AngryLittleAlchemist said:
No they weren't. Nintendo make 3D Mario more like 2D Mario because they had to showcase a 3D Mario game that worked and played well on a handheld. They mostly made 3D World for the pun and lack of creativity. Super Mario Land ---> Super Mario World , Super Mario 3D Land ---> Super Mario 3D World https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/software/3ds.html All the recent 2D Mario's sold pretty "meh". New Super Mario Bros. U sold 5.7 Million. Super Mario 3D World sold 5.65 mil. No matter how much you want to say "it's cause it's like 2D Mario!" that was pretty unprecedented for a 2D Mario game compared to a 3D one. The only reason New Bros U even outsold World is because it was out since the system launched. These are official Nintendo numbers, by the way. Super Mario 3D Land sold 11.33 mil. New Super Mario Bros. 2 sold 11.44 mil. The gap is not only getting smaller, but will probably start skewing to 3D Mario. Mario Maker sold 3.9 mil. Keep in mind pretty much none of those except *maaaaaaaaybe* New Super Mario Bros 2, were even system sellers, and even that is debatable. It required big 3D titles to push hardware. 2D Mario just sells software, it's more like a game series you release because it's easy money. Not because it sells units. |
Sorry even Nintendo disagrees with your statement on why they made 3D mario more like 2D mario. Here is an entire article on that very subject.
If you do not want to read the whole thing here are some parts of the article.
Fast forward to late 2011, and Iwata’s opinion on Super Mario 64 would remain pretty much the same.
“Super Mario 64, which Koizumi-san was a part of the development team, was a game that was praised highly. But at the same time, it created a group of players that felt 3D games were too difficult for them,” said Satoru Iwata. Later in the interview, Iwata adds the following, “Wandering all around provides a lot of freedom but carries with it the problem of not knowing where to go and getting lost. In a 2D Super Mario game, you just keep going toward the right and the goal pole is sure to be there. You don’t have to worry about whether you should keep heading in a certain direction.”
“[Super Mario Sunshine] is an authentic sequel to Super Mario 64. I regret this somewhat — not because of the quality of Super Mario Sunshine, but rather because this Mario game may not attract players who are returning to gaming after some time.” said Miyamoto.
Miyamoto continued, “One thing that has hurt the Mario games…Taking them into 3D, while it has expanded the worlds, has shrunk the user base. By going into 3D, the games have become more complicated. Before that, the Mario games were the type of thing that anybody could pick up and play very easily. By going into the 3D world, we have limited who that game is accessible to. After Super Mario 64, making a game that those 3D Mario fans can enjoy further requires shrinking the audience even more because you need to go more in depth. What we did with Mario Sunshine to make it more accessible is that we tried to create it so that you could control the camera any way that you wanted it. That was how we started development on the game.”
Koichi Hayashida would explain in an Iwata Asks, “I think there is a missing link between 2D and 3D Super Mario. To go back in the history of Super Mario, I feel like there is a chasm between Super Mario World and Super Mario 64. I wanted to make something that would bridge that gulf, and what did that was the goal pole.” He further added, “…we started to think about “how we can establish the game world” as we apply the original 2D Super Mario rules for 3D. In other words, we tried to imagine how we should make the courses.”
“I analyzed Miyamoto-san’s way of making games and tried to make Super Mario 3D Land the way he made 2D games,” said Hayashida.
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Also I wouldn't call the NSMB entries for the Wii U and 3DS as evidence for selling "meh" sales. The 3DS game had questionable quality and was more of an expansion pack to the last game. Also The Wii U and 3DS 2D mario games released months from each other.
Also saying 2D Mario is not a system seller? Are you kidding me? NSMBWiiU was a launch title that helped cause the Wii U to sell 25% of it lifetime sales in its first four and a half months. It was probably the only thing that kept the Wii U from bombing at launch. Here is another one but for the Wii. In 2009 the Wii sales were down 40% between March and Spetember. However suddenly in the Holiday of 2009 when NSMBWii came out the Wii broke RECORDS in places like the U.S. But obviously the 2D Mario games were not system sellers. Also 1st quarter sales for 2010 were higher than 1st quarter sales in 2009. Now here the last one for the DS. In early 2006 the PSP was outselling the DS in America. However when NSMB and Brain Age 2 came out the sales went up 354% YOY.
Also look at the sales data. No 3D Mario game has outsold any of the NES or SNES ones.
