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

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Major Switch Titles Launch Aligned - December 2023 Update

newwil7l on 08 May 2020
Slownenberg said:
Darwinianevolution said:

After all of the controversy with the lack of content and corners cut, I expected SOME kind of negative reaction. Slightly lower sales, shorter legs, something. Instead not only it becomes a massively successful launch, it becomes the immediately crosses the 15 million mark that most Pokemon games need all of its lifetime to reach and it's going to end up becoming the second best seller in the franchise. This is sad because either the hardcore fans who said to boycott this bought it anyway, thus giving up on future games becoming better, or the casual base is so big it can more than compensate for the loss of the core base, thus making any kind of customer reaction powerless. Either way, GameFreak and The Pokemon Co. is just going to continue to degrade the series to sell more games faster and faster.

Like I said, I very much doubt many hardcore fans boycotted it. I bet 99% of them bought it but then just complained endlessly online (and the other 1% will eventually buy it). If you are a hardcore Pokemon fan are you really not going to buy the first core Pokemon game for a console? Unlikely.

Also there are plenty of people who don't buy Nintendo portables but have a Switch, so don't normally buy Pokemon games because they don't own those systems, who got this game (me for instance - this is my first pokemon game since I got Red in 1999). So yeah the expanded sales opportunities the Switch fan base affords can easily make up for any tiny percentage of hardcore fans who did actually boycott the game.

Also like I said I think we see the negative reaction in that it didn't sell even more than it has! We see Animal Crossing, a much smaller franchise, beating Pokemon's initial launch. And while in the 6 week post-launch numbers Pokemon did over 2.6 million more, again that was the holidays for Pokemon and Pokemon is known as a more launch heavy seller, and it did indeed drop off drastically after the holidays while Animal Crossing seems likely to sell far more than Pokemon during their respective second quarter of sales. That should make us realize just how much bigger Pokemon Sword/Shield could have been if it had gotten the good word of mouth that games like Botw, Odyssey, Smash, AC have all had. If Pokemon had been a critically acclaimed game it would probably be a couple million higher right now. While I think Pokemon not being critically acclaimed the way many Switch games have been is hurting it more than any hardcore-fan-only controversy, I'm sure the negative news of the controversy did play a bit into the wider so-so acclaim for the general market reaction to the game.

I couldn't agree more with this post. People acting like the vocal minority was forever shut down because they are looking at SS numbers in a vacuum aren't seeing the big picture. People did buy the game but they were disappointed and i could see this affecting the sequel moreso than SS, but also affecting the legs of SS, as consequences of these things aren't always immediate. A popular saying in the box office is that successors pay for the sins of their predecessors and i think that same quote can apply here when discussing game sales.

Every franchise is breaking its respective record on the Switch and Pokémon is looking to be a clear exception to this alongside 2D Mario which is also another IP in turmoil largely due to laziness and lack of creativity turning people off to the IP. This was also the first console Pokémon and yet the brand is no longer in the league of its own that it was during the Gameboy and GBA era or in a league with only Mario Kart like it was for the DS and 3DS Era. Its now selling on the same tier as Zelda and 3D Mario, while now likely selling less than Smash and Animal Crossing and far less than Mario Kart. 

Had GameFreak delivered on the promise of this game I don't think money would have been left on the table but that is just me.



Around the Network
Slownenberg on 08 May 2020
Darwinianevolution said:
Slownenberg said:

I mean "commitment" doesn't just mean boycotting stuff haha. Commitment to a series would generally more likely mean buying a game in that series even when it's not perfect, which is what we've seen, so if you expected commitment from the fanbase I think that is exactly what we've seen.

And yeah as Runa says, the Dexit people were a very loud minority. Zero casual pokemon fans care about the "controversy" at all, and probably the vast majority of hardcore fans don't care about it either, and probably the vast majority of hardcore fans who did indeed care about it and scream and whine on the internet about dexit bought the game anyway because they are indeed committed to the franchise. And aren't some updates or DLC to the game minimizing the "controversy" anyways?

I also wouldn't call the things people pointed out "serious problems". Again, only a very vocal tiny minority see any serious problems with the game. Pokemon games are known for giving you pretty much the same thing but with a new set of creatures. Since the original games came out it hasn't exactly been a ground breaking series, just a very popular one.

And, what were the main parts about the "controversy" anyways? People felt the graphics and animations weren't up to par for what can be done on Switch and all the pokemon ever made weren't available to port into the game from the national dex or whatever? Well, do you really play pokemon for advanced graphics? I doubt it. Graphics seemed perfectly fine to me. I don't think anyways expects realistic detailed graphics so that always seemed like angry internet whiners looking for something to dislike when the game has farrrrr better graphics than any previous core pokemon game outside obviously of the one other Pokemon game on the Switch. You know how much the graphics effect my play of the game or how much I notice the graphics...zero amount. Graphics are fine for what you'd expect in a pokemon game, which is to say they aren't advanced and are cartoony and are a huge leap over previous generations obviously thanks to the vastly superior power of the Switch. And I get super hardcore fans being mad about a feature being removed from the game, but Game Freaks' explanation for it makes sense as well - making brand new higher fidelity models and various animations including for every move for over 800 different pokemon seems like it would be an insane task. Not saying what they did was fine, given how much the game will make they should have hired more people to work on it, but still its understandable and since the DLC is adding what like a couple hundred more pokemon to the game most pokemon will be in the game after that. I see hardcore fans being mad about it but at the same time it doesn't surprise me that the (internet outrage) bark was much worse than the (effect on sales) bite.

"Commitment to a series would generally more likely mean buying a game in that series even when it's not perfect, which is what we've seen, so if you expected commitment from the fanbase I think that is exactly what we've seen."

That's the opposite of commitment. You don't complain and loudly point out about what you see as a bad product and yet buy it anyway, and then call that commitment. After all of the criticism (valid criticism, mind you) the fact that the pokemon fanbase still supported such terrible practices in such a way is disheartening, because due to this nothing is going to change. In fact, it's just going to be worse and worse. The Pokemon Co. and GameFreak will try to churn out a game each year, take away more and more features of the game and sell them later at a premium. Now with console prices to boot. This was the chance of changing the course GF had been following since X/Y (and some may argue Black/White), and now noone will take any criticism seriously, because it will fall on hollow ears that know it's going to make millions no matter what they sell.

You really need to look up the definition of "commitment" haha. I promise you it is not how you are describing it. Or maybe you just think the commitment to a few months of ranting online should outweigh people years or decades long commitment to a franchise??

Like I said, in the big sales for Pokemon we ARE seeing the fanbase's commitment. You were just hoping for a lack of commitment to Pokemon which didn't occur despite the online rantings of some people who were stating they were giving up on their commitment to pokemon.



xMetroid on 08 May 2020
Marth said:
xMetroid said:
I love how we call like Link's Awakening an average/good score when it's one of the best selling Zelda games already in less than a year and literally any other companies would die to have that number even for a game that performs really well.

Yeah people have a weird perception of it and should realize BotW is the outlier of the franchise and not the basis.

The Links Awakening Remake is already in the top 10 Zelda titles sales-wise.

+60k and it beats Wind Waker
+240k and it beats AlttP
+390k and it beats Phantom Hourglass

So top 6 is pretty much guaranteed for Links Awakening

The next big challenge is the OoT Remake which is currently 1.64M ahead.

I think it could surpass Oot remake in the long run with a sale or something.



xMetroid on 08 May 2020
Marth said:
Mar1217 said:

Wait. I thought SS neared the 5M ... Oh guess I was wrong,thanks !

You were probably remembering the old VGC estimates. Hugely overestimated Skyward Sword. I think something around 4.4M originally.

It then got adjusted down to around 4M but even that was not enough. Official shipment was only 3.67M lol

Guess the bad E3 showing and the Motion Plus requirement really hurt its sales, also it is a very divisive game in the franchise.

Yea and I feel like people got tired of the Oot formula after TP which was pretty much the best they good do with the system they had and the formula. I know they wanted to make more out of SS but the limited them and they had to release it for 25th so it ended up being a bit lacking in some aspects. 

It is still a good game but yea it got hurt by the fact it was just one of too many games using that. 

Some fans are complaining about the changes in Botw but like.. it was clearly not working out anymore. Some things of Botw are fresh and highly needed in the franchise. We'll have to see with the sequel what they keep and modify. But clearly the Oot formula is dead and it was about time.



Slownenberg on 08 May 2020
xMetroid said:
I love how we call like Link's Awakening an average/good score when it's one of the best selling Zelda games already in less than a year and literally any other companies would die to have that number even for a game that performs really well.

Yeah it's funny how after BotW suddenly people think Zelda is this mega selling franchise that it has literally never been outside of BotW.

A zelda remake of a gameboy game sold at $60 is over 4 million sales after 6 months....if that statement was ever said before BotW came out people would be flabbergasted by the enormous success that statement implies.

If you look at the history of Zelda sales, 4 million is pretty much the number at which you can consider a zelda game successful in historical context. Link's Awakening Remake has already hit that in 6 months! And really it should be priced more like $30 or at most $40, if they were to drop the price down I think a lot of people who have been holding out would pick it up (I would!). Outside of the BotW series, Link's Awakening remake should end up selling better than all but the top three zelda games: ocarina, twilight princess, and the original. Essentially, the Link's Awakening remake has been HUGELY successful. And that is even with it being clearly overpriced. I would not at all be surprised to see the original or A Link to the Past be remade on the Switch as well in the same style.



Around the Network
Slownenberg on 08 May 2020
xMetroid said:
Marth said:

You were probably remembering the old VGC estimates. Hugely overestimated Skyward Sword. I think something around 4.4M originally.

It then got adjusted down to around 4M but even that was not enough. Official shipment was only 3.67M lol

Guess the bad E3 showing and the Motion Plus requirement really hurt its sales, also it is a very divisive game in the franchise.

Yea and I feel like people got tired of the Oot formula after TP which was pretty much the best they good do with the system they had and the formula. I know they wanted to make more out of SS but the limited them and they had to release it for 25th so it ended up being a bit lacking in some aspects. 

It is still a good game but yea it got hurt by the fact it was just one of too many games using that. 

Some fans are complaining about the changes in Botw but like.. it was clearly not working out anymore. Some things of Botw are fresh and highly needed in the franchise. We'll have to see with the sequel what they keep and modify. But clearly the Oot formula is dead and it was about time.

Honestly I thought Twilight Princess was mediocre at best. I only managed to play through like a quarter of it before I got too bored. The whole wolf aspect was entirely boring and tedious and unfun. I think it would have been fine, maybe even a good Zelda, if they removed the wolf but as it was it is probably my least favorite Zelda I've ever played, well that or Zelda II. But even not counting the awful wolf mechanic, the Zelda-style play that had started in Ocarina had indeed begun to feel stale by TP, it took another 10 years for Nintendo to change things up and revolutionize the series but they finally did it!



psychicscubadiver on 08 May 2020
Slownenberg said:
Darwinianevolution said:

After all of the controversy with the lack of content and corners cut, I expected SOME kind of negative reaction. Slightly lower sales, shorter legs, something. Instead not only it becomes a massively successful launch, it becomes the immediately crosses the 15 million mark that most Pokemon games need all of its lifetime to reach and it's going to end up becoming the second best seller in the franchise. This is sad because either the hardcore fans who said to boycott this bought it anyway, thus giving up on future games becoming better, or the casual base is so big it can more than compensate for the loss of the core base, thus making any kind of customer reaction powerless. Either way, GameFreak and The Pokemon Co. is just going to continue to degrade the series to sell more games faster and faster.

Like I said, I very much doubt many hardcore fans boycotted it. I bet 99% of them bought it but then just complained endlessly online (and the other 1% will eventually buy it). If you are a hardcore Pokemon fan are you really not going to buy the first core Pokemon game for a console? Unlikely.

Also there are plenty of people who don't buy Nintendo portables but have a Switch, so don't normally buy Pokemon games because they don't own those systems, who got this game (me for instance - this is my first pokemon game since I got Red in 1999). So yeah the expanded sales opportunities the Switch fan base affords can easily make up for any tiny percentage of hardcore fans who did actually boycott the game.

Also like I said I think we see the negative reaction in that it didn't sell even more than it has! We see Animal Crossing, a much smaller franchise, beating Pokemon's initial launch. And while in the 6 week post-launch numbers Pokemon did over 2.6 million more, again that was the holidays for Pokemon and Pokemon is known as a more launch heavy seller, and it did indeed drop off drastically after the holidays while Animal Crossing seems likely to sell far more than Pokemon during their respective second quarter of sales. That should make us realize just how much bigger Pokemon Sword/Shield could have been if it had gotten the good word of mouth that games like Botw, Odyssey, Smash, AC have all had. If Pokemon had been a critically acclaimed game it would probably be a couple million higher right now. While I think Pokemon not being critically acclaimed the way many Switch games have been is hurting it more than any hardcore-fan-only controversy, I'm sure the negative news of the controversy did play a bit into the wider so-so acclaim for the general market reaction to the game.

I dunno if I count as a 'hardcore' Pokemon fan, but I've bought one game in each of the previous generations and didn't buy Sword or Shield. Not specifically because of the National Dex being cut, but more because the series has felt stale for a while now and nothing I saw in the trailers made me think this time was going to be any different. The graphics looking very lackluster didn't help and I'm not even a graphics guy most of the time, but for one of the biggest franchises first real console debut, I was expecting more.



UnderwaterFunktown on 09 May 2020
Marth said:
UnderwaterFunktown said:

Since Nintendo reveals quarterly shipment numbers and first party Switch games generally all have simultaneous wordwide releases, Switch is pretty much the perfect system to make a launch aligned games chart for. I more or less had it done already and was waiting for this quarterly report to get it fully up to date. I've split it into two tiers of titles, to avoid having too many lines in one chart:

The X-axis is shipments in millions, the Y-axis is months since launch. The dots are quarterly reports.

I've used a very rough estimate of launch week shipments as the starting point on the chart to avoid every game starting at 0, which would be messy with so many lines and give an unrealistic sales trajectory for the first quarter. For this reason I've also aligned games that launched right at the end of a month to the next month (SMO, LM3, SMM2 and MK8).

I plan to keep updating this for future quarters, but ofc since Nintendo only gives numbers for games that have sold over a million in the current fiscal year, we will probably only get numbers for some of these in some quarters.

Really like the graphs

But you left out Links Awakening in the Middleweights.

It sits already at 4.38M

I did consider including and it's even in my spreadsheet, but I didn't want the graphs too crowded, especially since I also wanted to leave a bit of space for titles in the future (and figured RFA might be more interesting in the long rong even it it has shipped less currently).

But if you're curious LA almost sits neck and neck with SMM2 for its first two quarterly reports then falls behind by quite a bit in the latest one.



Try out my free game on Steam

2024 OpenCritic Prediction Leagues:

Nintendo | PlayStation | Multiplat

S.Peelman on 09 May 2020
Marth said:
xMetroid said:
I love how we call like Link's Awakening an average/good score when it's one of the best selling Zelda games already in less than a year and literally any other companies would die to have that number even for a game that performs really well.

Yeah people have a weird perception of it and should realize BotW is the outlier of the franchise and not the basis.

The Links Awakening Remake is already in the top 10 Zelda titles sales-wise.

+60k and it beats Wind Waker
+240k and it beats AlttP
+390k and it beats Phantom Hourglass

So top 6 is pretty much guaranteed for Links Awakening

The next big challenge is the OoT Remake which is currently 1.64M ahead.
xMetroid said:

I think it could surpass Oot remake in the long run with a sale or something.

Link’s Awakening only sold 0.19M last quarter though if I’m not mistaken. It has come to a halt after a very good, probably even record breaking, for the franchise, opening. It’ll beat the three Marth mentioned, but OoT3D, which did exceptionally well for a remake I might add, is much too far away I think.



S.Peelman on 09 May 2020
RolStoppable said:
S.Peelman said:

Link’s Awakening only sold 0.19M last quarter though if I’m not mistaken. It has come to a halt after a very good, probably even record breaking, for the franchise, opening. It’ll beat the three Marth mentioned, but OoT3D, which did exceptionally well for a remake I might add, is much too far away I think.

OoT 3D got added to the Nintendo Selects eventually.

Link's Awakening is a remake of a Game Boy game, so what has led to the 0.19m shipment is likely just that it has exhausted the pool of people who are willing to pay $60 for it. The game is going to be old enough to be a regular in future digital discounts for Nintendo software (typically 33% off), so it should be able to get within striking distance of OoT 3D eventually.

That is true, there might be plenty of people just waiting for a low pricepoint for such a game. I'd love to be proven wrong.