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Discussion Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot: Nintendo said to release M+R: Sparks of Hope on the next console, we ignored them and that led to poor sales

damn, should have listened to ninty

edit: some quotes
“I think it was a different issue with Mario,” he said. “We had already released a Mario Rabbids game [on Switch], so by doing another we had two similar experiences on one machine. On Nintendo, games like this never die. There are 25 Mario games on Switch.

“Nintendo [has advised] that it’s better to do one iteration on each machine. We were a bit too early, we should have waited for [the next console].”
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Honestly makes sense with how Nintendo handles their first party releases. They rarely release direct sequels or game follow ups in the same system.

I'm someone who enjoyed M+R but did not buy the sequel. I would've been more inclined to buy the sequel on Switch 2 as a launch window game.
 
“25 Mario Games”. Dude if you don’t understand that there’s a wide variety of experiences in “Mario games” by now then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your job
 
That sounds like they’re implying the architecture will be similar. At least to someone who barely knows what that means (me.)
 
I think it's more the first whilst being a good game mostly sold on a bit of a gimmick. Most people just didn't really want a second Mario+Rabbids game so I think even if they had held out for Switch 2 it'd still have had underwhelming sales.
 
shoptroll said:
“25 Mario Games”. Dude if you don’t understand that there’s a wide variety of experiences in “Mario games” by now then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate your job
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I don't think that's what he means, he is saying there are 25 distinct Mario experiences all selling on an ongoing basis on the Switch, an iterative follow up to one of them wasn't going to stand much of a chance when its predecessor was an active seller.
 
Even if this was a Switch 2 title I still wouldn't buy it on release knowing full well that if I just wait it'll be dirt cheap and I'm already getting more than my fill of turn-based tactics.
 
Doesn't sound like Nintendo saying to straight up wait for the successor and more giving a general advice tho it's possible it's Yves paraphrasing instead of giving an accurate description of the conversation behind the scene between the two companies.
 
I liked the first M+R, major reason I haven’t bought Sparks of Hope is that I know it’ll get a hefty sale at some point
 
Weird. I thought it being exclusive to Nintendo Switch like Octopath Traveler II should've been according to some here, meant it would've been a guaranteed success. Guess not.
 
GrislyRaccoon said:
Well............re-release it?
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He added: “Because you could play a great game. And we think it will last for ten years, because we will update it for the new machine that will come in the future.”

So, they will (and they are also confirming imho that the Switch 2 will have some sort of enanghed backward compatibility)
 
meatbag said:
I liked the first M+R, major reason I haven’t bought Sparks of Hope is that I know it’ll get a hefty sale at some point
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Yeah, it seems super silly to tout the 10m sold of the first game as reason to expect big sales for the sequel when of the "25 Mario Games" on the Switch, it was the only one getting mega discounts lol
 
I didn't buy it because of two reasons. One Ubisoft has taught me to wait for the deep discount. Still waiting for sub $20 like I got the first game, and two you released it in the fall where a lot of games I wanted more. Didn't help the TotK has made me stop buying games lol.
 
I got the gold edition of the first game for like $10 two years ago. I can absolutely wait for this one to drop in price too. Sorry Yves (not really).
 
Yeah, that, or make M+R genre independent. That'd make even more sense, because nothing about the Rabbids screams "strategy" per se. Doing a direct sequel felt weird to me from the start.
 
I think the first M+R game had many things going for it that the sequel didn't:
  • The uniqueness of the concept itself.
  • The first brand new Mario game on the system.
  • The "underdog story" of Soliani and his team.
  • At the time, not many big budget-like games to choose from on the console.
  • Many people bought it day 1 because they thought it would behave (price-wise) like a Nintendo game and not like a Ubisoft one.
But yeah, making it a once-in-a-system kind of deal could mitigate the problem. It would make it feel a bit more special, at least.
 
Aostia82 said:
He added: “Because you could play a great game. And we think it will last for ten years, because we will update it for the new machine that will come in the future.”

So, they will (and they are also confirming imho that the Switch 2 will have some sort of enanghed backward compatibility)
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Problem solved! if thats the case, i can wait to buy it.
 
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Personally I thought the original was a much better game, more unique/interesting compared to the second game. The first one also had the benefit on releasing in the first year and that the concept of a Mario + Rabbids game was actually good led to a positive WoM.
 
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I don’t think being on Switch is what made it underperform. By that logic Splatoon 3 and Tears of the Kingdom would have been flops.
 
Yamanoi said:
Weird. I thought it being exclusive to Nintendo Switch like Octopath Traveler II should've been according to some here, meant it would've been a guaranteed success. Guess not.
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octopath 1 had a heavy marketing push from Nintendo, the second game did not and got the SE marketing which is basically nothing. that's why it didn't do as well. SE can't even be bothered to market their biggest game in a long time, ff16. it's all being handled by sony, so of course they weren't going to do much for octopath 2.
 
Phantom Thief said:
I don't think that's what he means, he is saying there are 25 distinct Mario experiences all selling on an ongoing basis on the Switch, an iterative follow up to one of them wasn't going to stand much of a chance when its predecessor was an active seller.
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Right. The "give people more of the same" with iterative sequels is not a tactic that modern Nintendo employs regularly (there are exceptions like TotK, the Xenoblades, and Splatoon 3) in the same hardware generation. As the CEO he or his subordinates should know this by now.

This is absolutely why we're getting Booster Course Pass for MK8DX and not MK9. Guillemot did the business equivalent of "fuck around and find out" because this is how Nintendo works, and Nintendo themselves specifically said "hey bro, you should park that game for the new hardware".
 
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It seems really rare for multinational voice A to come out and say ‘multinational B said to do something else and they were right, we were wrong’. Fair enough.
 
Lmao, some people herr are looking for qnything to get angry, arent they? I mean, nitpicking at the 25 mario games commentary? Lol
 
Nintendo was 100% right. Also, is this the first official acknowledgement of Nintendo's next system period? I think it is.
Lord Azrael said:
I don't see how sitting on the game till the next console would've changed its outlook significantly
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Launch-year games tend to sell better due to less options being available.
 
If it were to Ubisoft, we'd be getting a new Mario + Rabbids game every year, going by their own IP release standards...

Atleast they acknowledge the problem.
 
Lord Azrael said:
I don't see how sitting on the game till the next console would've changed its outlook significantly
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People tend to buy more random games in the early days of a game console, and I think Mario Rabbids 2 was a great game to showcase what a Mario game would look like on the Switch 2, so I think that made a significant difference in sales.
 
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manfromthedam said:
Oh yeah, the fact that Guillemot's still there is icky. I have the same feeling with ActiBlizz.
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I’d rate the situation at AB quite a bit worse. It’s also not guillemot himself that was the problem as the dude at AB is ,and he did do “something” (not enough, but something)
 
Ubisoft made a terrible decision? I am utterly gobsmacked.

DrJay said:
I’d rate the situation at AB quite a bit worse. It’s also not guillemot himself that was the problem as the dude at AB is ,and he did do “something” (not enough, but something)
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Uh, nah, as the guy in charge it's his responsibility to keep a clean ship. He either knew it was happening and is the problem, or he didn't know it was happening and he's incompetent.
 
The situation has nothing to do with Activision. For one thing, he's not a highly-paid CEO, he's the company's founder. On the other hand, he is not the direct target of the nauseating behavior that has been revealed, which makes an obvious difference. However, it's strictly impossible that he didn't condone these shitty practices, so to hell with him anyway.
 
I’m not really sure waiting for Switch 2 would have helped that much even if the saturation factor is true. MR2 was more of a side step at best than an improvement. It just didn’t really make much of an impact like the first game did.
 
It would have helped to leave until the next system to some extent, but I think a decent amount of people would have still waited for a deep discount like with the first game.

And as an aside I do hope it picks up enough in sales to warrant more games, I would be very sad to lose this as a new Mario RPG series, Sparks of Hope has the most soul and originality in the franchise outside the 3D Mario games in quite some time, thanks in part that the Rabbids don't have to adhere to any restrictions and as a sequel actually going a lot farther and being more confident with creating a world and story that the Mario universe and Rabbids share, and would love to see how they expand that in more titles.
 
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I think mario rabbids 2 is a case of bigger not being better. I love the first game and the dk expansion, but couldn’t bring myself to finish the second
 
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Maybe. I think it would have went from selling poor to selling just okay. The iteration didn't seem to hit with as many people the second time. However, people seeing a new Mario+Rabbids game showcasing better resolutions or fps or w/e to highlight the benefits of the new Switch would have gotten some early adopter sales on top of the people that were willing to buy on the current Switch.
 
blue2425 said:
Maybe. I think it would have went from selling poor to selling just okay. The iteration didn't seem to hit with as many people the second time. However, people seeing a new Mario+Rabbids game showcasing better resolutions or fps or w/e to highlight the benefits of the new Switch would have gotten some early adopter sales on top of the people that were willing to buy on the current Switch.
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I tend to agree. Now that the dust has settled, I bounced off of the new game because I found it less novel, and pretty bloated. The fights were less tightly created puzzle boxes, and it hurt my experience overall.

However, it’s impossible to know just what decisions they’d have made when targeting better hardware. It could have had a more ambitious visual style sure, but the gameplay might have seen some key changes as well.
 
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I don‘t really like the current state of Ubisoft and I think Guillemot should step back as the CEO for many reasons. That said I have respect for how transparent he is in that interview. I mean now we can act all smart in this thread but if that game would have been as successful as the first one, no one‘d have been surprised.
 
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