Amazing Wii U Numbers,Monster 3DS . Nintendo is playin hard

Don't you think it's a bit ridiculous to make this kind of call so early, use an interpretation of "big" that only a handful of IPs have ever been able to achieve, dismiss founded speculation regarding a few of said IPs, and criticize the result ?. The standards become so high that no platform could ever reach them...

If we talk about million sellers, Mario Party: Island Tour, Dragon Quest Monsters 2 and Kirby Triple Deluxe can very well get there. Maybe Yoshi and Smash, perhaps even Zelda (part of it in 2014). All these are on the same level as any non-Monster Hunter game on PSP in Japan, and just stuff we know already. I honestly don't see how can this lineup be put into question considering the reality of the market. If these games along with anything that might come (Dragon Quest/Monster Hunter/Rhythm Heaven/Pokémon/new IPs/smaller games/etc) can't keep 3DS from a "substantial" decline, what can ? Where is the line here that separates reasonable expectations from unreasonable ones ?

Speculating about future performance is one of the things I most look forward to in Japan sales thread.  I mean, commentary on whats coming up in future is basically why I follow Japanese sales becuase I find it fascinating.  If you think it's too early to do that, you don't have to join in (and you can ignore my posts too if it bothers you), it's just something I like doing.  I don't know what better place to discuss Japanese sales trends than in a Japanese sales thread, though.

The reason I find it interesting is the explanation I provided to Tbone.  Nintendo have, to their credit, kept the platform going with two massive ("big" seems to be upsetting people so perhaps I should stop using it) games a year alongside a sea of "big" titles which has netted them ~ 5m / year sales for the past 3 years (2011: Mario Kart/3D Mario; 2012: Animal Crossing/NSMB; 2013: Pokemon/Monster Hunter) and I was just speculating that we don't know what 2014 has in terms of this, and that makes me wonder what effect this'll have on hardware sales.

Traditionally Nintendo consoles don't have as long a tail as Sony consoles (see: DS vs. PSP 2011-2013 sales; Wii vs. PS3 2011-now sales) so that'd make me believe that Nintendo will have to push it harder earlier. 

And I mean, the other speculation I have is what they could actually realistically get for their console that'd actually push it harder.  Because right now, Dragon Quest XI and Smash (potentially) are the only two things I can think of that haven't shown up yet.  Which is to do with the penetration of smartphones into handheld console sales, a topic I'm sure you can understand is quite hot right now.

I mean, don't get me wrong.  This isn't localized to 3DS as it's a topic I'd discuss about Vita too.  I'm already wondering whether it'll actually beat 2013 sales considering it had price cut + new model + a variety of bigger-than-2012 games this year.  I'm not sure the 2014 titles, aside from Phantasy Star Nova, are actually up to snuff for increasing userbase and I think Sony are heavily relying on selling to a type of user who is already there (i.e. okatus; anime fans; hunting game fans) which will do nothing to give it a bigger 2014.  But 3DS was the topic of the moment with Tbone bringing up with Ryuzaki about it, so that's what I went with.

Nor am I saying 3DS sales are bad.  They're not at all, it's the healthiest console in the market.  And that's yet another reason I'm discussing this topic, because I'm wondering how it's going to keep itself as healthy as it has been into its 4th year.  DS & Wii have long since dropped off; PSP & PS3 are going (although I expect PS3 to last another year with Persona & Tales still coming) and Vita & Wii-U have yet to take off in any substantial capacity.  Maybe it is unreasonable to pin my expectations on 3DS but it's the best shot the Japanese market has of keeping itself alive until Vita & Wii-U figure out what the hell they're going to be (and I don't believe PS4 is going to do anything to alleviate the drop off).

It certainly wasn't my intention to criticize general speculation regarding 3DS lineup or from any other platform. Quite the contrary, actually, since I enjoy it too. My point was about the terms in which it was being discussed, that's all. It just doesn't seem reasonable to me to make comments like "there's hardly anything big for 2014 so far" which don't take into account the time we're in and the situation of the market, or either minimize or dismiss founded speculation regarding any "big" title that might get announced. How can we discuss the prospects of 3DS 2014 lineup and sales while limiting the discussion to only the few confirmed titles we know so far ? We know for a fact that there's going to be far more than that, and yet, we don't acknowledge it somehow ?

I also disagree with how those potential million sellers mentioned before get minimized for not being as big as the rest, specially when you do mention Tales and Persona as relevant in PS3's case... Even taking into account the differences between the platforms, it doesn't make sense to me. Tales of Zestiria will be the 5th Tales game on PS3 (3rd fully new), yet it matters as much or more for the platform than the first Kirby for 3DS does ? And how much do you expect Persona 5 to sell ? Again, I do get the fact that these platforms are at different points of their cycles and the differences in expectations, but the difference in expected sales and impact makes up for it here, in my opinion at least.

Traditionally Nintendo consoles don't have as long a tail as Sony consoles (see: DS vs. PSP 2011-2013 sales; Wii vs. PS3 2011-now sales) so that'd make me believe that Nintendo will have to push it harder earlier.

Yes, recent Nintendo platforms don't have as much "legs" as Sony ones sales-wise, and that is in big part deliberate. The faster you sell, the sooner you get to that level of "saturation" hardware-wise, and Nintendo's strategy is to create affordable platforms that sell well from the start, to then sell their software until they feel ready to move on. And of course, the known "big hitters" run out eventually, which is part of what we're discussing. The thing is, is this a bad thing somehow ? I don't think so... I think it's a mistake to keep focusing the discussion on when does 3DS peak or whether it is making up now for hypothetical future sales of a Sony platform.

From Nintendo's point of view, all they need is to have 5 years of "strong" hardware sales, leaving them enough time to release a successor at year 6 or 7, while the older platform runs its course. And in order to do that, they don't need several "mega" hits (Pokémon/Mario/Dragon Quest/etc level) each year. They just need enough in the first few years to push the hardware, and then act as "pillars" to sustain the platform while other relevant, yet less popular software shows up. Besides, there's nothing stopping Nintendo from releasing sequels to popular games if needed, and handheld 3rd party support is for them, unlike with home consoles, sustainable.

And I mean, the other speculation I have is what they could actually realistically get for their console that'd actually push it harder.  Because right now, Dragon Quest XI and Smash (potentially) are the only two things I can think of that haven't shown up yet.

What about a hypothetical Rhythm Heaven (1.93m on DS) ? And why not Mario Party ? (1.98m on DS) Those could end up being as big as Smash 3DS...

Anyway... I honestly don't see 3DS "struggling" in the next 2 years at least, but of course, the Japanese market can't depend on it. I still believe WiiU can carve its own successful niche at least, specially in Japan where the impact of their IPs is bigger, to the point of having a good shot of being the most popular home console there. Recent sales numbers certainly point to a substantial recovery, even without knowing yet where the baseline will be in the next months. Then again, I'm a Nintendo fan, so take that as you will...

Nintendo is dominating japan pacman style

I'm going to divide your post up into sections if that's okay since we're both saying so much :P

The point about saying "so far" is that anything beyond that is specuation.  I could go into the recent "Vita to be the best-selling handheld in 2014" thread and say that I agreed because Vita could get a Final Fantasy; Metal Gear Solid; Resident Evil; Grand Theft Auto; Dragon Quest & Monster Hunter in 2014 because they "might" get announced as we know for a fact that the games announced so far for Vita aren't all that's coming.  Which is true.  Of course it's nigh-on impossibly unlikely, but that doesn't make it actually impossible.  However, I don't personally see the point in doing that and instead I base my discussion on what's announced so far because that is the metric we have to measure things on.  If new games get announced, we reassess the situation from there.  It's something I'd extend to any platform and it's not just localized to the 3DS.

Yeah, you seem to have missed my point here.  I wasn't suggesting that Tales & Persona are relevant to increasing PS3 sales.  I said that PS3 will "last another year" thanks to them.  As in, won't be taken off shelves.  Won't be discontinued.  Not that they're going to be magical hardware pushers in the system's 8th year on the market.

Yeah, see, this is the part I don't get.  I do understand that if you get out software with legs early on they prop up other software that comes later.  But that doesn't seem to have happened this year.  2013 has been riding off the incredible success of Animal Crossing and has Mario Kart; 3D Land; NSMB doing the whole "legs" thing and then added Tomodachi; Monster Hunter & Pokemon to its collection, yet hardware is down for the year.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the purpose of what a pillar is supposed to do, but I thought hardware sales would be sustained for the year and then Pokemon & Monster Hunter would push it to a traditional third-year-high, especially since both of those IP's are 5m+ sellers in Japan.  Certainly, my whole confusion this time is that I thought 2013 would be a "peak" year for the 3DS given previous Nintendo hardware trajectory, but I dunno.  Perhaps that was an unreasonable expectation.

No idea to be honest.  Must admit I've never heard of Rhythm Heaven and I didn't know another one was coming to 3DS, so perhaps that will be a strong hardware mover indeed.  Mario Party I was basing off the neutered reception in the USA (down about 70% FW despite releasing at exactly the same time of year as Mario Party DS) to suggest that maybe this is a case of Nintendogs sales dropoff rather than Animal Crossing sales momentum, but who knows.  I'm sure it'll sell well.

you need to stop listening/reading tbone's prediction :p kidding.. peace tbone

Okey dokey. ^_^

I understand, but as I mentioned before, I believe founded speculation has validity here. For example, in Dragon Quest XI's case, we know it's coming sooner or later, and we know it usually comes to the best selling platform in Japan. In addition, we have the fact that IX was the best selling game in the franchise on DS, the fact that the Monsters 2 remake will be the 4th Dragon Quest game released on 3DS, and it's pretty much confirmed by now that XI won't come to smartphones nor be an MMORPG. While far from being a fact, all signs point to XI being on 3DS. This is quite different from your Vita examples, as there have been little to no signs of those franchises appearing in an specific and meaningful way on Vita. And in the case of Pokémon, the speculation revolves around a 1st party IP, which makes a ton of difference here. Not to mention the fact that we have been getting a main Pokémon game practically on a yearly basis since 2006 (Diamond/Pearl release in Japan), whether it was a new one, remake, or sequel (Black and White 2's case).

Oh, I got that. The thing is, whether we talk about increasing hardware sales or keeping it relevant, we're talking about the impact said software has on hardware. Either way, it has to be "meaningful", so to speak.

In the case of those 3DS games I mentioned, not only they're more popular franchises, but they're also either appearing in the platform for the first time (Kirby and Yoshi's case), or as a new game or sub-series (Mario Party and Zelda's case). On the other hand, unless the new Tales is a "game-changer" of some sort, it will only appeal to the Tales fanbase, which is already on the platform anyway. Persona's case is different of course, but it's also less popular than Tales, at least looking at all previous games so far.

In any case, I only mentioned that to reinforce my argument that those 3DS games are more relevant to the market/platform than what I see you or others giving credit for. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that. And then, there's of course the fact that there's nothing stopping 3DS from getting sequels in its twilight years, just like PS3 is now. For example, like how Square-Enix is now talking about the possibility of several "Bravely" games, with Bravely Second already confirmed.

There's many variables involved when it comes to hardware sales beyond those popular games (or software in general), so it's hard to identify the impact these had and the reasons 3DS is not up YoY (which is not by that much anyway...). I think the important thing to keep in mind here is that 3DS had an irregular trajectory from the very beginning, with a slower than expected start which ended up on a drastic price cut, without a DSLite equivalent, with a distinctive feature that didn't have the expected impact (3D), etc. And then, there's the impact of the mobile/smartphone market, which even though I personally believe it gets exaggerated sometimes, it clearly exists. Not that it didn't have things in its favor of course (Monster Hunter being a prominent example here), just that it's an irregular trajectory in a shifting market.

Furthermore, what I stated before regarding "pillars" is of course, how things should, ideally, work. It's a general strategy, which can then be proven successful or not by the market in more than one way. For the record, It's far from me to pretend I have all the answers here... What I state is a combination of what I know and how I see things, so basically, an opinion. If not even Nintendo or Sony are capable of predicting the market, what chance do we have ? >.< So, I'm open to other interpretations and arguments outside my own, even if I can't agree with them right now.

There's no Rhythm Heaven confirmed for 3DS yet, that's speculation on my part. Maybe I should've made that clearer before... Still, it's a 1st party IP, which appeared on both DS and Wii (originally on GBA), and has been always a success in Japan. I believe a new one on 3DS is only a matter of time, and I don't see it not being successful. But sure, still speculation.

Regarding Mario Party, it's not surprising to see it selling less than the DS version for a variety of reasons, but the situation is very different from Nintendogs. It's more of a "traditional" series compared to it, which makes it more stable sales-wise. While it is highly unlikely that it will ever get close to the sales of the DS version in Japan, it's also highly unlikely to sell less than 9 on Wii, which sold over 700k. I'm expecting it to get to 1m or close at least, which is why I mentioned it before.

Everyone here seems to forget that the phenomenon that drove the DS crazy sales was the Brain Age/Brain training series. Go back and look at what those games did for DS sales. Something like that might never happen again.

All the big franchise games on the 3DS are GREAT - but they don't reach out of the general gaming demographic. As a result - the universe of potential 3DS owners is finite for now. Thus the saturation point is lower. 3DS will end up with close to 5 mil sold in Japan this year - down about 10%. But even the mighty DS only had 2 years that were better than that - 2006 and 2007. So its not clear to me that there is a reason to be concerned about 3DS prospects.