Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Makes Underwhelming Debut in Japan, Yet Wii U Hardware Shows Impressive Growth

That's a shame. I've got about ten hours logged in Paper Jam so far and I'm really enjoying it. It's certainly not original and borrows heavily from Dream Team, but it's a polished refinement of the core M&L mechanics and plays better than ever. The card system improves on the old badges too.

I said the same in the UK chart article but I think the poor sales of M&L is down to Dream Team Bros. Most people don't look for reviews. They'll have bought the last one, been disappointed, and now Paper Jam suffers despite being a better game.

This affects all series from all publishers. You see it most easily with yearly games like COD and Assassins Creed. Good games like Advanced Warfare and Black Flag review really well, but sales suffer because they followed poor games like Ghosts and AC3 that put people off.

@faint Maybe I should just start listening to you lol. No more predictions from me.

What a shame about Paper Jam. Looks like its up to NA to save the day, but it will be hindered by not being available in the shopping season.

Very healthy hardware sales though, even though its the holiday season.

@Peach64

That could certainly be the reason, plus it hasn't been that long since the last game (2013, if I recall correctly). Fair point about AC3. That game was such a disappointment.

Sticker Star scared all the Paper fans away.

@Peach64 That's a really good insight. The problem is especially bad because Nintendo's recent games have been recycling assets. They don't look like new games, and that's really off-putting for people who didn't like the games those assets were copied from.

@bezerker99 I liked Sticker Star although never got round to finishing it. I picked up Paper Jam a few days ago and finally got round to starting it yesterday. Although I am not far into it I am enjoying what I played so far.

They should have gave the handheld Mario rpg's a rest and saved a Paper Mario game for the Wii u or the NX, the Wii u hasn't seen any new Mario rpg's.

As for me I just got around to playing BiS, bought it at gamestop yesterday. But I can't say what my favorite M&L game is yet, I've played all but the new Paper Jam, and they really are all incredibly unique and exciting as each other in my eyes.

@ThomasBW84

"it's the shopping season and so all hardware has improved"

Not quite all

I am happy to see Splatoon at 4th, and still going strong. It looks like people are happy to see a new IP from Nintendo. Though I think doing a follow-up game to Ice Climbers would be awesome.

Atleast the game sold better than Zip lash......

But honestly, I think the real problem here is monster hunter because if that game didn't show up yet, then obviously this game could have sold better.

Think of it if Fates was released now instead of june. Don't think that it could be in a good pace as Monster Hunter here.

Yep, a fine example how third parties can ruin the potential games that First parties have to offer.

I can see why Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is not a strong seller...

I think Nintendo has done the worst marketing possible for Paper Jam, presenting it as essentially a Mario & Luigi game without an interesting story, with the very same settings and without new characters, while reusing the Dream Team engine and using as little references to the Mario & Luigi series and the Paper Mario series as possible. And who knows, maybe in the intentions of Nintendo, the game had to be like that.
Really, I feel bad for AlphaDream because looking at gameplay videos it is evident that they tried to push and get around those boundaries.

@Artwark its not worth releasing any handheld game in japan within 4 weeks of a monster hunter launch, it doesn't matter what it is MH will just eat up it's sales.

That being said I would love to see what would happen if a new MH release the same day as a new Pokémon and Yo-Kai

We could've had cool partners from the Paper Mario series return and such but instead the only thing we got from that series was the awful Grassland-Desert-Water-Forest-Ice-Lava-Bowser copy-paste format from Sticker Star...

Oh boy. There goes the future of mario rpgs...

I'm surprised it is doing so badly to be honest. I've been playing it quite a bit and it is even better than Dream Team Bros. (which I really enjoyed to be fair, even if BiS was better).

It has all the classic Mario & Luigi humour and the battle system has been improved a ton over Dream Team Bros.

I wonder if it is lack of advertising. I haven't seen much info about it anywhere.

Mario & Luigi game, which isn't matching up to its predecessor's sales.

Maybe, according to reviews, it is not as good as its predecessors, so why would you expect it to do as well. Unless one assumes gamers take no notice of reviews.

@Phantom_R
Thats exactly what I feel! These past few releases have mostly been games with recycled assets that hardly offer anything fresh or exciting. I feel Nintendo had a huge end of year/begining of year gap that they only noticed very late and decided to put together a few easy to make games just to hold people over until the NX. I've never seen such low quality games from Nintendo being released in a row...

Shame to see that with paper Jam. I think Dream Team and Sticker Star scared some people away, along with decreasing interest in 3DS in general. I think its time for Mario RPGs to go on a little break.

3DS gets Yokai Watch and Wii U gets Yokai Watch: Just Dance edition?

Was AC:aF not enough of an insult for the Wii U?

Guess we'll get the last laugh next year when Metroid Prime: Soccer launches.

These are just psychical sales numbers, correct? I'm willing to bet Minecraft does better as a PS4 DL then on disc.

Nice to see Wii U do so well. Almost the same number of Wii U sold as SMM and Splatoon. Can't be a coincidence even if they are older games.

I don't get it. Too many PS4 sold but software sales just don't reflect that.

Nintendo should discount MnLPJ as a $20 title to get people back into fandom

@BinaryFragger

Yes, but that's on a portable, the bread and butter of Japan. Minecraft is not coming to the 3DS, at least as far as we know.

Aside of 3DS drop from last week stellar performance, every other consoles has enjoyed growth this week. Except Xbox One...

Paper Jam looks like a solid game too. Idk what people's problem is lately. Guess people just quit buying fun games. Xenoblade X sales especially insulting all around.

It's like come on- there's 11 million Wii U owners, and only a small handful of them want what is arguably one of the best RPG's we'll see this generation?

Same for Paper Jam. May not break the mold but it looks decent enough. Certainly good enough to warrant more than 50k sales in Japan.

Xbox one decreased in sales lol.

@JaxonH

Paper Jam will unfortunately suffer in NA to a degree too unfortunately. It won't have the benefit of holiday sales. Even though E3's presentation was disappointing this year, this game really stood out to me. I always thought it was a clever idea.

My wife is playing through Xenoblade right now. It is the most stunning thing I've seen on the Wii U. Period. I hope NA has very good sales to make up for the bad/mediocre sales everywhere else.

@Spoony_Tech haha it's all good. In two weeks Nintendo will have another hit on their hands with monster strike. Everything else for Sony and Nintendo seems to be doing (upcoming releases) poorly unfortunately. I have a feeling sm cross fire emblem or whatever they are calling it is going to flop too. I wonder where the user who called monster hunters first week sales a fluke is hiding. Lol

@JaxonH Not to mention the Paper Jam forum on this very site is still full of complaints about how Miyamoto or some other Nintendo higher-up ruined the game because the only interesting characters are the Koopalings. -_-

@JaxonH
People and reviews openly complained that the Mario & Luigi games have become stale and are in dire need for change.

Though I for one love the gameplay and battle system.

As for XCX, It lacks the story driven narrative that Japanese gamers want.
Though it will bomb in Europe due to it being a JRPG with the Nintendo name on it.
North America should outsell both regions combined, though it won't do that well because it's a JRPG and a Nintendo game.

@Xenocity I think it will cross the million mark. I hope for two but the U.S. Market is hard to perdict with Nintendo.

@faint
I doubt it will sell 1M in North America, it's too JRPG to go anywhere then add the Nintendo stigma in, yeah...
It may outsell what the first game did globally,

I see XCX ending up close to the 1M mark globally in sales by the end of Wii U's life.

My best guess for Paper Jams weak sales is that it likely was overshadowed by Fallout 4 and Xenoblade X

@Xenocity I ment total. Japan is at 500k. I imagine 400 k North America and 100 k rest of the world. Though I really hope I'm wrong. Like I said na wiiu sales can be hard to predict

@Wolfgabe
XCX was already released in Japan months ago.
Fallout 4 released a month ago and isn't charting in Japan.

Paper Jam just isn't popular for other reasons.

@Wolfgabe you mean in the U.S.? Or UK? Xenoblade has been out in Japan for a year. Fallout is going to do well for a western game in Japan but is going to flop in Japan. Fallout numbers come out next week.

@faint
That makes more sense and is possible.

North American market heavily sways to AAA blockbuster games, M-rated titles, and established IPs.

I mean we will know in a few weeks unless NPD counted the first week in December in November numbers (which come out tomorrow night).

@Xenocity fallout is next week I'm pretty sure

@faint
Well November 10th release is the worldwide release date for Fallout 4 according to Bethesda.

@Xenocity fallout comes out in eight days in Japan. I double checked

@faint
Then Bethesda needs to update it's information.

@Xenocity they must think Japan doesn't count. I just went to comings web site. It's like game stop in Japan but less trashy.

I'll be picking Paper Jam when it releases here in the US. Next year is already looking to be a lot more packed with 3DS games than last year.

Xbox One - 289

It never stops being funny

@Xenocity
Monster Hunter is proof you don't need story driven narrative if the gameplay is solid, and the gameplay is most definitely solid in XCX.

I agree NA is where the market is at (and Monolith Soft knows it too- hence the "New L.A. city and United States flag on the ship).

The original Xenoblade Chronicles sold over 1 million copies on Wii. This game absolutely needs to improve on that given the universal acclaim and notariety of the series now.

If Xenoblade X could hit 2 million global sales by the end of this gen, I would consider that a massive success. 1 million would be the bare minimum though- it HAS to do at least that. Otherwise it's not even matching its predecessor.

Which means, XCX really needs to see 1m in North America by the end of this generation. That's a tall order I know, but that's what it needs to see.

Very good numbers for both 3DS and Wii U. Japan rocks.

@JaxonH see I think the install base is going to be the issue here. I think it will be on par with xenoblade wii in the end which is quite an achievement considering the difference in install base.

If XCX hits 1m I'll be amazed. Not that it doesn't deserve to, it's taking my breath away at every turn.

I enjoyed both 3DS M&L's! I don't see why there's any issues.

How come the original 3DS is selling much better than the 3DS XL? Huge discounts on remaining stock perhaps?

@electrolite77 Which is forcing Nintendo to concentrate more on third party support than doing their first party games. Again, I get why they have to do this but keep in mind, third parties can potentially ruin first party developers simply because that's what majority of gamers want which is something that first parties can't emulate the feel that third parties give to gamers.

@Freeon-Leon I always wonder this as a PS4 owner, I can only assume Japanese people are either buying them just to look at them. Or as it has usable internal storage, more games are bought digitally therefore masking them somewhat from the results.

This year has been all about remake and reboot and sequel thats actually more like a spinoff.

I find myself leaving nin hardware because i only play ds game. Hope 2016 will be better and Nin is in desperate need of good third party titles that not from Capcom

When you make a game so big and well crafted you get Monster Hunter X sales.

"Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam Makes Underwhelming Debut in Japan"

Hopefully this doesn't mean the end of the series! If something doesn't sell in Japan...then Nintendo doesn't care anymore.

@electrolite77 Funny that Monster Hunter is really identical to Pokemon which is a first party game (atleast to a degree) with the only difference being that everything doesn't look friendly in Monster Hunter but you have to kill monsters inorder to make progress and you explore vast areas using equipment kinda like Pokemon if you ask me.