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Discussion Does Nintendo's fan base ever piss you off in terms of their buying habits?

All I really care about is that sales for games/franchises that are important to me are strong enough to convince Nintendo to continue making them. I absolutely think Nintendo sees Dread as a success, and I think that franchise is in a really good place for the first time in like 20 years. I’ll gladly take that, even if it isn’t ever going to sell 20 million copies or whatever.
 
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Nah, I'm more at peace when a lot of people don't like/care about the thing I like, or the thing I used to like.
 
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What pisses me off is that people (and I include myself) spend more time thinking and reading about videogames than actually playing them.
 
Take me back to the PS1/PS2 days when a small game made by an obscure Japanese studio would see a wide release and selling 250k copies was a massive success.

Right now everything must sell 5 million at minimum or else. Which massively sucks.

Also, Nintendo is rich enough to making niche games and not see much of a loss anyway.
 
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xghost777 said:
I’m bummed humanity at large loves endlessly remaking things and consuming remakes over new things. Games, movies, books, music etc. Nothing is safe from being remade!

Infinite artistic possibilities > the same things over and over and over

We all can demand better!
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This isn’t a “humanity” thing, this is corporations taking the safe route to maximize profit and please their shareholders. “Infinite artistic possibilities” can’t be fulfilled when art has to be a commercial product under capitalism.
 
Pissed off? No. Just kinda disappointed.

Like there’s over 100 million Switches and only 2.5 million of you played Nintendo’s best online multiplayer game being ARMS. For shame.

And yeah Metroid Dread absolutely deserves better, but it’s still the best selling Metroid game after like half a year so I can’t complain too much. I think it should be up there with the Marios and Zeldas, but people looked at a 10 hour long 2D game and passed. But we have a dedicated 2D Metroid team now which means no more 10 year hiatuses, which is pretty great.
 
Nintendo fans didn't run out and buy the best RPG on the system and for that I will always be upset.
Tokyo-Mirage-Sessions-FE-Encore

Stan Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.
 
TGB86 said:
All I really care about is that sales for games/franchises that are important to me are strong enough to convince Nintendo to continue making them. I absolutely think Nintendo sees Dread as a success, and I think that franchise is in a really good place for the first time in like 20 years. I’ll gladly take that, even if it isn’t ever going to sell 20 million copies or whatever.
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I mean, Nintendo does not put the balloon budget Sony does - which is smart IMO, because it gives a lot more wiggle room to make off the cuff games and still be a success. I mean, look at Kirby. It does not light up the charts. With the exception of the very first one, the average is 1.5 - 2 million per entry. Forgotten Land is on track to probably become the second highest selling at almost 3 million sold so far. The highest selling one is the very first one for the GB at over 5 million.

It is just a consistent seller.

Nintendo does not usually put in the marketing budget and dev budget as other AAA companies do. They play conservative.
 
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BradenAndEggs said:
To play devil's advocate with the games you mentioned, I'm not into metroidvanias and F-Zero seems like a franchise that was "before my time." (Also I'm not that into racing games) I feel like both franchises would need a big reinvention to get someone like me on board.

Personally, I already think Nintendo spends so much time on NES/SNES/N64 nostalgia. I often wish Nintendo would spend more time pandering to my age group with more Gamecube/GBA nostalgia. (I'm sure every age group feels this way about the games they started with.)

I don't consider myself THAT young either. I turned 29 yesterday...

My first video game was Pokemon Silver and my first console game was Kirby Air Ride. I'm a die-hard fan of Pokemon, Animal Crossing, Zelda, Xenoblade, etc. I would just rather spend my money on something I know I'm going to like. Where you might be wanting a new F-Zero game, I would absolutely kill for a new Kirby Air Ride game.

With all that I laid out, I didn't know until this moment I wasn't part of the "hardcore" Nintendo fanbase. I need to accept I am a "traditional" Nintendo fan sellout lol.
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I think Nintendo's allergic to doing big Gamecube era throwbacks for a couple of reasons. To start off with, I think they look back on that era of home consoles consoles as an era that was toxic to their sales where they made a bunch of wrong decisions. Even during the Wii U era, where they had significantly worse sales, they were able to monetize their fanbase well with products like Amiibo and make software that would go on to sell decently once ported to the Switch at full price. Developing a new Gamecube emulator is also more resource intensive, and not something they had pre-3D All Stars (and the one that they do have still needs to be tweaked on a per game basis iirc).

A theory I have though, that I don't know if even Nintendo realizes, is that the Gamecube sold extremely disproportionately well (disproportionate to its own sales) to children who would go on to have a huge love for gaming for the rest of their lives. Which is why you see it brought up so fondly in enthusiast circles like this one despite its relatively low sales.
 
Honestly I think out of the three console makers, Nintendo has the fanbase that are the most passionate gamers. Even when you consider limitations like the amount of third party support and its implications (ex. less of an audience for stuff like EA games or whatever), I feel like overall Nintendo users are still the ones that buy the most videogames in general. An obvious example is how most indies sell best on Switch. You just got Furi which sold best on Switch among all console releases even though it was a late port, now the new DLC is skipping Xbox which had the game long before Switch. There’s a bunch of other niche series that had success stories on Nintendo without necessairly taking too much time to build an audience: Nintendo fans are passionate about videogames so they buy games that look fun or look like they have a lot of character. Suda51 definitely doesn’t make games to a wide audience and his most successful one is still No More Heroes on the Wii. Ys VIII randomly sold best on Switch in the West after years of its developer ignoring Nintendo because guess what, Nintendo fans are interested in anime action JRPGs. Even after getting the snub of the century by Square back then, Nintendo fans will still show up to buy whatever available JRPG on their system.

So at the end of the day this idea of the Nintendo fan that only buys Mario or Nintendo franchises is basically a myth, or just anectodal evidence. There are probably more people on other consoles that only play yearly sports games/cod/fortnite/rockstar games than people on Nintendo that only play the mainstream friendship ruining games + Pokemon. Btw some series just have more limited appeal than others. Metroid might be more popular on message boards, notably due to its influence on game design, but in real life it will never do gangbusters. It’s kind of like hard sci-fi movies that are often discussed in film circles never did that well on the box office. Metroid, well the Prime series in particular, even tried at times to appeal to larger audiences and it never really worked. Look at Prime 2, it’s not even an FPS (yes Prime games are FPAs it’s a very accurate term) but it had this forced multiplayer mode because some people kept comparing it to Halo because space people in armor. You won’t ever get any single player first person game to sell more than a popular multiplayer game, the appeal isn’t the same. Prime 2 even tried to appeal to Zelda fans, people new to Metroid at the time were probably like “this is kinda like Zelda in first person” when they played Prime. Prime 2 doubled down on that by adding a dual world mechanic and have you collect keys to progress in the game. In Prime 3 they went another direction, you had stuff like cutscenes and other characters because they wanted to make sure that Metroid was this sci-fi epic. Some series have more limited appeal and that’s normal
 
F-Zero is in a tough spot. Like Wipeout, it's a franchise that simultaneously has a high skill floor and ceiling, which for a racing game isn't a good combination. Hard to sell a game that's really difficult to both play at all and play at a high level.
 
GamerJM said:
I think Nintendo's allergic to doing big Gamecube era throwbacks for a couple of reasons. To start off with, I think they look back on that era of home consoles consoles as an era that was toxic to their sales where they made a bunch of wrong decisions. Even during the Wii U era, where they had significantly worse sales, they were able to monetize their fanbase well with products like Amiibo and make software that would go on to sell decently once ported to the Switch at full price. Developing a new Gamecube emulator is also more resource intensive, and not something they had pre-3D All Stars (and the one that they do have still needs to be tweaked on a per game basis iirc).

A theory I have though, that I don't know if even Nintendo realizes, is that the Gamecube sold extremely disproportionately well (disproportionate to its own sales) to children who would go on to have a huge love for gaming for the rest of their lives. Which is why you see it brought up so fondly in enthusiast circles like this one despite its relatively low sales.
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Also, N64 and especially GameCube nostalgia is mostly a thing in North America. These consoles were not particularly popular outside of those regions (and even the GameCube wasn't popular in North America by any appreciable measure either). The N64 also features several games that were not only significantly influential for Nintendo but the industry in general, so it isn't really surprising that it still gets a lot of love. There's nothing in the GameCube's library that comes remotely close to how impactful Super Mario 64 and Ocarina Of Time were.

As for GBA... its first party legacy I feel like is mostly remakes/ports lol. Not sure what Nintendo could mine for nostalgia there, but I guess we'll see soon if the NSO leaks are any evidence.
 
Mekanos said:
This isn’t a “humanity” thing, this is corporations taking the safe route to maximize profit and please their shareholders. “Infinite artistic possibilities” can’t be fulfilled when art has to be a commercial product under capitalism.
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I'm gonna start reading all of your posts in Battinson's voice so you better start injecting some Noir flair into them.
 
GamerJM said:
A theory I have though, that I don't know if even Nintendo realizes, is that the Gamecube sold extremely disproportionately well (disproportionate to its own sales) to children who would go on to have a huge love for gaming for the rest of their lives. Which is why you see it brought up so fondly in enthusiast circles like this one despite its relatively low sales.
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They do, Iwata made a similar comment when Smash 4 was released.
The “Super Smash Bros.” series had not been considered as a dominant title for which we could forecast huge initial sales until we released the second installment of the series, “Super Smash Bros. Melee” for Nintendo GameCube. It was released in November 2001 in Japan, in December 2001 in the U.S. and in May 2002 in Europe.
[...]
Those who were elementary school students when “Super Smash Bros. Melee,” and “Pokémon Ruby” and “Pokémon Sapphire” were released have grown up and they are now 18 to 25 years old. Our research in each part of the world commonly indicates that consumers between the age of 18 and 25 represent a large percentage of those who purchased “Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS” in the release period. It is approximately 30 percent in Japan, which is twice the overall average of Nintendo 3DS software, and has even reached 50 percent in the U.S. and Europe. This great momentum for the game in the initial stage was supported by this generation.
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I mean those Metroid numbers are fantastic for there series. But Metroid selling into the 10s of millions like Animal Crossing or Mario Kwrt is fantasy.

A moody sci-fi side scroller with horror elements isn't as widely appealing as a colorful pickup and play kart racer or a laid-back and highly customizable life sim.
 
I'm much less a Nintendo fan and much more a Switch fan so I'm kind of put off by the subset of people who ONLY care about like a dozen or so first-party Nintendo franchises and turn their nose up at anything else.

Like there could be a Direct with Astral Chain 2, Resident Evil Revelations 3, Mass Effect Trilogy, Grand Theft Auto V, Persona 5 Royal, and whatever else and they'd moan over the lack of Pikmin 4.
 
Despite them killing Codename STEAM, nah.

Everyone likes what they like, and it can be different from what I like. And that's fine. My tastes aren't better than anyone else's.
 
Nah, it's not the consumer's fault. Nintendo hardly markets and publicizes new IP's or lesser known IP's. They don't believe in star making power they have so they push franchises that are already superstars. This is not the way to go and Nintendo knows this firsthand with Splatoon success but still choose to play it safe.
 
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Not really.

Nintendo has a handful of core franchises that sell well and that have grown in numbers recently with things like Fire Emblem selling better in the Us than before. Other titles allow them to scratch a itch and and fill a niche that they

Metroidvanias are popular with their audience, but don’t move massive numbers.

Symphony of the Night seems to have sold about 1.3M copies ever.

Edit: Hollow Knight seems to have sold ~3 million copies.

Shovel Knight has sold about 3M copies. (Edit: I realize Shovel Knight isn't a Metroidvania, but for comparison)

Heck is great that Metroid Dread has sold as well as it has, it will be the best selling Metroidvania title ever next year at this rate (and released on just one platform at full price this far). But one must not have Square like expectations of its audience size.
 
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Aurc said:
I've always found it disheartening how little Nintendo fans care for Metroid, so I definitely get where you're coming from, to some extent. In one of Nintendo's more popular franchises, a game like Other M would have been taken as a mistake, sure, but the ball would've kept rolling. Games in that series would continue to be made, even despite a stinker. In Metroid's case, though, Other M did so much damage to an already niche (relatively speaking) IP, that it took until just last year for us to finally get another "real", non-remake Metroid game. I truly hope the series doesn't lose its way like that ever again, because I'm not sure if it'd be able to bounce back from it, a second time.

(Further clarification: I'm absolutely not saying more people should've bought Other M, heh. I'm just saying that if previous games in the series had historically sold better than they did, it's likely Nintendo would have been more amenable toward the idea of cutting their losses on a poop game, and getting back up on the horse sooner.)
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The issue here is that Metroid really hasn’t done anything that appeals to fanbases that aren’t already enamored with the -vania genre. People always point to Other M as the cause for why Metroid didn’t get games but it really is not that simple:
  • Lack of dedicated developers for the 2D & 3D series: Sakamoto got burned hard with Other M so he backed off for awhile. Retro got burned doing three straight Metroid games that they wanted to do something different. Had their mystery game not disappeared from sight then perhaps they still wouldn’t be doing it
  • Consistent lack of sales: the series had a long standing problem of either dipping or just being stagnant with no signs of growth or appeal to other audiences. I assume even if Other M sold to about the series standard or slightly below, Nintendo would still put the series on hiatus just due to the above. The game bombing probably didn’t help.
I would say at this point the series is going to have to show that it can maintain the current sales threshold. It cannot do what the Prime sequels did & the series must show some sort of growth. I would also say that the series has to find ways to appeal to more audiences then just the -vania audience because I just don’t think that is wholly sustainable.
 
Tentacle-tropes said:
The issue here is that Metroid really hasn’t done anything that appeals to fanbases that aren’t already enamored with the -vania genre. People always point to Other M as the cause for why Metroid didn’t get games but it really is not that simple:
  • Lack of dedicated developers for the 2D & 3D series: Sakamoto got burned hard with Other M so he backed off for awhile. Retro got burned doing three straight Metroid games that they wanted to do something different. Had their mystery game not disappeared from sight then perhaps they still wouldn’t be doing it
  • Consistent lack of sales: the series had a long standing problem of either dipping or just being stagnant with no signs of growth or appeal to other audiences. I assume even if Other M sold to about the series standard or slightly below, Nintendo would still put the series on hiatus just due to the above. The game bombing probably didn’t help.
I would say at this point the series is going to have to show that it can maintain the current sales threshold. It cannot do what the Prime sequels did & the series must show some sort of growth. I would also say that the series has to find ways to appeal to more audiences then just the -vania audience because I just don’t think that is wholly sustainable.
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These are some cold, hard, valid points made. Dang.

I know people are waiting for Metroid to eventually get its Breath of the Wild moment, but I'm not sure if Prime 4 will be it. I've pretty much accepted that the series will always be niche, and that it's never going to see a massive, sudden explosion of sales. Chie put it best:
Chie said:
I mean those Metroid numbers are fantastic for there series. But Metroid selling into the 10s of millions like Animal Crossing or Mario Kwrt is fantasy.

A moody sci-fi side scroller with horror elements isn't as widely appealing as a colorful pickup and play kart racer or a laid-back and highly customizable life sim.
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That said, a Metroid game reaching at least the 5 million mark would be really nice to see. More than anything, I just want its head kept above water. I'm not expecting to see new games as often as Mario and Zelda get them, but it'd be nice not to have to be anxious about Metroid's future.
 

Does Nintendo's fan base ever piss you off—​

omg finally, yes in this essay I will

​

…in terms of their buying habits?​

dang it
 
The only way Metroid could have any sort of mainstream breakout is turning into a Halo-like shooter. So, abandoning its premise and appeal entirely pretty much. Sci-fi space shooter is just a genre with a ceiling on it unless you have some sort or hook or concession. The BOTW comparison falls flat when you consider that fantasy and open world games have been popular for decades before BOTW (including Zelda!).
 
IamPeacock said:
Thing is that we, the Nintendo fanbase, are a lot smaller than we sometimes think.

There are a lot of Switch owners who bought the device just because it's great hardware and has some cool games for it. Nothing less, nothing more. If Nintendo somehow makes the wrong decisions with their next-gen system, then the majority is gone.

The Wii U showed how 'big' the true Nintendo fanbase is (max 13 million).
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There is a difference between diehard and fan, a lot of people are fans of Star Wars despite hating many of the movies and not observing any of the books, shows, games, etc. This kind of gatekeeping is pretty foolish, Nintendo fans aren't relegated to their biggest console flop, if so we can go a step further and start talking about Virtual Boy, which I have. That isn't a metric to being a Nintendo fan, it just means I'm a bit more devout and have more disposable income maybe. Fans come in all degrees, the Wii U is a pretty weak system no matter how you slice it, it wasn't hard to imagine why people skipped it, even Nintendo fans. I personally had a good time with it but it is one of the worst devices they have ever put out.
 
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Aurc said:
These are some cold, hard, valid points made. Dang.

I know people are waiting for Metroid to eventually get its Breath of the Wild moment, but I'm not sure if Prime 4 will be it. I've pretty much accepted that the series will always be niche, and that it's never going to see a massive, sudden explosion of sales. Chie put it best:

That said, a Metroid game reaching at least the 5 million mark would be really nice to see. More than anything, I just want its head kept above water. I'm not expecting to see new games as often as Mario and Zelda get them, but it'd be nice not to have to be anxious about Metroid's future.
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@Chie has the same thinking that I do on this but I will say that moody horror sci-fi can work as we see with ER. However, for it to work—Metroid—would need to vastly improve in many areas that are currently nonexistent or weak.

Prime 4 will probably be safe & “by the numbers” much like Dread is. So it should do well if the gameplay matches modern fps standards. The challenge will be the next game to see whether people stay or dip. At that point you may have to anxious about the next Metroid game.
 
If you’re upset about some Nintendo fans not buying games like Metroid Dread, I hope you’re even more upset when Nintendo fans don’t buy games that sell even worse like Sushi Striker or Famicom Detective Club. =p But yeah it’s always kinda sad to see some Nintendo games be so neglected by fans compared to others.
 
Kreese said:
Sounds like a stupid thing to be pissed about, but it directly influences the games Nintendo make that I want to play.

I wish franchises like Metroid, Fzero, WaveRace, Kid Icarus ect. would sell like they deserve, but alas, even when we get a game like Dread (which I view as one of the best games ever made), it's still on the low end of Nintendo's first party game sales even under the most ideal circumstances (on Switch, launching with new hardware, great marketing ect.)

In short, I feel Nintendo is at their absolute pinnacle when they make games that appeal to a less traditional Nintendo audience (minus a few notable exceptions like Zelda). Bare with me, I know I'm a minority here and the numbers prove it, but I just wish more people liked what I like 😇

/end irrational rant
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I kinda get it because dread should have done even better as they pulled all the stops out and no one can say they did not go big with marketing.
 
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Mekanos said:
The only way Metroid could have any sort of mainstream breakout is turning into a Halo-like shooter. So, abandoning its premise and appeal entirely pretty much. Sci-fi space shooter is just a genre with a ceiling on it unless you have some sort or hook or concession. The BOTW comparison falls flat when you consider that fantasy and open world games have been popular for decades before BOTW (including Zelda!).
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I’m gonna go ahead and say that is not the only way the franchise can have mainstream appeal and that saying that is the only way really pigeon holes itself
 
I don't want Metroid to have "mainstream appeal", especially if that would mean abandoning its core identity, in an effort to reach the lowest common denominator (and then falling flat anyway, thanks to how saturated that market is). I just want the series to do better than it historically has. I'm not sure anyone has the answer to how they can go about making that happen, unfortunately.
 
Yzz said:
Mario__s_Nintendo_64_Games_by_sonictoast-768x568.png

I've always pointed to the N64 library (composed of 70% Mario) and the arrogance of the Yamauchi era as the reason why many Nintendo fans have been configured to only like 4 franchises and dismiss everything else. NCL had a redemption arc with the GCN and GBA, but NOA didn't care enough to raise any franchise that wasn't proven, the big exception being Metroid (which went into coma after Other M). This thankfully changed after Operation Rainfall, but I think that was too late and it will not be until generation alpha comes of age when franchises like Splatoon, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, etc. are going to get widespread appreciation.
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Splatoon 2 has sold over 12 million copies and the original game exploded in popularity given that it was on a dead console. It already has widespread appreciation.
 
Magic-Man said:
Splatoon 2 has sold over 12 million copies and the original game exploded in popularity given that it was on a dead console. It already has widespread appreciation.
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Yeah, I was gonna say... Splatoon is already fairly big. Metroid doing Splatoon numbers would be a dream come true. 🤣
 
Aurc said:
Yeah, I was gonna say... Splatoon is already fairly big. Metroid doing Splatoon numbers would be a dream come true. 🤣
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I saw Splatoon with Xenoblade and Fire Emblem and was like wait a second, these aren't in the same league at all!
 
Magic-Man said:
Splatoon 2 has sold over 12 million copies and the original game exploded in popularity given that it was on a dead console. It already has widespread appreciation.
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It's true that the numbers are good, but a lot of people still treat it as an unworthy, lesser franchise, which is exactly what was happening with Animal Crossing some years ago.

I'm aware that isn't answering OP's question, but it gets really tiring to see the same boomer snobbery with every post-N64 Nintendo franchise. I mean, just until now Nintendo fans are sort of accepting that Wii Sports and its successors were good games. Splatoon 3, on the other hand, gets very weird comments like being a game nobody asked for, or being "too soon" for a sequel. This is all funny to me because I always thought that the meme about Nintendo fans being sheep consoomers that only buy Mario and Zelda games was platform wars propaganda, but then Nintendo releases a console with a very diverse library and community voices respond with "WTF this isn't muh 11th Zelda game, GARBAGE! do better games Nintendo".
 
In general, I wish any new IP good luck because they are the ones that have yet to be proven, and variety is always welcomed. It's in part on why Splatoon is very phenomenal and incite a paradigm shift because there was general scepticism that Pikmin was the last new IP (Wii games tend to be excluded). Of course, not every game have had success (like Sushi Strikers, sadly), but in general I would like it if new IPs have their time in the day. I wonder how much Smash Bros. could elevate the less-visible IPs, because I felt that Smash did a great job in putting Kid Icarus in the spotlight.

The Mario games tend to be great sellers, but there's one particular spin-off series that I would have loved to see the same kind of success: Dr. Mario. The only games in the series that sold incredibly well are the simultaneous games for the NES and the Game Boy, but the other games did not sell nearly as well. I think the fact that the series is relegated to digital-only might have doomed its chances, but I would love to see another attempt at being big enough (individual game, not a compilation) to be a packaged release (which would help the visibility of the spin-off).

Thank you for reading.
 
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Yzz said:
It's true that the numbers are good, but a lot of people still treat it as an unworthy, lesser franchise, which is exactly what was happening with Animal Crossing some years ago.

I'm aware that isn't answering OP's question, but it gets really tiring to see the same boomer snobbery with every post-N64 Nintendo franchise. I mean, just until now Nintendo fans are sort of accepting that Wii Sports and its successors were good games. Splatoon 3, on the other hand, gets very weird comments like being a game nobody asked for, or being "too soon" for a sequel. This is all funny to me because I always thought that the meme about Nintendo fans being sheep consoomers that only buy Mario and Zelda games was platform wars propaganda, but then Nintendo releases a console with an actual varied and visible library and community voices welcome this with "WTF this isn't muh 11th Zelda game, GARBAGE! do better games Nintendo".
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That's only online, and most of those "fans" are just Playstation/Xbox trolls in disguise.
 
Mekanos said:
What sci-fi shooters with a focus on atmosphere and horror have broken into mainstream success? Dead Space?
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Why exactly focus on “sci-fi shooters with a focus on atmosphere and horror” when the question should be what exactly has Metroid done to shore up its own weaknesses in an attempt to garner more attention from other audiences.

The fact that we are hyper focusing on the genre including really specific modifiers should say it all really.
 
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