Twilight Princess HD Loses Out to The Division on Japanese Launch

If these numbers don't at least scream NX to Japan this year I don't know what else would.

Medabots it's still a thing in Japan while here it's a miracle we got the old games on VC, so unfair >.<

Wasn't there a Wii U CPU shortage that was causing the decline of its sales? I can't imagine why else the Wii U's sales would drop so significantly unless Nintendo is intentionally limiting its production.

Wind Waker HD did unusually awful in Japan though.
Well done to Ubisoft for actually selling a shooter in Japan, as well. That's not easy.

@KingofSaiyans Zelda has been widely considered less popular in Japan as opposed to the west. I don't think its awful numbers considering this is the second port of this game (wii version being the first of course). Is it friday yet? My fingers yearn for pokken.

There's a Wii U shortage in Japan for months now. They say the allocated Pokken bundles should bump the sales next week.

I doubt that there is really much of a Wii u shortage and really, this is just what the sales are. shortages from a non selling console don't really happen, at least not for very long.

Oh dear Wii U really is doing badly in its home land. Shows what a lack of games does to hardware sales...

@ikki5 yet there are still reports of stores where the Wii U is sold out. It's still sold out on amazon japan and a few days ago it became sold out on Joshin, which is apparently a big retailer in Japan. http://joshinweb.jp/game/22237/4902370520897.html#checkJump
Pretty sure these reports don't come out of nowhere. Maybe Nintendo isn't producing any Wii U's anymore.

@DrkBndr Then it is because the Wii U is just not being produced much. Like come on, they cannot produce it to the point to keep up with it's usually 7k-8k consoles a week? If there truly are shortages, then it is because the manufacturing has slowed horribly.

Shortages or not, Wii U only usually sells 6-8k a week, so they're only losing 2-4K a week. Not really going to make a big mark is it?

@DrkBndr I think they ran out of components since a key factory for the WiiU closed 2 years ago
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=643667

@Dezzy It's more of an RPG shooter though so kind of like CoD meets Xenoblade X.

Splatoon still in 10th place, that's great!

I wouldn't say that more people wanted Twilight Princess HD than Wind Waker HD, so much as more people have a Wii U now than in 2014.

@ikki5
Considering they sold 80K-100K sales for 2 (3?) weeks last December, maybe that's where the "7-8K" weekly allotments went. And maybe they've already stopped production. They can't just manufacture in small quantities. It's either they mass produce or they won't bother anymore since NX (home console) is coming.

@Grumblevolcano
Still quite surprising. They barely even noticed the Mass Effect series.

How would rather have had Waverace HD than another yet another Zelda?

@Ryu_Niiyama Even though development of Twilight Princess began on the Gamecube and, yes, was technically ported over for release to the Wii, it actually released on the Wii first. It was released on the Gamecube a few weeks after release on the Wii. Your comment makes it sound like it was released on the Wii much later.

Nice to see those big budget western console games do well in Japan. Hopefully it sends a message to Nintendo that the NX also needs to have these sort of games on it.

Well, dat der xbone..

Can't really expect much from a port of a decade old game, especially with how badly Japanese game sales are doing overall.
On another note, how's the 2DS doing in Japan?

Glad that the Division was positively welcomed in japan too. It is a extremely well crafted TPS/RPG and the best Ubisoft game in ages. I believe all the criticism Ubisoft got for WD and AC Unity helped to bake a great come back.

I do not believe there is a WiiU shortage, they simply stopped or slowed down the production, due by poor sales.

I did not expect more sales froma ten years old remastered with not big extras in it, honestly, despite the chronical lack of software for wiiU

TPHD did better than WWHD, but it's still a disappointment, and shows how Nintendo mishandled this port. For comparison, Final Fantasy Type-0 HD sold just under 100 000 copies when it was released, a HD port of a PSP game that sold about the same as Twilight Princess on Wii. When Type-0 HD was released, the PS4 had only been out about a year in Japan, and its install base was about half of what the Wii U has now.

So what went wrong? Twilight Princess was obviously a good game on the Wii, but this port just didn't give most people any reason to buy it. Only a miniscule portion of Japanese Wii U owners bought the game. While Japanese owners have shown that they preferred this port to Wind Waker HD, it's still a poorly handled downport of a classic Wii game, and it seems most people have been happy to keep to their original Wii version.

Well, I've seen a review copy of The Division in action, and I can see the reasoning behind this outcome: Ubisoft's MMO is painstakingly detailed, and such a labor of love has to count for something - especially considering Twilight Princess, as much of a masterpiece as it is, is still a remake. What took me off guard, though, is that - as unpopular in its native Japan as Zelda is, given the series owes much of its success to the Western world - The Division is essentially as Western as a videogame can get. Photorealistic style, realistic guns, customization, Western storytelling, the list goes on. Of course, if, say, Super Mario 3D World came out today and lost to The Division, that would have been weirder.

The WiiU is going to be one of those rare consoles that still kick ass 20 years from now...

@Ryu_Niiyama @AlexSora89 How is Zelda unpopular in Japan? Twilight Princess sold well over half a million copies on the Wii. Majora's Mask 3D sold over 300 thousand copies in two weeks. When Nintendo puts out good Zelda games or ports, people will buy them.

The poor sales of Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are completely deserved. Nobody wanted WWHD. TPHD was wanted, but Nintendo completely mishandled the port and alienated a large part of TP fans who could have been interested in an upgraded version, but not this downgrade.

Also, did you know that Mario 3D World actually sold pretty poorly in its opening week in Japan (in Mario standards)? It would have only barely beaten The Division, and that was in a holiday season when Wii U was enjoying a rare boost thanks to Wii Party U in Japan.

@DiscoGentleman No it didn't. Check your math.

@Mahe
Well, maybe "unpopular" is a strong word, but compared to the franchise's popularity in the West, Zelda is not one of Nintendo's strongest series in its native country.

@AlexSora89 Actually, the Japanese sales match pretty well proportionally with the West. Zelda hasn't usually been one of Nintendo's strongest series anywhere. There have been some high points like Twilight Princess, but when it comes to sales, most Zelda games have been mid-tier globally for Nintendo. Successful, but not mega-successful. Ironically, it looks like this poorly handled port of TP will be nega-successful, despite the success of the original.

@Mahe Twilight Princess HD a downport?
Comparing the original to the HD version in person isn't nearly the same as viewing some Youtube video.
Comparing TP HD to Type 0 is even more outlandish.
The original TP was a console game. Selling it for a console was a mistake. Type 0 was a handheld game.
As terrible as it is and was, it actually made sense to port Type 0.
I mean, SE needed some piece of garbage to justify selling the FFXV demo.

How did TPHD sell better than WWHD? WWHD at least had effort put into it.

If NX is BC then there's another good reason not to fully stock Japan with Wii U

@KingofSaiyans If it was a new Zelda game, different story. But a third version of a Zelda game that isn't even one of the best ones from the franchise won't make a big impact.

@Goob it could have something to do with the Wii U not having new games available. Pokken Tournament will be the first new release for NA this year and it's mid-March. That's just pathetic. Hopefully Pokken can help turn the tide a bit but...

That's because it was a miles better game than wind waker. On both occasions

@DoctorWily Not sure why you made that inference based off of what I said. The release date doesn't matter; development wise the game is a port. Which was all I was saying and which anyone that was gaming during that period already knows (or at least they should). I made no comment about release dates. Which I'm well aware of (bought the wii day one with TP after months of internal debate about which version to buy). So I don't get the reason for your rebuttal to my comment.

@mjc0961 the thing is its not a generic shooter. Just play it or atleast do sone research before labeling it guy.

It's a remake and it isn't even a very good game (and I'm a HUGE Zelda fan). Maybe if they had remade Skyward Sword without the annoying controls and in HD I would have been interested, but I really didn't like Twilight Princess at all. I didn't even bother upgrading, I still have the Wii version and that is good enough.

@KingofSaiyans Gtav aside (which had some fairly major work done on it and had already sold more than any Zelda game on the last gen) I can't think of a single remaster that's shifted consoles in significant numbers.

You stay classy there Japan.

@JohnnyC Majora's Mask 3D bumped just the New 3DS XL up by 20,000 in Japan the week it was launched. For the whole 3DS family, the bump was closer to 30,000. New 3DS models were already doing relatively poorly back then, but Majora's Mask doubled their sales in a single week and gave more push in the following weeks as well.

The Nintendo fans here just keep making excuses that aren't based on reality. TPHD was a bad port and people didn't want it in the way that Nintendo made it. The poor performance of TPHD and its non-effect on hardware sales is Nintendo's fault.

@Mahe True, but tens of thousands is small beans. Remakes are welcome (if like me you missed it the first time around), but the most desirable port/remake at the moment in my opinion is Rare Replay, which hasn't made me want to go out and buy an Xbox One. I suspect this is the approach most take to remakes. And I quite like the Twilight Princess upgrade. Guess I'm in the minority, but couldn't give a duck.

@JohnnyC In Japan's current hardware environment, tens of thousands of consoles is a huge deal. It means that just in a single week, Majora's Mask 3D DOUBLED what the 3DS was selling, and then there were lingering effects where Majora's Mask kept selling additional 3DS systems in the following weeks. These kinds of things build up. A game that not only will sell hundreds of thousands of copies but also tens of thousands of consoles is a big deal, and any platform holder would love to have titles like that on a steady basis. When it's a remake of an old game, and a system that has already been out for quite a while, it's even more impressive.

Majora's Mask 3D was also a major factor behind the New 3DS's big launch numbers in the USA. But when more games of Majora's Mask quality didn't follow, New 3DS sales plummeted and haven't recovered ever since.

@Mahe Majora's Mask 3D was always going to sell in big numbers as the game is excellent and the original is perhaps the most innovative Zelda game of all time when compared with what's come before or since. In terms of it shifting units, yeah, tens of thousands is still small. Making an impact in Japan is irrelevant if you're trying to compete in the global marketplace, Where the likes of Gtav, the Halo Collection and the Uncharted trilogy are credited with shifting millions of consoles in their bundles. Whether Majora's Mask helped shift New 3Ds consoles or whether it coincided with the usual early adopters keen to pick up new tech irrespective of whether or not there'll be more than half a dozen titles released for it, is hard to tell. For myself and my mates who bought Majora's Mask, we've been happy enough sticking with the 2Ds and old 3Ds, along with a significant number of others based on the sales for that title coupled with the number of new 3ds consoles sold. The fact remains that Mario Kart 8 and Pokemon aside, Nintendo haven't had a broad-appeal, top-quality title that shifts consoles outside its core fanbase for quite a few years now, since the glory days of the Wii and DS.

@JohnnyC There was a lot of expectation for Majora's Mask 3D, but you wouldn't have believed that if you listened to some Nintendo/Windwaker apologists. They were saying that "Japan doesn't like Zelda anymore", "Zelda remakes don't sell well" and such, trying to excuse Wind Waker HD flopping. Those people couldn't explain why Zelda Musou/Hyrule Warriors exceeded expectations everywhere.

Now it's happening again with Twilight Princess HD. It's a bad port and not what people wanted, but some people are trotting out the old excuses again. "Japan/UK/The World doesn't like Zelda", "It's on an old system" (how old were 2DS/3DS when the Majora's Mask remake came out?) and so on.

@Mahe Hyrule Warriors did well because it's the most accessible Zelda game ever made and also the best Dynasty Warriors game. Is it a great game? Not at all, but it's decent and if you're a fan of either franchise there's a lot to enjoy. Re the Zelda ports, I'd imagine some would take the view I do, in that they only want new titles on their new consoles and don't see why they should pay top dollar for a 10-15 year old game that they've already played. I tend to make an exception to this rule for Zelda titles, as I always find them a pleasure to revisit. However I don't think remakes should sell as well as new games, but the fact that they do means we'll continue to get them. As for why Wind Waker only shifted a million units, I'd say that's pretty good based on the Wii U console sales at that time. It was never going to be a system-seller like Mario Kart 8, particularly as you could still play the perfectly good original if you still owned a Wii, which nearly all Wii U owners probably did.

@JohnnyC Wind Waker HD's worldwide "sales" were reached by console bundles and discounts, including the Mario Kart 8 promotion. A huge number of those copies were practically given away for free.

First, you had the price cut at the same time as the Wind Waker HD console bundles, so people who wanted a cheaper Wii U got the WWHD bundle. Second, those WWHD bundles actually didn't sell very well, so they had to be discounted further even despite the price cut to clear stock. These still counted as "sales" for WWHD. And then there's the Mario Kart 8 promotion, where WWHD was given for free only a few months after release, along such "gems" like Game & Wario.

Japan shows how much demand there actually was for Wind Waker HD, Game & Wario and other such Wii U releases: almost none. Those games flopped hard, and Nintendo had to pad their sales figures by giving those games away for free in the West.

@Mahe Due to the bungled launch of the console, I guess we'll never know for sure whether it was demand for the games or lack of consoles in homes, or both. You're probably right though. Myself and everyone I know who owns a Wii U picked one up in either 2014 or 2015 when there was a decent library of titles.