Why do Nintendo's new Switch IPs get called "failures"?

[TheMisterManGuy]

Louie said:

TheMisterManGuy said:

Really? Ever since Labo was revealed, Nintendo hasn't really given it a massive marketing campaign. Even going into the Vehicle Kit, their marketing was modest at best. So I don't think they ever banked on this thing being an instant mega-hit. Rather, every time Nintendo talks about Labo, they talk about it in long term sales. Their plan is to sell it over time, with sales boosts during holidays and new Kit releases. Even Reggie said that it met their sales expectations. 

I think people were really hyping this up to do Wii Fit/Brain Age style mega numbers instantly, but when that inevitably didn't happen, they claimed it was a failure. Labo's a weird product, so are Nintendo's other new Switch IPs. Even if they're multi-million selling titles, they're still failures for not selling like Mario Odysssey or Smash Ultimate, even though games like those are freak anomalies. 

Yes, really. I listed their marketing efforts in my post and they definitely went all-out for this one. (I have a subscription for "N-Zone", a big german Nintendo Mag and they were invited to a huge event dedicated only to Labo and made it very clear Nintendo was pushing this hard - just another point to show Nintendo thought this would be a huge hit).  The long-term speak is PR talk of course: Labo didn't meet their expectations and so they say it's supposed to sell over the long-term... which it won't. The latest packs didn't sell well and the reason Nintendo didn't put a big marketing push behind those is because they knew Labo didn't sell according to expectations based on the initial Labo games released. 

I really don't think this is the case. Here in North America at least, Nintendo never gave Labo a massive marketing push. It was revealed outside of a Nintendo Direct, and kept as far away from them and E3 as much as possible. Even when Labo did launch, it's marketing hype was minimal, and review copies were mostly sent to tech outlets and not gaming press. The most in terms of big marketing blitz we got was a few pre-launch hands-on events, and a music video by Ariana Grande on Jimmy Fallon, but that's about it. 

I don't really think the long-term sales speak is just PR. They seem serious about this being a long-term product. Reggie even said that it's met their sales expectations. And when they talked about sales increases during the holidays (which did happen BTW, at least in Japan) they never hyped it up to be the hottest new toy this year. In fact, leading up to the holidays, Nintendo still didn't give Labo the massive push. You might say its because the Vehicle Kit didn't do well, but keep in mind, the Vehicle Kit had a massively reduced shipment, so there wasn't a lot to sell to begin with (likely because Nintendo felt that the Vehicle Kit would be more niche than the Variety Kit). We don't have official word from Nintendo about it's Holiday performance yet, so who know what they actually expected. But I don't really buy that they expected this to be an instant mega hit in its first year, all evidence that I saw points to the contrary. 

Last edited by TheMisterManGuy - on 27 December 2018