Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@sixrings It didn't stop the Pokemom games doing big numbers, Metroid fans just don't love Metroid enough to actually buy the games ;p

@jump if you’re going to judge all fans by their loyalty comparing them to Pokémon fans then Nintendo would be making a lot less games. Dk doesn’t exactly sell stellar numbers. Kirby would be gone too. I guess we won’t be seeing star fox again. And goodbye f zero.

DKC:R on Wii was a huge seller.

Kirby is technically HALs decision and investment.

To be fair though each series has a different objective and niche. Metroid is a flashy flagship brand positioning game for Nintendo - I don’t think they need it to sell tens of millions.

The 3DS was simply the wrong platform for Samus Returns given what it represents.

@StuTwo but Dk didn’t sell well on either wii u or switch. Btw I love that game.

On a side note I don’t know why every game needs to sell at full price. If there was more games priced at 1-2 switch or game garage then I’m sure they would sell better. How is it indies can make 2d games like ori or hollow night so much cheaper than Nintendo.

It must be hard being a fan of a particular franchise. Growing up in the 80's, when someone came up with a new game it was the best! It's a lot easier to be a fan of Nintendo and appreciate all their games (like a favourite band and all their different music). I am so glad they don't just churn out games. One every generation is fine in my book. Unless they genuinely have some ideas they haven't used.

Not saying Nintendo always make new games, but they certainly know how to keep things fresh. I mean, you have the narrator for Jak and Daxter in the state of play harping on about different jumps let you combo them...like no one has done that before in a platformer...

@sixrings Actually Tropical Freeze sold more than Metroid Prime which is the best selling Metroid game. ;p

In any case it's beside the point, for all the talk of Metroid being a big franchise with a devoted fanbase it doesn't actually seem the case so it getting a new entry every few years isn't that bad at all in comparison to their fans complaining considered when legit big games come out far less frequently or even not at all.

@jump Yeah, I always find it odd that some people consider Metroid to be Nintendo's third biggest franchise (fourth if we count Pokemon), when we consider how few releases it gets, and how far between said releases can be, at least nowadays. Not to say it's following and the love it gets are unearned, though, far from it.

I blame Other M. XD

@jump is because the F-Zero franchise don't have a game since F-Zero Climax in 2004, people think the Metroid franchise is dead, but look at F-Zero with no game since 2004, Switch could be the grand return of the franchise, and @Slowdrive that disapointing, i was so happy over the possibilty of playing a potencial sequel to Metroid Fusion, what a letdown(it suck to be a Metroid fan).

Metroid was a big Nintendo franchise for about 20 years, after Prime 3 it was all over though. Prime Trilogy was an extremely limited release, Other M was poorly received, franchise went on hiatus and Federation Force was poorly received. 2017 was kind of a comeback with the announcement of Prime 4 and Samus Returns though that fizzled out because Samus Returns came to 3DS instead of Switch and Prime 4 became vaporware.

Metroid was a popular franchise when Nintendo having 3 games in one franchise was notable and then later when it was doing fairly well in the GCN/GBA era (Samus being one of the original 8 characters you start with in Smash Bros also helped to some extent I'm sure). But what is "popular" in gaming has changed enough that that's less true now. It was a bad fit on Wii in terms of audience and hasn't had the best release timing ever since.

@Grumblevolcano you can’t blame Other M, it sold about the same as Prime 2 & 3 which is still less than half of what 1 did. To be honest Prime is more like the exception that proves the rule.

@Bibi Third is crazy talk, I’m not even sure it would be top ten. Luigi’s Mansion and Splatoon have sold more games than Metroid with far less entries for example. At least Metroid can boast about being bigger than Chibi Robo ;p

Am I alone in thinking that the original Smash brothers had a huge effect on amplifying characters from franchises that are otherwise not massive sales hits? Samus, Ness, and Captain Falcon.

@Bibi Yes, Chibi Robo has way more notoriety, even if it's for the wrong reasons. XD

@rallydefault partly but they also classic retro era Nintendo too.

Fun fact, Nintendo didn’t think Smash would sell well (as new fighting games often flopped) so they slashed the budget so other intended fighters like Fire Emblem’s Marth were cut.

@jump well I’m confused how every indie developer can manage to sell enough metroidvanias to be profitable but Nintendo can’t.

Metroid games make profit, they just make less than other games. But to be fair, it also makes more money than Rhythm Heaven has, so y'know...could be worse.

Whereas if an indie dev has a legit Metroidvania hit and sells even a million, they didn't have to spend as much so they make ALL the money. Nintendo isn't as bad as a lot of major companies, so they could also make a Metroid game profitable by selling a million to be fair(though I assume Prime 4 would have to sell more, even ignoring the wasted development on the first version of it).

@kkslider5552000 Actually Rhythm Heaven is another game that has sold more than Metroid Prime. Prime sold more than anything from Xenoblade and Pikmin but I can see both have their Switch entries outselling it soon though and Xenoblade is the type of series that will continue to grow and Pikmin is a pet project of one of Nintendo’s most influential people.

Tbh Metroid kinda lacks an identity and a defining take which is why Ninty thought they could get away with Federation Force. It needs an entry like Awakening to properly give the series direction and renewed interest. Like I'm not sure if the series future is a high profile 2D Metroidvania in which case it's competing with indies and should be more inline with being a C-tier franchise with a smaller budget or as an AAA in which case it needs to start selling like an AAA as the Prime sequels didn't, does it need a shift in tone to match it's Alien (the adult sci-fi horror movie) influence more closely to help find it's audience as it's not 'core enough for 'core gamers and the Ninty gamers aren't buying it enough, does it need to break new ground or emphasise quality or should Nintendo just scrap it so they can use it's budget to make a new 1080 and Advance Wars?

I think we are all forgetting that in Nintendos eyes, if a game doesn't make a profit but another game, let's say a certain life simulation game that made it's money back in a day, does, then that's fine.

For most western companies every game needs to turn a profit. You can't have one game do great and greenlight a sequel and another not hit targets but the profit from another bolsters it so it's okay try again.

Nintendo was wise not going for the graphical ceiling as it allows them to continue to make smaller games and even lower selling franchises without worrying about costs.

I mean remember BOTW? Miyamoto said that game needed to sell 2 million units to break even. A game that took Nintendo over half a decade, built new engines for, massive R&D, the most staff they've ever had on a single title...and all it needed to sell was 2 million units.

So if you think a Metroid game, even Prime 4 with restarting development, needs to be multi million units to be worth it, you're very wrong.

@Haruki_NLI Yep but for Metroid to be relevant as a top tier franchise it can't keep doing so-so numbers (literally Style Savvy and Brain Academy has bested Metroid peak's lol) and because it hasn't found it's groove yet (like is Prime it's top selling game a sub-series or not?) the same way Fire Emblem or Kirby has I wouldn't suspect it would warrant a sequel to be automatically green lit which seems to be the case given it's last decade of history.

Also the goal shouldn't be to just break even, that's the thinking of a small company and they would have actually made money just by sitting in the bank collecting interest.

I wouldn't be surprised if whatever Metroid game comes out on Switch ends up becoming the best selling game in the series. The Switch audience seems to be very open to trying new games, what with Fire Emblem, Luigi's Mansion and Paper Mario doing their best numbers ever on Switch, and fairly niche new IPs like Arms and Astral Chain selling well too.

That said, it might harm sales slightly if they call it Metroid Prime 4, especially if that developer was right about Prime Trilogy not coming to the Switch, because some people might feel they have to play the other three games first. It might be better if they just call it Metroid Prime: Subtitle and not have the storyline be too linked to the previous entries. Then again, Luigi's Mansion 3 got away with it so it might not make much difference, but that's a Mario spin-off so people probably wouldn't have expected the storyline to matter.