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curl-6 said:
Snoorlax said:

Then why even bring up Zelda if we already knew this? Seriously, your PS2 and FIFA comparisons were already way off to begin with and you're only making your arguments more vague as you go on.

I don't see how passing on a good entry of your favorite game series because it's on a handheld you probably already own is a good reason to pass on it. It only proves that you're not as interested in this series as you've claimed you are. 

I've never said gamers don't support Metroid i said it's fanbase is mostly to blame for it's low sales like most Metroid entries. They always blame Nintendo for not giving us Metroid but when we do get Metroid there loaded with excuses to justify it's low sales. I'm glad you're one of the main ones here to keep proving me right.

A game being gimped by being on obsolete hardware at a time when a vastly superior alternative was available is a perfectly good reason to pass on it. 

If Prime 4 turns out to be superb and still sells poorly, then your argument might hold some water, but for now, your claims are baseless as every Metroid game that has underperformed had clear and obvious reasons for doing so. It's not the fanbase's job to blindly buy every Metroid game Nintendo releases, it's Nintendo's job to convince us why we should, and if they fail in that regard, it's entirely on them.

Me, I'm glad Samus Returns underperformed, it makes me happy to see that Nintendo's choice to put it on the wrong hardware was rightfully punished.

This applies to quite literally all past Nintendo games that were released on handheld systems along side their console counterpart. for every Gameboy there was a Nintendo Entertainment system which could have gotten all the handheld games Nintendo made for GB.

By your logic the 3DS games should have failed because there was the WiiU and now Switch yet most first party games sold better on 3DS than on console.

JWeinCom said:
Snoorlax said:

Then why even bring up Zelda if we already knew this? Seriously, your PS2 and FIFA comparisons were already way off to begin with and you're only making your arguments more vague as you go on.

I don't see how passing on a good entry of your favorite game series because it's on a handheld you probably already own is a good reason to pass on it. It only proves that you're not as interested in this series as you've claimed you are. 

I've never said gamers don't support Metroid i said it's fanbase is mostly to blame for it's low sales like most Metroid entries. They always blame Nintendo for not giving us Metroid but when we do get Metroid there loaded with excuses to justify it's low sales. I'm glad you're one of the main ones here to keep proving me right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Emblem_Gaiden

According to Wikipedia Fire Emblem GAIDEN never released outside of Japan. So, yes Fire Emblem Echoes is a new game in the West.

You can keep comparing it to other games or compare how it sold between regions, targeted age groups, it's ESRB rating, how many languages it supports etc. but in the end it, what really matters are it's lifetime sales which is what this whole thread is about. It sold less than 500k and this is a series which has been struggling for years, whereas the Fire Emblem games sold combined over 4 million on the 3DS alone.

Both Metroid Fusion and Zero Missions launched post Gamecube and one sold over a million and the other over 800k.

Just because other games equally underperformed doesn't somehow make SR's sales fine or acceptable especially not if this game is the lowest selling of the bunch. Super Metroid wasn't a success when it initially launched during the final years of Super Nintendo what happened after that? Did Nintendo take that as an "Oh well, it must be us" Nope. No more Metroid for 8 years.  

 

"Both Metroid Fusion and Zero Missions launched post Gamecube and one sold over a million and the other over 800k."

Uhhhhhh… what?  Are you suggesting that the Gamecube was a successor to the GBA?  Fusion, an original game released in 2002, sold 1.76 million copies.  Zero Mission, a remake released about 10 months before the DS, sold about half that.  It's almost like remakes releasing late in a console's lifespan don't sell as well isn't it?  And Zero Mission was amazing. 

Of course, compounding the flaw in this argument is that VGChartz numbers get really shaky going that far back, that GBA was still more relevant at the time than the 3DS is now, and that Samus Returns has digital sales, which tend to be between 10-20% of retail sales, and that Samus Returns is still on store shelves and can potentially sell some more copies. 

Honestly, this is so obviously flawed it makes it seem like you're just trolling.

"Just because other games equally underperformed doesn't somehow make SR's sales fine or acceptable especially not if this game is the lowest selling of the bunch. Super Metroid wasn't a success when it initially launched during the final years of Super Nintendo what happened after that? Did Nintendo take that as an "Oh well, it must be us" Nope. No more Metroid for 8 years. "

According to Sakamoto: I was actually thinking about the possibility of making a Metroid game for N64 but I felt that I shouldn’t be the one making the game. When I held the N64 controller in my hands I just couldn’t imagine how it could be used to move Samus around. So for me it was just too early to personally make a 3D Metroid at that time. Also, I know this is isn’t a direct answer to your question but Nintendo at that time approached another company and asked them if they would make an N64 version of Metroid and their response was that no, they could not. They turned it down, saying that unfortunately they didn’t have the confidence to create an N64 Metroid game that could compare favourably with Super Metroid. That’s something I take as a compliment to what we achieved with Super Metroid.

So, it seems that the lack of a Metroid 64 has nothing to do with sales of Super Metroid.  Which with sales closing in on 1 and a half million sold pretty well in my estimation.  Sometimes, projects just don't pan out.  

By the way, the remake of Mario and Luigi sold only about 35k more copies, and they're already developing another one.  Do you think 35,000 sales is the difference between "greenlight a sequel immediately" and "let's never make one again"?

"You can keep comparing it to other games or compare how it sold between regions, targeted age groups, it's ESRB rating, how many languages it supports etc. but in the end it, what really matters are it's lifetime sales which is what this whole thread is about. It sold less than 500k and this is a series which has been struggling for years, whereas the Fire Emblem games sold combined over 4 million on the 3DS alone."

Yes... I can.  Because that's how people make informed conclusions.  By looking at the available data and making decisions based on that.  

You're saying the game underperformed... by what standard?  Because a million and 500k are nice round numbers?  Because you personally think it should have sold more?

You say it underperformed.  I said it didn't.  How do we resolve this disagreement?  I say that comparing it to other similar games is the best way to figure out what reasonable expectations are.  Do you have a better method?


Uhhh....No? and Uhhh.... Does it matter? 2D games were also availabe on the Gamecube like Four Swords, MegaMan and such so why would Metroid fans back then waste their time on Fusion and Zero Mission if they could have gotten the game on a superior console with a 3D Metroid game (Prime 1 and 2). You can keep pushing the remakes don't sell narritive all you like but even back then most young gamers had never played the original Metroid and even those who did, prefer Zero Mission over the original. There is more demand for remakes and remasters these days than actual new games so you need to take that argument somewhere else.

The Switch is a console first and a handheld second and it's not the successor to 3DS but to WiiU if you'd watch Nintendo's Directs you'd see that Nintendo promotes games for both Switch and 3DS side by side why would they want to compete against their own console. We've yet to see if Ninty decides to end their handheld line of systems with Switch or come up with a 4DS. It has worked for them all these years they want to keep dominating the handheld market.

An interview doesn't change the fact that the game originally underperformed on it's release date, once again, you can fall back and say it released during the end of the Super Nintendo but by that time a new IP came out which became one of the best selling Super Nintendo games ever DKC and it got 2 sequels on the same system. The fact that Metroid Prime was outsourced to a western studio says enough about Metroid as a failing franchise. It's thanks to Miyamoto that we got the Prime games cause not even it's co-creator Sakamoto cared for it.

Yes, you're comparing it to other games that sold relatively bad cause according to you that makes SR's sales not bad anymore but you've missed the fact that it's the worst selling of the bunch and besides that it only outsold Fed Force in it's own series' history so this means that it's one of the lowest selling Metroid games ever. I mean, i get it, you think selling below 500k is a still a good number just cause it's a remake on a handheld system... let's forget the fact that it had a 3 year long development and got great scores which means lots of care went into it. Well, i'm positive most people here can agree that it failed even VGchartz awarded SR as the number 1 good game nobody played last year so i don't know what else you need to understand that it failed. Mediocrity is okay for you, not for the rest of us.

spemanig said:

RolStoppable said: 

If you aren't interested in the quality of the game, then you won't be able to make a proper sales analysis and subsequently fail to draw valid conclusions.

What I am seeing in this thread is very similar to the aftermath of Skyward Sword sales on Wii where people were in plain denial regarding the question if Skyward Sword is a good Zelda game. Instead they came up with excuses such as "Wii audience are primarily non-gamers", "People have moved on from Wii" and "SS required Motion Plus to play, so the userbase it could sell to was limited". Today Skyward Sword isn't look at in the same way anymore, because Breath of the Wild happened, so Zelda fans are more open to the idea that SS wasn't all that great.

What we have here with Samus Returns is a Metroid fanbase that has been starved for a new game, so they'll defend an at best decent game as if it were a great entry in a long-running series. But the Metroid fanbase that is usually not posting on gaming forums looks at Samus Returns as a questionable game with melee moves and a lack of d-pad controls, developed by the same studio that already killed the Castlevania series. Their voices are not heard here, but it shows in sales, or rather the lack thereof. Metroid fans who own a 3DS have skipped Samus Returns, just like a lot of Metroid fans skipped Other M despite owning a Wii.

Or put another way, does anyone here honestly want Mercury Steam to get another shot at making a Metroid game? Those guys couldn't even manage to make Metroid music sound good despite having the benefit of being able to fall back on lots of classic themes.


Oh, they do post on forums. They've just gotten busy this past year and only have the time to lurk and sub their sworn frenemy and drag SR briefly.

Yup, that's all they do... Post on forums and don't buy the games reminds me of the WiiU days.

Baddman said:
RolStoppable said:
But the Metroid fanbase that is usually not posting on gaming forums looks at Samus Returns as a questionable game with melee moves and a lack of d-pad controls, developed by the same studio that already killed the Castlevania series. T

..Wait no D-pad Controls....well confirmed I dodged a bullet I would've hated this game 

It's still a great game and better than the original.

Last edited by Snoorlax - on 08 October 2018