Topic: The Other Side: What you pray the NX ... ISN'T

@skywake: I never said it was "hard to have a go" at their decision. I just said there's no way of any of us knowing exactly how a different game would have done.

All your chart shows is that Donkey Kong Country Returns did INCREDIBLY well, and the other installments did just as well (and, technically, a bit worse compared to some) than Metroid Prime 1 and Metroid Prime 2 and Metroid Prime 3.

Bottom line: They could have made either a DKC game or Metroid game and "done well," but that huge success of DKC Returns and, let's face it, a faster development time for a side scroller as opposed to an adventure/fps game tipped the scales.

Edit: "Easy" "to have a go" at their decision. Late night lol
Edit number 2: Actually, the more I look at your chart, the more I don't know why you posted it. It actually seems to support the OPPOSITE of what you're saying. DKC:TF and even the DKC on 3DS didn't actually do too hot considering the install base of the 3DS and the slightly game-starved state the Wii U was in. And then you look at the relatively stable numbers of the Prime series.... I don't know, man. I think that chart is doing the opposite of what you wanted. (Talking the 3 original console Prime games, just to be clear)

@iKhan:
As I said in my first post on the topic of what games they should and shouldn't make. The idea of producing blockbuster after blockbuster? That's a great forum argument winning console. But from Nintendo's perspective it's hard to keep justifying development of expensive games that don't sell. Especially if people are starting to act like they've seen it all before as was the case with Metroid Prime.

With 2D platformers? Sure they're not exciting but they're cheap to develop and they sell well. People don't seem to really tire of them in the same way either. So of course they make a whole pile of them rather than put energy into fewer blockbusters.

I don't have a problem with Retro making another DK game as much as I have a problem with them making a DK game that plays catch up with the Classic trilogy in gameplay mechanics and does little to take advantage of a new console. For that game to be the only 8th gen Retro game is highly disappointing. Doubly so when Metroid actually benefits from the Wii U's hardware improvements.

Thing is people don't really want them to be cheap on console games. Consoles are platforms designed for grand experiences. They need to wow, in terms of graphics, scale, and content. 2D platformers don't really fit this philosophy, they're better for a portable experience. So if Nintendo wants to sell consoles they need flagship titles that show they can go big. If they can't do that, they're better off just leaving the home console market.

Nintendo's had this problem this generation, they've been skimping on content and avoiding the kinds of games that gamers would generally look for on a console. This is where you need collectathon platformers and other exploration based games like Zelda and Metroid, and Nintendo's been avoiding these kinds of games lately.

@rallydefault:
The install base does skew those numbers. So to put that list in another context, here are the same games sorted by sales. Though this time I've listed where they stood in terms of "best selling games" on their respective system:

#2 - Mario Kart 7 (not really their game but, they assisted)
#20 - Donkey Kong Country Returns
#7 - Metroid Prime
#77 - Metroid Prime 3
#25 - Donkey Kong Country Returns 3DS
#12 - Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
#33 - Metroid Prime 2
#182 - Metroid Prime Hunters
#260 - Metroid Prime Trilogy
#584 - Metroid Prime Pinball

Yes Metroid Prime 3 sold pretty well, respectable numbers. But for a Wii game? ..... not so much. It's a similar deal with Metroid Prime 2 although not to the same degree. Is that because the Wii was a more "casual" system? Yeah, that's probably part of it. But it's not all of it.

If it was then Tropical Freeze wouldn't be as high up the list of Wii U games as it was. Tropical Freeze didn't set the world on fire but it did well for a Wii U game. It has sold better than Bayonetta 2, Pikmin 3, Hyrule Warriors, Captain Toad, Yoshi's Woolly World. I'm not sure that Metroid Prime 4 would have done better than all of those titles....

@skywake: I didn't realise Metroid Prime 3 was so far down the list,that's crazy.Prime 2 being as low as the 33rd best seller on a console with such a small install base is just as surprising.I will guess Other M didn't even make the top 100 of Wii best sellers then?

@rallydefault: absolutely. My gaming PC has such a backlog that I will never finish it. As such I decided to stop attempting to keep up with all of the sales comma and only focus on my backlog, plus new Nintendo products.

Having disposable income makes it very difficult to not find yourself buying a bunch of garbage. The triple a marketing machine makes almost anything look decent, and to be fair, the games are a lot better than some of the stuff we had in the early nineties.

I always go back to a game being generally fun if the graphics were awful comma and everything was replaced with some sort of animated cartoon (in essence, would this work with 8-bit Sprites).

So I'm not the average consumer, but I strongly believe games should be judged on their merits. These days a well thought-out spiritual successor to Battletoads would be "casual".

For the record, I really wanted a Metroid sequel, LOL.

I'm not saying they should have made another Metroid game. I'm saying they should have made a game that took advantage of the hardware, because having a strong western talent is a valuable asset in trying to get your platform to sell in the west. If they didn't do that, at the very least, they should have reduced the amount of time the studio needed to allocate to the DKCTF by making it for 3DS instead.

I understand the justification for having 2D platformers made for home consoles though. But Nintendo has partners like Good-Feel that more frequently develop these types of games.

Ultimately it comes down to distributing talent efficiently. Sony didn't assign Guerilla Games to Little Big Planet 3, as their talent wouldn't see as much payoff as it would with a large scale 3D game Horizon.

@Project_Dolphin:
It's from VGChartz. And before you go all "zomg vgchartz" it's worth noting that it's only their new stuff that's a bit dodgy. If you go back to previous years they're on the money. Purely because the older stuff is corrected to reflect what's said in more official reports.

@OorWullie:
No, Other M wasn't in the top 100 Wii games. And if you read the list of games that sold better than it you'll find quite a few surprises. Though being on the Wii it was still a million seller...

@iKhan:
Umm, I'm not sure that the Retro Studios of DKCR are the same Retro Studios of Metroid Prime. They've still got a fair bit of tallent but after Prime was done? My understanding is that quite a few people left.

That's a fair point. I knew team members left, but it didn't really occur to me that the team may have the more experience with 2D Platformers than other genres.

@skywake I don't think it's this cut and dry. DK probably isn't selling to anyone except Nintendo's core fanbase that's already buying a Wii U for other things, whereas Prime 4 can attract gamers that otherwise wouldn't have been interested in a Wii U. It'd also be better for marketing because again, this is the kind of gameplay philosophy that home console gamers are looking for and fits much better with Nintendo's image of innovation and new experiences. TF doesn't really do this, it's a "me too" game in pretty much every way.

@skywake: No, I mean, I totally see what you are trying to say, and believe me, I'm not a huge Metroid fan or anything, but there is a HUGE drop off between Donkey Kong Country Returns and its two "sequels" on 3DS and Wii U. Like... a 5 million difference. And for Tropical Freeze you could argue Wii U numbers in general shouldn't be expected to be so high, but the 3DS title? And that came out before Tropical Freeze, right? But they were probably too deep into development at that point to change track.

At any rate, back to my original point. If Metroid Prime 4 would have come out instead of TF, who know how well it would have done? My hunch would still be "pretty darn well" given the relatively stable sales of the previous Metroid Prime main entries, added with Wii U owners being a bit desperate for games at the time. But like you said, technically TF did "well," too. I just think Prime 4 would have done just as well, really, but their development costs would definitely have been much higher.

@Bolt_Strike:
Except that Metroid has always been a distant third out of the "big 3". Mario is at the top, then Zelda and then Metroid. Donkey Kong Country at its peak was almost as big as Mario and during the Wii era it was right in line with Zelda. Metroid at its peak was just under Zelda but during the Wii era it was closer to games like Pokemon Battle Revolution.

Would Metroid Prime 4 have generated more buzz online? Absolutely. Would it have set the forums alight and got us all excited? Definitely. But would it have sold more and moved more Wii Us? ..... hard to say but recent history says probably not.

It's easy for us to sit here in 2016 and say "if only Nintendo had done A instead of B". Hindsight is like that. But if you were sitting in that room back in 2012 or so? Knowing your previous sales, no idea how the Wii U was going to do. You have to decide whether you're going to make another Metroid, DKC or something else. I reckon you'd pick DKC.

@rallydefault:
The 3DS game was a straight port. As a fan of the series I didn't buy it because I had already played it on the Wii. If it had been an entirely new entry I would definitely brought it. I wouldn't read too much into it not selling as well as the Wii version. You'd expect that.

The point is; Donkey Kong Country Returns sold almost just as good as all three Prime games combined. Ignoring the fact that the team had a lot more experience with DKC at that point; Statistically it made more sense to develop another DKC game. A franchise that has proven to be able to sell incredibly well.

@skywake: Being a port, I can see the lower expectations, then. So the 3DS title's sales can be explained pretty easily.

So do you think Tropical Freeze performed as well as they wanted it to?

It's not that simple. Software sales can vary based on your target audience and what kind of direction you want for your console. That's why shooters and third party games tend not to do as well on Nintendo consoles. Going from Wii to Wii U, Nintendo had a very casual based console, which is what helped DK sell well,. But on the Wii U, they were going for more of a hardcore experience, so Metroid would've done better relative to DK (and we can see that TF sold pretty poorly compared to Returns).

That doesn't really work. Game sales tend to be proportional to console sales, so if you have a weak selling console like the Wii U, the games don't really sell as well. Look at 3DS game sales vs. Wii U game sales, the same type of game on Wii U sells much more on 3DS.

Thing is, while the portable and home console environments do have a lot of overlap now, there's still a difference in game philosophy that separates them. Portable works better with smaller, quicker games that you can play in short bursts while you're out and about with whatever else is going on with your life. Home console, meanwhile, is better with larger scale, in depth games that you can sit down and enjoy for hours. So while you can technically play a 2D platformer on a console, it's not the kind of game that's going to sell you a home console. You can already play a 2D platformer on a portable which would have the added benefit of portability. Home consoles need larger scale experiences like open world games to sell, those kinds of games are suited to the home environment and generally run better (or run altogether) with the added power of a home console. If Nintendo can't provide games like that, they won't be selling home consoles much longer one way or another.

Basically, the problem isn't so much that Nintendo doesn't make jaw dropping cinematic masterpieces, but that they're not making open world games. Having an open world Mario game more along the lines of 64, Sunshine, and Galaxy, Zelda U out before the tail end of the Wii U's lifecycle, and Metroid Prime 4 would do a lot more for Nintendo's consoles than a 2D DK game that doesn't even look like something that could only exist on Wii U.

I hope the NX tries to avoid the shortcomings of the Wii U.

@rallydefault:
Tropical Freeze had a lot stacked against it. It was a sequel on a platform with something like 1/10th of the install base. It was also a sequel to a game where most of the appeal was "we've brought this series back from the dead". So to still sell relatively well? I'm sure they would have wanted more but given the circumstances I'm not sure they'd be complaining.

@Bolt_Strike:
TF sold "poorly" compared to Returns because it was on the Wii U. I think it's very disingenuous to keep ignoring that fact. The Wii U has a smaller install base than the Gamecube. The fact that we're even comparing the sales of Tropical Freeze to Metroid Prime 2 and 3 is proof enough against your argument IMO

There are a whole lot of directions NX could be taking that will lead to disaster--

-NanoWiiU
-Anything with a tablet controller
-The system itself being a tablet
-No physical HDMI or Ethernet
-A system that is just on-par

Again guys, you're discounting the impact of target audience affecting software sales. Even though the Wii had a much larger install base than the GC and Wii U, most of that install base was not buying hardcore games like Metroid in the first place. They were buying casual games like Wii Sport and NSMB. When they intended for the Wii U to appeal more to hardcore gamers and designed the console to fit that, they should've expected hardcore games to sell more.

Linear platformers were only popular on console when there was no alternative, after the jump to 3D open world games became more successful. Linear platformers inherently do not fit the philosophy of home console because the levels are too small,

And again, you haven't answered my question. Why play a linear platformer on console over handheld? What's the advantage there?

Mario, Zelda, and Metroid don't have that problem though.

The Gamecube was held back because of its avoidance of using DVDs, it made it harder to port third party games to the console. The lineup was never the problem there.

Also, Nintendo's new approach ultimately didn't work out, the Wii was lightning in a bottle and the audience it gained all but left for mobile and the Wii U is even worse than the Gamecube.

Nintendo's going to want a mix of the two, much like the PS2's lineup (which may I remind you is the highest selling console in history). Nintendo's lineup is simply not seen anywhere else in the industry, and even mature gamers have some level of respect for Nintendo's lineup. Combine that with competent hardware that can run third party games and Nintendo has a definite advantage over Microsoft and Sony.

I'm pretty sure I didn't say most of those things.....