| seiya19 said: It certainly wasn't my intention to criticize general speculation regarding 3DS lineup or from any other platform. Quite the contrary, actually, since I enjoy it too. My point was about the terms in which it was being discussed, that's all. It just doesn't seem reasonable to me to make comments like "there's hardly anything big for 2014 so far" which don't take into account the time we're in and the situation of the market, or either minimize or dismiss founded speculation regarding any "big" title that might get announced. How can we discuss the prospects of 3DS 2014 lineup and sales while limiting the discussion to only the few confirmed titles we know so far ? We know for a fact that there's going to be far more than that, and yet, we don't acknowledge it somehow ? |
I'm going to divide your post up into sections if that's okay since we're both saying so much :P
The point about saying "so far" is that anything beyond that is specuation. I could go into the recent "Vita to be the best-selling handheld in 2014" thread and say that I agreed because Vita could get a Final Fantasy; Metal Gear Solid; Resident Evil; Grand Theft Auto; Dragon Quest & Monster Hunter in 2014 because they "might" get announced as we know for a fact that the games announced so far for Vita aren't all that's coming. Which is true. Of course it's nigh-on impossibly unlikely, but that doesn't make it actually impossible. However, I don't personally see the point in doing that and instead I base my discussion on what's announced so far because that is the metric we have to measure things on. If new games get announced, we reassess the situation from there. It's something I'd extend to any platform and it's not just localized to the 3DS.
| seiya19 said: I also disagree with how those potential million sellers mentioned before get minimized for not being as big as the rest, specially when you do mention Tales and Persona as relevant in PS3's case... Even taking into account the differences between the platforms, it doesn't make sense to me. Tales of Zestiria will be the 5th Tales game on PS3 (3rd fully new), yet it matters as much or more for the platform than the first Kirby for 3DS does ? And how much do you expect Persona 5 to sell ? Again, I do get the fact that these platforms are at different points of their cycles and the differences in expectations, but the difference in expected sales and impact makes up for it here, in my opinion at least. |
Yeah, you seem to have missed my point here. I wasn't suggesting that Tales & Persona are relevant to increasing PS3 sales. I said that PS3 will "last another year" thanks to them. As in, won't be taken off shelves. Won't be discontinued. Not that they're going to be magical hardware pushers in the system's 8th year on the market.
| seiya19 said: From Nintendo's point of view, all they need is to have 5 years of "strong" hardware sales, leaving them enough time to release a successor at year 6 or 7, while the older platform runs its course. And in order to do that, they don't need several "mega" hits (Pokémon/Mario/Dragon Quest/etc level) each year. They just need enough in the first few years to push the hardware, and then act as "pillars" to sustain the platform while other relevant, yet less popular software shows up. Besides, there's nothing stopping Nintendo from releasing sequels to popular games if needed, and handheld 3rd party support is for them, unlike with home consoles, sustainable. |
Yeah, see, this is the part I don't get. I do understand that if you get out software with legs early on they prop up other software that comes later. But that doesn't seem to have happened this year. 2013 has been riding off the incredible success of Animal Crossing and has Mario Kart; 3D Land; NSMB doing the whole "legs" thing and then added Tomodachi; Monster Hunter & Pokemon to its collection, yet hardware is down for the year. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the purpose of what a pillar is supposed to do, but I thought hardware sales would be sustained for the year and then Pokemon & Monster Hunter would push it to a traditional third-year-high, especially since both of those IP's are 5m+ sellers in Japan. Certainly, my whole confusion this time is that I thought 2013 would be a "peak" year for the 3DS given previous Nintendo hardware trajectory, but I dunno. Perhaps that was an unreasonable expectation.
| seiya19 said: What about a hypothetical Rhythm Heaven (1.93m on DS) ? And why not Mario Party ? (1.98m on DS) Those could end up being as big as Smash 3DS... |
No idea to be honest. Must admit I've never heard of Rhythm Heaven and I didn't know another one was coming to 3DS, so perhaps that will be a strong hardware mover indeed. Mario Party I was basing off the neutered reception in the USA (down about 70% FW despite releasing at exactly the same time of year as Mario Party DS) to suggest that maybe this is a case of Nintendogs sales dropoff rather than Animal Crossing sales momentum, but who knows. I'm sure it'll sell well.
