Topic: Was Sin and Punishment 2 supposed to be a hit?

This is something that I've found very confusing. And this is not a bashing Sin and Punishment thread, not as big a fan of the series as some people but whatever. So this has nothing to do with the actual quality of the game one way or another. But, Nintendo was kinda, sort of giving this some advertising and marketing and whatever. Maybe not the best but they clearly had enough confidence in it to give it tv commercials, and I believe I saw those commercials during popular programming. I don't understand why though. Regardless of what you think of Sin and Punishment 2, it was pretty clearly never gonna be some huge hit.

First of all, getting a game that isn't specifically targeted at casual/non-gamers or a major Nintendo franchise on the Wii had not usually turned out well despite being an incredibly successful and relevant console. While some blame can be put on others (the difference between marketing for Dead Space Extraction and Dead Space 2 and 3 is quite incredible), gamers were not buying games made for anyone that was looking for anything else, outside of Sonic fans basically. Nintendo trying something to go against that is appreciated I suppose but...

Second of all, tv commercials cost money, and quite a bit of it. I doubt this got played during big sports events or to the same extent as Mario Galaxy 2, but it's one of the somewhat rare video game commercials I distinctly remember seeing on tv in the past few years. I have to believe they spent enough to expect this to be a hit. You could have succeeded in a clever, casual way like Layton or appeal to old school JRPG fans like DQIX (with Seth Green!) but like FE:Awakening, it was kind of a generic commercial.

Third: How many japanese anime 3d shoot-em-ups do you know of as notable successes in America? Was this ever gonna be a huge success? I assume the first game has unusually decent VC sales but that's not necessarily commercial worthy for a console that had difficulty selling hardcore games to anything beyond small niche audiences. You can't even get the "look how bizarre Japan is!" audience, because it has a non-sense anime story that you have to play to realize is a non-sense anime story and isn't exactly comparable to the intentional WTF of Katamari Damacy or the like.

Finally: Can Treasure get the attention they deserve? This has nothing to do with anything, and I think both Sin and Punishment game are not their strongest titles, but they've making beloved games for like 2 decades and their combined sales of all their games are probably like...Wii U's total sales right now.

It's always been so confusing? Why did Nintendo think this game would be a hit? It was gonna be a niche title unless they spent a ludicrous amount of money (instead of just enough that I'm still certain they lost money on it). Sin and Punishment 2 was very clearly never gonna be popular, at all.

I realize none of this matters much, but it's one of those things where I really wonder what the logic was behind this. I'd love to believe they just wanted a cool niche game to be a hit regardless of their own profit, but I'm not stupid, even cool companies like Nintendo try very hard to specifically make sure they make money and lots of it(and do a better job at that than most AAA companies nowadays apparently).

It should have been! I have heard it was one of the very best games for Wii, as a matter of fact I have been thinking of getting it off of Amazon lately. It is less than $6 new!!!

Got this game for cheap.The game is really fun.I'm about 80% done with the game and its amazing.It really should of been a hit that's for sure.

Stop thinking, it's a fantastic purchase for sure at $6! Go buy it right now! Shoo shoo.

The game is more of a sleeper-hit. It should have been a hit, but I also don't think it was meant to for there was little to no advertisments promoting the game. In the end it seemed more like a gift to the devoted fans out there.

I picked it up last year for $5 and enjoyed it. Never finished it though, school and all got in the way.

I find this hard to believe. Like, unless the commercial was only on tv for like...a week...or less, that's more advertising than I would expect for Sin and Punishment 2. Even if it didn't, that's still more advertising that I ever saw for...at least half of my game collection. And I don't think I somehow missed some big ad campaign for Muramasa or the No More Heroes games, let's just say.

The experience I felt when playing it...
and the one I expect from a full price game...
Yea. Not worth it IMO.

Treasure is lost to time as far as I'm concerned, but then psychedelic(?) arcade games might not be an art form I recognize.
Honestly wanted to enjoy it quite a bit more than I did, yet I knew it would be like that even before I bought it (for $5).

Every game from any developer and/or publisher should be targeted as profitable. Unfortunately, Nintendo isn't the best at marketing its games and, as obvious as this is, Sin and Punishment appeals to a small audience.

That, and it wasn't a good game by any means.

I thought it was decent, but the N64 had a better blockbuster feel to it IMO, so I think the N64 one is better. I got it for $5, and I thought it was pretty worth it.

I think Star Successor may have been intended to be a hit, as it became the "gap game" between Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid Other M in 2010. I actually think they pushed back Other M for this game's release, as it got a June date and June was Other M's month before going to August. Since it sounds cheap, I may get myself a copy.

Wasn't released in Aus and NZ, which always means that Nintendo never thought it was going to be a hit. Had to import it form Europe. I enjoyed it a lot but maybe not quite enough to keep at it for long. Loved the presentation.

one of the most impressive games, gameplay-side, that i've ever played. Everything I like in the same game - lost countless hours to this thing... Never placed in the high score contest though

Doesn't necessarily have been planned as a huge hit, but just as a way to lure in some of those hardcore gamers. Show them that the Wii is more than just Mario and casual games, so they first buy the system and then stick with it for some more games.