| the_dengle said: I like reading excuses for why the new releases on a system with 60 million users can't keep up with a launch title on a supply constrained system. PS4 owners have so many new games to choose from that they're still buying GTAV. Couldn't possibly be that it's just a popular game that would sell well on any system (and in fact has sold quite well on the dead and buried Wii U). Related question: why are PS4 versions of multiplatform games outselling XBO versions considering the XBO's relatively dry release schedule? |
Why does it have to be one or the other? Zelda can benefit from both pure popularity and a small library. The two aren't mutually exclusive, in-fact they likley compound each other.
The effect of a large library is made clear with every new chart. This week for instance the PS4 makes up 6 of the top 10 games (Tom Clancy, Yooka-Laylee, Horizon, UC4, Persona 5, and GTA5), and those 6 games combined represent only 27% of PS4 software sales. If we extend our view to the top 30 (the sales data limit on the charts), it makes up 19 of the games on that list and they still only represent 55%. That its total can be made up of so many games is indicative of having a large library, and that so many can sell 10s of thousands a week points to the effect of a large install base. Even GTA5, which is hardly representative of the average game, 'only' manages to be a tiny fraction of weekly sales.
I agree some people take the argument way too far (being dismissive of Zelda's sales because of any single variable is just outright silly; it's an undeniable success), and for all we know Zelda might have had even better sales with different variables, but ultimately library is still a reverent factor. That some people exaggerate its effect doesn't change that.
