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The Best-Selling Zelda titles

bjork

Member
4.5 million Zelda 2 sales, about 4.4999 million deny that it is the best in the franchise. Even Miyamoto is wrong about it.
 

fernoca

Member
It came bundled with the controller plus a music CD in every copy for very little more than regular price.
Well, there was also a standalone SKU. While the bundle was a great value it was also quite limited, so people that wanted the game, without the bundle had to buy it by separate.



Phantom Hourglass sold almost twice as much as Spirit Tracks. Tragic.
Well. Phantom was released first. It seems to be the "Zelda syndrome", the second title on the same platform alwas sells less than the first one...and some always run around screaming "Zelda is dying!!!" Every time. :p

Maybe is why they tend to just release one per platform for some of their series. Even Mario Galaxy 2 had a decline.

*****

And yep. Crossbow Training was like $25. So low price, accessory to make believe you held a gun of sorts and Wii craze; translated into great sales. I still had some fun with it, for what it was.
 

Astral Dog

Member
Best 2D Zelda (i.e. most lively overworld and best sidecontent right after MM) sells the worst and another entry gets all the mourning.

sbIl5V1.gif
Better not be talking about Four Swords Adventures, that game is trash😠

😉
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
If you took out the 3DS and the VC ports you'd have a larger perspective. I've owned OOT three times I think. Once was the Gold cart at launch and the other two are 3DS and VC (both digital).

I wonder about how many people bought OOT and never bought another Zelda game. There's a lot of factors with Zelda. Not everyone who was amazed by OOT or Majora's Mask are going to buy Hyrule Warriors or another entry. I'm shocked by Skyward Sword's sales. I wonder if it would have sold more had it not had motion controls (was just mentioned).

I can see why OOT did so well. It was a groundbreaking game at the time. It has sorta defined Zelda in my books. Twilight Princess is probably my second favorite title. I played Zelda on NES, but the wonder and awe of the series came from OOT. I had neighbors who owned the original.
 

Empty

Member
twilight princess is a bit of an anomaly as it rode the wii boom, but the sales trend in the series since the iconic ocarina is a) why zelda wiiu/nx is being kept back and b) why it's chasing the bethesda market. it needs to be very carefully positioned as the vast cost of the production of this style of game compared to the static or even slightly dwindling market appeal is in danger of making it irrelevant.
 

Edwardo

Member
Why? It's always been the "cult" game in the series. It released late on into the N64 life cycle and had a reputation of being more "hardcore" than other entires in the 3D series. It's the most niche 3D game in the series.

I thought it was a pretty popular game. It being my favorite in the Zelda series prob helps too.
 
fuck skyward sword.

If you got horse in zelda you are going to get money. otherwise not. Make it epic like TP or OOT were.

hated skyward sword and i am big zelda fan. TP was amazing on wii.
 
twilight princess is a bit of an anomaly as it rode the wii boom, but the sales trend in the series since the iconic ocarina is a) why zelda wiiu/nx is being kept back and b) why it's chasing the bethesda market. it needs to be very carefully positioned as the vast cost of the production of this style of game compared to the static or even slightly dwindling market appeal is in danger of making it irrelevant.

Crossbow training rode the Wii boom, TP was one of the things causing it in the first place. It's what people wanted ever since OoT (even more so after the half baked and unwanted WW, there's a reason for the 2004 E3 reactions) and it turned out to be an amazing game.

I thought it was a pretty popular game. It being my favorite in the Zelda series prob helps too.

It's the GOAT, but it was shat on by many casual Zelda fans back in the day.
 

mrmickfran

Member
Technically if it wasn't for the relatively recent remake it wouldn't be. Though i don't that changes even after TP gets the HD treatment

Not a chance. TPHD would have to sell almost 4 million copies on an install base just a little over 10 million.
 
Maybe I'm totally over-estimating the popularity of Zelda, but those numbers all seem really low to me.
Not taking anything away from the sales numbers quotes in the OP, but I don't think Zelda has the pull it once did outside of the core fanbase. There are a number of users on here thinking Zelda U is gonna be a system seller, but I reckon most buyers will be current console owners.
 

Celine

Member
Oh yeah definitely. When I think of a "big seller" I think of COD-like numbers or GTA. 15m+. 11m is nothing to sneeze at though, especially when you don't give away a fee to the platform holder, because you are the platform holder.
15 million is a high threshold.
If we exclude Nintendo, no japanese game has ever shipped that much (well, ok apart from the first Sonic bundled with Mega Drive/Genesis).
 
Not taking anything away from the sales numbers quotes in the OP, but I don't think Zelda has the pull it once did outside of the core fanbase. There are a number of users on here thinking Zelda U is gonna be a system seller, but I reckon most buyers will be current console owners.

If you don't understand the reason for that I don't know what to tell you.
 

TheMoon

Member
Is that the case? Every source I go to lists them seperately.

The sources linked in the OP actually don't. Separately yes but with the exact same sales. And the wikipedia source just goes back to the same rpgamer page.

Besides, Nintendo never separates those dual-SKU games. See any and all Pokémon games.
 

Sami+

Member
fuck skyward sword.

If you got horse in zelda you are going to get money. otherwise not. Make it epic like TP or OOT were.

hated skyward sword and i am big zelda fan. TP was amazing on wii.

Different people just want different things from Zelda. That TP reveal trailer with the Conan the Barbarian music was all kinds of incredible, but some people like the cartoony/anime slant the series took and care more about pure puzzle gameplay than "feel" I guess. Which is cool but eh, lol. The series definitely lost me.
 

Celine

Member
BTW there is some small fixes I have still to do in my thread:

There are some fixes I'm going to do later.
I forgot to update Paper Mario 2:
Paper Mario Thousand year door: 1.66 -> 1.91

Also Zelda ST is 2.96 not 2.93 (typo).
Zelda Oracles is 3.99 not 3.98 (typo)
DQIX (outside Japan) is 1.12 not 1.11 (typo again).
 
I really would der why skyward sword did so poorly, the motion controls?
Released next to Skyrim, required a peripheral, late into a system a lot of people didn't like anymore not in HD, etc.
I guess it doesn't help that there had been so long since the last console Zelda game and the portable games were bad.
 
I think phantom choo cho was decent, PH is my least favorite Zelda.
It's a bit odd to see 2D Zelda games not vastly outselling the 3D ones like Mario. I guess more people got on board with 3D Zelda and the games are easier to sell through pure footage.
 

g11

Member
Not taking anything away from the sales numbers quotes in the OP, but I don't think Zelda has the pull it once did outside of the core fanbase. There are a number of users on here thinking Zelda U is gonna be a system seller, but I reckon most buyers will be current console owners.

If there's a good bundle eventually with the system, "ZeldaU", WW HD and TP HD, I'd probably buy. I doubt there's many like me but I can't be the only one. But yeah, I doubt it'll be a system seller. Even with those three I'm tempted to wait for NX because it'll have to be backward compatible, right? I mean, this is Nintendo we're talking about...
 

Madao

Member
makes sense to bundle the originals with the remasters/ports since it's actually a pretty common thing in this series. i don't think any other Nintendo series has that many re-releases (mainline 2D Mario is the closest one to this)

If there's a good bundle eventually with the system, "ZeldaU", WW HD and TP HD, I'd probably buy. I doubt there's many like me but I can't be the only one. But yeah, I doubt it'll be a system seller. Even with those three I'm tempted to wait for NX because it'll have to be backward compatible, right? I mean, this is Nintendo we're talking about...

seeing at what would be needed to have Wii U BC, i'd take the wait and see approach.
i wouldn't be surprised if they just stop console BC next gen.
 

DekuLink

Member
It's a shame FSA never reached 1 million, it's actually a really great game even in single player imo. Like an episodic sequel to ALttP. Great world, great music, great puzzles, great temples, great everything.

One of my favourite Zelda games. And even better in multiplayer with friends.
 
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