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Kyuu on 05 May 2026
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Wyrdness said:
Kyuu said:

As a game series, Pokemon may be a bigger system seller than MK8. Early on, BotW was a huge PR point for the Switch and thee game to get, but that quickly changed, and its attach rate was ultimately in the low 20%.

The theory that BotW sold more systems than any other game isn't really backed by anything. Millions of people who bought the game at launch were going to get a Switch anyway, if not at launch then sometime later.

It's bizarre how many people undersell Mario Kart. Some even downplay MK9's ability to sell Switch 2's.

BOTW is the only game to at one point have more than a 100% attach rate on a platform, this was in the first four months of the S1's launch, nothing screams system seller more than that as people were buying the game even before they could get the platform due to shortages and mind you the S1 had sold around 5m at that point so the game had already passed the then average sales range for the franchise while achieving that. Even with the drop in attach rate later on 20% on a 155m userbase still says system seller as those are huge numbers.

Pokemon as a franchise is a bigger system seller however BOTW in itself can be said to be on par after all it has outsold every Pokemon game highlighting it was still thee game to get years later only three games have outsold it on the platform.

Pokemon is near annual, I think you'll agree that individual game comparison to BotW doesn't quite represent each title's significance. It'd be like arguging GTA is several times bigger than CoD because GTA5 will over 250 million lifetime vs CoD's average 30-35 million (and like 15-20 million on Playstation).

BotW was definitely a big deal that contributed to Switch's success, it's foolish to argue otherwise. But it wasn't bigger than MK8D or Animal Crossing. It's also safe to say that it's the kind of game that appeals to consumers outside Nintendo's typical fanbase, who will not necessarily spend much time or money on the ecosystem. I neither played it nor bought a Switch for it, but I did buy Tears of the Kingdom day 1 and played it on sister's Switch.

Core gamers tend to oversell Zelda's impact and undersell Mario Kart's.

Last edited by Kyuu - on 05 May 2026