Who wants to take a bet that new super mario bros. wii won't sell 10 mill :)

Ot: What an idiot(Malstrom)

Both I and Nintendo disagree: business-wise, Mario Galaxy is something of a failure, which I believe Malstrom is pointing out. Unlike Malstrom though, I'd like to try and explain how this conclusion arose.

No matter what perspective you use, the game has underperformed in the market. Yes, it's narrowly outsold Sunshine, but then again it has over twice the number of users that it can appeal to (a figure which is growing), so slightly edging out one of the weakest Mario platformers ever is not particularly impressive: indeed, I find it revealing that it still lags far behind Mario 64, despite having a larger userbase (will it ever pass 64? I'm highly skeptical...). And unlike most games, the userbase argument actually means something: we know that Mario platformers can crack ten million with ease. We know that another Mario platformer is currently tearing up the charts, and has outsold Galaxy 2:1 (and growing). There is more than enough interest in Mario platfomers to greatly exceed Galaxy's sales potential, if Nintendo can tap into that interest. Demonstrably, Galaxy has hit only a fraction of the people interested in Mario platformers, making it a failure.

It should also be noted that the other Mario platformer, the 2D one, continues to sell phenomenally, and not just in Japan. Even accepting the statement that 3D Mario performs best in America, NPD shows New Super Mario Bros. routinely hanging around the Top 20 All Formats chart, meaning it's sold in the neighborhood of 100,000 a month: even after almost three years, it's common for NSMB to be in the top ten, including appearances this year. By contrast, Galaxy hasn't been seen in the top thirty in over a year. The best it can hope for is a top-ten Wii-only appearance, usually towards the bottom, and then only irregularly. Yeah it's still selling, but we have demonstrable and ineffable proof that Mario platformers can and should be performing much better than Galaxy is.

We also should take a very close look at Miyamoto's statement: they wanted Galaxy to sell like a 2D Mario. But we've already seen that it has failed to reach this goal, and by a large margin at that. By Nintendo's own terms, Galaxy has failed. More importantly, it tells us that Nintendo itself is very much aware that there is a difference between the market performance of 2-and-3D Mario games. Not that we need that statement to tell us so: the fact that they're releasing a 2D Mario for Wii is admission enough.

So Galaxy has not sold well, and is still not selling as well as it should. How does this relate to Malstrom's larger argument that Galaxy is responsible for the system doing poorly in Japan (something which I also feel is true)? Simple: Mario platformers have been the primary draw for nearly every Nintendo console.

Super Mario Bros. was the NES, and SMB3 was a massive cultural phenonemom that sold gangbusters and prolonged the system's life. Mario World is far and away the best-selling game on the system: the runner up (several million behind) is Mario All-Stars. Mario 64 is the same. Even on the handhelds, Mario Land was only outsold by Pokemon and Tetris: Mario Advance (a remake of Mario 2) is second only to Pokemon games. And on the DS, only the combined SKU's of Nintendogs top it. And while DKII would know better, I'm willing to bet that 2D Mario are the best-selling VC titles But with time Mario platformers have stopped mattering so much: Sunshine sold less than Melee and Mario Kart (a first!) And Galaxy has been outsold by six different Wii titles already...

Long story short, Galaxy has not done its job: its not attracting as many users to the system as most of its predecessors did. It's particularly failed at this in Japan; it even got outsold by Mario Party! Is it true that the Wii's problems in Japan stem "entirely" on Galaxy? No, as Nintendo and third-parties haven't done a good enough job of providing a compelling stream of software to make up for Galaxy's failure. But is it fair to blame the star quarterback for the team's loss when he played more like Alex Smith than his usual Tom Brady performance? I believe it is. Hopefully, NSMBWii will rectify this.

But for the record, I still want more 3D Marios myself, and Galaxy was awesome.

They started very strong out of the gates (they were outpacing the PS2 for a very long while) but they've hit the doldrums since then. This is especially worrisome since they've released many of their biggest console franchises there already, and while their new expanded audience offerings did well they still have not let them keep pace with the PS2. If you're Nintendo, this trend is incredibly worrisome, because gaming is who you are, and Japan is a nice barometer for what the aging populations of the world will react to gaming. The stuff you've mentioned will help, but when you struggled to stay in the 10k/week category, you've got problems. The fact that they're crushing the HD systems is irrelevant: beating an asthmatic at a marathon is not a point of pride.

 Actually, he's pretty down on Mario World: he likes the NES games the best, especially 3.

You're point about handhelds=/= consoles is a good one. However, NSMB is helpful here for two reasons. It demonstrates that the market does not have less interest in Mario platformers overall than they did in Mario's 2D heyday, which puts a damper on any argument that those numbers can never again be reached because people have moved on from Mario. It also tells us that Mario's appeal is actually pretty universal. Remember, up until this generation Mario platformers were almost exclusively left to consoles, not handhelds: the Mario Land games were made for the Gameboy, but since the early 90's Nintendo hadn't made any more of those until NSMB (I wonder why?).

I'd also point out that the line between handhelds and consoles is not as important as it used to be. The pick-up-and-play philosophy of the former is bleeding more and more into the latter, while even the most console-centric genres are increasingly adapting to fit the handhelds (JRPGs, anyone?). I'd also point out that the PSP in particular is, for all intents and purposes, a mobile console, and its games reflect that.

 Agreed!

@ noname2200

I wonder if you can help me understand something Malstrom wrote recently. His explanation for the success of MK Wii is that it is like Super MK. I'll quote myself from another thread.

"I blame the Wii’s problems in Japan entirely on Super Mario Galaxy"

What the...

The Wii has been doing fine in Japan for quite a while. Its problems are only recent. How can SMG possibly be to blame?

I remember what you're referring to, although he was actually quoting Mario Kart's creator, who stated that with the DS version he was looking back towards Super rather than 64/Advance etc. I haven't given it as much thought as I should, so I don't have an answer yet, but I think a good place to start would be in how Malstrom defines "content."

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/email-how-can-malstrom-question-nintendo/

Unfortunately, I need to get to work, but when I come back I'll try to puzzle out his meaning a bit more.

Interesting, but I still don't see where he makes the connection. I would call Super MK the least 'richly textured world' of all the console Mario Karts with a possible exception of MK 64. I would also call SMW the most 'richly textured world' of the console 2D Mario platformers, not SMB3. I find it surprising that he praises SMB3 over SMW considering that SMW sold more.

I just find it frustrating that he doesn't adequately support some of the points he makes. Especially so when I think those points are wrong! ;)

Your post above about Galaxy was great, by the way. I think we could use this 'richly textured world' concept to explain some of the sales of the 3D Mario platformers. For Sunshine, instead of exploring the established 'Mario Universe,' we are taken to a completely world. Perhaps people didn't want to explore the Isle of Delphino, but to continue to explore the Mushroom Kingdom. The same problem could be said of Galaxy. Instead of exploring the established Mushroom Kingdom, we are exploring the galaxy. Although some parts of the game felt similar to the Mushroom Kingdom, a lot was new and different.

(I just remembered that SMW actually took place in Dinosaur World. That puts a bit of a damper on the above theory. However, I do think Dinosaur World looks and feels a lot like the Mushroom Kingdom, so maybe it still fits the theory.)

For Mario 64, we actually get to explore the castle. Some of the levels feel very much like the Mushroom Kingdom, with some new places. I think the technology probably held this one back from feeling as 'richly textured' as the 2D versions though.

What do you think?

What the hell is he talking about? Galaxy is to blame for Wii doing weakly? really?

Republic, Malstrom quoted the MKWii creator for that refference.

I know that, but it doesn't mean it makes any sense.