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Discussion Kit and Krysta believe that Nintendo is disappointed in TOTK sales

Scrawnton said:
Animal Crossing New Horizons a confirmed flop. Pack it up, all.
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Wood Hawker: [on the success of New Horizons during the pandemic] "It was weirdly perfect timing. I mean, there's a reason why it sold 44 million copies. One in every three people that had the Switch."

Kit Ellis: "They were not upset by that performance."

Source: Nontendo Podcast #86 @ 1hr34m33s
 
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In any case, if the original title of the video was intended to generate traffic and conversation, this thread proves that they succeeded.

Now I think there’s nothing that controversial. There are people who like their content, and others who don’t. The simplest is therefore that those who appreciate continue to enjoy it and that those who do not like continue not to give them excessive importance or visibility.
 
Buried In Time said:
Wood Hawker: [on the success of New Horizons during the pandemic] "It was weirdly perfect timing. I mean, there's a reason why it sold 44 million copies. One in every three people that had the Switch."

Kit Ellis: "They were not upset by that performance."

Source: Nontendo Podcast #86 @ 1hr34m33s
Click to expand...

Translation : "Even in our new job as outrage merchants influencers, we're going to struggle to sell that one"
 
Buried In Time said:
Kit Ellis: "We've kind of reached the point where people either have forgotten or we've reached new people who don't know where we've come from so sometimes we'll say things and people will go: "What gives you the right to say that?' It's like, this was our lives. We did a video the other day on the financial results and the sales of Tears Of The Kingdom which we though was mmm… Nintendo might find these to be a little disappointing and some people did not like that statement. It's like, we have been in these meetings where a game will break a record and people will say: 'Yeah, that's not good enough. You need to do more.'"

Krysta Yang: "Inside Nintendo too it was very much like a, whenever they had like a sales forecast, if we sell X amount then it's, you guys have met the forecast. They were notorious for basically like, once you made the insane forecast they're like: 'Actually, the new forecast is like twenty million more so you guys actually failed.' That would happen like almost every single launch."
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The scenarios they’re painting here are pretty hard to believe. Needs more context. Sounds to me like they’re just digging their heels in to defend their initial take
 
Ricimer said:
Why would they lie?
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Don’t think they’re lying but it’s a whole bunch of “they” did this and “they” did that. It’s all vague and there’s context missing.

I get why they may not want to delve too deep since it’s their former employer, but there’s not much to engage with. It’s hard to take serious at face value.
 
Leviraps said:
Don’t think they’re lying but it’s a whole bunch of “they” did this and “they” did that. It’s all vague and there’s context missing.

I get why they may not want to delve too deep since it’s their former employer, but there’s not much to engage with. It’s hard to take serious at face value.
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did you work there for over 10 years?
 
To be honest I beleive it did under expectations.

Not a disappointment, it easily made back triple the dev costs at the very least .
 
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Buried In Time said:
Kit Ellis: "We've kind of reached the point where people either have forgotten or we've reached new people who don't know where we've come from so sometimes we'll say things and people will go: "What gives you the right to say that?' It's like, this was our lives. We did a video the other day on the financial results and the sales of Tears Of The Kingdom which we though was mmm… Nintendo might find these to be a little disappointing and some people did not like that statement. It's like, we have been in these meetings where a game will break a record and people will say: 'Yeah, that's not good enough. You need to do more.'"

Krysta Yang: "Inside Nintendo too it was very much like a, whenever they had like a sales forecast, if we sell X amount then it's, you guys have met the forecast. They were notorious for basically like, once you made the insane forecast they're like: 'Actually, the new forecast is like twenty million more so you guys actually failed.' That would happen like almost every single launch."
Click to expand...
This is close to a logical fallacy: Kit & Krysta have authority (they worked at Nintendo), so what they say must be true.

I don't assume that K&K are liars, obviously. At the same time, I won't believe everything they say. Is it supported by factual evidence and data points? Does the fact that they worked at Nintendo make it more believable?

For example, if K&K argued that "Nintendo was disappointed TotK didn't win TGA Game of the Year Awards", I would believe them:
  • Even though Nintendo doesn't really care about TGA, Zelda is their "big" series and realistically the only chance they have to win the awards;
  • BotW won the award;
  • They made a new artwork for TGA, which they recycled for the "Best Action Adventure" award;
  • TGA is glorified marketing, and Kit & Krysta worked in marketing. The guy behind TotK marketing likely worked under K&K, or at least knew them.

But what they said is a lot weaker, and it's hard to find pieces of evidence supporting their claim:
  • TotK sold in a few months 2/3 of what BotW sold in years;
  • Most sequels do not sell as well as the original games. Moreover, TotK was BotW 2, and thus lacked an appealing new "wow" factor for people who had enough of BotW;
  • Nintendo seems to have realistic projections for their games. For example, Samus Returns sold less than a million on 3DS, and many people thought the series was once again dead. Nintendo knew it was a late 3DS game and greenlit Metroid Dread. If Nintendo were often dissatisfied, this would have come up in investor meetings (it did in the Wii U era, and to an extent for their failed attempts to convert 2D Mario players to 3D Mario players);
  • Are they talking about North American sales? WorldWide sales? In Japan, I think they sold most of the copies they shipped.

IMHO, it would have been more interesting to frame the discourse around "TotK might not sell as good as BotW, and it has worse legs. Why?", focusing on how to market a sequel, why not everybody who bough the previous games will come back, and so on. K&K's opinion based on their marketing background would have been insightful.
 
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Wockio said:
Fanboy brain... is it really hard to accept that Nintendo is the kind of company that is always expecting insane performances? Its befitting of what we know about their workplace culture
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What, lol, I'm way more critical of the company than most here. Nintendo is by any actual sane measure we have outside of clickbait YouTubers often overly conservative on sales potential. It's that exact kind of risk aversion that let them make it through the Wii U era without having to make massive staff cuts for example.
 
Lugia667 said:
...I do wonder what games they are talking about Nintendo being dissapointed in when they were there

en.wikipedia.org

List of best-selling Nintendo Switch video games - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Apparently they heard this often so what were they referring to? Most of the games here broke records
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I think we really need to admit, that NoA is purely a marketing arm for Nintendo. Meaning that, yes, they will always push for even better sales, and forecasts. Now, does this mean that the higher ups have insane expectations for each of their titles, and pump the budget up for games?

Absolutely not. We know for a fact that Nintendo isn't doing that at all.

So they probably told NoA they need better sales, probably a lot. Especially since a lot of games had incredible sales purely because of Japan(like Pikmin 4). But yeah, I can see Nintendo trying to push their employees even more, that's right in line with what we know about them. Does it mean that these were serious forecasts that demanded these games to sell even better for their shareholder meetings? Absolutely not.
 
Wockio said:
Former employees*

I don't get what risk aversion has to do with sales forecasts
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Risk aversion in sales forecasts means a company understands their budgets & sales context, so when they forecast it is within reason.
Compare that to say EA with Immortals of Aveum which ultra bombed while spending 125$mil on. Or the numerous times over the years where selling 10mil was seen as “disappointing” or “missed expectations.”
 
I mean maybe disappointed isn't the right word. More like "we can always do more." Just business. There's always work to do.

Kaizen. Dandori. All that.
 
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Gingerbread Man said:
This is close to a logical fallacy: Kit & Krysta have authority (they worked at Nintendo), so what they say must be true.

I don't assume that K&K are liars, obviously. At the same time, I won't believe everything they say. Is it supported by factual evidence and data points? Does the fact that they worked at Nintendo make it more believable?

For example, if K&K argued that "Nintendo was disappointed TotK didn't win TGA Game of the Year Awards", I would believe them:
  • Even though Nintendo doesn't really care about TGA, Zelda is their "big" series and realistically the only chance they have to win the awards;
  • BotW won the award;
  • They made a new artwork for TGA, which they recycled for the "Best Action Adventure" award;
  • TGA is glorified marketing, and Kit & Krysta worked in marketing. The guy behind TotK marketing likely worked under K&K, or at least knew them.

But what they said is a lot weaker, and it's hard to find pieces of evidence supporting their claim:
  • TotK sold in a few months 2/3 of what BotW sold in years;
  • Most sequels do not sell as well as the original games. Moreover, TotK was BotW 2, and thus lacked an appealing new "wow" factor for people who had enough of BotW;
  • Nintendo seems to have realistic projections for their games. For example, Samus Returns sold less than a million on 3DS, and many people thought the series was once again dead. Nintendo knew it was a late 3DS game and greenlit Metroid Dread. If Nintendo were often dissatisfied, this would have come up in investor meetings (it did in the Wii U era, and to an extent for their failed attempts to convert 2D Mario players to 3D Mario players);
  • Are they talking about North American sales? WorldWide sales? In Japan, I think they sold most of the copies they shipped.

IMHO, it would have been more interesting to frame the discourse around "TotK might not sell as good as BotW, and it has worse legs. Why?", focusing on how to market a sequel, why not everybody who bough the previous games will come back, and so on. K&K's opinion based on their marketing background would have been insightful.
Click to expand...

Yeah, like I said in a few pages back. Nintendo is not stupid, they know when they sold this much at the beginning, the leg has to be slow down a lot for a while unless there are some miracles.
Especially when this is a sequel game on the same platform, Nintendo knew that it almost always sell less, they even advise Ubisoft to keep M+R2 for next console as we all know.

Will they be disappointed in the long run? Yeah, maybe, but that need more data which is longer timeframe than just this 7 months period...
 
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