Neff
Member
Yep, twenty times as much. It's small numbers, but in terms of what can be achieved with Wii U at its lowest ebb, it's actually incredibly impressive. Sadly.
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SM3DW sells 107k in Japan, lowest 3D Mario debut ever
- Thread starter zomgbbqftw
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Yep, twenty times as much. It's small numbers, but in terms of what can be achieved with Wii U at its lowest ebb, it's actually incredibly impressive. Sadly.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Nah they love them on 3DS. Its WiiU thats the problem.
shinra-bansho
Member
Yes, but likewise the PS2 didn't reach 150M on the backs of the enthusiast gamer alone, nor the PS1 its 100M units. The PS4 will need to reach mass market and family audiences too if it is to be a long term success, but it doesn't have to reach them on day one.
What exactly does investing money into gameplay entail that publishers aren't currently doing? That's having resources pulled away from it to make for shinier graphics?
Hardware power and the graphical/budget arms race, which is as much a product of consumer's desires as it is developers and publishers, are two entirely different issues.
Hardware power is just an enabler. It isn't the root cause of ridiculous development or advertising budgets.
Putting out weaker hardware doesn't fix that problem, as it's a problem with the market itself that's led to the middle of the market being less viable.
I don't see how or why the bolded is the case. Thus far nothing any more particularly interesting or creative, in my mind, has come out of the Kinect, Move or the Wii's motion controls. By and large, they've simply resulted in dance, fitness, minigame and party titles.
Interesting things can be done gameplay mechanics, with physics, with AI, with storytelling, and so on that don't require waggle. Games like Journey and Flower, games like LittleBigPlanet, games like Braid, games like Portal, games like Katamari Damacy, games like Papers Please, To The Moon and other indie titles don't require motion control to be creative and interesting.
Meanwhile, the obsession with "Innovation!!!" and the excessive value placed on it over iterative improvement, has always been odd to me
Some Nobody
Junior Member
Maybe Japan just likes bad games. Didn't some other game unexpectedly raise the sales of the Wii U by like 700% or something?
I'm joking. Mostly.
PdotMichael
Banned
Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, please.
With digital sales it should be on par with Mario 64 DS. More recently 3D Land did 3 times better at launch, but with 5 times the userbase, and it sold 1,5 million more copies as an evergreen title. Knowing SM3DW enjoys incredible feedbacks left and right, it should keep selling well for a long time as well.
It just says people are sick of Nintendo's bullshit and want them to change. Sometimes to get someone to change they need to hit rock bottom so the more Nintendo failures we see, the closer we might get to said change. God knows Nintendo won't change because their fans want it.
I think you're wrong with that, otherwise 3DS wouldn't be such a hit. What it more likely says is that Wii U had a severe drought, an OS that was released half baked, a pretty bad marketing/positionning, and an image that suffered because of it. Nintendo will need to keep releasing gems and be patient to overcome the negative impact their initial struggles had. I don't believe people suddenly became allergic to great content, so they should be fine as long as they release great games, get the entry price down, and market their content right.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
Japan Japan Japan
So far this generation:
PSP collapsed into Vita
Wii collapsed into Wii U
DS collapsed slightly more elegantly into 3DS
MS lol
I'm not too optimistic for the PS4 over there to be honest.
Meanwhile in Japan:
no fucks is given
So far this generation:
PSP collapsed into Vita
Wii collapsed into Wii U
DS collapsed slightly more elegantly into 3DS
MS lol
I'm not too optimistic for the PS4 over there to be honest.
Meanwhile in Japan:
no fucks is given
dark_inferno
Member
Thats sad. I hope Nintendo shows something groundbreaking at VGX.
We had a good balance with Nintendo,Sony and Microsoft. I hope that wont change.
We had a good balance with Nintendo,Sony and Microsoft. I hope that wont change.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Japan Japan Japan
So far this generation:
PSP collapsed into Vita
Wii collapsed into Wii U
DS collapsed slightly more elegantly into 3DS
MS lol
I'm not too optimistic for the PS4 over there to be honest.
Meanwhile in Japan:
no fucks is given
PS3 recovered a bit and now PS4 is our only hope.....
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
PS3 is also in itself a collapse from PS2, sitting at a modest 9,5 million, already outsold by a large extent by the two year old 3DS. Arguably the collapse from PS2 to PS3 happened everywhere, but in Japan the 360 is a non-factor in explaining the decrease.
But PS4 will surely save Japan
What would they do with their heads once they are out? I don't think Nintendo knows which is why they keep doing what they have always done. They seem very confident in their philosophy of 'being different' which is all fine and dandy but if no one wants your difference then you're in trouble. In fact over the years less and less people have wanted the Nintendo difference apart from the Wii and even then they only wanted it for a few years. Nintendo seem either oblivious to this or just refuse to change their approach.
You treat these companies like you would a person. This isn't going to happen. They may never put out the games you want them to ever again. If things start going downhill, their product is gonna go downhill. Now they're not only making stuff that makes you angry but they're actually bad products.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Nintendo has marketing the Wii U horribly. 3DS is doing fine because handhelds are just more popular.
Sony did the right thing in waiting for more games to be out instead of releasing with nothing.
Sony did the right thing in waiting for more games to be out instead of releasing with nothing.
Sure like Wii U isn't walking proof of that. From all that 100mln consoles sold there isn't even 5 mln fans to buy consoles in a year.
Gamecube also had fantastic games and it sure wasn't smash hit like Wii was.
There's a handy dandy Jimquisition video that goes on this very point and basically sums up my thoughts in a much better manner than I ever could.
Sorta Maximus
Member
Rumors of Japan's importance of late has been greatly exaggerated.
Christopher
Member
...why is that?
dampflokfreund
Banned
Wow, the leak in the Wii U ship is very big, the water really flows badly in her body. I don't think she could hold her long above the water anymore...
God Dayumm
Banned
That is why it was a smart move from Sony to relegate the launch there to last tier. They shouldn't even bother IMHO
Population decline obviously.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
24 million console sold there this gen....thats on par or better than UK lol
Freezie KO
Banned
You think if Wii Fit bombed 4 entries in a row, they'd keep making them?
Nintendo will change directions and drop franchises if they stop selling. Ask F-Zero or Advance Wars or Metroid. If the market rejects SM3DW, then we likely wouldn't get another Mario in that style.
Just needs 'Nothing' in the bottom right.Obligatory
Because it'd be funny, of course. Not because I actually believe that's necessarily the case. *starts backing out of thread* Please don't ban m-*runs*
No I'm questioning the line of thought that "if these other games I don't like making stop being made, they'll make things that I like instead". It's flawed. If the market rejects SM3DW, they might make a Mario game you like even less instead. They certainly are going to need higher returns on their next game.
I think this is the danger people calling for Iwata's head don't understand. There's this assumption that if Iwata is gone, it'll trigger a return to the SNES era when it is much more likely it'll lead to Nintendo joining the iPhone era.
"Thank god the game that appeals to a wider audience isn't doing great in Japan! Maybe they'll wise up and make the game 5 people on an English forum are kicking and screaming about. That'll be much more successful!"
Freezie KO
Banned
Yes, that's true. It's certainly possible that the next game would be worse. That's the risk with any new endeavor though.
For example, I'm going to buy Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. A lot of people (myself included) wanted to see a new game from Retro. If it was a brand new thing that I didn't even know I wanted, the game could surprise me and reach heights above what I expect from DKC:TF. On the other hand, if it was a WRPG like a lot of people wanted, I wouldn't buy it because I don't like RPGs.
That's the risk in making something new. You can reach new heights (as with Mario 64 or Wii Sports) or you can hurt the fanbase (as with Metroid Other M). I'm willing to accept those risks to get new things. So I agree with your premise, but I find it a shame that Nintendo isn't taking these types of risks with their software any more. A multiplayer 3D Land sequel was about the safest choice they could make.
Aaron Strife
Banned
PdotMichael
Banned
The plain fact that handhelds are the only successful field of Nintendo. Joining the iPhone era is kind of unlikely.
But if Nintendo doesn't have the creativity and know-how to design good and successful hardware anymore, then is turning Nintendo into a software company and looking for other business fields a pretty good idea.
Having played the game non stop for a second evening, and as stated by reviewers, Mario 3D Land now feels like a prequel, the sketch that paved the way for the chef d'oeuvre. If anything, 3D Land now feels safe, as good as it is.
Where is this delusion that the PS4 is suddenly going to revive the days of the PS2 coming from? The PS2 days are long dead. Even if the PS4 had all of the same factors behind the success of the PS2, which it doesn't, it's foolish to expect that Sony can simply follow that model and achieve the same success. The explosion of the casual market changed everything.
Big publishers are increasingly unable to take risks because so much money is spent on production values and producing the most impressive graphics. Last gen created a situation where developers were one bomb away from bankruptcy. How can developers possibly take risks with new I.Ps or gameplay in such an environment? None of the major gameplay innovation this gen came from the big console developers. They came from indies. How did one guy from Swedan invent the monumental achievement that is Minecraft when voxels have been around for years? The homogenization of genres and sequelitus in the are widely agreed upon problems in the industry, and they're all the result developers afraid to take risks
Interesting way to put it. So if hardware is the "enabler," what would any good therapist recommend in a situation with a delinquent and an enabler? They wouldn't just say that by fixing the delinquent's behavior alone that the problem would be solved. They would say that the "enabler" also needs to stop enabling. It might sound outright authoritarian, but developers this past gen have proven they can't act rationally, as evidenced by the number of them that went out of business. There needs to be some signal to devs that they need to slow down insatiable need for better graphics, but there also needs to be something that pushes the industry forward and excites the masses. Holding back hardware power is an artificial restraint, but it is necessary until we can find a solution to the graphics arms race. The easiest solution is to massively expand gaming's audience, and we're not going to be able to do that with the current amount of hardcore gamers.
That's your own preference, and I'm sure you'll find a bunch of people here who took one look at motion controls and said they were a stupid gimmick and never actually tried them.
Of course there's still a ton of potential in motion controls. One of the widest criticisms of the Wii was that it was not accurate enough. Nintendo attempted to fix this with the Motion Plus, but they only released a handful of games for it. We never got to see what true motion controls is like, nor did we see very much how they can be combined with more hardcore genres. Zelda Skyward Sword gave us a taste, but there's still a lot of room for refinement. I would be thrilled to see what would happen if developers outside of Nintendo took the Wii remote seriously and what would come out of it.
I never said that innovation is limited to motion controls, but keep on trying to pigeon-hole me into your caricature of various Nintendo fanboys. Innovation can occur with our without motion controls, but the Wii proved that a new control scheme can encourage a boost in creativity. The Wii library might have not been your cup-of-tee, but the industry no longer needs to cater elusively to the hardcore, and it needs to take everyone's tastes into account.
Innovation for the sake of innovation is indeed a bad thing, but if you actually understood what I've been saying, you would know that's not what I'm suggesting. The industry needs to change. Optimism surrounding the recent console launches notwithstanding, the traditional console industry is in a crisis. Even people here are coming around to the fact that this will be the last console generation. We cannot continue to keep on doing what we've always been doing and ignore casual gamers.
How did you read that one post and somehow miss all my other posts that answers that poorly thought out point? I suggest you read them now.
NoMoreTrolls
Banned
It's a long shot, but has someone mentioned heat waves?
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
PS3 is also in itself a collapse from PS2, sitting at a modest 9,5 million, already outsold by a large extent by the two year old 3DS. Arguably the collapse from PS2 to PS3 happened everywhere, but in Japan the 360 is a non-factor in explaining the decrease.
But PS4 will surely save Japan
PS3 and 3DS ended up being fairly healthy. Maybe it's not PS2 or Wii or DS healthy, but that doesn't necessarily mean the death of the industry. The type of people lost between the DS and the 3DS probably bought a DS for things like Brain Age and Nintendogs, and they can get similar games like that on their phones, but I'm not going to say the industry needs saving because it's going to completely collapse without them. And I can't imagine who would be the type of person to buy a PS3 but not eventually buy a PS4.
I do expect PS4 to start off slow, just like PS3, 3DS, and even the DS started off slow. I just don't think that is a sign the Japanese console industry is dead. If PS4 ends up looking like the Wii U, then I might change my mind, but for now one data point doesn't equal a trend.
To Japan's user base, 3D World sold to roughly 10% of the people who have Wii U's.
shinra-bansho
Member
Where is this assertion that I made any suggestion that the days of the PS2 are coming back? All I said was that in order to be successful the PS4 is going to have to tap into more than the enthusiast market, and it will have to. But there's no inherent necessity to attempt to tap into all markets at once, that's how you end up with a product that appeals to none like the Wii U.
Big publishers have always been risk averse. They'll be risk averse on powerful hardware, they'll be risk averse on weaker hardware.
When you're one person, or a small group, working out of a garage without shareholders and quarterly earnings you don't need to be as risk averse.
The "delinquent" is the consumer market that drives demand. Consumer demand shapes consumer goods. There isn't a fix, nor does there really need to be.
Everyone chases COD dollars because that's where the dollars are. Everyone pushes shiny and pretty because that's what people are buying. Set-pieces and shooters are in vogue. If and when they go out of fashion, publishers will move on and if EA and Acti-Blizz could put out games with PS2 graphics and call it a day, they would.
Meanwhile, the idea that motion controls still excites the masses really requires some sort of evidential support, considering there's sales data that suggests the opposite.
I didn't say they were a stupid gimmick; they're certainly not to my taste, but I completely recognise that there was a large market for what they offered. "was" is the operative word. And I also recognise there are some things that they do better than traditional controls. "some" being the operative word, as they also come with their own unique and inherent limitations. I'm perfectly capable of separating my preferences from examination of the current market situation, where Just Dance is a declining franchise, where the fitness genre drops 50% year over year, where a console released that tried to concurrently appeal to both enthusiast and casual markets has failed at either.
You would be thrilled if everybody invested in motion controls and combined them more with core gaming. That's nice. Is there anything to suggest the wider marketplace is after that though? Is the casual market that's seemingly vacated the console space for their smartdevices hankering for more precise motion controls to bring them back? Is the core market that drives tie ratios up and buys annualized franchises crying out for more integration of these functions into the titles? No.
I'd be thrilled if Japan could get it's act together and release more RPGs. But they wouldn't sell in the current market.
You stated it [motion control] was the most relevant possible direction and I'm sorry but I entirely fail to see how. There are plentiful alternative routes to innovation in games that are just as, if not more, relevant than control schemes. And you still, as yet, haven't offered particularly strong argument as to why that's the best and most relevant way forward. You state a boost in creativity, yet don't elaborate on what exactly that entailed and how it's any more "creative!" than the apparently creatively bankrupt wastelands that are the PS3 and 360 libraries.
I don't necessarily disagree the industry needs to change. It needs things like variable pricing models and appropriate budgeting for those models. Meanwhile, "we" can keep doing what we've been doing and buy things that appeal to us, the onus is not on the consumer to change their appetites, it's on producers to cater to them.
It does not necessitate a wholesale move to primarily catering towards a comparatively fickle market by focusing on a control paradigm that they seemingly no longer care about. And it does not need some sort of draconian restriction on the march of technology in what is fundamentally a technology driven industry.
EDIT: Oh, and I'm not sure why Microsoft's
Japan Japan Japan
So far this generation:
PSP collapsed into Vita
Wii collapsed into Wii U
DS collapsed slightly more elegantly into 3DS
MS lol
I'm not too optimistic for the PS4 over there to be honest.
Meanwhile in Japan:
no fucks is given
Collapse is a very strong word to describe the 3DS.
velvet_nitemare
Member
Congrats on the new tag.
It ain't just a river in Egypt.
theprodigy
Member
bwahaha about time
lol
as for 3DS, considering it'll probably end up being the 2nd best selling system ever in Japan, it's surely not below expectations over there
Depends on how we define what fine is. Right now, I do not see the PS4 being able to match the PS3 in sales.
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