Dr_Lugae

I figured a bit like Nintendo Switch Sports, Mario Tennis Fever is probably going to be a gradual seller.

Not going to have a huge launch like a 3D Platformer, Adventure, etc. but I bet it will very gradually sell across the next few years and be a multi-million seller anyway.

@RoboCube If you get it on your phone or your PC then you're pirating the game lol.

Honestly if you do that and don't actually own the original cartridge you ought to be obliged to buy this version. You'd have a lot of cheek complaining "how easy" it is for them to sell this version game, if you've never actually paid them for their original work in the first place.

Who are you to enjoy their game, their work for free, and then tell them what price they should sell it at?

@swoose I'd agree, re: point 2 Pokemon and Mario just have the cultural cachet that would make re-releases of their classic games more highly desirable and with a greater perceived value.

e.g. similar to this modern port of Final Fantasy 7 is $16. its barely changed from the original release other than some in-built cheats and for some reason despite being unchanged the characters models are high-resolution, which makes it look worse than the original because all the backgrounds at at the PS1 resolution which make the characters clash. And it crashes fairly regularly.

That fairly sloppy FF7 port has added 5.5million to the overall sales figure of FF7 despite changing almost nothing about the underlying game and being at a similar price to FR/LG. Because FF7 just has the cultural cachet that people will play a premium to play the original.

@Yosher I think the idea that a fan of a series spends £17, £50 or £60 on a game or two every couple of years isn't particularly outrageous.

If I said I'm a big fan of Pokemon. In the last year I spent £75 on Pokemon, £58 on Legends ZA and soon £17 on Pokemon Leaf Green. I'm not exactly emptying out my bank account for the brand.

There's people who think nothing of spent more on some cosmetic crap in some F2P gacha game each week than I've spent on Pokemon in the average year.

But you can't even buy a £17 re-release of a Pokemon game you like without someone online finger wagging like you took out a loan to buy a golden statue of Pikachu lol.

It won't be the first or last 'Game as a Service' to implode on arrival.

These sorts of games can't succeed or even exist unless there's loads of people who are always playing it. And there's only so many 'loads of people' and they're probably playing the more popular live service games.

If its true Quite interesting choice since the Galaxy theming, and Wario was teamed up with Tatanga (a Space Alien) in Super Mario Land 1&2.

So this would ve a good parrallel to those games. Though I couldn't see that team up without expecting Wario to double cross Bowser Jr lol.

Fever's a good game. Not a chart topper but I think like Switch Sports its sales will be spread out.

Other wonders of the report is Sonic sold 1.76m between October and the end of December. About half of what it did in 2024s holiday season.

And I don't mean Sonic Crossworlds. I mean the entire Sonic game franchise(Crossworlds,Generations, Superstars,Frontiers,Mania, etc.) sold as many copies as Kirby Air Riders by itself sold in the last quarter.

Whatever SEGA is doing isn't sustainable, there's no reason a mascot as popular as Sonic's entire gameography should be selling the same as a single kirby spin-off game.

Considering Forgotten Land, Star Allies and Return to Dreamland DX will still be selling, Kirby is currently a bigger game franchise than Sonic.

@Sonicka The demo is exclusive for PS5 for some reason. Though it may just be the exact same demo that was temporarily available on Switch/PC last year.

@johnedwin Maybe they don't own a Switch 2 yet. Theres like 37million Switchs sold in Japan and 4.3m Switch 2s so far.

So many will buy DQ7 for Switch if they're not ready to buy a Switch 2 yet.

@B3RTAY Because the original Braid and The Witness did monstrously well its possible Blow just has an overinflated sense of how well his games should be selling.

It kind of reminds me of how Yahct Club Games reported they "need" Mina the Hollower to sell 200-500k when its just some 8-bit Gameboy Zelda clone

Feels like some of the popular indie developers business model is to "win the lottery" every time they release a game.

And you thought videogames were expensive...

A lot of videogame companies had this happen following Googles Genie AI crap.

I think the good thing is this means those AI crazies won't be shareholders and asking Nintendo to pivot their business to AI generated games.

I'd rather Nintendo's shareholders be people who want them to actually make games and not prompt them lol.

@wiiwouldliketoplay I figure its either a Rocket League aesthetic gone wrong.

Or with the name Drag x Drive perhaps they were considering Dragons for the characters but maybe backed out part way through, because they didn't want the implication that wheelchair users are creatures or something.

So just made it a cheap eShop game instead of a full-price game.

@PharoneTheGnome They'll almost certainly make non-Legends Pokemon games because Sw/Sh and S/V sold almost 2x as much as the legends.

Though I think S/V is worth playing especially on Switch 2.

Considering Metroid Prime 2 and 3 sold like 1.2million and 1.4million respectively.

Its just one of those situations where the reputation is bigger than the actual demand. Even if MP4 sold inline with typical series expectations, split between S1 and S2 it's pretty likely neither version will sell 1million even if MP4 became the 2nd best selling Metroid Prime.

@OmnitronVariant Its not weird, like do you even understand maths?

At 17million that means roughly 1 in 10 people who had a Switch (155m) have a Switch 2. Even with these huge sales figures it'd take years to sell a Switch 2 to every Switch 1 owner and you couldn't expect to see many people upgrade yet.

It took 9 years to sell 155m Switch 1s. Your mickey mouse method of determining Switch 2 sales would result in more people owning a Gamecube... because S2 hasn't outsold it yet.

@Buizel Yeah I played the Sonic Crossworlds demo on Xbox Series. What got to me was the Grand Prix was just 3 tracks followed by a 4th race that was just separate laps of the 1st three.

For a $70 game it felt like such an obvious attempt to short change players when they don't have enough tracks to have the GP actually be 4 unique tracks. Yet they had a bunch of tracks ready for the season pass.

@waluigilives Yeah I think its a bit silly.

Like Crash Team Racing Nitro fuelled sold over 10million copies and it was "up against" Mario Kart 8DX. It didn't have to beat Mario Kart and it didn't need to, Crash sold better than any Sonic Racing game.

If Sonic Racing was going to take off, how well the latest Mario Kart sold or what people thought of Mario Kart is irrelevant. People buy games that can sell themselves, not based on whether they think it "beat game X".

If Crossworlds underperformed then obviously they failed to make it appealing. The fact SEGA themselves made an advert to trying to imply its better than MKW suggests their priorities were out of whack.

If Kirby Air Riders has outsold Sonic Crossworlds, then its pretty clear SEGA need to re-evaluate these racing games.

@GamingGod 429 what?Whatever currency you paid for the Steam Deck OLED the Switch 2 will have been cheaper unless you bought the OLED on sale/discount.

You see less Switch 2's out there because there are 155million Switch 1's out there from almost 9 years of sales. The Switch 2 is 7 months old and currently its selling faster than the Switch 1 but that doesn't change that there could be at least 10 Switch 1s out there for every Switch 2 sold. Thus you are 10x more likely to see someone with a Switch 1.

In 2017-2019 I saw more people using 3DS' out and about than Switchs but that's because the Switch had yet to outsell the 3DS. But obviously that wasn't a sign the Switch was selling poorly considering it ended up selling double the 3DS.

You'd have to get back to me in 2035 and tell me if you see more kids walking around with more Switch 2s or Switch 1s for that to mean anything lmao. Like if you bought your kids Switchs for 250 (so after the price cut in 2021) your family aren't year 1 customers for Nintendo systems. You probably won't admit it but I'd suspect in 4-5 years time there's a fair chance your household will have one.

@GamingGod the only Steamdeck cheaper than the Switch 2 has an LCD screen and has been discontinued lol.

The cheapest OLED Steam Deck is more expensive than the Switch 2, its less powerful than the Switch 2, has a lower resolution screen and can't support 120fps.

You should probably actually learn about the stuff you're talking about. You clearly don't own either of these systems if you don't know what features or prices they have.

@Fighting_Game_Loser I think with Miyamoto he'll probably never officially retire. Since he's a member of their board of directors It's probably better for Nintendo for him to be there than not even if he's no longer actually spearheading any projects or initiatives.

I think after his involvement in the movies and theme parks are sorted. I predict we'll still probably see him credited supervisory roles on internal Mario/Zelda/Pikmin games, and Nintendo Direct appearances, be part board/shareholder meetings, etc.

But I think Super Mario Run will always be the last Miyamoto-led game.

@AstroTheGamosian Yeah, it seems so far Yabuki who took over the Mario Kart series, directed 7, 8 and promoted to producer for 8Deluxe onwards took the reigns of Mario Kart and knows what he's doing.

I think the interesting one will be 2D Mario and Yoshi, because that's still being produced by Tezuka who was around since the NES and Super Mario Bros. He's still producer for 2D Mario as of Super Mario Bros Wonder, but is in his mid 60s now. So presumably in the next ~5 years there may be someone new in charge of 2D Mario.

@swoose According to Nintendo 16% of Switch 2 owners never owned a Switch. If that's stayed the same by now to between 2-3 million owners all the Switch 2 Editions are entirely new games.

I think we'll probably see the same with Super Mario Wonder especially after the Mario movie.

The PS5 has collapsed back below 10k and 66% of them are those cheap digital editions that Sony have to be making a loss on.

I think at this point the PlayStation's presence in Japan is more like an obligation to keep Japanese developers making games for it. Probably the same reason Microsoft haven't entirely given up on Japan with the Xbox.

@Divide_and_Wander tbh those are sales to customers so if they've sold 4.4m in the US, 4m in Japan and similar in Europe and rest of the world then they've probably shipped over 15million already.

Because there's always got to ship enough stock to keep ahead of demand to avoid shortages. Which could be a few million.

@atepa Might see it more often as FIFA/EAFC is on a gradual decline in UK and apparently sub 2million which the series hadn't been since the 2000s.

Which is fine by me as the Ultimate Team/Lootboxes are repulsive.

Makes me wonder if there's a new Mario game at the end of the year.

The My Mario line, the Super Mario Galaxy movie, Yoshi and the Mysterious Book all seem to be co-ordinating a push of Mario to the next gen of kids all this year.

@Ramouz Yeah was going to say. CO's level design is also pretty much FFXIII if it had a world map between each of its locations, and all you do is move around, jump at ledges and either aim to auto zipline across gaps or fire your gun at the same 3 balls in every dungeon to open a chest.

There are barely any puzzles, and even in battle I think some of the enemies parry/dodge timings are actually out of sync with the animations/sound.

@JaxonH Switch 1 did have Super Mario Odyssey for its first Christmas. Whereas Kirby Air Rider's is the S2's only equivalent that wasn't also on S1. Like Pokemon ZA is the bigger game but its on both systems.

It does make me wonder if Nintendo have withheld a finished S2 exclusive game which they didn't think they needed to meet or beat their projections. So was better off saved for later.

It will be tough for 2026 to match or beat 2025. But if 2026 has two big holiday exclusives instead of a Kirby Spin-Off and cross-gen Pokemon it'd have an edge.

Switch 2 officially outsold the Gamecube in Japan... in only 7 months lol

1.5million more and it beats the N64.

Tbh if they really meant it Sony and Microsoft would remove Roblox from their consoles.

Poor Captain Lou Albano lol

Tbh it surprised me that Kevin totally replaced Charles, I'd have thought they'd have divided his characters between VAs so one person didn't have to try and match voices Charles could just do.

@Froakiebloke Yeah I don't think its til SD/New Mystery that the difficulty got nailed down.

I think PoR is an awkward period of FE where Normal/Hard are too easy for skilled players. The concept of permadeath is too unforgiving to attract/retain new players, and Maniac just bogged things down rather than challenged the player.

I think by Shadow Dragon they got the idea right where the hardest modes have very powerful enemies that need to be handled strategically. When you make the right moves/weapons you can still do stuff like one-shot Pegasus Knights with Bows or take out Armours in one round with Hammers or powerful enough spells.

Which made the challenge more satisfying as if you do the right moves you're finishing chapters in a similar number of turns as other modes and there's a better pace/flow to the game.

Then New Mystery/Awakening introducing Casual mode helped Fire Emblem keep new players who like the gameplay but permadeath was a barrier to them enjoying the games.

Its crazy how popular Tamagotchi is in Japan.

"Its just not enough sales to show interest in these types of games" - Square Enix producer desperately trying to justify AAA games as their mainline AAA Final Fantasy sales collapse

@John_Deacon Last time Nintendo updated their sales figures over 90% of Switch 2 owners had Mario Kart World.

So most Switch 2 owners who didn't get the bundle must have bought Mario Kart World physically because almost everyone with the system has the game.

@countzero Yeah I think there should be a cap on how many categories a game can be nominated for tbh. Between E33 getting 12 nominations and Sony getting 19 nominations a lot of the nominations are being eaten up by a very small number of contenders.

@Max_the_German Yeah I think when you've got celebrity Voice Acting in your game, and support studios working on the game, and had a movie in the works... before the game even came out, you're probably not an indie lol.

I don't think E33 is quite AAA level you can sort of tell with the lack of towns or NPCs in the games areas. But its made with the kind of resources you'd associate with a AAA production that would be far out of reach of even the successful indie Studios.

@KingMinosOfKnossos Its probably a combo of Metroid Prime not being popular in the UK and the gamecube mega bombing in the UK.

Same with Kirby Air Riders, any game/series mostly leaning on or following up a previous release on Gamecube just isn't going to be as popular in the UK as it is in the US or Japan. It was the same with Metroid Prime 3

It'd be like gauging a Sonic game based on Japanese sales where the character doesn't have much popularity and the Megadrive/Genesis sold poorly. Even a successful game in the west for Sonic probably isn't going to do particularly well in Japan.

@MrStark Its a ~80% because that's an average some reviews will like it more than average, others will like it less there's always going to be a range of opinions. Reviewers aren't robots who'll uniformly hand out the same score to the same game.

If you think someone scoring it 1 point higher than average is wrong do you think the people scoring it 7/10 are wrong too for "underrating it".

Some people are ridiculous lol

@Anti-Matter Nah Sony's killing of physical media, the PS6 probably won't even come with a disc drive.

@Suketoudara Yeah but 2022 is peak Switch lifecycle and a really high budget mainline entry. Kirby Star Allies released in 2018 a year into the Switch's lifespan didn't top of the UK chart either:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/03/kirby_star_allies_denied_uk_number_one_chart_debut_by_burnout_paradise

So the idea a Kirby spin-off releasing 6 months into the Switch 2's lifespan would be topping charts in the UK is a pipe dream. A mainline 2D one couldn't 1 year into Switch. The next 3D Kirby game when the Switch 2 is more established might top the charts in the UK but it has a lot more qualifiers than say Mario Kart, Donkey Kong or Pokemon topping the charts during the Switch 2's launch year.

Kirby just isn't really geared towards success in the UK. He's a bit too cutesy.

When the original came out during peak GTA3 - San Andreas fever, I didn't play it. But if I did it'd be the kind of game you'd keep secret from people at school lol!

The US and Japan are likely going to carry this game since Kirby is actually popular there.

Tbh it was never going to compare with Mario Kart but I think the point of games like Kirby Air Riders, MP4 and next years Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave isn't to sell like Mario Kart or Pokemon.

Its to attract across specific audiences to the Switch 2. Air Riders is probably a way of getting Sakurai and Kirby fans across without a big new 3D/2D Kirby game or Smash Bros.

@ShadLink I think given the games averaged ~80% overall and there's always going to be a range of opinions 9/10 or 7/10 isn't unexpected as there's always going to be a range of preferences.

But it is odd that a site dedicated to Nintendo has reviewers who'd score it as low as 6/10 (Switch version) considering if a reviewer for a Nintendo site is far more likely to be a Nintendo fan. So you'd expect a stronger affinity to these kinds of games than the average site.

There's also a Super Mario RPG reference in one of Bowser's paintings. There's one with Bowser sat holding flowers on a hill like Peach in tbe SMRPG opening.

Bowser Jr's Brush has been embossed with his face since Bowser's Fury. So its not surprising E. Gadds logo isn't on it in the movie.

I'd figure since E.Gadd has remained Luigi's Mansion only and exclusively inventing ghost related tech the idea he made a magic brush (or F.L.U.D.D) doesn't make much sense any more.

@topsekret I mean the whole aim of creating a successful product is to make the most amount of money possible from the investment lol.

I think very few people who gain from a products success would be saying "Why don't we turn our 10x return on investment into 5x", they probably only invest what they think is needed to maintain the same level of success.

The only exception is if they feel they'll end up getting more back by putting more in, hence why something like Pokemon and even say Minecraft have incredibly modest production values for how successful they are. Similarly until Super Mario Bros Wonder, 2D Mario tended to have lesser production values to the 3D Mario games even though they sold more.

I think Pokemon's production values will continue to rise as they have been over the course of the Switch gen, but its going to be very gradual given the appeal of the game isn't the production values outside of the Pokemon and Trainer designs which very obviously get a lot of focus.

Sonic Racing Crossworlds out of the top 40 for the last 3 weeks. Hurrah!