Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival Has Modest Impact in Japan as 3DS Sales Improve

Well it would seem that Japan is getting more Westernized with every big game release these days. It's odd in a way, a lot of us over here want what they have and they seem to as of late want what we have. My how the times have changed!

I'm actually kind of impressed Amiibo Festival is as high as it is considering the lineup of games on the list. Good on ya.

For everyone else, though, this appears to be the year of the anti-spin-off.

I was expecting Amiibo Festival to be a hard but necessary lesson for Nintendo to learn. So far, so good.

3DS sales improved because Monster Hunter X comes out friday

I'm relieved to see these spin offs struggle, especially Amiibo Festival. That being a smash hit would have set a precedent and Nintendo would keep churning games like that out. Even Triforce Heroes seems a rather large flop. One of Nintendo's biggest IP, exclusive on a machine with almost 20 million owners in Japan just scraped to 100k in a month while Battlefront, in a genre not particularly big in Japan does 124k in 2 days on a machine that has just 2 million owners.

@Peach64 Yeah.. A properly done spin-off, though, I am all for.. like Captain Toad or Hyrule Warriors. Though they may not be everyone's cup of tea, they were actually serious endeavors, unlike the latest crop.

Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival is quite underwhelming. The price is WAY too much even if it does include the two amiibo.

@Peach64 I agree with you, but I also believe they knew that from the start, its just a game to fill up the space, they knew from the beginning star fox would be delayed, what they showed on E3 was an alpha of the game. They needed something to fill the gap, you can see its a budget game, if you take the animal crossing characters out and the amiibo, the plain virtual board game it would cost 15 dollars max.. in 2 month it would be on sale for like 6 plus free shipping, thats much how the game is worth in my opinion if it wasnt for the amiibo and the animal crossing franchise...

I can't seem to find the NL Animal crossing Amiibo festival review. I wonder if it is being with held a little longer than needed to help with sales.

Of course not. Maybe the reviewer is replaying it looking for something good to say about it.

It is not a game it is a reason to collect 400 cards and some Amiibo toys.

400 cards divided by 3 (in a pack) is 133 x £4.99 a pack is £663.00. Assuming no doubles. A nice little earner.

honestly the only way i'll be picking up amiibo festival is if it's a free download on the eshop - it's not like you can play it without amiibo anyway.

speaking of which, i caved and got all the animal crossing amiibo, theyre waaaay too adorable. except isabelle is freakishly yellow.

i hope they can add amiibo compatibility to new leaf, which i've just started playing... is there a community for friend codes around anywhere?

for what it's worth, mine is
1951 - 1055 - 0493

@FreakFerrett
Yeah maybe this will show them that they need to put a little more effort into games. Even the crazy success of amiibo is only gonna take them so far with games like Amiibo Festival and Chibi-robo ZipLash. It seems like they assumed that the games would sell out just because they had new, exclusive amiibo with them. Like you said, a board game made to use any amiibo available and priced at like $10 would have been more like it. Simply finding a way to port New Leaf to Wii U and making it cross-compatible with 3DS version would have surely blown out, if we weren't going to get a new game Animal Crossing game for Wii U.

@rdrunner1178 yes I agree, even if it was a plain port with future free updates like splatoon lt would sell A LOT, but you know porting games isnt an easy task if you consider system architectures, and I believe the 3ds and Wii U arent that similar, specially when u didnt consider that from the beginning of development. The NX is comming to address those issues from what we have heard...

Amiibo Festival since it's introduction, to me, has always felt like one of two things. 1) A miss opportunity for amiibo collectors to have a game of their own, (meaning lose the AC license and create an amiibo game that use ALL amiibo). 2) Originally slated as extra content for the actual AC Wii U game in development (wishful thinking), and since they were not far enough along to release that this holiday, and the lineup was extremely weak, they decided to push this through as a separate game instead.

Not bad for a glorified 50 or 40 dollar amiboo advertisment.

So on one hand you have Animal Crossing: HHD which sold 522,556 in its 1st week and on the next hand you have Animal Crossing: aF which sold 20,303. Both spin-offs that's been criticized for not being a main series game. Both systems that have a least 44 mil install base difference between the 2. In short, I don't know what to believe anymore.

Unless Japan gets the free download on the shop that people here been shouting about prior to game's release. Even without the amiibo figures and cards, the game's still pricey at $30 (I think?).

Again, more comment-thread pundits talking about a game that they never played. I've played Amiibo Festival every night this week with my daughter. She's beaten me every time.

Throw out a bunch of spin-off games (that we didn't ask for), and watch the sales drop.

I think this also shows that AC will remain primarily a handheld brand, considering that City Folk supposedly flopped and yet a spin off on 3ds can sell ridiculous amounts, I think they know where their audience is. I really don't think an AC (main line) would sell much on such a small install base.

Battlefront of all is on top?!?!? I thought that game was awful!

But where's Fire Emblem Fates sales.......ok I want to understand just how do games sell in Japan. Is it like the chart period where once the sales decline, the game stops selling or something? Or is this typical of Nintendo not revealing sales until at some point?

Also, Isn't Amiibo Festival a free to start game? How is that selling?

@Artwark
No, and I'll never understand where this whole free idea with Amiibo Festival started!

Nintendo should take note and keep mainline animal crossing titles as a handheld title.

Yes this is a spinoff but sales have been way below then Nintendo expectations.

The AC fanbase is on handheld.

@Artwark @EVIL-C I believe it was Josh Thomas that started that virus, then people just blindly spread it around.

http://mynintendonews.com/2015/06/17/animal-crossing-amiibo-festival-is-apparently-a-free-download/

Ba on Amiibo Festival

I hope Miyamoto is giving NDCubed ad Camelot an earful. Lazy spinoffs do not make up for big game delays. Kimishima is gonna flip when he sees the fiscal Q3 results.

@ricklongo

"I was expecting Amiibo Festival to be a hard but necessary lesson for Nintendo to learn. So far, so good."

Indeed.

@kobashi100
The fanbase is on consoles too. Don't forget the series started on consoles, and while I don't mind handheld entries, I want a home console entry just as much.

People will buy Animal Crossing nomatter what platform it's on.

@Spoony_Tech monster hunter is next week. Should open around 1.5 million at least.

Guess they made this game for Japan and just tossed it out there for us too because no where but there did it make any impact.
On a side note, I'll always find it strange that Japan even cares about western games like CoD, AC or Fallout. Like anything but those 3.

Sigh. I don't really want this game to bomb, but Ninrndo should have known better than to develop this piece of software. I hope we get a full-fledged AC game next.

@faint Do you really think it will open at that many?

Sigh.............NDcube is to incompetent when it comes to board games. I wish Nintendo re-evaluate the studio and hand over the responsibility to another studio.

@Spoony_Tech
Not really.
Star Wars has international popularity, so the brand does well in most places.
Though this Star Wars game is underperforming in both reviews and sales.

Though as an Amiibo Festival owner and enjoyer, the game isn't a bad game, it's just needs more content and more boards in the board game.

Though you can customize the board game with buildings, many which open new paths on the board.

The game is really a LOVE/HATE game with most people ending up hating it.

That 20k AC:Amiibo Festival sounds surprisingly decent, if we see how limited appeal it was received elsewhere. Tri Force Heroes, I guess it's the last time we see it on chart.

@Xenocity It's not just Star Wars though, look at Call Of Duty.

I wouldn't even call Animal Crossing: SCamiibo Festival's sales modest. They're shambolic. I'm sorry to say but Nintendo deserve this and I hope it makes them think twice when trying to dupe the general public in future with such drivel.

Next week should be an interesting week for 3DS hardware and software sales, with release of Monster Hunter X, which will almost certainly be the biggest game of the year.

Thank god Amiibo Festival bombed. I'm glad even Japanese consumers were able to see through the POS that was Amiibo Festival.

@ultraraichu
**Shudders** Josh Thomas has been a cancer on the entire Nintendo community for years.

Thanks for showing me the source.

Ok... never thought I had to say this again... but guys, just like i'll be stating the obvious you are, sales-figures are important and are the core maintenance of the gaming industry, but I really have to say this, these games aren't "bad" or "shameful" or whatever label you want to use. You are underlooking something important that has kept Nintendo in the business. These games are trying to innovate; wheather we like them or not they are quality games, they have great music and really nice graphics at worst; I complain about some indie games because they sell things that actually are free on platforms like android or apple, but as far as Nintendo retail releases, I just can say "no thanks, that's not for me" even those "poorly developed spin-offs" have their target audience, games may not be for anyone, but that doesn't make them "bad". Nintendo tries new things for making happy their audience, and we as consumers are really ungrateful.
If it's something new: "they ruined it, it's not as before, it's bull****!"; but if it's like the older ones: "ZOMFG! Nintendo keeps playing it safe, we are already bored of this piece of ****, MAKE NEW THINGS NINTENDO"
So, which side are you on? I am on the side of learning and making constructive criticism, even to the fanbase.

@electrolite77
It comes with the fact that the DS game outsold the Gamecube and Wii version 2x combined.

The 3DS game sold more than the Gamecube and Wii version combined.

The reason why console Animal Crossing get tons of hate, is due to the fact they aren't graphical showcases and are considered "casual" shovelware by gamers and the media.
They are literally said by many to be a waste of resources.

City Folk was hated due to it being a "rehash" and uprezzed DS game aimed at Japanese school girls (it came from the reviews).
It also was hated for launching too soon after Wild World (3 years).
Many of the reviews openly stated that Animal Crossing has no place on a console.

@Peach64 To be fair, Zelda typically flops in Japan. ALBW flopped hard there if I recall correctly. I honestly get the feeling that ALBW's overall sales disappointed Nintendo.

@Spoony_Tech yup it has been dominating the pre order charts for months at coming and is tracking ahead of monster hunter 4g

@LuciusHellmonde I'm not sure consumers who pay for products have any obligation to be grateful to companies. Sure, you might be, but you are paying the company for a product and not being granted a favour from the goodness of their heart. Gratefulness is expressed only in hard currency.

Innovation is important, but when a company innovates too far away from their core value of making games fun for as many people as possible at a reasonable cost, it becomes less innovation than degredation of established favourites. That's harsh, but it is the reality of feeling evidenced by people voting with their wallets.

The way I see it amiibo festival was made to sell amiibo and train this team in hd development. The ones who made this hadn't worked in hd yet. At least they have completed assets for animal crossing nx. It will now be smoother, faster, easier, and cheaper to make. It might even hit the console launch window.

@Xenocity More sense from someone that has 1st hand experience of the game.

@westman98 don't think 3DS will see a huge hardware boost. Huge amounts of People already own the machine so they are not gonna sell to many new customers.

MH x should sell very well though

@kobashi100 pretty sure it will see a boost due to Black Friday here and mhx in Japan. Also Nintendo sells most of their hardware between November and December

@roboshort Good thing is that Captain Toad has amazing legs, hopefully it'll become another million seller on the Wii U soon. The game might've been a spin-off, but it had its own personality, it was low priced, there was plenty of content and no multiplayer-only (well.. lackluster singleplayer) or amiibo paywall. That's how you do spin-offs.

@faint Japan biggest shopping season is Hatsuri (basically New Years sales) which usually range from the last week of december to 2 weeks after new years. It's basically like a Black friday on everything for the whole period. Items going on sale and mystery bags. The mystery bags are FANTASTIC, sure they are just trying to get rid of old stock, but the price is so good, it's hard not to buy a tons of them. For example, you could buy a 10,000 yen (100$ish) bag and the items inside would originally be worth anywhere from 30,000 yen (300$ish) to 50,000 yen (500$ish). How can one go wrong with that?!?! haha I look forward to buying a bunch of them this year.
There isn't any real big sales push for this month. If anything, I'm sure people are not spending their money and are waiting for New years to splurge!

Sorry I originally thought you comment meant Japan. Oh well, food for thought.

@Artwark Why are you constantly surprised that fire emblem fates isn't in the weekly top 20 sales charts. #20 sold nearly 6,000 copies. Fire Emblem fates sales are probably very low now (maybe 500-2000 a week?) as it's not really an "evergreen" title, it doesn't have massmarket appeal. It's the same with Fire Emblem Awakening, Nintendo revealed initial milestones (the same it did with fates) and then stopped. There is no point in revealing tiny sales to the world every week. Nintendo will reveal sales number once it hits the next milestone or after initial sales of the western release. Nintendo RARELY gives us sales updates of their big hitters, so don't worry over FEF sales. You'll get your update in March 2016 I'm sure, as the game will have been out in NA for a full month and Nintendo will be more than happy to announcement total global sales at that point. Although in Japan, the game should get a nice little boost in sales at the end of december due to the new years holiday period, but it probably WON't make the top 20 ever again IN Japan.

I find it funny that Splatoon still almost outsold a new title. It deserves to tank, Nintendo need to stop with these awful spin-offs.

@electrolite77
There is one thing when some forum posters are spouting off at the mouth and there is one thing with NeoGaf is burning you at the cross while the media as a whole is reporting negative on the game and telling people not to buy it.
Gaming companies, the media and analysts take NeoGaf's word as gospel.

You do realize it has been literally 2.5 years in the West since New Leaf was released and 3 years in Japan and Korea.
It's too soon for a full fledge a new mainline Animal Crossing.
Nintendo would get a huge backlash for releasing one on Wii U.
Also the Animal Crossing Team (SPD 2 formally EAD 2), are just finishing the remaining Splatoon content. They also developed Splatoon over making a New Animal Crossing.

From Wii Brasil review of City Folk:

Whoever did not play Wild World, try this one. But anyone who already has the DS version must seriously think about it before buying Animal Crossing: City Folk. Any doubts? Stay with the DS version.

IGN:

To put it another way: Animal Crossing: City Folk wasn't made for Animal Crossing fans. It was made for those that missed out the first two times. And for those people, you've got yourself a fine product. To those that helped make the first two games a success: maybe Nintendo will thank you some other way, because City Folk is only for you if you want to go through the same things all over again.

After putting literally weeks and months into playing both the GameCube original and the Nintendo DS sequel, it was very disappointing to see that, after putting nearly two weeks into Animal Crossing: City Folk that very little effort went into the design beyond porting and enhancing the Nintendo DS game.

If you&#Array;re entering into Animal Crossing with a fresh, inexperienced take: congratulations. You&#Array;ve got yourself a great, casual game with tons of things to see and do. Of the three Animal Crossing games on the market the Wii version is certainly the tops with its sharper visuals and voice-enabled online play.

Animal Crossing: City Folk is a good game, but it is not a very good effort as a follow-up or sequel. Its foundation is definitely solid but it doesn&#Array;t pay enough respect to the millions of gamers who were involved in making the franchise a successful one.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/11/17/animal-crossing-city-folk-review?page=1

GameTrailer:

It’s been three years since the previous Animal Crossing on the DS, but City Folk is virtually identical and costs $20 more.

Eurogamer:

This is the best execution of Animal Crossing so far, but it is difficult to view it as anything other than a lazy remake of what's gone before.

1UP:

City Folk just seems like a huge missed opportunity - either that, or a lazy cash-in on Nintendo's newfound casual audience. If it's the former, they ought to just call it Wii Mortgage Payments.

Etc....

City Folk was definitely seen as a rehash and lazy by reviewers and the media.
In part because it was only 3 years to date.

I'm glad Animal Crossing Team decided to make Splatoon instead of immediately making a new installment of Animal Crossing.

I'm also fine with them making two spin offs.
Happy Home Designer literally only took 1 programmer and two producers to make it. Leaving the rest of the team to finish up on Splatoon DLC.

Amiibo Festival was practically developed by NDCube working with Hisashi Nogami and Aya Kyogoku who also lead Happy Home Designer.

I for one enjoy Amiibo Festival, I find it to be a fun take on Animal Crossing. Obviously I've wanted Animal Crossing figurines since the original game came out, so Amiibo Festival was worth it to me (I wanted Digby and the board game).
I'm a huge Animal Crossing fan

Animal Crossing Team deserves to do other things than just pump out Animal Crossing.

Plus every huge Animal Crossing fan I know, loves HHD and is going crazy over the Amiibos and the Amiibo Festival.

Big jumps across the board for all 3DS models and (predictably) PS4 and PSV dominate the charts with some high profile releases. The only disturbing thing here is Omega Labyrinth placing in the top 5. Talk about niche games. Talk about fan-servicey tripe. Talk about sex selling shovelware.

@Octane Wow... Didn't know Capt Toad had still been selling so well. It is probably getting pretty close to 1mil counting digital sales, since digital sales are said to account for about 10% of total sales on average. Great game, though. I wouldn't have minded a spinoff based on the "Hands On Hall" level from 3d World, either. Also, looks like Bayonetta 2 should also be able to reach a million sold by the end of next year.

@roboshort Yeah, it's always nice to see good games getting good sales.

The Hands on Hall level always reminded me of The Mysterious Murasame Castle. I really hope Platinum Games' Hideki Kamiya gets to play around with a sequel/reboot for that franchise.

Wait, there is a Sword Art Onlin game? Shut up and take my money!

@Rexx good luck then, Animal Crossing will never be a free download, Canada, it is $80 with the amiibo bundle.

@electrolite77
Actually many of the reviews state the game was rushed to fill a void.
Eguichi did say it took them over 2 years to develop City Folk.

Gamers and fans have expressed dismay every year since Gaming Mags and Internet have been around the games Nintendo have released.
I don't think Nintendo has ever had a year where people were happy about their games.

For every person who likes a given Nintendo game, there is a person who equally dislikes said game.

There literally no conceivable way Animal Crossing Team (EPD2) can have an mainline Animal Crossing game ready for launch, since EPD2 has been co-deveoping games that are 2015 releases including:

-Majora's Mask 3D
-Splatoon (They did the whole development)
-Super Mario Maker
-Yoshi's Wooly World

• Triforce Heroes
  Happy Home Designer
  Amiibo Festival

Nintendo isn't dumb enough to launch a console and handheld in the West with an Animal Crossing game, because it would give the system the image of being a kiddy and "casual" system. Animal Crossing is viewed a kiddy and "casual" franchise by the media and most gamers (whether or not it deserves the image is a different story).

Also there is decent amount of 3rd party games on Wii U ranging from indies to non AAA blockbuster releases.
What is missing is EA, Take Two, Blockbuster AAA and/or M-rated titles.

The reason for that is the group that buys the majority of them, has always skipped Nintendo systems due to the kiddy and "casual" stigma that each Nintendo system has been given.

Unless Nintendo can convince them that Nintendo is "hardcore" and "mature", they won't ever buy a Nintendo system.

Also Nintendo has to outbid Sony and Microsoft for Western 3rd party support.
Both Sony and Microsoft spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying up Western 3rd party support.

Lastly Sony and Microsoft purposely keep 1st party releases to a minimum to avoid hurting 3rd party sales.

@TsukiDeity actually that game sold pretty well in Japan for an fire emblem gat, being the 4th best selling fe game in the franchise. @electrolite77 im pretty surpised tje Triforce heroes has gotten so much negative around that game when there really is nothing wrong with. So far to me its tje best spinoff to get. The only reason it go to much backlash is the single player where it clearly meant for multiplayer. @westman98 Ok. HHD? @VeeFlamesNL that might do the opposite. Just put the next one on the handheld since that really were the audience is.

@WebHead what big game delay? Surly you dont think that star fox would make big sales did u? I seriously doubt that even after the game release cause even they said that star fox is not a big sales game.
@kobashi100 what expectation? I don't think Nintendo was thinking that there spin offs would sale wonders especially with E3.

@Peach64 I disagree with you. spin off on has not hurt the franchise because what it does maybe attract new people to the franchise that they don't like from the main series. It may not be your cup of tea but I'm glad of they existing. I dont really play The Legend of Zelda games I love enjoy playing Tri Force heroes and hyrule warriors and its not a bad game. It was just like the Sinclair that nobody wanted to play so. Most of these games just lack content. That's it.except for triforce heroes.Happy home designer is the exact same thing that sold very well for them.

@Hinaru77
Happy Home Designer is very good at what it aims to do - design homes. though I assume many people in this comments section find the concept of designing homes to be boring. Whereas in Amiibo Festival...What exactly do you do in that game?? Answer questions??