Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Is The Best Pre-Selling Game Of The Series To Date, And On Switch

Only two more weeks!

Personally, I don't think Smash can outsell a Pokemon game, even if it's one that a lot of people seem to hate.

Good to hear. I'm not a huge fighting game person, but the quality of presentation and scope of content here are on another level.

@SuperiorTech I dunno. Besides not being quite universally embraced, Let's Go will also be replaced by new Pokemon games going forward, whereas Smash Ultimate will keep selling well into the future.

With the many Directs, trailers, screenshots, and marketing surrounding Smash Ultimate, I'm not surprised. I think it'll be tight between this and the two Pokemon games.

It may very well outsell Pokemon in preorders. The quality of the content is not as much in question.

But I don’t buy into all this preorder nonesense. Developers love it of course because it guarantees people will buy it before reviews. For most games I want to wait until I find out my money is being well spent. Might make an exception in this case because it looks fantastic

It’s $30 today on Facebook Marketplace in the US.

Edit: Sold Out

Smash wouldn't be the best pre-selling Switch game if Let's Go was a traditional Pokémon Game. Change my mind.

@Devlind Pokémon sells regardless of its make-up. Plus, the nostalgia and GO interaction probobably boosted the sales for Let’s Go a tad. Smash would be on top even if this was a main-series game.

But...but.... NL users kept saying Smash isnt that big...

@TheFanatic afaik, Pokémon has always sold more than Smash (correct me if I'm wrong). Besides, RSE sold more than FRLG, so I don't consider nostalgia to be a big defining factor in sales. I still think that Let's Go would have sold more if it was a traditional mainline entry.

@Devlind I guess we’ll see next year.

I might be being bold but putting together Hype, game size and advertising ( And so many Direct included) for me it will be Switch's best selling game so far and will pass SSB Brawl and become the best selling fighting game ever.

@EchoNemesis The best selling fighting game of all time is actually SSB Brawl.

@Mrtoad Thats That's right! I corrected it

I think SB Ultimate is gonna be huge it has had nothing but hype surrounding it and Nintendo is releasing it at the perfect moment for the hype everyone I know wants or is getting Smash Bros Ultimate for their Switch., With the additions of the Inklings alone it will be bigger in Japan this time around .

@BenAV It's going against the worst game in the Pokemon series? Wait a second, I didn't know they were releasing Sun and Moon on the Switch

Where is Cobalt? Not like him to let a positive article slide without a snipe.

Cant wait. Gonna be my first smash since the original!

It will have December locked down for best game for sure. Can it hit 10 million by months end will be the only question!

@Devlind tbh it's always been easier for a mobile(as in handheld console) game to sell more copies than a home console game.
After all, in the 3ds era:
The 3ds was a cheaper console than the wiiu.
And the games on 3ds could sell for a cheaper price than a wiiu one.

Of course smash 4 was also a 3ds game into of a wiiu one, but in its regard the "main event" has always been meant to be the wiiu version.

And when we're talking about something like pokemon, we're talking about such an institution that anything like Smash, that is any fighting game whatsoever, would have a hard time comparing to the sales of 3ds era pokemon

Hmm looks like all the coverage paid off. Still need to pre order mine.

@Ludovsky That's fair, but still, almost half of the people that own a Switch use it as a handheld gaming system, so the Switch here is a special case.

I think Smash is gonna Smash Pokemon. If it was the proper new gen game I wouldn't think so. But a Gen 1 remake besting the most anticipated Switch game thus far is a stretch.

That being said I've thoroughly enjoyed Let's go.

Not sure whether Smash will initially beat Let's Go but it will for sure over time because Smash isn't an annual franchise. Still think the overall best selling Switch game will end up being Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.

@BenAV Pokemon Let's Go is NOT the worst game in the Pokemon series. Don't copy paste what the internet says.

Its all because of piranha plant!
he poisoned the mind of us gamers. Piranha plant will be the most used character in history hahah mark my words. He will bite your a#* off.

Trollers: We want waluigi! 🤧
Sakurai: F U! Get piranha plant instead lol.

I think Pokémon was a bigger leap forward for the series than Smash Ultimate will be for its series, but at the end of the day, this Smash is beyond any hype I've ever seen (remember all the it's a port of Smash 4 and I KNOW it is, you can't convince me otherwise no matter how much evidence is presented? I do)

@JaxonH

I'd argue that for every step forward, Let's Go takes another two back. Ultimate may not be a huge game-changer, but what it is, that Let's Go isn't, is comprehensive.

@BLD
I don't see any steps back, since most of the changes were due to being a yellow remake, and/or being a different type of Pokémon game. Practically everything missing in the game is because it was not present in the original. And none of those things are going to affect the next game in the series, so I think it just comes down to the fact it's a different type of Pokémon game.

But the steps forward are huge. Finally they've managed to make catching Pokémon actually interesting. All these years I couldn't get into the series and now I'm finally into it. Those positive changes will likely (and should) be integrated into the core series moving forward. I would be incredibly disappointed if they did not follow through. It's the biggest shake up I've seen in a series that was growing evermore stale. Let's Go has paved the way forward. Not to say the next game will follow that identical formula because obviously, it's going to be structured like the traditional games. But they could (and should) integrate the catching mechanics alongside battling Pokémon. And refine a bit for the consolidated audience such a system making motion optional.

@SuperiorTech The amount of people enjoying Let's Go utterly dwarf the few thousand involved in ranting on websites and review bombing Amazon.

Most pre-ordered Smash Bros game = Most pre-ordered Nintendo game outside of Pokemon Sun/Moon + Black/White.

Great news, this game is definitely Ultimate in more ways than one. Weren't people saying Smash Ultimate wasnt gonna do that hot because Smash 4 didn't save the Wii U? (For the record Smash 4 actually had over a 50% attach ratio on Wii U and besides that, nothing was gonna save the Wii U anyway.) So yeah, even on a bad day, Smash does incredibly well.

@JaxonH

I respect that you enjoy the catching mechanics, but if they integrate them in any non-optional way into the new game I'd honestly probably quit.

"If you've seen the absolutely monstrous amount of news and coverage surrounding the game so far, you probably won't be all that surprised to hear that it's already starting to break records left, right and centre."
centre?

It will almost certainly be the biggest selling Smash Bros ever, but then again, that's mainly due to the fact that it's on a red-hot Switch and its predecessors were released on a dying N64, a Gamecube, a Wii U, a handheld and a very casual orientated Wii (in the sense that Brawl only sold half of what the likes NSMBWii, MKWii, Wii series games, etc. did)

@Haywired Yeah, Smash Ultimate will likely not beat Mario Kart 9 when it comes but should beat the 12 or so million that 4 and Brawl sold by several million, I’d suspect.

Pokemon's numbers aren't going to be really relavant until after the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales are counted. At least not in my opinion.

But Smash's fanbase has only grown over the years and Nintendo has been pushing SSB Ultimate to the extent that at least they think it's the ULTIMATE game.

@Grumblevolcano
I'd be kinda shocked if Smash Bros Ultimate didn't "smash" Let's Go's launch sales. The game is still 2 weeks away from release and has already attained more preorders than Pokemon or any other big Switch title.

The only way I could feasibly see Smash Bros Ultimate underselling Let's Go is if it is reviewed like Fallout 76 and convinces a ton of people to cancel their preorders. But I highly doubt that will happen.

@westman98 I see stock shortages as the most likely possibility of Smash's potential being disrupted. Physical preorders don't really mean much if there's not the stock to support the preorders.

@Grumblevolcano
Stock shortages for the game won't be an issue. I wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo shipped 10+ million copies of this game in its first week in order to meet demand (That's what they did for Pokemon Sun/Moon, which is Nintendo's fastest-selling game ever).

At this point with Pokemon I be surprised if SSB sells more than those two Pokemon release. Fallout 76 is it's own worst enemy. Reviewers aren't the problem for fallout literally falling out.

@Klunk23 sun and moon wasn't really the worst. I mean, it had the worst tortorial but it was hardly the worst pokemon game when hey you pikachu and pokemon dash exist. I still enjoy the darker side of sun and moon hidden beneath the bright exterior like the history of the 3 pokemon Lusamine froze https://i.imgur.com/PkJHngY.jpg

What a surprise

Can't wait, we're only 2 weeks away

@Shadowmoon522 Well I meant more main line titles. But if you want to throw in spin offs then Dash isn't even the worst. Not when... uhg... My Pokemon Ranch exists. Died a little mentioning that.

Still, I've actually been enjoying Let's Go a bit more than I did Sun. Sun is easily my least favorite game in the entire mainline series, but those were more personal problems than they were actual objective issues. I can see very easily see why LG would be someones least favorite, even if I do like it.

Why is everyone so judgemental about Pokemon Let’s Go? How many of you have even played it?

@Klunk23 I totally agree with you. Moon is the first game in the series that I did not even finish the story because I got bored. On let's go I completed all the Pokédex I can yesterday (I don't have online for trading...) and it was a joy from start to end (also not terribly easy as I avoided catching Pokémon all over and instead did mostly battles. Due to that I had to grind in a few spots until having squirtel, charmander and balbausar as fafter that things got more straight forward)

I cannot wait for this to come out so I don’t have to keep reading about it....not a Smash fan at all.

@Klunk23 let's go is a spin off, masuda already stated its part of the "go" seiries not the "main" series

@Shadowmoon522 Yes, but seeing as the entire point of the game is to capture new players and bring then over to the main series, I don't think it's very accurate to classify it completely as a spin-off (such as conquest or mystery dungeon).

I think it will sell incredibly well and outsell Pokemon Lets go first week records if presales are any indication. I don't think it will have the "legs" of Pokemon on the long run though.

Sakurai puts his heart and soul into these games, so they BETTER sell well.