By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
wombat123 on 14 February 2016
Edit Thread
zorg1000 said:
wombat123 said:

I personally think that the Gamecube/GBA is a better indicator of Nintendo's current audience than the Wii/DS since it's obvious the casual audience did not migrate to the Wii U or 3DS.   I'd say about 50-60% of DS and Wii owners fall into that casual category and Nintendo themselves have said that they're done with the casual audience after they left them high and dry.  Because of that, it's kind of hard to use Wii attach rates as an indicator of how a certain series would sell on the Wii U or future Nintendo platforms.  I mean, look at Xenoblade X.  Some people here love to call it niche but It's probably going to sell around the same amount as the original on a userbase a seventh the size of the Wii while Tropical Freeze is going to probably sell 1/3 or 1/4 the amount as DKCR on that same small userbase.

If u want to use GC than there is no direct comparison since all DK got was Bongo based spinoffs. Look at any system that got mainline entries of both series.

SNES-DKC 1-3 vs Super Metroid

GB-Donkey Kong Land 1-3 vs Metroid II

GBA-DKC ports vs Fusion/Zero Mission

Wii-DKC Returns vs Prime 3/Other M

Another statistic is that Donkey Kong has sold over 3 million on 7 separate occasions, Metroid has never sold over 3 million. There really is no denying DK is more popular than Metroid.

My personal contention isn't on whether or not 2D Donkey Kong can sell more units (though I do think Metroid Prime is a better system seller than 2D Donkey Kong).  My contention is on people calling Metroid Prime niche, how 2D Donkey Kong's current assumed popularity isn't somewhat inflated and how its sales equates to console sales.  First off, I don't think modern 2D Donkey Kong is the juggernaut that it used to be during the 16-bit era when 2D platformers were still considered system sellers and the SNES releases had a great selling point of cutting edge graphics that the game boy releases were able to piggyback off of nor do I think it's the 6m+ seller that the Wii made it out to be when over half of its install base were probably casuals who tend to boost the sales of 2D platformers.  I personally think DKCR would have sold  5-5.5m and MP3 would have sold between 2-3m if the Wii's 100m+ didn't significantly consist of the casual crowd.  In my opinion, in today's market, Nintendo 2D games are almost guaranteed to sell well but they're also guaranteed not to sell many consoles on their own and are more dependent on install base numbers than 3D games.

A point that a lot of people don't take into consideration when comparing Metroid Prime 3 to DKCR on the Wii is that at the time, the Metroid series was suffering from some franchise fatigue  (Prime 1, 2, 3, Hunters, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission all released within a five year span of 2002-2007) while Donkey Kong had not received a significant series entry since Jungle Beat when DKCR released in late 2010 (unless you want to count DK Barrel Blast and Jungle Climber -- both of which sold poorly compared to Donkey Kong's past titles).  And if you want to consider Jungle Beat a minor spinoff, then Donkey Kong had not received a proper series entry since DK64.  Point is that by the time DKCR released, people were ready and willing to buy a new, proper, Donkey Kong game while a lot of people were probably looking at Metroid Prime 3 and going "another Metroid game?".

Now, do I think Donkey Kong as a franchise can sell more copies than Metroid?  Sure, but that's mostly because Donkey Kong has the advantage of a console audience that's almost tailored for it.  Do I think modern 2D Donkey Kong can sell more consoles than Metroid Prime?  No -- I don't think 2D platformers in general can sell consoles like 3D games can in today's market.  That being said, I don't think Donkey Kong nor Metroid can handle regular entries that are the same genre and spaced too closely together because each are more susceptible to franchise fatigue than other, larger Nintendo franchises.

As to why I don't think Metroid is niche; it's because I think franchises that can regularly sell around or above 1m -- minimum --  while being platform exclusive aren't niche titles.