Nintendo had two major retail releases last week - Paper Mario: Color Splash on Wii U and Mario Party: Star Rush on 3DS; one achieved a respectable albeit unremarkable result in the UK charts, and the other fell flat.
Paper Mario: Color Splash, despite spelling colour wrong for the UK market, managed to secure 14th place in its debut week in the all-format charts. That's not exactly mind-blowing - FIFA 17 held onto top spot ahead of Mafia III - and Nintendo's release is behind a number of older multi-platform titles. Sales in terms of units likely aren't particularly impressive down in 14th place, but that debut position does mean that the title hasn't flopped badly, with a decent number of Wii U owners evidently trying it out.
The same can't be said, unfortunately, for Mario Party: Star Rush. It misses the top 40 entirely and only managed 5th place in the 3DS chart. Bearing in mind that only the top two from the 3DS chart have made the all-format top 40, and you're looking at poor launch sales for Star Rush, which is a pity as we think it's a good entry in the series. It always seems like a tricky sell to encourage portable gamers to pay full price for a party game, and perhaps that's been a factor here.
As mentioned above, two evergreen 3DS titles are in the lower reaches of the all-format top 40. New Super Mario Bros. 2 continues to hold steady in 28th place, while Tomodachi Life re-enters the charts in 36th.
At least Paper Mario managed to make a modest splash in the charts.
[source chart-track.co.uk]
Comments 63
Good news about ColoUr Splash. Us Irish helped contribute to its chart position as a lot of us buy our games from online UK retailers. A reminder that Base.com has the best price for ColoUr Splash(£29.99).
Great, I'm loving it - much more than I thought I would anyway!
Though when you've coloured 99% of a level and can't find that last percent for the life of you, it's really mentally taxing - I can't move on until it's done!! :/
There really must be nothing else to buy.
@SM4SHshorts I feel your pain, I'm usually stuck on that last percentage too. XD
It is fun to play but there's so much lost potential in my opinion. If I could bring just one thing back from the original Paper Mario games it would be the ability to have multiple unique and fun companions.
"despite spelling colour wrong for the UK market"
It would be such an easy fix for them to create a new language file for the UK market and just find and replace all the instances of color too.
I remember being annoyed every time I looked at the front of my GameBoy Colour.
I'm glad I wasn't born as UK people. I feel blessed born with some Japanese mindset.
It's good for the future of the series, especially since this game is better than Sticker Star.
@Anti-Matter Huh? You do realise that the English language was created in the UK? The Americanisation of English is technically wrong on many counts. Including the spelling of COLOUR.
Not sure what your God-Like Japanese mindset has to do with your (clear) superiority over every single person in the UK. Particularly those who can spell properly?
wait... do people really think the American spelling of the title is a big deal? 😂😂
@plug313 Considering that I don't live in America, yes- I view it as ignorant.
@Anti-Matter that's so great to know. Thanks for the input
@RainbowGazelle not on the wii u
Star Rush was a useless game with no incentive to buy after TWO lackluster Mario Parties in the past 3 years. Not surprised. But congrats to Paper Mario, he deserves it!
@SLIGEACH_EIRE good price but I'll buy it for my collection next month pre used from cex for 20 pounds
@HappyMaskedGuy
Um... i wasn't talking about the spelling if Color or Colour.
I was talking about UK gamer mindset, especially adult male gamer when talking about their popular games and trends.
Well, i'm glad i still an accept the quirkiness of the games. I do admit if i like Japanese more than Western, when talking about games.
@LegendOfPokemon
Hey, i think Star Rush catch my attention. Well, i know typical Party games but at least Star Rush looks better than Island Tour. I'll get that game soon.
Sometimes I wonder if Nintendo will throw in the towel with the UK like they did with South America.
Well done to Color Splash but I think we're all getting fed up of Mario Party games.
@MegaMari0 that has crossed my mind before. I wouldn't know what to do if that happened. Having to import absolutely everything Nintendo would be a nightmare!
Not bad considering it got bigger backlash initially than SF0 and Federation Force. I'm really enjoying Color Splash.
Great for Color Splash. It seems like a great game and I'm happy it's selling well. Though, it's pretty random that NSMB2 and Tomadatchi Life are there too.
Too bad about Mario Party. After the huge dissapointment named Island Tour this actually looked pretty promising.
Watching gameplay of Star Rush, it looks really fun, even single player. I'm tempted to pick it up.
Nintendo still being here is impressive. I imagine PMCS is at a few thousand copies.
I shouldbt mention this bit whatever, in uni we had a console wars debate for coursework, or part of it at least, and the Wii U was laughed off for "online censorship" "poor install base with high install rate" and no adult games with the lack of disk space. i was on team xbox so i couldnt say 25gb disks, no installs and list of all the games, plus I didnt vote in the end due to contractual bias (uni doesnt and wont know, plus they are Sony partnered so itll annoy them) and admittedly if I did vite id be alone.
Thats nintendo in this country and its telling 2gb RAM is a constant sticking point.
What a shame for mario party star rush as it really is a BRILLIANT entry in the series.
As someone that has every single one...it's truly probably my favourite.
There is SO much content to unlock and is great alone or with 3 friends. I give it 10/10 and hope it'll gain momentum this next few weeks...
@Nik-Davies I'd 100% recommend it!
@Toadsfriend I've just paid for my copy from Argos. Literally getting my shoes on and will be playing it within 20 minutes
@HappyMaskedGuy I don't get why you see it as ignorant though? your language isn't better or superior to American English. I'm portuguese and I don't feel offended when things are released here with a Brazilian portuguese spelling. it's basically the same and everyone can understand it. what difference does it make?
@HappyMaskedGuy it's the adaptation of language. In fact, because English is a mix of Latin and Germanic languages, UK English is closer to the Latin version and US is closer to the Germanic. And if you want to go even further, the UK accent is quite far from what Old English used to sound like. Those who retain it the most is probably the Irish, but it still isn't pure.
Needless to say, it isn't ignorance — just adaptation and preference.
Mario Party is meant for consoles, not handhelds. It would have done better being on a console, since the last few on consoles were that annoying (car). The last one I played and my family and I played to death, was Mario Party 8 on Wii...other than that, if we don't play that one, we bust out the Gamecube or even the N64 to play the other greats. Glad to know that Paper Mario Color Splash is doing fairly good though, but with the lack of Wii U games coming out, that could also play as the result. I may not own a Wii U anymore, but I'd definitely pick it up if I still had it...only to add a new game to it's collection. Looking forward to the NX and seeing what else is in store for the 3DS next year (besides the port of Mario Maker and Yoshi's Wooly World)...still wondering what Pikmin will be like for 3DS.
I said this the other day, but it's the wrong timing for Star Rush... it's the sort of game you play with others when you go out... but now that the weather's getting colder people are more likely to get games that are designed to be played at home... like Color Splash.
If they'd both been released at the start of summer, then I'm confident that we'd have seen the opposite result.
Color or "Colour" (spell check on my phone hates the latter), it's still the same game.
That's still not very good CS probably only sold like 5,000 copies.... And who the hell wants to spend $40 on a party game is beyond me so no surprise there
I'd say maybe now Nintendo would realize we want old school Mario Party, but they'll probably blame the low sales on launching 2 Marios on the same day.....
The new Mario Party is ironically a really fun solo game... Honestly loving it at the moment.
@plug313 Yes and it's really annoying. There's 60+ English speaking countries in the world. Instead of going with the spelling of where the English language originated from, they chose the 1 country that took it upon themselves to change the spelling of words. It causes confusion as well like when performing online searches. What if every other English speaking country took it upon themselves to alter the spelling of words? There's a reason why we don't. I'm not English by the way.
@Nik-Davies GREAT Choice. I hope you love it as much as me and my gang do ❤
@AlternateButtons I live in the UK. We spell things according to UK dialect. I just find the decision to ignore local dialect for the sake of laziness to be a poor decision on Nintendo's part. People in America might find this to be curious, even amusing. But if the shoe was on the other foot I'd be interested to see their reactions.
Personally I think we see enough Americanisation here.
I'll wait until Paper Mario COLOUR Splash is released.
@Haiassai The ignorance to which I refer is on the part of Nintendo's localisation team. Simple as.
@plug313 I think you are missing the point.
Its the UK release of a game. I'm not importing from America.
I'm not offended by anything. Just annoyed.
@Anti-Matter Haven't got a clue what you are on about TBH
@Grumblevolcano It definitely did not have a bigger initial backlash than Federation Force.
@HappyMaskedGuy no... it's a worldwide release. they simply used the American spelling everywhere because it was simpler. it's nothing to be annoyed about. you're getting the game in your own language that's more than people in my country are getting.
Both spellings are many centuries old. Color, now regarded as the American spelling, in fact predates the United States by several centuries.
Wow, people are really getting worked up over a single letter.
@plug313 Sorry, but I disagree.
So, I've been playing Color Splash. It's.............eh. It's basically a LEGO game with Paper Mario aesthetics.
@HappyMaskedGuy
OK, i mean like this. From far i know, some UK adult male gamer usually play Soccer games, shooting, adult open world games, etc. And they usually never care with cute, whimsical, colorful, kiddie looking games because they think games like that looks like a "Baby", not like "Grown Up", especially Nintendo that most UK gamer don't like or hate that brand. Fortunately, i wasn't born with mindset like typical adult male gamer that like adult content, dark, sadistic, bloody, ultra violence, Ball sports, etc. Instead, i LOVE something cute, colorful, whimsical, funny, cartoonish, kiddie that typical Nintendo stuffs. Also, i'm interested too with some Girly games. That's very opposite with typical adult male gamer as usual. And when i realized about my gaming taste, i felt blessed. Thanks God, i wasn't born with mindset like adult male gamer like that and i can play together with other people who still like appropriate games. Because i realized also, I still have an awareness about negative effects of bad adult games that can be found almost everywhere and i want to teach younger generations to play appropriate games without negative adult content inside. Well, that's my explanation. Sorry for keep you puzzling...
@Anti-Matter Not at all. Thanks for the response.
I actually agree, that much of the UK games market is focused on FIFA, GTA and COD.
However-
I don't consider myself anything like those people either! I love exactly the same sort of games you have described, and don't tend to enjoy a lot of the so-called, self proclaimed 'hardcore' games that tend to sell well (sadly) in the UK. I live in Scotland, and I adore games with colour, imagination, ideas and beautiful worlds for me to explore. I hope you don't consider all people in the UK to have the same tastes. Because I personally hate football and GTA!
My most anticipated game by far at the moment is Yooka Laylee (developed by a very talented and imaginative UK team).
Sorry for any misunderstanding. It's still spelt 'colour' by the way. Well, at least here in the UK 😝
@AlternateButtons Are you offended that people can feel differently about something than you? I personally couldn't give a monkey's how you feel in comparison to me.
@AlternateButtons By the way- do you think I only complain about the lack of a U in my UK release Paper Mario game?
I think you underestimate the human ability to care about and prioritise multiple issues. This is leisure time my friend.
And I thought I left insane comments on here! Haha!!
Fantastic. Paper Mario was surprisingly awesome. Greatly enjoying it. Haven't tried Star Rush, not a big fan of how the Party is handled ...once again.
@SLIGEACH_EIRE
That's because that "one country that spells it differently than everyone else" will account for more copies sold than your country and all 60 of those other English-speaking countries combined.
When your country can outsell the rest of the world combined then you can petition Nintendo to spell it how you want it.
Til then, your country is just a blip in the global scene, and nobody cares about blips or their spelling preferences.
@HappyMaskedGuy @SLIGEACH_EIRE While I totally think companies should be willing to be culturally sensitive to language differences when releasing their products across borders, it would seem that some of us might have the wrong idea about the English language and its history.
"Many of the differences between American and British English date back to a time when spelling standards had not yet developed."
"some spellings seen as "American" today were once commonly used in Britain."
"modern English orthography varies somewhat between countries and is far from phonemic in any country."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
I don't care what anyone's preference is, but different is not the same thing as wrong.
Quaint.
It's not how we spell it in Canada either.
But neither the UK nor Canada is the market where this game is going to sell the most copies.
Just a heads up: the UK isn't the target market. If you haven't noticed, but the UK is kind of, I don't know, sporting a huge Xbox branding and has for years now.
It's clear that Wii U could have used 7 or 8 more FIFAs in these past 4 years..
2 positions worse the DQ7 and despite having a 3rd of the market (at best), a Wii U game still debuts comparably.
It's the wording between the articles I find offensive. One is 'reasonable', and a 'decent impact' while the other isn't 'particularly impressive'.
So 7% of 3DS owners buy DQ7 and 15% of Wii U owners buy COLOR Splash (just being a jerk now) and that's not considerable?
@greengecko007 I get what you are saying, but that's kind of like riding a technicality to me.
Regardless of the historical loops, the fact is this: We in the UK, in the present day, and for many years now, have spelled this word as COLOUR. If I was buying in America, I'd expect COLOR. If I was told that 'nah, they couldn't be bothered factoring in your dialect', I feel I'm quite justified in telling them to (colourful expletive) off! It's laziness, it's ignorant and it's completely unnecessary. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather not have my linguistic culture watered down on any scale just because Nintendo couldn't be bothered.
Everyone seems to think Im wrong in saying this. I'm not mortally offended- I won't chain myself to the American embassy or anything. I know, it's just a Paper Mario game. But that to me is irrelevant. It just bugs me that people are lazy enough to simply put up with poor decisions like these and criticise those who actually retort, when we are the customers- not the other way round.
@SahashraLA A simple change of box art isn't much to ask. It's as straight forward as that to me.
@HappyMaskedGuy It may not have been your intent, but it certainly came across from your previous comments that you were bothered by the cultural difference in spelling.
As for the localization of the game, if lack thereof, I agree that it is laziness, and they should be more interested in devlivering a product that is more culturally sensitive to the area.
At the same time though, I hope something like this wasn't the deal breaker for you on the game. I'm not getting the game simply because it doesn't look fun, even though I love the art.
@AlternateButtons I really don't have time to justify over and over again the reasons for me having a different opinion to yours. This was never an argument- you just insisted on asking 'why?' over and over.
@greengecko007 I'll probably break and buy it too. But I feel like I shouldn't. Do you know what I mean?
A good result for Paper Mario: Color Splash given the UK market. I looked it up and although there's no specific sales numbers comparitively Sticker Star Debuted at #40 on the UK chart when it launched.
Color vs Colour
Whisky vs whiskey
Who really cares that much?
I'll be getting Star Rush as all my roomates have 3DSes and we only need one copy to play because good guy Nintendo.
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