| firebush03 said: Interesting observation to point out: Among 2017 releases, it was BotW which out-legged Mario Odyssey (despite having had the larger launch). Among 2023 releases, it seems to be Mario Wonder which is out-legging TotK (despite having had the larger launch). Wonder why that is? Maybe the overall gaming market has less of an appetite for massive open world games? Maybe Mario has simply grown more in popularity over the Switch gen — having MK8D, Mario Movie, etc. — than Zelda, hence is better as an evergreen? |
Well Mario Wonder is a brand new Mario game (by which I mean not part of an old series), and previously the Switch had only gotten a WiiU Mario port of Mario.
Meanwhile TotK is a direct sequel to a Zelda that came out on Switch. Given that they both use the same (though altered) map, and yeah probably let's throw in the fact that plenty of people might not be up for another 200+ hr game that is very similar to the previous Zelda on the same system, I think these things can account for Mario Wonder having stronger legs than TotK.
I mean, I bought TotK, but I probably won't even get around to starting it for a couple more years just because taking on another 200+ hour game is just a daunting task as an adult, meanwhile I started playing Mario Wonder the day I bought it.
The most shocking thing is that Mario Wonder didn't skyrocket past NSMBUD. If anything I think that speaks to the fact that gamers are pretty saturated with Mario on Switch after Odyssey, Maker 2, NSMBUD, 3D All-Stars, 3D World, and finally Wonder. But still the fact that Wonder is a "new" Mario experience and only the second one on the system, and the first 2D one, that I guess beats out the fact that TotK is such a direct sequel to BotW. Nintendo probably would have been better off spending all the time making complicated new mechanics in TotK on just crafting a brand new world for it. I think that would have resulted in higher sales, given that BotW is all about exploration. A stronger pitch that I think would have resulted in stronger continued sales for TotK would have been "explore a brand new Zelda world and improvements over BotW gameplay", rather than what they did which was basically "spend another couple hundred hours going over the same world but we made some new areas and there's a amazing building mechanic". New world and improving the formula I think would have produced higher sales than same world with changes plus one crazy new mechanic. In which case maybe TotK would be legging better than Wonder.
Essay Pro