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Forums - Sales - Will Astro's Playroom outsell Wii Sports and become the highest selling console exclusive?

Dulfite said:
If it's digital only and already downloaded, then to me it's more an app than a game.

Whaa..? Reportedly it's a multiple hour long 3D platformer and the sequel to a game that's earned a 90 MC score, but just because it comes pre-installed 'it's not a game' ?

I can understand the view that it doesn't 'sell' copies, but this one is beyond me.

Last edited by Lafiel - on 21 September 2020

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Cobretti2 said:
JWeinCom said:

Wii Sports sold about 4 million in Japan, never bundled.

Bundles were less common in the US after 2010, and basically nonexistent after 2011. From 2011 onward Wii Sports sold around 9.3 million. In 2011, where anyone who wanted to avoid Wii Sports could have done so pretty easily, it outsold Uncharted 3, Skyrim on the 360, or Arkham City on the 360, all released that year. Also outsold all of those games in 2012 and 2013.

In 2014, 7 years after its release and long after any form of bundling, Wii Sports sold over half a million copies. The DS's best selling game, New Super Mario Bros for comparison, which sold 30 million units and released a few months before Wii Sports, sold less than half that in 2014. PS3's best selling game, Uncharted 3, sold less than 1,000 7 years after its release (the Uncharted Collection on PS4 sold about 600K according to this site). Mario Kart Wii sold under 500K after seven years, and that game sold 35 million copies (many bundled). The Xbox 360's best selling game, Kinect Adventures, is a good comparison, because that again raises the bundle issue. Seven years later, Kinect Adventures was selling less 100K, about 1/6 of what Wii Sports was selling. Point is that Wii Sports had significantly better legs than its competitors for best selling console exclusives, and that's after it was no longer bundled. Which seems to suggest it could have been the best selling exclusive, bundled or not. 

And, keep in mind Wii from 2011 on only sold about 20 million units. Wii Sports attach rate was nearly 50%, and nobody was forced to buy it. I worked in retail, and I'm about 99% sure either NSMBWii or Mario Kart were the default bundles after that point. And, to the extent there may have been Wii Sports/Resort bundles temporarily after (which I don't remember happening after 2010) the Mario ones were available, so nobody had to buy Wii Sports. The attach rate certainly would have been higher even without a bundle, for the first few years. 

This is ignoring the fact that Wii Sports was heavily featured in Wii's ad campaign, was featured in media like the Colbert Report, the Academy Awards, Tropic Thunder, Big Bang Theory, and at the Academy Awards. So, either Wii Sports was a legit cultural phenomena in its own, or Nintendo thought Wii Sports was going to convince people to buy it. 

Which of course brings us to the fact that the Wii was sold out from its launch for a year or two. Wii Fit didn't come out till 2008. Seems pretty reasonable to assume that Wii Sports was a huge part of why people wanted the Wii. While the Switch has a lot of games that have sales comparable to BOTW that launched in its first two years, the only other 10 million seller for the Wii (aside from Wii Play) was Mario Galaxy.

So, even if without bundles, Wii Sports would have sold around 10 million from 2011 on, and had a near 50% attach rate after that. Common sense would indicate that based on the sales patterns of virtually every other game, media presence, and the Wii's success without a ton of other huge sellers, that Wii Sports would have sold much more than that from 2006 to 2011 even without bundles. 

90-95% would be an exaggeration (although maybe not a huge one in terms of early adopters). But an estimate that Wii Sports would have sold to 50% of Wii owners seems incredibly reasonable, if not overly conservative. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that it would have sold at least 40 million units without bundles, and 50 million doesn't outlandish. It's clear millions bought the Wii for Wii Sports, and there's a pretty compelling argument that it would be the best selling console exclusive regardless of bundles. And... no offense to Astro's Playroom which seems to be a perfectly fun little pack in, but I don't think anyone seriously things there's a chance it will be nearly as successful.

I did exaggerate a bit but I took a simplistic view.

Gamecube sold 23 million units

WiiU sold 14 million units

I would argue the Nintendo core audience is somewhere between these two numbers as Gamecube actually had pretty decent game support from 3rd parties even compared to Wii.

So lets use 20 million to split the two as the core Nintendo base.

Wii sold 102 million units.

Minus the 20 million core base

That is 82 million Wii's sold to non core Nintendo fans. So what the hell did these people buy one for when the PS360 were so much more powerful and had much better 3rd party support?

Wii Fit is a thing that existed and sold between 20 and 40 million copies depending on how you count plus.

The DS was a huge hit that reinvigorated interest in Nintendo as a whole, and in particular, Mario Kart and 2D Mario (the latter of which wasn't a thing on Gamecube). Just Dance is another thing that existed and undoubtedly moved systems. There were other games that were smaller but undoubtedly moved some machines, Skylanders, Guitar Hero, Mario+Sonic, Zumba. And most of these were available on other systems, but either the other machines required an extra add on to play them, or people maybe wanted something like Guitar Hero, and figured they'd rather buy it on the machine that had Wii Sports or Mario as well. 

There's also the fact that marketing in general was stronger, particularly compared to the Wii, and the price of the Wii was generally lower than the other two systems for most of its life. 

At any rate, sales show that at least past 2011, Wii Sports had around a 50% attach rate. That's monstrous, but still, that means 50% of the people buying one at that point did so for some reason that was not Wii Sports, and we can't be assured that Wii Sports was the primary factor, even for those who did buy the game and the Wii. 

And, if we just look at Japanese sales, the Gamecube sold about 4 million, and the Wii sold nearly 13. Even if there was zero overlap between Gamecube owners and Wii Sports fans (which is pretty doubtful), that leaves us with about 5 million more console owners who bought the Wii for some other reason. 

That being said, in Europe the number of Wii Sports sales, plus Gamecube sales adds up pretty much exactly to the Wii sold. The attach rate was about 87%, but I'm not sure what the bundling situation was there. If it's similar to America, then the attach rate had to stay very high even after the bundles stopped. In the US in 2012, Wii Sports had an attach rate of 75% and was not bundled (in 2011 it was only about 50).

So, Wii Sports would have definitely sold an absurd amount of copies bundle or no, but it's hard to say whether it was the primary factor driving a purchase, or secondary to something like New Super Mario, Mario Kart, or Just Dance. Assessing motivation is nearly impossible at this point.

The one thing we can say with basically 100% certainty is this... More people bought the Wii to play Wii Sports than will buy PS5 to play Astro's Playroom. 



BraLoD said:
Cobretti2 said:

So what were they all buying the console for? Sure as hell wasn't COD or other Nintendo games for that matter.

Look at WiiU console sales. It had all the big Nintendo franchises and how did that sell without a killer game to sell the concept of the console?

At least 90%-95% of people bought the Wii for Wii Sports. The console was WAY under powered compared to a XBOX 360 / PS3, the name was laughable by gaming stores but the killer game it had in Wii Sports to demonstrate motion controls is what sold the console.

Other consoles don't really have a killer app because they got ever major 3rd party publisher supporting them so they have multiple AAA games that enough people want to buy, hence the good console sales.

Now looking at Switch, why is that doing so well? Well because it is a hybrid, there is no single killer game that makes you want to buy it other than I can connect to TV and play or I can play on the go when I'm on my way to work on public transport etc.

That's just fallacy.

Either you have the data to prove that 95% of people got a console for a game, which never happened in the history, or it's just wishful thinking.

The Wii sold because of Wii Sports? The Switch sold because of BotW as far as I can tell, so why isn't BotW already with 55M+ sales?

Because no game sells or will sell like that, ever.

Wii Sports is a part of the Wii as Astro's Playroom is a part of the PS5. That's it.

Lol! All i need to say is, read this thread, be enlightened about Wii Sports, open your eyes. It seems that the main thing you were completely ill-informed about was the worldwide phenomenon that wii sports was and possibly still is. Yet you are still trying to compare it with equality to a free app that likely most ps5 consumers won't even know about? Lol indeed!



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In my opinion the N64 was not just the best console of the 5th gen but, to this day the best console ever created!

Cobretti2 said:
JWeinCom said:

Wii Sports sold about 4 million in Japan, never bundled.

Bundles were less common in the US after 2010, and basically nonexistent after 2011. From 2011 onward Wii Sports sold around 9.3 million. In 2011, where anyone who wanted to avoid Wii Sports could have done so pretty easily, it outsold Uncharted 3, Skyrim on the 360, or Arkham City on the 360, all released that year. Also outsold all of those games in 2012 and 2013.

In 2014, 7 years after its release and long after any form of bundling, Wii Sports sold over half a million copies. The DS's best selling game, New Super Mario Bros for comparison, which sold 30 million units and released a few months before Wii Sports, sold less than half that in 2014. PS3's best selling game, Uncharted 3, sold less than 1,000 7 years after its release (the Uncharted Collection on PS4 sold about 600K according to this site). Mario Kart Wii sold under 500K after seven years, and that game sold 35 million copies (many bundled). The Xbox 360's best selling game, Kinect Adventures, is a good comparison, because that again raises the bundle issue. Seven years later, Kinect Adventures was selling less 100K, about 1/6 of what Wii Sports was selling. Point is that Wii Sports had significantly better legs than its competitors for best selling console exclusives, and that's after it was no longer bundled. Which seems to suggest it could have been the best selling exclusive, bundled or not. 

And, keep in mind Wii from 2011 on only sold about 20 million units. Wii Sports attach rate was nearly 50%, and nobody was forced to buy it. I worked in retail, and I'm about 99% sure either NSMBWii or Mario Kart were the default bundles after that point. And, to the extent there may have been Wii Sports/Resort bundles temporarily after (which I don't remember happening after 2010) the Mario ones were available, so nobody had to buy Wii Sports. The attach rate certainly would have been higher even without a bundle, for the first few years. 

This is ignoring the fact that Wii Sports was heavily featured in Wii's ad campaign, was featured in media like the Colbert Report, the Academy Awards, Tropic Thunder, Big Bang Theory, and at the Academy Awards. So, either Wii Sports was a legit cultural phenomena in its own, or Nintendo thought Wii Sports was going to convince people to buy it. 

Which of course brings us to the fact that the Wii was sold out from its launch for a year or two. Wii Fit didn't come out till 2008. Seems pretty reasonable to assume that Wii Sports was a huge part of why people wanted the Wii. While the Switch has a lot of games that have sales comparable to BOTW that launched in its first two years, the only other 10 million seller for the Wii (aside from Wii Play) was Mario Galaxy.

So, even if without bundles, Wii Sports would have sold around 10 million from 2011 on, and had a near 50% attach rate after that. Common sense would indicate that based on the sales patterns of virtually every other game, media presence, and the Wii's success without a ton of other huge sellers, that Wii Sports would have sold much more than that from 2006 to 2011 even without bundles. 

90-95% would be an exaggeration (although maybe not a huge one in terms of early adopters). But an estimate that Wii Sports would have sold to 50% of Wii owners seems incredibly reasonable, if not overly conservative. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that it would have sold at least 40 million units without bundles, and 50 million doesn't outlandish. It's clear millions bought the Wii for Wii Sports, and there's a pretty compelling argument that it would be the best selling console exclusive regardless of bundles. And... no offense to Astro's Playroom which seems to be a perfectly fun little pack in, but I don't think anyone seriously things there's a chance it will be nearly as successful.

I did exaggerate a bit but I took a simplistic view.

Gamecube sold 23 million units

WiiU sold 14 million units

I would argue the Nintendo core audience is somewhere between these two numbers as Gamecube actually had pretty decent game support from 3rd parties even compared to Wii.

So lets use 20 million to split the two as the core Nintendo base.

Wii sold 102 million units.

Minus the 20 million core base

That is 82 million Wii's sold to non core Nintendo fans. So what the hell did these people buy one for when the PS360 were so much more powerful and had much better 3rd party support?

There are tens of millions that only bought handhelds, and the Switch I think proves that. I think Nintendo's real total base is more like 40-50 million.



Wii Sports came bundled with most Wiis but can also be resold giving it value. Check online if you would like, its worth like $20. Also let's remember once we start counting games like Astro Bot Playroom, that pretty much invites free to play games as well as the highest sellers! Fortnite and Pokemon Go will now be compared to GTA and Cod.



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Dulfite said:
Cobretti2 said:

I did exaggerate a bit but I took a simplistic view.

Gamecube sold 23 million units

WiiU sold 14 million units

I would argue the Nintendo core audience is somewhere between these two numbers as Gamecube actually had pretty decent game support from 3rd parties even compared to Wii.

So lets use 20 million to split the two as the core Nintendo base.

Wii sold 102 million units.

Minus the 20 million core base

That is 82 million Wii's sold to non core Nintendo fans. So what the hell did these people buy one for when the PS360 were so much more powerful and had much better 3rd party support?

There are tens of millions that only bought handhelds, and the Switch I think proves that. I think Nintendo's real total base is more like 40-50 million.

We are talking about dedicated home consoles and I don't think the user base is 40-50 million for that, otherwise WiiU would have sold say 30 million (even with the disappointment it was) as it still had the main Nintendo game support. If you look at Japan the 3DS outsold the Wii 2 to 1. 

I also know many Sony, Microsoft and PC friends of mine who always buy a Nintendo handheld, because well it is portable and mainly for Pokemon.

The Switch benefit is even more intensified, as it is more powerful hardware hence why it will outsell the 3DS, meaning even barebone third party support has proven to help sell console. For example a few of my PC mates who don't console game at all, bought the Switch so they can play the Witcher, Doom etc at work in their lunch break lol.



 

 

Cobretti2 said:
Dulfite said:

There are tens of millions that only bought handhelds, and the Switch I think proves that. I think Nintendo's real total base is more like 40-50 million.

We are talking about dedicated home consoles and I don't think the user base is 40-50 million for that, otherwise WiiU would have sold say 30 million (even with the disappointment it was) as it still had the main Nintendo game support. If you look at Japan the 3DS outsold the Wii 2 to 1. 

I also know many Sony, Microsoft and PC friends of mine who always buy a Nintendo handheld, because well it is portable and mainly for Pokemon.

The Switch benefit is even more intensified, as it is more powerful hardware hence why it will outsell the 3DS, meaning even barebone third party support has proven to help sell console. For example a few of my PC mates who don't console game at all, bought the Switch so they can play the Witcher, Doom etc at work in their lunch break lol.

If there are 20-30 million handheld only fans, and 20-30 million console only fans, that is my point. There are tons of people that never bought Nintendo consoles and only got handhelds, and now they are buying Switches to satisfy them at the same time as home console fans (only) are also buying Switches. That's why I think their actual base is around 50 million.



Dulfite said:
Cobretti2 said:

We are talking about dedicated home consoles and I don't think the user base is 40-50 million for that, otherwise WiiU would have sold say 30 million (even with the disappointment it was) as it still had the main Nintendo game support. If you look at Japan the 3DS outsold the Wii 2 to 1. 

I also know many Sony, Microsoft and PC friends of mine who always buy a Nintendo handheld, because well it is portable and mainly for Pokemon.

The Switch benefit is even more intensified, as it is more powerful hardware hence why it will outsell the 3DS, meaning even barebone third party support has proven to help sell console. For example a few of my PC mates who don't console game at all, bought the Switch so they can play the Witcher, Doom etc at work in their lunch break lol.

If there are 20-30 million handheld only fans, and 20-30 million console only fans, that is my point. There are tons of people that never bought Nintendo consoles and only got handhelds, and now they are buying Switches to satisfy them at the same time as home console fans (only) are also buying Switches. That's why I think their actual base is around 50 million.

I'm sure there is now, with a hybrid strategy, and that is great with a unified strategy by Nintendo. But at that point in time I was looking at Wii as a home console like the GCN and the WiiU. The story is kind of telling when you look at the core Nintendo games (like Zelda, Mario Galaxy, Smash) vs Wii Sports and more casual games.

Hence why i picked between the two. Irrespective of what we all thing the core is now or what it was back then, the issue here is people downplaying Wii Sports as not a system seller because it was bundled. Wii Sports is probably one of the only bundled games what made lots of people who are not core Nintendo fans buy the system.   



 

 

I think it depends on whether it will be pre-installed on every PS5 console throughout the gen or will they remove it at some point from newer models. I also don't think that it is correct to compare the two because Astro's Playroom doesn't seem to be the game even. PS4 also has Playroom app but nobody is talking like it outsold Wii Sports



 

BraLoD said:
peachbuggy said:

Lol! All i need to say is, read this thread, be enlightened about Wii Sports, open your eyes. It seems that the main thing you were completely ill-informed about was the worldwide phenomenon that wii sports was and possibly still is. Yet you are still trying to compare it with equality to a free app that likely most ps5 consumers won't even know about? Lol indeed!

Why do I need to "open my eyes" to a game that was a mandatory sale with a console being equal a game that is a mandatory sale to another console?

It's that simple.

As I told someone else, you can call Wii Sports a phenomenom as much as you like, the fact it sold as a mandatory part of the Wii outside of Japan is the only fact that matters to the point I'm making.

I'm not the one picking up straws here.

1. Nobody was forced to buy Wii sports. They by and large chose to, either directly or indirectly. The Wii basically WAS Wii sports at the beginning.

2. The fact that you continue to classify a pack-in which probably over half of the consumers won't even be aware of, with equal status to the best selling game of all time really shows your ignorance to the subject. Your eyes won't be opened, as you refuse to open them. I could probably link several youtube videos to show what a pivotal and important game Wii sports was. Yes, a phenomenon.  However, the mere fact that you are purposefully oblivious to it means it will be akin to beating my head against a brick wall. Therefore, i won't bother as i really can't be bothered to explain something that simply doesn't need explaining.

My "strawman" is literally the WHOLE point!

I'm done here. 



DON'T WIN ME CHIBI BUDDY DON'T WIN ME.

ANIMAL CROSSING NEW LEAF FRIEND CODE:- 5129 1175 1029. MESSAGE ME.
ANDY MURRAY:- GRAND SLAM WINNER!

In my opinion the N64 was not just the best console of the 5th gen but, to this day the best console ever created!