Sales Data Updated sales numbers for Switch titles: Fire Emblem Engage (1.61M), Kirby's RtDL DX (1.46M), Metroid Prime Remastered (1.09M), and more

[brainchild]

If was at 3.6m up to August 2021 and then it was only at 3.91m by the end of March 2022, despite including the games first holiday period.

Now, of course part of this is because, well, skyward sword doesn't have the best reputation, and maybe Ocarina or Twilight Princess as the previous best sellers would have done a little better, but the other reason it's not on this list is because there really is no appetite for a traditional 3d Zelda, even with BOTW massively expanding the series, barely any of that audience is willing to look back.

Assuming 4 million units sold so far, that's not "no appetite". It's also not a new game. Let's have some perspective here and realize that most games won't achieve those sales over the span of their respective lifetime sales.

Still, I can't see Nintendo ever going back so it's more of a curiosity to me than anything else.

 

[curl-6]

If you include it's Wii U sales, Mario Kart 8 has sold more units than the NES.

Also, there are now more Switches in the wild than there are people in Japan.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Assuming 4 million units sold so far, that's not "no appetite". It's also not a new game. Let's have some perspective here and realize that most games won't achieve those sales over the span of their respective lifetime sales.

Still, I can't see Nintendo ever going back so it's more of a curiosity to me than anything else.

Best case scenario is it does barely 15% of BOTW lifetime. In all practical definitions, that means there's no demand for it, because these things can only be defined relative to what they'd otherwise be working on otherwise.

What was the 3d series final tentpole release is going to be neck and neck with a musou spin off that took elements of BOTW in to its design. That's about as damning an indictment of the potential of the old style as I can think of.

 

[brainchild]

Best case scenario is it does barely 15% of BOTW lifetime. In all practical definitions, that means there's no demand for it, because these things can only be defined relative to what they'd otherwise be working on otherwise.

What was the 3d series final tentpole release is going to be neck and neck with a musou spin off that took elements of BOTW in to its design. That's about as damning an indictment of the potential of the old style as I can think of.

Lot of assumptions baked into those claims. I didn't say anything about Nintendo making such games in house or using the same resources to make them, and I don't think that would be necessary as they wouldn't need to be high budget titles. Again, none of that matters because we know Nintendo isn't interested in going in that direction, but it doesn't mean there isn't a market for that genre, even if it's relatively niche.

 

[PixelKnight]

If was at 3.6m up to August 2021 and then it was only at 3.91m by the end of March 2022, despite including the games first holiday period.

Now, of course part of this is because, well, skyward sword doesn't have the best reputation, and maybe Ocarina or Twilight Princess as the previous best sellers would have done a little better, but the other reason it's not on this list is because there really is no appetite for a traditional 3d Zelda, even with BOTW massively expanding the series, barely any of that audience is willing to look back.

There may be no appetite for a traditional 3D Zelda now, but after ToTK, I suspect they’ll go back to it to avoid open world fatigue, even if only to then return to BOTW-style Zelda in the future too.

Skyward sword HD isn’t a new game, it also sold about 3.5m on Wii, and then finishes up with another 4m on Switch.
The Links Awakening remake sold about 6m.
LBW was about 4.2m on 3DS.
All of these took way, way less developer hours to develop than BotW/TotK.

They aren’t going to be happy with only putting a new huge open world Zelda out every six years when they can put out other types of Zelda games too. There’s a reason Nintendo won’t only go for the all-the-eggs-in-one-basket approach of ‘from now on we only pump out an open world game every six years and it needs to sell tens of millions’ approach that is a weight around the neck of huge development teams worldwide, when they can keep up releases and keep IP fresh by varying things up.

 

[AtomicZach]

I could see the TTYD Remake getting huge. Though not because it's Paper Mario TTYD, but because it's going to probably be the next Mario game to release after the movie. Mario Mania has affected the sales even before it released so any Mario game is going to get a lot of attention. If TTYD HD is the next Mario game, that will see a probably insane boost in sales.

 

[Homura]

There may be no appetite for a traditional 3D Zelda now, but after ToTK, I suspect they’ll go back to it to avoid open world fatigue, even if only to then return to BOTW-style Zelda in the future too.

Skyward sword HD isn’t a new game, it also sold about 3.5m on Wii, and then finishes up with another 4m on Switch.
The Links Awakening remake sold about 6m.
LBW was about 4.2m on 3DS.
All of these took way, way less developer hours to develop than BotW/TotK.

They aren’t going to be happy with only putting a new huge open world Zelda out every six years when they can put out other types of Zelda games too. There’s a reason Nintendo won’t only go for the all-the-eggs-in-one-basket approach of ‘from now on we only pump out an open world game every six years and it needs to sell tens of millions’ approach that is a weight around the neck of huge development teams worldwide, when they can keep up releases and keep IP fresh by varying things up.

Nintendo won't go back developing old-school 3D Zelda games. It's clear the team loves the new style and they'll keep building on it.
However, I do agree it's good to keep the IP fresh, which is why I believe the variety you speak of will be simply relegated to new 2D games.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

Lot of assumptions baked into those claims. I didn't say anything about Nintendo making such games in house or using the same resources to make them, and I don't think that would be necessary as they wouldn't need to be high budget titles. Again, none of that matters because we know Nintendo isn't interested in going in that direction, but it doesn't mean there isn't a market for that genre, even if it's relatively niche.

I've been of the opinion that an OoT-style game would probably still do pretty decently if they limited the scope to N64-era levels. One problem that became apparent with newer 3D entries is that they kept adding things to pad out the playtime to varying degrees of success (e.g. the tears of light sections in TP.) If they streamlined these games and aimed for closer to 15-20h instead of 30+h for a normal playthrough, it would help keep the budget down and make for a better game to boot (imo). It's obviously not going to sell a gazillion units like BotW but even 4m like SSHD is nothing to scoff at if they budget appropriately.

Two potential challenges I see:

• BotW has greatly raised expectations for the franchise (both at Nintendo and among the public) so I don't think this would fly in a mainline title but it could probably work in a spin-off. As much as I love Zelda, however, I'd prefer an entirely different IP with its own tropes and sets of rules for this.
• EPD is already stretched pretty thin so they'd have to find someone else to work on it. I feel like PlatinumGames or Grezzo are pretty decent candidates. They've also worked with Ganbarion in the past and even made a decent action RPG with lots of Zelda DNA in Pandora's Tower. But I'm not sure if either party is interested in another project.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

There may be no appetite for a traditional 3D Zelda now, but after ToTK, I suspect they’ll go back to it to avoid open world fatigue, even if only to then return to BOTW-style Zelda in the future too.

Skyward sword HD isn’t a new game, it also sold about 3.5m on Wii, and then finishes up with another 4m on Switch.
The Links Awakening remake sold about 6m.
LBW was about 4.2m on 3DS.
All of these took way, way less developer hours to develop than BotW/TotK.

They aren’t going to be happy with only putting a new huge open world Zelda out every six years when they can put out other types of Zelda games too. There’s a reason Nintendo won’t only go for the all-the-eggs-in-one-basket approach of ‘from now on we only pump out an open world game every six years and it needs to sell tens of millions’ approach that is a weight around the neck of huge development teams worldwide, when they can keep up releases and keep IP fresh by varying things up.

Right, which is why you'll probably see Ocarina of Time HD, and why they've been waiting it out to release wind waker and Twilight Princess HD on switch, because they need to pad the schedule.

But a OOT style 3d Zelda takes nearly as long as an open world one, so developing new versions of those doesn't solve the extended development problem. Skyward sword also took almost an entire generation to make. If anything, it makes it worse because any staff, and it takes a lot of them, that they have working on those can't be working on their actual big project that the market actually wants.

For other Zelda content in the gaps, they're going to do what they've already been doing. Maybe have grezzo do another 2d Zelda remake. Get koei tecmo to do another hyrule warriors. Pad the lineup with HD rereleases. Nintendo are far from the only company approaching their tentpole titles like this, it's practically standard at this point.

The sales gap is far too obscene for them to even consider doing an old style game in house in earnest. It can't be overstated that BOTW will have outsold every other 3d game before it combined, there's no going back.

(And there's zero chance of developing open world fatigue in the audience at a rate of ~1 game every 6 years...)

 

[brainchild]

I've been of the opinion that an OoT-style game would probably still do pretty decently if they limited the scope to N64-era levels. One problem that became apparent with newer 3D entries is that they kept adding things to pad out the playtime to varying degrees of success (e.g. the tears of light sections in TP.) If they streamlined these games and aimed for closer to 15-20h instead of 30+h for a normal playthrough, it would help keep the budget down and make for a better game to boot (imo). It's obviously not going to sell a gazillion units like BotW but even 4m like SSHD is nothing to scoff at if they budget appropriately.

Two potential challenges I see:

• BotW has greatly raised expectations for the franchise (both at Nintendo and among the public) so I don't think this would fly in a mainline title but it could probably work in a spin-off. As much as I love Zelda, however, I'd prefer an entirely different IP with its own tropes and sets of rules for this.
• EPD is already stretched pretty thin so they'd have to find someone else to work on it. I feel like PlatinumGames or Grezzo are pretty decent candidates. They've also worked with Ganbarion in the past and even made a decent action RPG with lots of Zelda DNA in Pandora's Tower. But I'm not sure if either party is interested in another project.

I can only speak for myself, but I would be absolutely ecstatic about a 3D Zelda on a smaller scale comparable to OOT if the alternative was no traditional 3D Zelda game at all. I don't think it's likely to ever happen, but I would be the first to line up if it did!

 

[Mekanos]

I feel people have too binary of a view of the Zelda series in terms of "traditional 3D vs. open world." I think it's more likely that while future Zelda games do have a similar approach to BOTW's open-ended setup, they will continue to mix and match elements from older games. In a way I would compare it to what happened with 3D Mario. Super Mario 64 reimagined the series' gameplay conventions in a lot of ways, and as it continued more and more of the elements of the classic 2D games worked their way into the series, to the point where games like Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World could be argued to be sequels to Super Mario World. I wouldn't be surprised already if TOTK addresses some of these concerns.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

I wouldn't be surprised already if TOTK addresses some of these concerns.

Not hinting at anything but this is probably the moment to pause this discussion before someone accidentally gets spoiled lol

 

[PixelKnight]

Nintendo won't go back developing old-school 3D Zelda games. It's clear the team loves the new style and they'll keep building on it.
However, I do agree it's good to keep the IP fresh, which is why I believe the variety you speak of will be simply relegated to new 2D games.

Right, which is why you'll probably see Ocarina of Time HD, and why they've been waiting it out to release wind waker and Twilight Princess HD on switch, because they need to pad the schedule.

But a OOT style 3d Zelda takes nearly as long as an open world one, so developing new versions of those doesn't solve the extended development problem. Skyward sword also took almost an entire generation to make. If anything, it makes it worse because any staff, and it takes a lot of them, that they have working on those can't be working on their actual big project that the market actually wants.

For other Zelda content in the gaps, they're going to do what they've already been doing. Maybe have grezzo do another 2d Zelda remake. Get koei tecmo to do another hyrule warriors. Pad the lineup with HD rereleases. Nintendo are far from the only company approaching their tentpole titles like this, it's practically standard at this point.

The sales gap is far too obscene for them to even consider doing an old style game in house in earnest. It can't be overstated that BOTW will have outsold every other 3d game before it combined, there's no going back.

(And there's zero chance of developing open world fatigue in the audience at a rate of ~1 game every 6 years...)

I feel people have too binary of a view of the Zelda series in terms of "traditional 3D vs. open world." I think it's more likely that while future Zelda games do have a similar approach to BOTW's open-ended setup, they will continue to mix and match elements from older games. In a way I would compare it to what happened with 3D Mario. Super Mario 64 reimagined the series' gameplay conventions in a lot of ways, and as it continued more and more of the elements of the classic 2D games worked their way into the series, to the point where games like Super Mario 3D Land and 3D World could be argued to be sequels to Super Mario World. I wouldn't be surprised already if TOTK addresses some of these concerns.

Fair points all!

 

[Wockio]

I could see the TTYD Remake getting huge. Though not because it's Paper Mario TTYD, but because it's going to probably be the next Mario game to release after the movie. Mario Mania has affected the sales even before it released so any Mario game is going to get a lot of attention. If TTYD HD is the next Mario game, that will see a probably insane boost in sales.

Can you at least wait until it... exists?

 

[AtomicZach]

Can you at least wait until it... exists?

???

I do say "if" there. I don't know if it exists. I know there's rumors of that and a 2D mario game. but I'm not saying that it's a fact.

 

[Luminoth9090]

I expected a bit more for Xeno, but still good numbers overall considering its genre. I think it has some potential to grow on the next hardware when it brings a new story arc.

I think XBC3 has better legs than the shipped numbers suggest, in the report Nintendo give sell-through numbers and in the last quarter sell-through went from 1.4m to 1.6m an increase of 200k but shipped only went from 1.81m to 1.86m an increase of only 50k. This means Nintendo overshipped the previous quarter so people are still buying copies that were shipped during launch.

 

[Deleted member 1896]

while that wasnt your point you brought an interesting one. Perhaps if MPR had released after MP4 it would have done considerably more.

If Prime 4 manages to expand the audience then it could still boost sales of other Metroid games on Switch, especially if they are all playable on the successor.

 

[tarsus]

I disagree. The franchise is more niche than IPs like Mario, Zelda, and Kirby because it's aimed at a more core audience. But that doesn't mean they're close to reaching their sales potential, or that 3 million is some hard cap.

Regardless Prime 1R has sold 1/3rd of what Dread has in the same system. While it's a remake, Prime is also a more wildly appealing game (big budget FPS vs 2D). That's marketing's fault.

Calling Metroid Prime remastered a "big budget FPS" is pretty absurd and there's no reason why a new 2D game would be innately less appealing than a 3D remaster, especially for Switch owners. For example, Japan is a large chunk of the Switch player base and they like platformers but has always hated Metroid Prime-style gameplay. The original sold abysmally there and so did the remaster.

 

[Tbone5189]

Gonna call it now, it will sell nothing like BOTW

I never said MP4 gonna sell 40mil copies

Only a quarter of that

 

[MrBones]

Calling Metroid Prime remastered a "big budget FPS" is pretty absurd and there's no reason why a new 2D game would be innately less appealing than a 3D remaster, especially for Switch owners. For example, Japan is a large chunk of the Switch player base and they like platformers but has always hated Metroid Prime-style gameplay. The original sold abysmally there and so did the remaster.

FPSs are more popular than 2D Metroidvanias, that's an objective fact across the industry. That's why, prior to Dread, the Prime games were the best selling games in the series

 

[AR15mex]

I found weird that Metroid Prime only 1 million copies. I remember it was sold out everywhere, and this was even feature in news outlets...

 

[Gingerbread Man]

Metroid Prime is a FPS as much as Portal is a FPS. You might sell a Metroid Prime game to a FPS fan, but they'll likely be extremely disappointed and they won't buy the next game (which is what happened back in the GC era, I think, when then tried positioning Metroid Prime is a sort of Halo-killer).

It's like comparing 2D Metroid and New Super Mario Bros., really.

 

[MrBones]

Metroid Prime is a FPS as much as Portal is a FPS. You might sell a Metroid Prime game to a FPS fan, but they'll likely be extremely disappointed and they won't buy the next game (which is what happened back in the GC era, I think, when then tried positioning Metroid Prime is a sort of Halo-killer).

It's like comparing 2D Metroid and New Super Mario Bros., really.

I'm not disagreeing, I'm just pointing out sales trends. Generally, higher budgeted 3D games outsell 2D games

 

[tarsus]

FPSs are more popular than 2D Metroidvanias, that's an objective fact across the industry. That's why, prior to Dread, the Prime games were the best selling games in the series

The popular modern FPS play nothing like Metroid Prime. Trying to use broadly defined genres while ignoring other context (subgenre, remaster vs new, the audience, etc) doesn't really make sense.

Can we agree that 3D fantasy action games are more popular than 2D top down Zeldalike games? So in this case, Age of Calamity should have more appeal than the Link's Awakening remake? Must be shocking then that Link's Awakening sold more.

 

[MrBones]

Edit: double post

 

[ika]

I think XBC3 has better legs than the shipped numbers suggest, in the report Nintendo give sell-through numbers and in the last quarter sell-through went from 1.4m to 1.6m an increase of 200k but shipped only went from 1.81m to 1.86m an increase of only 50k. This means Nintendo overshipped the previous quarter so people are still buying copies that were shipped during launch.

That’d be a less sad interpretation for the numbers so I’ll take that ;p I hope Future Redeemed reviews and word of mouth will boost the sales somehow and next Q numbers to be a bit better. It deserves to reach 2M at the very least.

 

[Bosintang]

I didn't realize, but Splatoon 3 is not even sure to pass Splatoon 2 when it's all said and done given that sales seem to slow to a crawl while Splat 2 had crazy good legs. I don't recall, did the DLC increase the sales of the base game in Splatoon 2?

Splat3 was good because the core concept is excellent, but as a sequel 5 years in the making, such safe and incremental game was a disappointment and it felt as such even before release. If Splat4 is more of the same, the squids are going to start to smell (they already kinda do). I wish they made a spin-off instead.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I found weird that Metroid Prime only 1 million copies. I remember it was sold out everywhere, and this was even feature in news outlets...

Low expectations, low production run, easy to sell out.

 

[Lugia667]

spaltoon 3 hasnt even been out for a year. I think people are trying to wishcast the game into being a failure

 

[Hailinel]

I found weird that Metroid Prime only 1 million copies. I remember it was sold out everywhere, and this was even feature in news outlets...

If you only make a hundred of something and you sell them all, they've sold out.

 

[Bosintang]

spaltoon 3 hasnt even been out for a year. I think people are trying to wishcast the game into being a failure

There's a world between being a failure and being a smashing hit. Not really progressing as compared to the second iteration, which was seen as a bit of a rushed sequel, would be a mild disappointment.

In the case of Splatoon 3, the legs are so far a disappointment compared to Splatoon 2, that's not really up for debate.
We get data, we draw conclusions. We get new data, we alter those conclusions. That's all there is to it, no one has a hidden agenda here.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

Metroid Prime is a FPS as much as Portal is a FPS

Ok, come on. You spend like 50% of the game shooting things and engaging in combat. I get your point, it's not the core of what makes Metroid so exciting, but it's honestly ridiculous to say it's on the same level as Portal, a game which for all intents and purposes is just a puzzle game with the technicality of shooting mechanisms. Prime might not be a shooter if we're assigning singular genres, I wouldn't call it one, but shooting and combat are very core to its design. It's not as not a shooter as Portal.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

Regarding the sales numbers, my initial pessimism regarding Prime's performance was right. I was weary for good reason it seems. Now I feel kind of bad that I started believing the hype in its performance. Certainly not to a crazy extent, but it had me going for a bit.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Ok, come on. You spend like 50% of the game shooting things and engaging in combat. I get your point, it's not the core of what makes Metroid so exciting, but it's honestly ridiculous to say it's on the same level as Portal, a game which for all intents and purposes is just a puzzle game with the technicality of shooting mechanisms. Prime might not be a shooter if we're assigning singular genres, I wouldn't call it one, but shooting and combat are very core to its design.

And to go on an off topic tangent, the whole 'Metroid Prime isn't an fps thing' often just comes off as a predefense to how mediocre the combat of the first game is. I love Prime as anyone who's seen my posts would know but the whole talking point about it not being comparable at all is extremely tired imo. Theres just as much exaggeration in saying it's DOOM or Halo as there is in saying it's like Portal (from the perspective of genre displacement).

You spend the entirety of mario Rabbids sparks of hope shooting things as well, but it's not a shooter.

Metroid prime was designed without even aiming in combat, FPS is a very specific genre and Metroid prime really isn't part of it. Nintendo themselves call it a first person adventure and not a FPS.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

You spend the entirety of mario Rabbids sparks of hope shooting things as well, but it's not a shooter.

Metroid prime was designed without even aiming in combat, FPS is a very specific genre and Metroid prime really isn't part of it. Nintendo themselves call it a first person adventure and not a FPS.

I already said I wouldn't call it a shooter. But I do think it's kind of insane to imply it's just as much not a shooter as Portal. That is just too far imo.

 

[Hailinel]

I already said I wouldn't call it a shooter. But I do think it's kind of insane to imply it's just as much not a shooter as Portal. That is just too far imo.

Nintendo didn't even market it as an FPS back in the day. They specifically refrained from the word "shooter" in calling it a first-person adventure. Which is semantics, but that's how they pushed it.

 

[AngryAlchemist]

Nintendo didn't even market it as an FPS back in the day. They specifically refrained from the word "shooter" in calling it a first-person adventure. Which is semantics, but that's how they pushed it.

I know, but I'm not saying it is a shooter. I'm saying it is insane to equate it to Portal in genre displacement.

Edit: I'll put it this way. When people call Portal a shooter I cringe. When people call Prime a shooter I cringe a little less.

 

[MisterSpo]

There's a world between being a failure and being a smashing hit. Not really progressing as compared to the second iteration, which was seen as a bit of a rushed sequel, would be a mild disappointment.

In the case of Splatoon 3, the legs are so far a disappointment compared to Splatoon 2, that's not really up for debate.
We get data, we draw conclusions. We get new data, we alter those conclusions. That's all there is to it, no one has a hidden agenda here.

I don't really see how Splatoon 3 could've reached a bigger audience. Yes, the install base is bigger, but that doesn't necessarily mean the addressable market is bigger; the fundamental experience is very similar, after all, so it's not as if anything had changed or shifted in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the game. We've seen sales growth largely in instances where something notable had changed in the design of the game, and that isn't the case here.

Equally, it's not as if we've seen a drastic drop in the total audience, either. A little under 11 million in six months is excellent, and the larger launch sales may well explain the lower legs. Splatoon 2 is at what, 13.3 million at the last update? Granted, that's 12 months ago, so we'll have a better idea of where things stand when we get the white paper figures in the summer. But Splatoon 3 has further time on the market, given there's no Switch successor in sight, and the paid expansion is still to come, so I don't think it's going to fall that far below Splatoon 2 in the long run.

 

[Thunder84]

I'm curious to see if Nintendo tries to adjust their marketing at all to account for the relatively poor legs all of their recent software has seemingly had. Seeing so many games completely drop off after launch has to be of at least some concern to them. It isn't hurting the overall sales figures that much, but you have to imagine that they feel fairly disappointed with how many sales are potentially being left on the table.

Wouldn't be surprised if we see marketing campaigns continue for longer periods of time in the future.

 

[Chie]

It does seem like the time between announcement and release has shrunk a lot. Three Houses was properly announced about 13 months before launch, whereas Engage was like 4 months iirc. We used to get more game specific directs too.

I do think the recent tactics aren't working as well.

 

[Djehuty]

I don't really see how Splatoon 3 could've reached a bigger audience. Yes, the install base is bigger, but that doesn't necessarily mean the addressable market is bigger; the fundamental experience is very similar, after all, so it's not as if anything had changed or shifted in an attempt to broaden the appeal of the game. We've seen sales growth largely in instances where something notable had changed in the design of the game, and that isn't the case here.

Equally, it's not as if we've seen a drastic drop in the total audience, either. A little under 11 million in six months is excellent, and the larger launch sales may well explain the lower legs. Splatoon 2 is at what, 13.3 million at the last update? Granted, that's 12 months ago, so we'll have a better idea of where things stand when we get the white paper figures in the summer. But Splatoon 3 has further time on the market, given there's no Switch successor in sight, and the paid expansion is still to come, so I don't think it's going to fall that far below Splatoon 2 in the long run.

Spaltoon 3 still has a couple years to sell, unless it starts selling xenoblade nubb my era there’s no way it doenst crawl to at least 15mil.

Splatoon proabably hit its peak as well, unlike Mario or Zelda you can’t really evolve on the gameplay becuase the sell is the main gameplay mode, you can provide other functions weapons and such but the core gameplay can’t be changed due to how specific it is, changing it risks Spaltoon just becoming a worse” x shooter”.

 

[Bosintang]

I don't really see how Splatoon 3 could've reached a bigger audience.

With all due respect, that not for you to figure out, it's Nintendo's job to try to better themselves.

With that being said, I see two pathways to grow the audience of an already successful IP.

1. You keep the same core, but do everything SO MUCH better that the game becomes as close as it gets to perfection. That's Mario Kart 8 deluxe, that's Smash Brothers, that's Animal Crossing (though I haven't played the latest). For Splatoon 3, top of my head, that would have meant much better designed arenas, a much tighter netcode, a much lower controller latency. In the end, I'd argue that most of the new arenas are actually worse than Splat1 and 2, and the game is still largely latency-ville featuring double splats-festa. There was room for improvement and Nintendo partly failed at that. The new mobility options are great, I give them that.

2. You reinvent yourself without betraying your IP's identity. This is what Zelda did, and it pays dividends. It's very hard though, but after a sequel as incremental as splat 2, for reasons which were perfectly understandable, one was allowed to expect a less risk adverse Nintendo with splat 3.

(Edit: 3. Obviously, a combination of 1 and 2. )

As Splatoon 3 failed at both point 1 and 2, it's normal that the audience didn't really grow. And to speak for myself, I'd also find normal if people felt less involved in splat 3 than they did in 2. I know that I haven't touched the game in months, even though I was playing splat2 until 2020-ish. The game is still good and polished, and the core concept is great. But it's a 10/10 game weighed down to 8 by the aforementioned problems, in my opinion.

As Nintendo didn't have new ideas justifying the sequel, nor the time/money/manpower/interest/ability to make Splatoon 3 perfect game like MKDX8 is, I would have indeed preferred if they made Spin off rather than a sequel; everyone would have been ok if they just updated Splat 2 for another couple of years. Actually, most of us expected exactly that.
After all, we are talking about the company which refuses to make a new F-zero for their lack of ideas in how to rejuvenate the IP; I totally understand that the case of Splatoon is different due to $$ involved, but I wish they kept that same energy.

 

[MisterSpo]

With all due respect, that not for you to figure out, it's Nintendo's job to try to better themselves.

You're missing my point and I perhaps didn't explain it clearly; I don't think the product was intended to grow the Splatoon audience and I think people here need to stop assuming every single installment of every franchise has to show growth.

It was an iterative product, likely designed to keep the Splatoon brand relevant, refine the core experience, keep the Splatoon fanbase occupied and happy, and, perhaps most importantly from Nintendo's perspective, retain and create NSO subscribers.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

Splatoon 3's long-term success is probably dependent on what their plans for it and the IP itself are in relation to the Switch successor (and I can imagine various scenarios of how they can fuck this transition up lol). Ideally, they would have found a way to give Splat2 a longer tail with Splat3 coming out on the Switch 2 OR get Splat3 out sooner. But I imagine Covid and their hardware plans including the (alleged) cancelled mid-gen refresh probably interfered in some fashion.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Splatoon 3s biggest failing is it doesn't do anything new that 2 didn't already do.

The biggest changes to the game are minor tweaks, and in several ways it's worse than 2. Content rollout is significantly slower, there are no new permenant modes thus far (2 had 2 new modes), it has tricolour battles, but those are accessible a total of 2 days every 90-92 days. In addition the game is way more grindy for content that used to be easier to access in 2.
It's no wonder the game hasn't expanded the audience beyond 2 at all; they didn't even try.

 

[Bosintang]

You're missing my point and I perhaps didn't explain it clearly; I don't think the product was intended to grow the Splatoon audience and I think people here need to stop assuming every single installment of every franchise has to show growth.

It was an iterative product, likely designed to keep the Splatoon brand relevant, refine the core experience, keep the Splatoon fanbase occupied and happy, and, perhaps most importantly from Nintendo's perspective, retain and create NSO subscribers.

This is where I disagree. Capitalism is based on infinite growth and Nintendo is very much capitalist. Even if everyone and their dog owned switch, they'd look for ways to sell a switch to your goldfish. Same goes for games, I'm convinced that they try to grow their IP rather than being happy with relative stagnation

 

[MisterSpo]

This is where I disagree. Capitalism is based on infinite growth and Nintendo is very much capitalist. Even if everyone and their dog owned switch, they'd look for ways to sell a switch to your goldfish. Same goes for games, I'm convinced that they try to grow their IP rather than being happy with relative stagnation

In 2020 Nintendo revealed their internal expectations for New Horizons were that it would sell in line with New Leaf on 3DS. Even with 3 years proof that Switch could grow audiences, they weren't specifically targeting massive growth even with key franchises. Pretty obvious to say they don't want stagnation cross the business, or to see individual franchises collapses, but they're not chasing perpetual growth, either. They've gone on the record about that principle in the past.

They're on record about how they wanted Wii-like profits from Switch, but you don't need to grow every installment of every series to do that. What counts is the bottom line. Sell 12 million plus, retain millions of subscribers, sell millions of DLC, and Splatoon helps you achieve those profits. It's not as if all those millions of consumers are the same from one entry to the next, either, so that linear idea of growth as "more copies sold each time" doesn't really capture what each software release might need to do.

 

[10k]

Wow, Kirby did 6.45m? That's way more than I expected from that game. Excellent. Forgotten Land was a great foundation for 3D Kirby.

Xenoblade, FE Engage and Metroid Prime doing over 1m is nice, I hope those games are profitable at that number considering their budget constraints (although Xenoblade seems like an expensive game to make)

 

[Johna X]

TTYD being first after movie is a good point, though I assume the 2d platformer would be dated by then anyway

It'd be funny though, similar to how SPM sold crazy relative to its series because of being the first mario platformer on the Wii, though they also seemed aware of that so I can already see a timeline where it sells like 4 mil, people go "haha we're back" then the next game is Paper Mario:Shredder Weather anyway

To be honest considering it still only sells a fraction of Mario Kart (admittedly idk how MK does in Japan and I know Splatoon is huge there) I'm a little confused why they didn't just have a 20 dollar pass that adds a bunch of new stuff to 2, Splatoon feels like an iterative series on a similar level to MK and Smash I kept saying during the reveal "this obviously isn't a third game" and then it was, like I at least expected a spinoff first

 

[Wockio]

As Splatoon 3 failed at both point 1 and 2, it's normal that the audience didn't really grow. And to speak for myself, I'd also find normal if people felt less involved in splat 3 than they did in 2. I know that I haven't touched the game in months, even though I was playing splat2 until 2020-ish.

As someone who got his Switch in mid 2019, I put 350 hours into 2 (a lot of which was after 3 came out) vs 515 and counting into 3.

Considering how much the install base grew post-pandemic, the audience may have not grown but it certainly diversified. It's up to Nintendo to see if they can deliver a product enticing enough to the veterans who skipped 3, the COVID rush audience and then some when the time comes for Splatoon 4.