https://www.vgchartz.com/game/153117/arms/?region=All

Arms was at 2.38M at the end of 2019 which makes it 170k sold in that year.
Considering we now have MinMin in Smash and COVID boost it should be at 2.5M by now.

Over 2 million is a failure now? I think we're all too caught up in blockbusters and 10 million + sellers for the sake of list wars. 2 million is great, especially for a title with relatively low development cost.

The game sold so well because at the time the switch had very little to offer, I don’t think the game would reached those numbers if it was released now, face it people the game has been forgotten, it had no impact, nobody wants a sequel, while games like animal crossing didn’t sell that much before, it was unique and filled a market gap, arms on the other had feels unnecessary they should have made punch out, that franchise has a lot more charm.

In a vacuum it's not failure. Probably over 2.5M units for a brand new fighting IP is not bad. Really good even.

But if you add in the fact that they pushed it hard, lots of extra content, lots of free trials and lots of events. It was done by one of their most succesful EPD teams, I'm sure Nintendo them selves expected more from it. And this is why I dont think a sequel is likely, at least not in the near term.

Great game in my book but I do think Nintendo expected more from it.

Thanks. Would you be able to use some of these sources in order to update VGC numbers?

Agreed. I'm sure Mortal Kombat 11 is over 1.8 million as well. I've only included confirmed numbers though.

Yup. I think Kotaku called Kakarot part fighting game, part fetching game or something like that. But you're right.

Who the fuck cares about mortal kombat 11? Smash destroys their numbers. If there is any fighting game left that pulls in numbers it is smash. Which is funny because button smashers can't win in a game called Smash.

No one's questioning Smash's dominance.

Relatively speaking, 2 million for an EPD game is a failure. The reason why we’re caught up with 10 million sellers is because that’s what successful EPD games sell. You can’t divorce sales numbers from their expectations - and their expectations are based on the dev team, studio, and publisher. This is a studio that does 10 million+ games done by a team that does 20 million+ games.

I am not sure what criteria you are using as “low cost” when the cost was the time of some of Nintendo’s most commercially valuable dev resources.

EPD is a big studio which regularly works on numerous projects at the same time, and EPD actually contains 11 different production groups (that we are aware of). While some of their projects are big projects and big sellers like Animal Crossing and Mario, they have also made numerous smaller projects such as Tank Troopers, Miitopia, Jump Rope Challenge and Sushi Striker. You can't really just say "It was EPD" and act like Nintendo expected 10million sales...

As a Smash player myself, Ultimate feels more "button mashy" than just about any other fighting game at this point.

And no, Smash isn't the only one left pulling in numbers. 20 million units sold is unprecedented for a fighting game, thus you're implying no other fighting game ever has pulled in numbers? Not Street Fighter 2, not Tekken 3, not Mortal Kombat X? Ok dude.