that much.  However, Lego shouldn't have had any shipment problems or shortages. 

Ok. So I guess we can label games casual/hardcore depending on the way they can be played and depending on the target audience (casual = broader, harcore = more niche) they're aimed at. And when you are designing a game (product) to appeal to a certain audience, then I don't think the casual/hardcore split is fucking stupid at all.

S.Peelman was referring to Lego City as a casual game while discussing its sales.  And yes for Lego City I do agree the traditional black and white - casual/hardcore split does not really make sense: I think it's aimed at both audiences. You can just hop in, roam around the city or try to complete the story missions and get everything for 100%. The real question probably is if the target audience also realises whom this game was made for. My guess is that many adults/older players will dismiss this game for appearing kiddy. 

Actually Lego City might be a perfect example of the problems Nintendo will face (is facing?) with the WiiU: they are somewhat stuck in the middle trying to appeal to all audiences, at the same time risking to alienate both.

But I realize I am getting a bit off-topic here. I was hoping for better sales of Lego City exactly because I do think it could potentially appeal to a broad range of customers. But just yet it doesn't seem to get the message across.