By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo - Innovation in software is the source of Nintendo's decline

LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011
RolStoppable said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
RolStoppable said:

Screenshots (which were also on the back of the packaging) and videos showing a first person perspective and something that is easily identified as some sort of gun. Heck, to this very day some people still call Metroid Prime a FPS. They obviously haven't played any of the games, but it shows how easy it is to confuse the series with a FPS.

That just means some classify it as that genre, not that perhaps a million or more bought it expecting another Halo or Goldeney.

Plus you obviously didn't notice how much disappointment was expressed over Prime 2, which can hurt word of mouth, while Prime 1 did NOT have loads of complaints that it wasn't another Halo or Goldeneye. Some wished it controlled more like those, but they did not claim the game sucked because of that.

It's certainly not a million or more as the initial sales of Metroid Prime were less than that. I would say that the hype surrounding the game got more people to buy the game than the misbelief that it could be a FPS. In either case, many people who bought Metroid Prime (including those who knew what the game was about) ended up not liking the game all that much, because otherwise Echoes would have opened with much higher numbers and bad word of mouth can't hurt initial sales of a game, because bad word of mouth didn't exist at that point.

More than one million people had bought Metroid Prime in the USA when Echoes launched to sales of a good 200k in November 2004. The main point I am making is that Metroid Prime's sales were inflated by several factors, because how else do you explain such a weak start for the sequel's sales? All due to waning interest in the Gamecube itself? More like many Metroid Prime owners felt that this wasn't the type of game they like (which they couldn't know before they purchased it as MP was the first of its kind).


You're claiming sales of Prime 1 past the initial one somehow didn't hurt legs but did hurt the sequel? Lack of legs hurts the first game. Plus what you claim would have had a huge backlash, and it just got the typical fanboy whining.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

Around the Network
LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011
RolStoppable said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
RolStoppable said:

It's certainly not a million or more as the initial sales of Metroid Prime were less than that. I would say that the hype surrounding the game got more people to buy the game than the misbelief that it could be a FPS. In either case, many people who bought Metroid Prime (including those who knew what the game was about) ended up not liking the game all that much, because otherwise Echoes would have opened with much higher numbers and bad word of mouth can't hurt initial sales of a game, because bad word of mouth didn't exist at that point.

More than one million people had bought Metroid Prime in the USA when Echoes launched to sales of a good 200k in November 2004. The main point I am making is that Metroid Prime's sales were inflated by several factors, because how else do you explain such a weak start for the sequel's sales? All due to waning interest in the Gamecube itself? More like many Metroid Prime owners felt that this wasn't the type of game they like (which they couldn't know before they purchased it as MP was the first of its kind).

You're claiming sales of Prime 1 past the initial one somehow didn't hurt legs but did hurt the sequel? Lack of legs hurts the first game. Plus what you claim would have had a huge backlash, and it just got the typical fanboy whining.

What? I don't even know what you mean by that.

Besides, most people don't go on message boards to complain about games they bought. If they don't like it, they simply don't buy the sequel.


No, if they don't like it, they stop the FIRST GAME from being bought after the marketing and hype dies down.

You don't have any proof of this. You just keep insisting that is so, and ignoring the possibility that the second game could just be disapponting for some.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011
RolStoppable said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
RolStoppable said:

What? I don't even know what you mean by that.

Besides, most people don't go on message boards to complain about games they bought. If they don't like it, they simply don't buy the sequel.

No, if they don't like it, they stop the FIRST GAME from being bought after the marketing and hype dies down.

You don't have any proof of this. You just keep insisting that is so, and ignoring the possibility that the second game could just be disapponting for some.

Echoes being disapointing or not doesn't really matter for its initial sales.


Where did I wrote "initial" in relation to Echoes's sales?



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011
RolStoppable said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
RolStoppable said:

Echoes being disapointing or not doesn't really matter for its initial sales.

Where did I wrote "initial" in relation to Echoes's sales?

Nowhere, because you keep ignoring what I am trying to say. Here it is again in short:

Metroid Prime's sales are inflated, the series normally can't sell that amount.(1) The first game benefited from hype supported by glowing reviews and being the first Metroid game in 3D(2) and the misbelief that it is a FPS game(3), all to varying degrees. The sequels made no glaring mistakes(4), but delivered pretty much exactly what they should have. Ergo, the ceiling for Metroid Prime sales is around the 1.5m mark and the first game is an outlier due to some beneficial factors that can never be replicated again. Echoes and Corruption didn't fail in any way, they achieved the best Metroid Prime sequels possibly could.


1. That still pretends that the sequels couldn't have something that turned people off.

2. No, a lot of those people actually got upset by the thought of how it was being done. It was actually the word of mouth that assuaged those fears.

3. You STILL have not shown any proof of that, just insistance that it is so. That is not an argument.

4. Bull. You really are refusing to admit even the possiblity the sequels turned people off. The dark world was a pain to travel between in the second game, the content made much (not all) of it feel like an expansion pack, and the multiplayer got a lot of complaints over how it was implemented. The third game dragged down the gameplay with long cut scenes, and planetary travel made the linearity feel even more arbitrary, not to mention the ship scenes just seemed like fancy loading screens.

BTW, I liked those games, but I admit those are things that would make other people turn away from the games.

You're basically basing this on cognative dissonance over how people thought about the sequels.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011
RolStoppable said:
LordTheNightKnight said:

1. That still pretends that the sequels couldn't have something that turned people off.

2. No, a lot of those people actually got upset by the thought of how it was being done. It was actually the word of mouth that assuaged those fears.

3. You STILL have not shown any proof of that, just insistance that it is so. That is not an argument.

4. Bull. You really are refusing to admit even the possiblity the sequels turned people off. The dark world was a pain to travel between in the second game, the content made much (not all) of it feel like an expansion pack, and the multiplayer got a lot of complaints over how it was implemented. The third game dragged down the gameplay with long cut scenes, and planetary travel made the linearity feel even more arbitrary, not to mention the ship scenes just seemed like fancy loading screens.

BTW, I liked those games, but I admit those are things that would make other people turn away from the games.

You're basically basing this on cognative dissonance over how people thought about the sequels.

This is just going in circles. Unless you offer your own theory that includes the sales history of Metroid Prime and Echoes and offer an explanation for the difference between their initial sales (after all, sequels usually open with bigger or similar sales), there's no reason for me to reply to you again.


I did offer a theory. It's one thing to disagree with Echoes turning people off. It's another to not acknowledge I even wrote that.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

Around the Network
LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011
RolStoppable said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
RolStoppable said:

This is just going in circles. Unless you offer your own theory that includes the sales history of Metroid Prime and Echoes and offer an explanation for the difference between their initial sales (after all, sequels usually open with bigger or similar sales), there's no reason for me to reply to you again.

I did offer a theory. It's one thing to disagree with Echoes turning people off. It's another to not acknowledge I even wrote that.

I acknowledge it, I just think it's stupid. People being turned off before the game is released, doesn't make sense unless there were drastic changes to the formula made. But Echoes is a straight sequel and got favorable reviews all around, I think it got a 91 on Metacritic. What exactly could have turned so many Metroid Prime fans off?


I'm not talking about the initial sales. I'm talking about lack of legs, which we can see in the Americas with 2 and fully with 3. They both had just moderate legs. The kind that say people didn't think they were outright bad, but something was missing that kept the legs from being stronger. All the Call of Duty games on the Wii opened smaller, but have sold about the same, which indicates smaller initial awreness, but better word of mouth.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011
RolStoppable said:
LordTheNightKnight said:
RolStoppable said:

I acknowledge it, I just think it's stupid. People being turned off before the game is released, doesn't make sense unless there were drastic changes to the formula made. But Echoes is a straight sequel and got favorable reviews all around, I think it got a 91 on Metacritic. What exactly could have turned so many Metroid Prime fans off?

I'm not talking about the initial sales. I'm talking about lack of legs, which we can see in the Americas with 2 and fully with 3. They both had just moderate legs. The kind that say people didn't think they were outright bad, but something was missing that kept the legs from being stronger. All the Call of Duty games on the Wii opened smaller, but have sold about the same, which indicates smaller initial awreness, but better word of mouth.

Initial sales were worse too though.

As for the legs: Player's Choice and bundles vs. no Player's Choice and no bundles. Maybe Echoes had a PC release, but at that time the Gamecube was already a dead man walking.


Player's choice doesn't inflate sales, because people still have to want the game, just at a lower price. Bundles apply to, since people have the choice to buy it without the bundle.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

LordTheNightKnight on 28 February 2011

BTW, it says here that the first game sold 250,000 in the first week in Americas. It has nearly two million there so far, which is 8x the first week, which is a sign of legs, which lasts past any hype, even about being the first game in 3D. And don't try that stuff about bundles and releases, as those still require willful buying of the game (as in people had a choice to buy the GC alone).



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

Darc Requiem on 28 February 2011
Scoobes said:

Why didn't you mention Starfox?


"Can't let you do that Scoobes!"



Chairman-Mao on 28 February 2011
RCTjunkie said:

By your logic, what do you think the sales of Skyward Sword with its new control scheme will be? O_O


Probably negative sales. More returns than purchases.