Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Indies such as Hollow Knight, Guacamelee, Axiom Verge, have a unique take on the genre - they offer something different, plus they benefit from the fact that they can sell their games on other platforms and so generate widespread hype more easily. Nintendo has to try to make a Metroid game that offers something different but yet still appeases existing Metroid fans, and then just market it to a single audience, a significant proportion of which invested in the platform to play Animal Crossing/Pokémon/Mario Kart, not metroidvanias.

There's a significant reason Metroid sells poorly: Timing. When was the last time a Metroid game was released on a system with:

A: a fanbase that likes shooters (bye Wii / DS titles)
B: as a shooter (bye Federation Force, Pinball)
C: While the software is still successful on a a system (Samus Returns, to a lesser extent Echoes)

Nintendo is significantly to blame for kneecapping all these releases in one way or another. Not to say that Metroid is big (it's not), but I do think it would be much bigger than it is if Nintendo handled it better.

@gcunit the multi platform part is a good point.

But I still think games like fast rmx could be made by Nintendo at similar costs but the problem is Nintendo doesn’t want to make any games which they can’t sell for full price.

@jump I’d just like to see the numbers samus returns can sell on switch if ported. If the numbers are bad I wouldn’t make any excuses and agree with you. How expensive can it be to port a 3ds game.

My preference would be for 3ds ports to cost the same as 3ds games did. But miitopia has shown that Nintendo has zero interest in that strategy.

Can they port pilot wings 3ds while at it.

That cynicism is too thick.

How does that explain games like Game Builder Garage or Jump the Rope from Nintendo?

@link3710 Tbh even if Samus Returns was released first year of the 3DS it probably would have done the same modest hit numbers of the past Metroid portable games rather than something impressive.

I ain't buying that for Echoes, there were games that released after MP2 that still outsold it and it came fairly quickly after Prime 1 so it should have built upon it's success. The Wii wasn't just waggle fans as action games like RE4 were successful on the Wii, Links Crossbow Training did silly numbers for example but it did about the same as Prime 2. So my take is that as a series it's does around 1-1.5m number and it's only ground-breaking games like Prime and the original Metroid that sold more than 2 million so it needs more ground-breaking than just more of the same to keep the small fanbase happy.

@Slowdive A few people in mainstream media don't usually do their research on stuff like that before putting it out in the open. They just see it as a free story to tell.

@Magician a handful of games which don’t have big names. I’m not saying they never charge less than full price but perhaps it’s rarer than it should be if games like Metroid don’t sell well at full price.

check out the overview trailer of Mario Golf:Super Rush.

Oh Jump. Honey. No. : (

First of all, Rhythm Heaven was a big deal. In Japan. Once. Half of those 3 million sales are in Japan alone. In America, despite being at the height of DS' popularity that had BEYONCE in the ads at the height of her popularity, the sales figures I remember seeing for NA was half a million. The same as Samus Returns. I'm gonna point out that a late 2017 3DS game and a 2009 DS game with a Beyonce marketing campaign are notably different things.

All the other games kinda BOMBED. Like I think they did ok in Japan, but the Wii game did not do well at all here, and Megamix was 3DS download only, which tells you how much faith they had in it. So at BEST you could say Metroid is in a similar yet different situation, except in terms of what audience cares about it.

Also its just dumb to say Metroid has no identity. That's just very obviously untrue. I mean, they should bring it back in a way that's exciting to people like Awakening, but Awakening did that partially by trying to appeal to modern anime and Japanese gaming fans so that's kinda the opposite of having your own identity?

Also saying that 2D Metroid will have issues competing with indies is also a bit absurd with Megaman 11 existing and being successful.

@kkslider5552000 Insert a condescending retort something like sweet cheeks baby but better ;p

Fact, Rhythm Heaven has still sold more than any Metroid game. As a series sure Metroid is bigger but that just shows how small Metroid’s peak truly is.

I never said 2D Metroid would have issues competing with indies, I said it would be competing with indies which is something you’d not expect from a top tier franchise the fans want/think it to be.

I find the biggest issue with Metroid is that it has no identity, the last 6 games have been very different from each other. Thing is with Metroid is it’s best selling entry is Prime and Prime itself has spun off for pinball and online co-op games etc but I’ve still got no idea if Prime is a sub series or mainline.

@Slowdive That’s rather interesting, but also probably won’t mean we will see any new entries in Wave Race or 1080 though with a drought of decent games in either genre, it would be a great time for Nintendo get something one of these franchises rebooted.

@jump prime is the 3d series while the 2d series has no sub title. Sonic has 2d sonic. It has 3d sonic. And guess what it has pinball. But no one claims it doesn’t have an identity. Sega is just really bad at making sonic games partially because they pump them out so often up until recently. Nintendo’s problem with Metroid is they released a random chibi version of its game which every fan knew was a turn off. And then they released a game at the end of a systems life. Both bad decisions.

@sixrings the last 6 Metroid games were; Samus Returns, Federation Force, Other M, Prime 3, Prime Hunters and Prime Pinball. There’s people with dissociative identity disorder with less personalities than that ;p

Ok let's be fair for a second. Two of those games are obviously spinoffs, and did not leave such an impact as to be comparable to the others. The other four...are still games where you jump around and morph ball in atmospheric settings on abandoned planets or space stations with a mix of action and exploration. They're different takes on that, but not any different than most video game series on Metroid's level. It's not like its Sonic or early 2000s Megaman where there's like 4+ different series getting regular, sometimes annual, releases, sometimes on the same platform. I've never seen any real confusion about what Metroid is from people who are interested.

For the record, I do think now is the time to focus Metroid on being Metroid in an exciting way instead of spinoffs (one of the reasons I'm against Prime 4 having any focus on multiplayer), but there's other reasons Metroid had issues selling.

Metroid is sort of like Bayonetta in that it's a property that isn't particularly popular or influential, but it has a loud online base that likes to yell about it, which misrepresents the reality of things. Kind of like how you'd think there was mass backlash to recent Pokemon and Paper Mario games if you only listened to the vocal minority of fans that cry about those series online.

Metroid not influential? Where have you been the last 5 years or so? If anything, it's not popular but it is influential.

@kkslider5552000 you’re not wrong but you can’t tell me there’s a solid take on Metroid when Ninty themselves aren’t so sure.

Whilst Metroid fans may have an idea of what Metroid is and should be that is not the same as the reality of the games being made.

The games being so different from each other is more just a consequence of Nintendo outsourcing their IP to different studios who just happen to make different styles of games. And why wouldn't you experiment if your sales are or not as high as can be?
Zelda for example had too much of an identity if you ask me, it became so stale they felt like changing the whole thing.

@Snaplocket Reminder that Bayonetta 2 didn't clear a million copies between both Wii U and the Switch, even with the first game included.

I think Bayonetta 3 might have 1.5 million lifetime sales in it if it doesn't release next to anything big, though.

@Slowdive It could be big, for sure. Fire Emblem went from terrible sales figures to the last entry selling 3+ million copies. NES Metroid and Prime both got within half a million copies of that when the industry was way smaller than it is now, so, with the right amount of exposure, good marketing, etc.? It could make a good showing.