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contestgamer on 25 May 2017
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TruckOSaurus said:
contestgamer said:

 

Whether its multi platform or not is irrelevant to the discussion of whether it is niche or not. Multi platform games obviously have a much better chance of becoming mainstream since they reach a broader audience.   Zelda cant reach a multi platform audience so it is at a disadvantage, but we dont measure mainstream or niche by the size of the platform, we measure it by the size of the market. Zelda is niche by that measure. You cant be mass market selling 4-7 million units when GTA 5 sells 80, mario kart 7 30 and even Witcher 3 selling 10+ when it's an almost identical game. Uncharted is niche - it's a great franchise, but it gets crushed by real mainstream franchises like COD and GTA in terms of sales. again, its disadvantaged by being on one platform but that' the way it is. You need to hit about 10 million to be mainstream now.

I think this whole debate rests on the fact that you're using your own version of the word niche which in reality doesn't fit any of the franchises mentionned. The best definition of niche that I found is in French but I'll translate it best I can to English : 

Un marché de niche est un marché très étroit correspondant à un produit ou service très spécialisé. Le fait de viser un marché de niche permet souvent d’être confronté à une concurrence moins forte, mais les volumes de ventes potentiels sont naturellement plus faibles.

In English: A niche market is a very narrow market that corresponds to a very specialized product or service. Targetting a niche market often allows to face weaker competition but the potential volume of sales in naturally smaller.

Zelda, Uncharted, God Of War, Horizon, any franchise that sells multiple million copies doesn't fit this definition. I guess your intention is to differenciate these series with the franchises that sells over 10m copies like CoD, Mario Kart and GTA and I agree with you that there should be two different terms for each category but "niche" is not the term you're looking for.

OK, fair enough. So then what term should we use that deliniates between a Zelda sized brand and a GTA sized brand? Blockbuster vs not?