Hold up, hold up, hold up

Ae you calling me anti-Nintendo?

Your tone is neither appreciated nor appropriate for this conversation, especially given that you don't seem to be familiar with the difference between a floor and a ceiling for installbases. You can assume that I know perfectly welle numbers mean; what thif I continue to disagree with you, it must be because we stand on different points as to what qualifies a franchise as being "bigger".

The reason you don't know what they mean is you are just posting totals and calling one bigger. You don't take into accounts lots of variables, like the major issue that Activision is just making more games (which doesn't mean there games are doing better) or the fact that Call of Duty did not create new demand.

Profit margins have nothing to do with which franchise is bigger - which is to say, which fanchise holds a greater share of the market (defined as dollars spent by individuals) within any given timeframe.

Investors and managers make million dollar decisions based on profit margins. I think they are pretty importaint. This is you trying to throw out stuff because it ruins your argument.

Subsequent Call of Duty games continue to sell more and more, so they cannot be selling only to old customers. Modern Warfare 2 looks ready to finish out at something like 23-25 million by the time it's done, and that's assuming that Black Ops very seriously cannibalizes its sales - which will only put Call of Duty, as a franchise, even further ahead. That 23-25 million will be the new floor for the Call of Duty installbase, which will match up comfortably against the floor of 2D Mario, while continuing to produce more revenue year over year.

There is no proff of that or any reason to say that is true. Since sales of 360 and PS3 did not go up (at least not a lot) with the release of the game, it means current players are buying it, not new ones. Wii sales in December were 4 million thanks to NSMBWii. This means a lot of new Wii owners were buying it. Also, since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 had a high number of preorders and most of it's sales were front loaded, this means that it was a lot of old customers buying the game. This tends to happen with a sequel.

The question is not about what moves systems. I am not talking abotu systems. I am talking about gamees. There is no reasonable way to draw absolute correlation between the sales of a game annd the sales of its system - but if you want to go by this route then 2-D Mario is overshadowed by Wii Fit and Mario Kart, which sustained Wii sales at a much higher level for a much greater length of time than NSMBWii has done.

Again, you're moving the goal post. Call of Duty is not making new customers but relying on old ones. CoD is selling to Halo and Gears of Wars fans. Not to different consumers. Also, being able to push systems means it is a very strong title. Discounting 2D Marios as system sellers is the end all of moving the goal post.

As to this line, which I will take the time to quote:

"If the number of games produced was the same, 2D Marios would blow Call of Duty out of the water, and that, my friend, is fact."

1. That is not what "fact" means. That is conjecture with no statistical basis on which to stand. Again: you are misusing the word "fact".

2. Call of Duty at its best outsells 2-D Mario at its best within comparable timeframes. That is a fact.

1. Using averages, you can see that 2D Mario sell better overall than Call of Duty games (which is statistical evidence). Now, let's use logic. If the average is higher, and Call of Duty has a higher total, that means there is another variable at work. That variable is number of games produced. Since Call of Duty has more games and higher total sales, then it is reasonable to assume that it sold better due to having more games (which also makes logical sense. If you make more of a product, you are more likely to sell more). So, if the X factor is the number of games, then we remove the variable. This is simply comparing apples to apples. They are now even. When we look at averages, we will noticed that 2D Marios win. So, yet, it is a statistical fact.

2. Reasonable time frame is latin for "moving the goal post." Why wouldn't we compair long term sales? Why are those now irrelivant. It has already been said in this thread that NSMBWii is outselling both Call of Duty: MW2 titles. In time, this means 2D Mario could surpass CoD:MW2.

3. Point three will refer to this final line, which I will quote:

"You have failed to explain why we should ignore the variable of number of games produced. Why is that irrelivant to this discussion?"

The simple point of it is that number of games contributes to the size of a franchise, and if sales are sustained over a greater number of games then that franchise is larger than it would be otherwise. Woudl Call of Duty be bigger if it had released only two games that sold the mean average of all games since Call of Duty 3? Probably not! But it doesn't matter. The point is that those games did release, they were bought, they did generate revenue, and they have outsold 2-D Mario year in and year out since Mario's revival. Maybe Mario not being bigger is Nintendo's fault for not releasing more Mario games, but the poit remains that it is not as big and conjecture concerning man averages of game sold extrapolated into game-versus-game comparisons is absolutely meaningless. Call of Duty sells more games, makes more revenue, and does this year after year after year. Period.

You typed a lot and said absolutly nothing. You didn't answer my question, just said that you think they should not be used.

So we are talking about which series is bigger yes. Well........

• Which series moved systems
• Which series is still selling and doesn't rely heavily on pre-orders
• Which series does better on average (in other words, if a game is released, which one is more likely to do better).

I can tell you the answer to all three is not Call of Duty.

Just to let you know, you have not made a point in the last few pages. You have said nothing new but clinged to one point while trying to discount all the ones thrown against you. Seeing as your argument is like swiss cheese, I would say your point is wrong.

Did you just ignore two paragraphs of my post for no particular reason?

There was no reason to argue the meaning and use of celing and floor. I'm not going to bog things down with a word argument.

Right.

I'm not here to be told I don't understand the subjects about which I debate, nor so that my arguments can be summarily ignored, so I will extricate myself from this conversation. I will, however, say this:

Pretending that Call of Duty sells only to old buyers is ridiculous. New games sell more than old games, ergo nenw games must sell to new buyer,s even if every single buyer of an old game moves on to the new one (they don't). Modern Warfare 2 sold more than any other game in its franchise, so it must have sold to buyers who did not previously buy Call of Duty games.

The last word, of course, is yours.

In terms of Console selling Mario HAS to be bigger than Call of Duty because, like Guitar Hero, it has to keep iterating and re-iterating to generate those vast sales. Mario DS and Wii are clearly getting a wider, broader and deeper audience and is thus a bigger franchise for Nintendo than Call of Duty is for MS or Sony. Activision, though, are chuckling, though Nintendo probably didn't put as much cash into development!!

Here is the last word: You were arguing a poor point. The fact that you were bombarded by arguments and failed to bring new points should show you that you were just digging a hole for yourself. If Call of Duty is a bigger series, then why was your only point that it has "higher total sales," and spent the rest of your time clumsily trying to disprove everything that came your way as if it didn't count.

The reason i ignored an argument is because it is not importaint. Arguing the words "floor," and "ceiling," is not worth either of our time and will distract the actual argument. It had nothing to do with the main argument, so it's far easier to skip it. Trust me, it would have been a headach for everyone.

If you are willing to use the backwards logic of combining yearly releases to only 2 releases from Nintendo, I would say that you must be anti-something (or perhaps pro-Call of Duty).

I, for one, am not pro-anything or anti-anything. I'm just seeing this from a business perspective. 2d Mario is an undeniably larger, more reliable, and ultimately longer-lasting franchise than Call of Duty.

It will continue to sell throughout this generation, and then the next generation after that. This is only, of course, if Nintendo continues to actually make 2d Mario games. If they decide to abandon it like they did 18 years ago, then I will join the forum dwellers who say "Nintendo is doomed!"

Most Xbox games are all hype. They all sell in the first week, then when people discover that they are kind of boring, the games get almost no sales in the following week.

And a lot of PS3 games.

So it's likely that it's just a vocal minority that gives these games all that praise, while most HD system owners aren't that impressed.

Heck, Malstrom points out that sustained hits like MW2 are rare on the HD systems, which means those hits done mean that HD gaming is successful, but that the HD system owners are flocking to the few genuinely good games on them.

And while some could argue that happns on the Wii, games with legs are more common (including CoD games), so the argument would be wrong.