Where's all the people who insisted I was wrong about it selling less in the US than in Japan first week?

I'm here.

At least you had the courage to come forward. ;) Trust me, I wish I'd been wrong, but the game is stylistically much more Japanese than Western.

Though, to be fair, Japan's sales were tracked for a full 7 days whereas the US was only tracked for 2 (or 3, depending on who you ask apparently). I'm sure if they were tracked equally then the 9k gap would've been closed, but even then, I figured it would sell 200k+ in NA (well, I thought that after seeing Japan's sales, at least) so ultimately I was still wrong.

I wonder how big it will get in Japan. It may end up being the second most successful new IP over there this gen.

Edit: Scratch that. It was tracked for 4 days in Japan. I don't think that changes too much though.

Isn't the stylistic argument kinda funny when you consider that Mario games do gangbusters :P

For what it's worth, Splatoon seems to have legs in the States if Amazon is any kind of indication.  I will say that I thin the disparity of the marketing quality is partly to blame.  NNoA's quality was lower than any region and absurdly narrow in focus (not a single broad-demographic commercial).  Better than usual, still pitiful compared to other companies or even other sectors of Nintendo.

Plus, it was (and still is) more expensive in NA than any other region.

So that's a thing.

In other words, NoA continues to show they only know how to promote a handful of games once or twice a year.  Really hope the new guy helps whip them onto shape.  Fast.

For real. I mean, Squid Kid was pretty great in an ironically catchy way, but it should've been released in conjunction with a more badass commercial. Something like the most recent Japanese trailer for Splatfest would've been perfect.

Or a New York version of that Splat Japan ad.  I mean, that would have been brilliant for broader use.

Yeah, marketing definitely played a part, as did the game being $60 in the US.

Will be very interesting to see how its legs play out in Japan vs the US though. We know it held up very nicely in its second week in Japan.