Soundwave said:
curl-6 said:
Soundwave said:
I think the truth is there's only a few IP that Nintendo can reliably sell anymore.
Anything with Mario in it sells reasonably well. Zelda/DKC are b-tier. Yoshi/Kirby are c-tier.
Everything else I think is becoming a tough sell on Nintendo home consoles, even for Nintendo themselves. Partly because I think Nintendo really did not build much critical mass with core players the last 7-8 years. They were busy with casual consumers, but now that they're gone, Nintendo is finding they have a loyal group of consumers that buy a very narrow range of games, and they've lost everyone else.
It used to be even on the N64, new IP like Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye, 1080 Snowboarding, Turok, etc. could become big hits, and other non-Mario/Zelda IP could do very well for themselves too like F-Zero and Wave Race and Star Fox.
Even on the GameCube things like Viewtiful Joe, Tales of Symphonia, Pikmin, etc. were able to find good sized audiences, although the regression here was definitely visible as the userbase was becoming too small.
Games like Bayonetta 2, X, Wonderful 101 don't have much of a chance on Wii U IMO. Even Pikmin 3 I think is probably going to have to struggle to break even. |
On Wii new IPs like Xenoblade, Shaun White Snowboarding, Endless Ocean, Boom Blox, and de Blob were able to carve out solid sales.
Pikmin 3's already at 350k after just 1 week in NA, 3 in Europe, and 5 in Japan. It has a good shot at reaching Pikmin 2 GCN numbers. I very much doubt it has to do huge numbers to break even; this is Nintendo, they don't blow their budget on unsustainably expensive games like much of the rest of the industry.
X and Bayonetta are not in the same position as W101 at all; they don't have its overwhelming problems.
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The Wii benefitted from a 100 million userbase and naturally there's going to be some inflation from a 20-30 million userbase to a 90+ million one. Boom Blox and de Blob and Red Steel and Shaun White are largely IP that have been put on ice, so I'm not sure those are the best examples.
I don't believe Pikmin 3 will sell up to Pikmin 2 and it probably has a much larger budget.
Ditto for X and Bayo 2. Those games are at best going to sell 1 million WW if *everything* goes right for the Wii U from here on out, which is unlikely.
X and Bayo 2 have their own issues ... JRPGs aren't popular anywhere, even in Japan these days anything not named FF/DQ struggles. Bayo 2 is a hardcore action that's pretty weird on absolutely the worst platform for that type of game.
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They show that there is still room for new IPs to be successful though.
Pikmin 3 and X are Nintendo games, so they will not have titanic budgets that require 2 million plus sales to make a profit. That's just not something Nintendo does.
Xenoblade was a JRPG too, and a new IP, and it was able to do 840k on a system that was all but abandoned at the time. X will have the added boost of a highly acclaimed predecessor, as will Bayo 2.
