Captain Smoker
Member
Official Nintendo shipment numbers.
Other M certainly didn't ship over a million units until December 2013.
Maybe it was close and it somehow crossed the mark between January 2014 and now, but that's speculation.
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Should Metroid cater to small target group like the Souls series?
- Thread starter nkarafo
- Start date
Other M certainly didn't ship over a million units until December 2013.
Maybe it was close and it somehow crossed the mark between January 2014 and now, but that's speculation.
ALBW really feels like it underwhelmed sales wise for some reason. Ocarina 3D crushed it, and that was a remake. A remake of Ocarina of Time granted, but it's still an N64 remake. I'm curious as to whether ALBW or Majora 3D has sold better. If it's the latter, then it's probably a case of 3D Zelda selling much better.
Metroid would probably face the same crisis. A proper 2D Metroid would probably clear a million on the 3DS easily, but not much beyond that. This kind of atmospheric adventure seems more suited for a 3D game. Dark Moon sold really well, though I'm not sure if that can be compared to Metroid/Zelda.
krizalidzero
Member
Whatever the case, it's funny though. It's stated that it was the fastest selling Metroid game ever in its first week, then it went stale after hitting about 850k.
Still, 850k is pretty close to a mil, so I don't think it is impossible to think it sold more one million.
And shipped doesn't mean sold.
Even then, I'm still amazed that Metroid: Other M went to the bargain bins. You know how rare it is to find a Nintendo title in the bargain bins for under $5? And yet there Other M was, marked down to $5, brand new, when I picked it up.
That's unheard of for a Nintendo title.
Word of mouth spread fast.
It's like those movies that have a big box-office opening day, only the word of mouth is negative, and then it has a huge drop-off the following few days.
evilromero
Member
I would expect the general mainstream gamer to prefer fully 3D gameplay (in terms of spatial movement, not display). If you look at the top selling games in the US it's almost exclusively 3D games.
Major B.S.
Neo Member
I've been thinking about this for while now. Wouldn't it be amazing yet highly unlikely if Nintendo looked to the Souls devs to design a proper 3rd person Metroid title?
I'm on the fence when thinking about whether they should have a hand in the visual design but in regards to game progression and gameplay (they might need a splash of help for shooting mechanics) I think they would nail it and could really make a lot of people happy.
(Bonus round: Wayforward + old R&D1 staffers for new 2D Metroid. Jake Kauffman is a must for sound design if it happened.)
I'm on the fence when thinking about whether they should have a hand in the visual design but in regards to game progression and gameplay (they might need a splash of help for shooting mechanics) I think they would nail it and could really make a lot of people happy.
(Bonus round: Wayforward + old R&D1 staffers for new 2D Metroid. Jake Kauffman is a must for sound design if it happened.)
NeonZ
Member
ALBW seems to have reached 2.5 millions worldwide.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2014/140508e.pdf
Majora's Mask 3d's last known numbers were 2.1 millions, but that was from less than two months after its launch.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2015/150507_4e.pdf
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
ALBW isn't entirely a new game either which might have contributed to its low sales. Also, if you're going to count ALBW as a 2D Zelda, then you should also count Phantom Hourglass (4.13 million) and Spirit Tracks (2.61 million).
1.- Nintendo
2.- Not as far as December 2013, Other M didn't break 1 million.
EDIT:
Beaten
privitsan02
Member
The difference here is that Souls as a series is on an upward trajectory. It's getting more popular by the minute, and both Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne 2 will smash their previous records. It's also a relatively new franchise, (Demon's Souls didn't go viral until 2009 when it launched internationally).
Metroid hasn't been a commercial success of that caliber since 2002. That's over 10 years ago. It also doesn't look like they are particularly interested and if they are, it certainly won't hit the market running like how Souls is right now.
Best wishes.
Not really? Super Metroid wouldn't even make it on the top 20 best selling SNES games list, which would feature a number of Japan exclusives well ahead of it. It's fine to say it sold well for what it was, but to call it a hit? I'm just not seeing it.
Chinatown Wars did show that.
Mind you I think the first two GTA did at best 2 million or so.
Metroid 1 was a million seller in Japan. Of course it was during the Famicom's golden age.
Other M' simplicity in controls was trying to harken back to the disenfranchised gamer, the father that bought the Wii for the family and remembered playing Metroid. It's a noble target but I do not think it's the correct approach as the thread's premise confirms. His initial pitch was to create an NES game with the ultimate technology", I think they ultimately failed at this partly because of Sakamoto's lack of experience and understanding (I do not mean this in a condescending way) as to how modern videogames work.
Don't wanna delve too much into it because we've beaten this dead horse for years now, but partnering up with an outside studio brought too many design compromises and philosophy clashes. Sakamoto's initial design stemmed from 2 ideas, what is Metroid and who is Samus.
For the second aspect, I think Sakamoto is actually a really talented scenario writer, and the scenario for Other M is just as interesting as Super Metroid's and Fusion's "personal" aspects of it compared to the Prime's "vessel" ones. The main series (Nintendo refers them this way, so will I) has always been character driven, especially from II onwards, the Baby Metroid, Mother Brain, Ridley, Adam and Samus' own transformation and longing in Fusion whereas the Prime series is less about Samus and more about the planet in which she is in. I understand why people don't like them but some others form strong emotional response to them. The series kept pushing in this direction with each subsequent release and Other M is no exception, and as I mentioned earlier, I think the overall scenario was really interesting; dealing with Samus' past and her constant isolation, dealing with mourning and getting stronger with the baby Metroid and Adam deaths and the idea of a federation conspiracy and the mole. I don't actually know the details, but I think it failed to materialize well in game due to the constant back and forth between Kitaura (head of D-Rockets, team ninja's contracted CG firm), who was in charge of the initial story board and Sakamoto. Kitaura was even gonna bail out of the project if his initial pitch wasn't approved, apparently he made a HUGE storyboard which Sakamoto loved but I believe this might to be detrimental due to the sheer volume of it. And this is where the problem occurred; Sakamoto's goal of seamlessly implementing cinematics and gameplay was impossible to achieve when your job was to balance to different entities in charge of opposing aspects that worked separately without any prior experience with this type of game design personally, he failed as a producer and the end product (and not to mention the response to the game) show this. In fact I'd argue that they achieved their goal of actually seamlessly connecting them, however the cinematics aspects took too much protagonism from the game part itself due to how overly verbose they are. But I guess it's easier to ask his head on a platter instead of understanding the process and hope for improvements.
As for "what is Metroid", I've gone to lengths describing the process. They destilled the essence to "acquiring power ups in order to progress" and with that in mind they created the game. While setting the exploration aspect as an optional regard in terms of aquiring power ups. I believe they succeeded with it, the game being linear hinders the idea of exploring and connecting two dots, but rather keep going forward. I believe this aspect is sort of overstated because the games don't require you to move back and forth but rather they loop you around and always push you forwards towards your next destination, it's an important distinction because complete linearity, while not as rich, still presents the wonderful enjoyment of moving through new areas as you grow stronger. I also think some power ups are really devilishly hidden and going for 100% is just as fun as in other Metroid games. I'd also like to mention that the great job TN did with movement and camara work, and that their design for automation and reaction worked splendidly for the simplistic NES controls.
What I personally want is for Sakamoto, Morisawa and Hosokawa along with a team of 15 other people go hard at work for a spiritual successor to Super Metroid, which I have no doubt in my mind they could achieve perfectly. I understand the mindset of not wanting to retread old ground like this but it's the perfect way to refocus the franchise and regain consumer trust. Nintendo as a platform holder has done a horrible job at managing the Metroid series during it's lifespan, along with other less well known series. I've always been under the impression that if a Metroid game released on steam it would sell 2-3 million copies easily, while if it released on 3ds it would struggle to reach one million.
It doesn't have to.
As I've already told you the budget for videogames were several time smaller back then.
I know that, but selling over a million doesn't mean you're actually a popular game, even back then. If it was, do you think they would have waited as long as they did just to make a new 2D installment in the series? Tech certainly wasn't holding them back from doing that.
For Dark Moon, I feel that's a game where the production values really don't matter to the target audience.
I think Nintendo actually made a great call when they made the Wii, because they realized the vast majority of their games were not actually reliant on the march to Hollywood level production values and budgets that was starting to begin, and thus they could keep their costs down both on the hardware and game production front by simply stepping away from where Sony and Microsoft were headed.
However, I do feel they had at least a couple of series that were harmed by that, which is a notable part of why we're currently having this thread. The benefits though greatly outweighed the costs.
Right, it's definitely a series that benefited tremendously from the shift to 3D.
I could be mistaken, but I believe Zelda still did see something like a ~3 million boost on Ocarina of Time over the previous best selling entry.
I don't think there is any need for explanations for why Other M Tanked. But for the Prime series, the problem wasn't how the games are. They are fine quality wise.
But people seems to have forgotten how horrible was the marfketing for Metroid Prime 3. To quote myself from some months ago, the first ads only appeared two weeks from the game's release. There was no live demonstration at E3 2006 and at E3 2007, it only got what? Three minutes of gameplay on stage. That for a flagship title being released in a few months!
Metroid Prime 3 was victim of an horrible hype machine. That it actually managed to carve up 1.5 million in sales was very impressing. DK by contrast had a very solid hype machine.
Nintendo just dropped the ball very hard with Metroid. Metroid Prime 1 had the benefict of great reviews and word of mouth. MP2 had the bad luck of being in a dying system. Metroid Prime 3 could had been an absolute system seller for the Wii and gateway game ofr shooters, but Nintendo severely mismanaged the hype.
But people seems to have forgotten how horrible was the marfketing for Metroid Prime 3. To quote myself from some months ago, the first ads only appeared two weeks from the game's release. There was no live demonstration at E3 2006 and at E3 2007, it only got what? Three minutes of gameplay on stage. That for a flagship title being released in a few months!
Metroid Prime 3 was victim of an horrible hype machine. That it actually managed to carve up 1.5 million in sales was very impressing. DK by contrast had a very solid hype machine.
Nintendo just dropped the ball very hard with Metroid. Metroid Prime 1 had the benefict of great reviews and word of mouth. MP2 had the bad luck of being in a dying system. Metroid Prime 3 could had been an absolute system seller for the Wii and gateway game ofr shooters, but Nintendo severely mismanaged the hype.
I think IGN had an article called "Metroid Prime 3 - The Anti-Hype" or something close to that. The US commercial was ESPECIALLY bad.
NIntendo tried to have their cake and eat it too by making one of their most hardcore, challenging, and thought-provoking franchises accessible to a wider, more action-driven audience with less attention-span.
Other M is a game that's supposed to be easy to pick up and play, accessible to newcomers. That's why it's so linear, why they hold your hand so much, why it's got so much style and so little substance, why there are so many crutches to lean on, why it's so lenient in its mechanics, why it pushes you forward and talks you through it like this is the first Metroid game you ever played.
... And then throws in references and important story points that only the most hardcore of Metroid fans would understand. Who is this character? He was mentioned in Fusion. What's going on here? That happened in Super Metroid back in 1994 and was a big deal. What's happening now? If you read an obscure Japanese-only manga with a limited print run, you'd understand. What's this thing? Oh, that's a boss from a previous game we tossed in as fanservice.
Other M's story is impossible to truly follow if you're not already a pretty hardcore follower of the series, yet its mechanics are so streamlined and simplified that any Metroid veteran who soldiered through some of the earlier game's hardest moments would and should feel insulted by how little it respected the player's agency and intuition.
So, in relation to Dark Souls, that's ANOTHER thing Dark Souls did well, that Metroid once did so well: minimal storytelling.
Dark Souls never spells it out. The story is mostly told through actions, through the environment, through item descriptions. Just like Metroid used to do.
Metroid was brilliant at NOT spelling things out, at giving you just enough to pique your curiosity. Chozo ruins stretching back a thousand years telling a history of war and peace... abandoned space ships, derelict and empty, long after those on board had been exterminated and the cargo stripped clean... hidden lab factories showcasing a history of experimentation and animal abuse, detailing what they hoped to accomplish... All without resorting to 10 minute cutscenes.
And Samus herself was the avatar of the player's interest. What she felt, we felt. What she saw, we saw. She wasn't a blank slate, but rather a conduit to mimic the feelings we ourselves had. Our fears and concerns in those games matched her fears. Our courage matched hers. What she wanted, we wanted. The games were smartly designed so that what Samus felt was projected onto US, not the other way around.
So when I was ready for Round 6 with Ridley, eager to wipe the floor with him once again, I was not in sync with my main character, who flopped to the floor in tears and cried while he dragged her around the room. When I was ready to march into Sector Zero and slay some Metroids, I was not in sync with my main character, who flopped to the floor helplessly after a surprise attack (from one shot?) and then gushed over the guy who shot her about how awesome he is and how grateful she was that he was doing the job she was trained and raise since infancy to do. When I was ready to face off against Mother Brain, I was not in sync with my main character, who didn't shoot when I ordered her to and instead passively stood by while bureaucrats intimidated her and talked her into keeping her silence, until someone else had to come along and be the big hero.
Less if absolutely more with Metroid, just as Dark Souls uses it so exceedingly well.
Yep.
Metroid Prime 3: The Anti-Hype
Other M is a game that's supposed to be easy to pick up and play, accessible to newcomers. That's why it's so linear, why they hold your hand so much, why it's got so much style and so little substance, why there are so many crutches to lean on, why it's so lenient in its mechanics, why it pushes you forward and talks you through it like this is the first Metroid game you ever played.
... And then throws in references and important story points that only the most hardcore of Metroid fans would understand. Who is this character? He was mentioned in Fusion. What's going on here? That happened in Super Metroid back in 1994 and was a big deal. What's happening now? If you read an obscure Japanese-only manga with a limited print run, you'd understand. What's this thing? Oh, that's a boss from a previous game we tossed in as fanservice.
Other M's story is impossible to truly follow if you're not already a pretty hardcore follower of the series, yet its mechanics are so streamlined and simplified that any Metroid veteran who soldiered through some of the earlier game's hardest moments would and should feel insulted by how little it respected the player's agency and intuition.
So, in relation to Dark Souls, that's ANOTHER thing Dark Souls did well, that Metroid once did so well: minimal storytelling.
Dark Souls never spells it out. The story is mostly told through actions, through the environment, through item descriptions. Just like Metroid used to do.
Metroid was brilliant at NOT spelling things out, at giving you just enough to pique your curiosity. Chozo ruins stretching back a thousand years telling a history of war and peace... abandoned space ships, derelict and empty, long after those on board had been exterminated and the cargo stripped clean... hidden lab factories showcasing a history of experimentation and animal abuse, detailing what they hoped to accomplish... All without resorting to 10 minute cutscenes.
And Samus herself was the avatar of the player's interest. What she felt, we felt. What she saw, we saw. She wasn't a blank slate, but rather a conduit to mimic the feelings we ourselves had. Our fears and concerns in those games matched her fears. Our courage matched hers. What she wanted, we wanted. The games were smartly designed so that what Samus felt was projected onto US, not the other way around.
So when I was ready for Round 6 with Ridley, eager to wipe the floor with him once again, I was not in sync with my main character, who flopped to the floor in tears and cried while he dragged her around the room. When I was ready to march into Sector Zero and slay some Metroids, I was not in sync with my main character, who flopped to the floor helplessly after a surprise attack (from one shot?) and then gushed over the guy who shot her about how awesome he is and how grateful she was that he was doing the job she was trained and raise since infancy to do. When I was ready to face off against Mother Brain, I was not in sync with my main character, who didn't shoot when I ordered her to and instead passively stood by while bureaucrats intimidated her and talked her into keeping her silence, until someone else had to come along and be the big hero.
Less if absolutely more with Metroid, just as Dark Souls uses it so exceedingly well.
Yep.
Metroid Prime 3: The Anti-Hype
Is F-Zero iconic, or is Captain Falcon iconic? Those are two very different things these days, especially since the overall sales for the F-Zero franchise makes Metroid look like Wii Sports.
socksfelloff
Member
I think it's worth noting that metroid prime 1,2 launched on the GameCube. The top selling game on that system is Melee with a pitiful 7.09 million sold. Metroid prime 3 and the trilogy bundle( if it's even included in sales numbers) launched on a console that did not appeal to the core gamer that would play a game like metroid prime.
The souls series, minus demons, launched on two different consoles that both sold over 80 million units each. GameCube sold 22 million.
Iconic to those of us that grew up with a snes/n64 sure. Does today's generation even know who they are?
The souls series, minus demons, launched on two different consoles that both sold over 80 million units each. GameCube sold 22 million.
Iconic to those of us that grew up with a snes/n64 sure. Does today's generation even know who they are?
Captain Falcon is absolutely more well-known then the game he comes from, but there's a core group of people who think F-Zero rules and who would likely buy a new game that's similar to GX.
It wouldn't have massive, widespread appeal but it may get some people to buy a console who weren't interested in Mario or Mario's friends
ForsakenLotus
Member
I don't think Metroid needs to be niche, especially since I think for Nintendo that would mean it wouldn't have the graphical prowess and overall AAA polish that I think Metroid deserves. Look at something like BioShock for an example of what Metroid could be.
Is Nintendo capable of doing it? I'm not sure. I hope so.
Is Nintendo capable of doing it? I'm not sure. I hope so.
If you look at the sales figures for the first few weeks, it still did pretty awful. Dropped hard after week 1 and dropped completely off the charts after a couple more weeks.
Metroid just doesn't sell in Japan these days.
This is probably why they won't make another Metroid game. It simply doesn't fit into their design philosophy anymore. Problem is that it needs those production values to breakout, on top of better management, but they probably don't believe it's worth it and would rather continue having yearly iterations of Mario and Zelda.
Think about this. Pikmin has a dedicated development team at Nintendo. Metroid does not.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
From what I've played of Other M (only a few hours), it felt like they were really trying to push it more heavily in a horror direction than fans were used to. Which makes sense from a historic perspective (Metroid was originally heavily inspired by Alien) but didn't really mesh with the awesome bounty hunter persona that fans had bestowed upon Samus by that point (and that was played up in the Prime sub-series).
Federation Force strikes me as an attempt to move it more in line with where they're comfortable working. It even picks up on the ever popular trend of mission based, four player co-op handhelds games in Japan.
I'm not really convinced it will work though. It's not the region the series works in and it doesn't strike me as something that's going to sell even 100K in the domestic market.
DoktorEvil
Banned
????? No. No they aren't.
I doubt kids and most teens these days would even remember these IPs past Smash.
Also, niche and iconic do not belong in the same sentence.
Dead Space. Space horror can work. Other M just didn't. It satisfies no one.
Play Other M after playing the other games and the gameplay just insults the hell out of you.
I only disagree with MP3 being released in a console rejected by core gamers. I do think MP3 was still on a window favorable to core games, and I do think MP3 have been a gateway game to core gamers.
But Nintendo almost like sabbotaged MP3 since 2006, when they gave the spotlight to Red Steel rather than MP3. Nintendo has no one but themselves for MP3 low sales, it wasn't the games fault. The fact it sold as much as it did is a testment of it's quality.
nkarafo
Member
Nobody really cared about Captain Falcon before SSB Melee. F-Zero is a racing game with some very tight controls and good mechanics, it's not supposed to be a hero/story driven game. Its kinda sad if today people know Captain Falcon but don't know about F-Zero.
maybe they can hire Team Ninja to make a captain falcon action game
I'm seeing in the thread this idea that Metroid is far more niche than it really is, I guess it comes from how disparaging is its critical reception, which is through the roof and beyond, from its sales numbers. But it's still a million seller.
Niche would be something like Bayonetta.
Now I think Nintendo really can't even attempt to do a game that might not be for everyone. They cannot conceive the notion of purposely making something they know some people are not going to like, so I unfortunately feel that they will continue with this awful experiments with the franchise.
Niche would be something like Bayonetta.
Now I think Nintendo really can't even attempt to do a game that might not be for everyone. They cannot conceive the notion of purposely making something they know some people are not going to like, so I unfortunately feel that they will continue with this awful experiments with the franchise.
What?
Other M isn't more of a horror direction at all. It has regenerating health and ammo and badass QTE finishers for Christ's sake. And it wouldn't know what atmosphere is if Super Metroid bit it in the ass.
Is there anything in Other M that comes as close to horror as exploring Frigate Orpheon, the first encounter with the Chozo Ghosts on route to the Sun Chamber, or the moment when the lights turn off in Research Lab Hydra?
This is not remotely true. You dont need to look at bioshock, nintendo has released plenty of stunning looking games even on the underpowered wii u, that are nowhere near AAAAAA publisher budgets.
The majority of AAAAAAAA production costs from today come from the over bearing marketing campaigns, which often easily double, triple, or quadroople the actual cost of making the game.
machemachete
Banned
Some how they got budget for yarn yoshi, yarn kirby, another yoshi story and another kirby game but not for one F-Zero or Metroid.
Also, most games doesn't need to be for the massive and inclusive audience or they will lose what made them special in the first place.
Also, most games doesn't need to be for the massive and inclusive audience or they will lose what made them special in the first place.
nkarafo
Member
At this point i feel like Nintendo wanted the Prime series to die, on purpose. They can't be that bad. They wanted this for whatever strategic reason.
DoktorEvil
Banned
From Soft would have to make it Third Person. Their First Person stuff(Armored Core) is clunky.
Third Person Metroid that isn't in a 2D environment doesn't sit well with me.
nkarafo
Member
It could be like Dark Souls but much faster and more acrobatic of course. Think of Vanquish controls and action but with a Metroid/Dark Souls level design and philosophy and Metroid style level of progression with suit upgrades.
MP3 was one of those games that sold in spite of Nintendo's action not because of them. I actually felt that about a lot of games on the Wii. Nintendo just makes bad decisions with this franchise.
Ignore Other M at the moment. Where was the follow up to Metroid Prime 3 at the time first person shooters and first person games in general were blowing up? Where those games were doing well on the Wii itself with Call of Duty as an example. They had a control method that worked amazingly well for the system and that type of point of view gameplay. So well that Sony tried to copy it with the Move. Nintendo went "Nope. Let's do more platformers and just turn the controller on it's side like a NES controller". Nintendo's handling of this franchise has just been horrible. A lot of what they do seems to border on, if it doesn't actually cross over, incompetence. It's no wonder they launched the Wii U the way they did. It's not wonder why the gamepad was such a waste for so long.
This is what pains about Other M, Team Ninja nailed agile Samus, they didn't nailed anything else, neither did Nintendo.
DoktorEvil
Banned
So you want Platinum Games to design a Metroid game?
What a moronic thing to say. They gave a huge spotlight to red steel because it was both the biggest third party collaboration they had it place, was targeting a more core audience and the idea of guns and swords really helped sell the Wii concept to all kinda of people. Prime 2 sold very little, probably because it hit at the tail end of the GC life. So of course the marketing budget for the third installment wasn't gonna be as big as with other titles like Mario. They payed it conservatively, having ads two weeks before is perfectly fine, they also tried the Metroid channel, but Wii connectivity was atrocious so it ended up being a huge blunder. They could've worked harder on PR but still, it's just a RoI on their part.
nkarafo
Member
I don't mind frankly. As long as they understand the main Metroid recipe.