The "I don't care about this game, so it doesn't matter" trick

[misterd]

When comparing sales of one game to the next, you have to remember that the installed user base makes 1:1 comparisons difficult. Relatively few people buy a system for 1 game; rather, the purchase is made because there is a wide variety of titles that appeal to the gamer.

Now, if we look at Mario Sunshine, the least well received "pure" Mario title (ie not Sports/Kart/Party etc) that I can recall, it sold roughly 6 million copies, meaning there was roughly 1 sold for every 4 GameCubes, or a 25% attach rate.

If we look at GTA, which was the biggest series for PS2's, they sold in the neighborhood of 11-13 million each. That's an attach rate of roughly 10%.

Of course this ignores several factors.

First, obviously a large percentage of Cube buyers were Nintendo fanatics. If the Cube had PS3 sales, I don't believe that the total number of fanatics would have changed much, so you can't say that the 25% rate would have continued. It is, however, hard to see the total drop below 10%.

Secondly, GTA had a restricted rating, which could well have impacted sales. Whether that impact was greater or less than the impact of SMS's "kiddie" image is impossible to determine.

Thirdly there was the buzz. While both GTA and SMS had good reviews, GTA was new and without question the hottest thing on consoles last gen. The controversy it generated no doubt generated huge amounts of free publicity. SMS, on the other hand, had a positively absurd advertising campaign (http://youtube.com/watch?v=lZcu6pDZmrg), and was widely criticized by gamers for failing to match Mario 64's innovation.