Agreed it is blown out of proportion.  Most those launch games have significantly dropped in price (in Aus anyway) .

As I said in another thread  a month or so ago. The real test begins soon, when Rayman, Watch Dogs etc come out. Assuming these games don't bomb on metacritic, they should sell well. This is when fans have no excuse as these launch at the same time as other versions. NIntendo fans will need to vote with their wallets and not only talk about support.

When have third parties ever needed a valid excuse to not support a Nintendo platform? There's always the fallbacks of "we can't compete with Nintendo, they're just too good" and "Nintendo system owners only buy Nintendo games" and "There's no market for our games on Nintendo systems - just look at how badly our crappy spinoffs performed when we didn't advertise them and didn't support them in any other way!".

Also, I think Rayman Legends will end up selling fairly well, likely to break 1 million lifetime I think. If they hadn't screwed with it through the delay (the multiplat decision had no effect, just the massive delay), it could have been the first third-party system-seller, and managed something like 5 million, but it's still going to see healthy sales, purely thanks to how dedicated Michel Ancel is to the consumer.

either way everything will look similar on the 8th gen due to diminishing returns. ps360 versions will be noticeable inferior but Wii U won't, simple as that.

When have third parties ever needed a valid excuse to not support a Nintendo platform? There's always the fallbacks of "we can't compete with Nintendo, they're just too good" and "Nintendo system owners only buy Nintendo games" and "There's no market for our games on Nintendo systems - just look at how badly our crappy spinoffs performed when we didn't advertise them and didn't support them in any other way!".

Also, I think Rayman Legends will end up selling fairly well, likely to break 1 million lifetime I think. If they hadn't screwed with it through the delay (the multiplat decision had no effect, just the massive delay), it could have been the first third-party system-seller, and managed something like 5 million, but it's still going to see healthy sales, purely thanks to how dedicated Michel Ancel is to the consumer.

"What, Mario Kart? No, it's a 10 million seller, tops. You're insane if you think it'll ever sell 30 million copies!" - early 2005

"Call of Duty? A minor war franchise, sells maybe 3 million on a platform, maximum. You really think yet another tired old war shooter is going to set the charts alight?" - mid-2007

"Monster Hunter? On the PSP? Why would a franchise that has never sold better than 600,000 do well on the PSP?" - early 2005

All it takes is one game. Rayman was getting heaps of positive press. People were describing it as their must-have game. On a system that has relatively few people owning it right now, it was able to create a movement larger than most of the big ones (like Project Rainfall) spontaneously in reaction to the delay. People were getting seriously excited. About Rayman.

The original Rayman was able to sell 3 million copies. All of the other Rayman games since, until Origins, have been 3D, as far as I can see. Origins returned to Rayman's roots, and sold over 2 million copies across the various platforms.

Now, take a strong game that is getting high praise, add the fact that it's got practically no competition on a platform yearning for new games, in the same vein but distinct from the best-selling title on that platform, and factor in that it's pretty much the first title to make really strong use of the new controller. Then consider what happens when people buying a Wii U at the end of this year then go looking for quality titles to add to their collection. 5 million total wasn't at all unreasonable, in my view. Across all platforms, though, I expect no more than 2.5 million.

Also notice that I said "something like" - meaning, I was giving a very rough guess. 3 million is probably the more likely number that it would have managed. I wasn't intending it to be a prediction, just a ballpark description meaning "well over 1 million, probably a record number for the franchise".