@Agramonte but you could say that on Switch it’s competing against Mario Odyssey and Smash.
The truth is far more nuanced than your comment implies. Spyro sold well - backed by a very expensive marketing campaign and a lot of advertising. Monster Boy sold well with none of that.
How many units could Monster Boy have sold with a bigger advertising campaign? How many units might Spyro have sold on Swith without a marketing campaign? Might that have been more profitable/low risk for Activision?
These are pertinent questions for the publishers. For us as players the key thing is that good games were published and this will induce more publishers to invest in publishing more good games.
Bah, walking through solid walls, invisible death from all angles, enemies and items in unexpected and often inconvenient places... Are they sure they've discovered actual glitches and not just the "Second Quest"?
Let’s look past the lowest of low hanging fruit like Mario Galaxy.
Chibi Robo. Kid Icarus Uprising. Cubivore. Beyond Oasis. Zelda a Link Between Worlds. Donkey Kong Country Returns (should have been part of a bundle with Tropical Freeze!) Kirbys Air Ride. Captain Rainbow.
@Cobalt if you track the figures and give away the (commercially valuable) details freely I’m sure NintendoLife will be happy to report them every week.
Unfortunately, in the absence of you personally doing that for us, Japan is the only country where this level of data is available.
I’d suggest that Japanese data is more important for us to know than, say, the UK because success in that market determines whether or not a console gets major games from Japanese developers. Success in the UK doesn’t mean too much to players in comparison.
Of course at this point the Switch is clearly a success of historic proportions and exact figures of sales don’t matter too much anymore. Even for Nintendo themselves - the people who buy a lot of games are already on the Switch train. The stragglers are less lucrative (but still worth pursuing).
Games that sell 10 million units typically have to sell 10 million. They might make big profits in absolute terms but the actual margins are often wafer thin.
Games like Celeste are vastly more lucrative for creators at this moment in time. They don’t have to sell comparable numbers for that to be the case.
The ultimate result is that the “niche” of indie games is more than just viable - it’s thriving and set up to continue growing.
@Agramonte I’d say it shows how profitable and potentially lucrative they can be now.
It’s a game that can’t have cost more than a million to make. A AAA game can cost 50-100 times as much with no realistic chance of selling more than 10 million units.
It's such a shame that Limited Run Games are so expensive to have delivered to the UK. I bought Axiom Verge in the shops here and it would have been nice to have that option for a few other games on the e-shop.
I think it's a shame in general that great games like Celeste and Golf Story aren't given a real physical release but I understand why. I don't consider Limited Run to be a "real" publisher. They're just producing physical copies of games as cool premium collectables for a niche audience.
I'd buy this. If it were based on an alien planet. In the next nearest solar system to our own. And featured an fanatical leader called Miriam, network nodes and alien mind worms.
Give me that I might just drop out of real life for a bit!
@gcunit it’s M2. I half expect the original versions for all regions thrown in alongside the Master System versions and the Brazil only version where you play as a flying squirrel.
@Octane whilst you’re not wrong I would suggest there is a more subtle picture beneath the numbers.
There are no third party games on those lists because they didn’t release anything good enough to compete on Nintendo platforms. Third parties invested big on games that never came to Nintendo platforms and the games that did come to Nintendo platforms (and which were strong well made games not significantly hobbled from versions on other platforms) weren’t matched with the marketing expertise or advertising budget needed to really push them up those lists.
At the same time we know that many third parties had major successes on Wii and DS. Ubisoft with Just Dance for instance. I have to assume Sims games sold well on DS too because there were tons of them!
@PokeMario we all get things wrong sometimes. We don’t all write statistically illiterate things that are completely ignorant of basic facts about how the games industry operates that get published on a major gaming website.
Seriously, even at the time I thought it was a stupid article likely to be shown up and it had become comical long before the Wii U headed off it’s mortal coil. Today it’s absolutely farcical to revisit.
@ecco6t9 Ah the Sega vault where the zombified remains of Super Monkey Ball, Alex Kidd, Jet Set Radio, Space Harrier and Outrun will rip Yakuza limb from limb and feast on the brains.
@NEStalgia I don't remember the play by email mode (though it probably had one) but I do remember that Deirdre had a network node.
Such a great game - in many ways the high point of the series (although Civ IV was probably superior overall and has the amazing Fall From Heaven II mod).
I've not played Civ V or VI. In another life when I had time this release on Switch would be terrible news because it would steal all of my time.
@RadioHedgeFund I had a similar thing on the original Pokémon Red & Blue for the GameBoy. I figured out that if you get all 150 Pokemon and then go to the van that’s parked in the city by the SS Anne then use a Machop with “Strength” you can push the van out of the way! And underneath once i did this I found Mew!!!
I don’t think anyone else has ever thought to try this despite the game being out for more than 20 years now!
@MegaVel91 unfortunately the only lesson you have to learn from games that “do it right” like Fortnite is that if your game is huge then it can work. Those games can only work because of their scale and they pound the rest of the industry that can’t match their economies of scale into the dirt as a result.
Great for Epic and players of Fortnite (& Nintendo and players of Pokémon Go) but terrible for everyone else. It salts the Earth.
Super Mario Run is a great game. I loved it - toad rally feels in many ways like the culmination of the Mario series. They got a few things wrong - the always online thing, the number of levels in the demo, the price being a few pounds too high - but, sadly, the main thing they got wrong was over estimating the audience on mobile platforms.
I’ve not really touched a mobile gaming app since buying my Switch and I think I’m unlikely to ever go back to them in the future.
@Crono1973 I don’t need to come up with anything more than I have. Nintendo owns the rights. We’re free to disagree with their pricing but they’re free to set it. It’s their legal and moral right.
Everyone knows that. Some are happy to take regardless while others live in denial. I don’t really care either way.
The questions about costs of production and value are interesting but they’re not the questions you’re interested in debating.
You’re mistaking the cost of production with the marketable value though. Anyone can produce unlimited copies of a ROM but only Nintendo - holding the licenses for those games can legally sell them. And it’s within their gift to set whatever price protects their position in the industry.
@Crono1973 the limited numbers of resold games (& the market determined price) means that the inherent value of Nintendo’s games isn’t unduly undermined.
A ROM on the other hand can be copied a million times and downloaded for free as soon as a game is released. It erodes the value of Nintendo’s games so it’s obvious why they would oppose ROM sites.
@Wanjia copywrite law already has a time out period of the sort you’re describing. 100 years from now Little Sampson will be well and truly in the public domain for anyone to legally download and play!
@Nehalem they’ll get there eventually. It’s also possible they won’t and they’ll make up the difference by increasingly bundling in software like Mario Odyssey.
@blockfight I wouldn’t have. It’s much more expensive than the competition at this point in it’s life cycle and doesn’t benefit from a marketing budget on the same level. Or, crucially the cumulative effect of the marketing budgets of big 3rd party AAA releases (the really important part of the AAA model - far more so than lacking the games themselves).
When the Switch is available at 2/3rds the price (or in attractive bundles equivalent to that) it’ll start to dominate the unit sales... But fall behind in value of sales.
@NinjaWaddleDee I think the original Grandia is one of the only RPGs in which I’ve actually really looked forward to getting in a turn based battle. It’s a genuinely fun and involved system that rewards your time.
The story and characters are pretty good fun too.
I probably wouldn’t quite put it in the very top tier of jRPGs but it’s definitely towards the top of the second tier.
@PanurgeJr absolutely. We’re not the sizeable minority. We’re the 1%. Most (the majority) people don’t buy a game a month. They buy one every 6 months.
Mario Kart 8 could very realistically sell more than a million units for each of the next 5 years. That game (& Pokémon) are the games that will sell the next 30 million Switches. A lot of Switches will never have much more than those two games inserted.
Realistically there’s no way they’re going to significantly fragment the platform they’ve only just created for the sake of 3rd parties who might not come (& certainly Nintendo can’t attract the audience that buys those games to buy on a Nintendo platform over a Sony or Microsoft one).
A “Switch Pro” in 2020 means that devs have 3/4 specs to target but that’s just about doable...
@Razer seriously though the thing about “PC exclusives” in the year 2018 (or indeed any exclusive on any format) is that they’re rarely exclusive for technical reasons. Since everything is made in middleware and all “consoles” are just bespoke PCs games can be pretty easily made to work on anything.
The reasons for not porting are; audience, sales projections, interface (I.e needing a keyboard and mouse or a touch screen or a physical controller or a kinnect etc.) or other marketing arrangements. It’s the interface that would keep a game like Starcraft off Switch.
It’s a different world from the 16 but era when a game like Sonic simply wouldn’t have been possible on SNES and a game like Super Castlevania couldn’t have been done on the Mega Drive.
@Razer hey - the PC got the exclusive Mario game “Mario teaches typing”. The master race got the best in the series and it’s been a PC exclusive ever since...
Comments 652
Re: Rumour: Legendary Entertainment Has Plans For More Live-Action Pokémon Movies
@Spectra a fantastic Green Lantern? A fantastic “whatever he was supposed to be” in Wolverine Origins?
Re: Talking Point: What Does The Bungie Divorce From Activision Blizzard Mean For Nintendo?
Directly: nothing.
Indirectly every time a AAA publisher becomes a bit weaker and another smaller publisher springs up with popular IP its a good thing for Nintendo.
Re: Monster Boy Sales On The Nintendo Switch Are In "Another Universe"
@Agramonte but you could say that on Switch it’s competing against Mario Odyssey and Smash.
The truth is far more nuanced than your comment implies. Spyro sold well - backed by a very expensive marketing campaign and a lot of advertising. Monster Boy sold well with none of that.
How many units could Monster Boy have sold with a bigger advertising campaign? How many units might Spyro have sold on Swith without a marketing campaign? Might that have been more profitable/low risk for Activision?
These are pertinent questions for the publishers. For us as players the key thing is that good games were published and this will induce more publishers to invest in publishing more good games.
Re: Video: Unlocking The "Minus Worlds" In The NES Version Of The Legend Of Zelda
Bah, walking through solid walls, invisible death from all angles, enemies and items in unexpected and often inconvenient places... Are they sure they've discovered actual glitches and not just the "Second Quest"?
Re: Feature: 17 Remasters We'd Love To See On Switch In 2019
Let’s look past the lowest of low hanging fruit like Mario Galaxy.
Chibi Robo.
Kid Icarus Uprising.
Cubivore.
Beyond Oasis.
Zelda a Link Between Worlds.
Donkey Kong Country Returns (should have been part of a bundle with Tropical Freeze!)
Kirbys Air Ride.
Captain Rainbow.
Re: Japanese Charts: Smash Bros. Ultimate Stays In Top Spot While Switch Maintains Momentum
@Cobalt if you track the figures and give away the (commercially valuable) details freely I’m sure NintendoLife will be happy to report them every week.
Unfortunately, in the absence of you personally doing that for us, Japan is the only country where this level of data is available.
I’d suggest that Japanese data is more important for us to know than, say, the UK because success in that market determines whether or not a console gets major games from Japanese developers. Success in the UK doesn’t mean too much to players in comparison.
Of course at this point the Switch is clearly a success of historic proportions and exact figures of sales don’t matter too much anymore. Even for Nintendo themselves - the people who buy a lot of games are already on the Switch train. The stragglers are less lucrative (but still worth pursuing).
Re: Indie Hit Celeste Sold Over 500,000 Copies In 2018
@Agramonte I think you’ve missed the point.
Games that sell 10 million units typically have to sell 10 million. They might make big profits in absolute terms but the actual margins are often wafer thin.
Games like Celeste are vastly more lucrative for creators at this moment in time. They don’t have to sell comparable numbers for that to be the case.
The ultimate result is that the “niche” of indie games is more than just viable - it’s thriving and set up to continue growing.
Re: Indie Hit Celeste Sold Over 500,000 Copies In 2018
@Agramonte I’d say it shows how profitable and potentially lucrative they can be now.
It’s a game that can’t have cost more than a million to make. A AAA game can cost 50-100 times as much with no realistic chance of selling more than 10 million units.
Re: Square Enix Preparing Dragon Quest XI S Surprise For 1st January
New challenger approaching:
@GrailUK ‘s dentist is removing teeth!
Re: Video: Here's The Only Technical Analysis Of Smash Bros. Ultimate You'll Need
@GrailUK see you in 6 days 19 hours 24 seconds. If you’re going to call everyone back you have to get the time right.
Re: Limited Run Games Releasing Physical Editions Of Celeste And Windjammers
It's such a shame that Limited Run Games are so expensive to have delivered to the UK. I bought Axiom Verge in the shops here and it would have been nice to have that option for a few other games on the e-shop.
I think it's a shame in general that great games like Celeste and Golf Story aren't given a real physical release but I understand why. I don't consider Limited Run to be a "real" publisher. They're just producing physical copies of games as cool premium collectables for a niche audience.
Re: 2K Confirms Civilization VI On Nintendo Switch Will Not Include Online Multiplayer
I'd buy this. If it were based on an alien planet. In the next nearest solar system to our own. And featured an fanatical leader called Miriam, network nodes and alien mind worms.
Give me that I might just drop out of real life for a bit!
Re: SEGA AGES Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Might Be The Best Version We've Ever Had
@gcunit it’s M2. I half expect the original versions for all regions thrown in alongside the Master System versions and the Brazil only version where you play as a flying squirrel.
Re: M2 Reveals The Nintendo Switch "Can Already Run" Sega Naomi Titles
There's going the extra yard and there's going the extra mile and there's going however far M2 go.
Re: Here Are The Top 10 Best-Selling Games For Wii U, 3DS, Wii And Nintendo DS (As Of September 2018)
@PokeMario I know. I was nodding along in text.
The person who wrote the article for Polygon is the one who wrote the crazy things. Honestly I still can't believe they published it!
Projected sales 1.26 million. Actual sales: 8.42 million on Wii U alone
https://www.polygon.com/2014/5/15/5718168/mario-kart-series-sales
Re: Here Are The Top 10 Best-Selling Games For Wii U, 3DS, Wii And Nintendo DS (As Of September 2018)
@Octane whilst you’re not wrong I would suggest there is a more subtle picture beneath the numbers.
There are no third party games on those lists because they didn’t release anything good enough to compete on Nintendo platforms. Third parties invested big on games that never came to Nintendo platforms and the games that did come to Nintendo platforms (and which were strong well made games not significantly hobbled from versions on other platforms) weren’t matched with the marketing expertise or advertising budget needed to really push them up those lists.
At the same time we know that many third parties had major successes on Wii and DS. Ubisoft with Just Dance for instance. I have to assume Sims games sold well on DS too because there were tons of them!
Re: Here Are The Top 10 Best-Selling Games For Wii U, 3DS, Wii And Nintendo DS (As Of September 2018)
@PokeMario we all get things wrong sometimes. We don’t all write statistically illiterate things that are completely ignorant of basic facts about how the games industry operates that get published on a major gaming website.
Seriously, even at the time I thought it was a stupid article likely to be shown up and it had become comical long before the Wii U headed off it’s mortal coil. Today it’s absolutely farcical to revisit.
Re: New Data From Nintendo Shows The True Selling Power Of Switch's Evergreen Titles
@cyrus_zuo I think from a mass market perspective Pokémon and Animal Crossing will shift mega units. They’re huge evergreen titles.
From a core gamers perspective we know that the best teams at Nintendo are working on new projects. Hopefully even new IP.
I think 2019 and 2020 will be two of the biggest years Nintendo has ever had.
Re: Bubsy The Bobcat Brings His Next Adventure To The Nintendo Switch In 2019
@ilikeike It's the worst possible timeline... As if you really needed to ask!
Re: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Direct Announced For 1st November
That's a long time just to unveil Shrek and Goku as playable fighters.
Re: Feature: Rainway CEO On Streaming, Switch And Clearing The Air Over 'That' Trailer
@Bizzyb Their biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to Microsoft's own. Resistance is futile.
Re: Sega Wants Simultaneous Video Game Releases Worldwide
@ecco6t9 Ah the Sega vault where the zombified remains of Super Monkey Ball, Alex Kidd, Jet Set Radio, Space Harrier and Outrun will rip Yakuza limb from limb and feast on the brains.
Re: Ubisoft Eager To Find Out Most Loved Mario Characters In New Subscriber Survey
Bowsette please Ubi. Thanks!
Re: It Sucks To Say It, But Castlevania Requiem Isn't Coming To Switch
Sony used the Konami code: up, up, $, $ start, start
Re: Feature: Five Lessons From The Tokyo Game Show 2018
@Lord Because they're cool to look at?
Re: Jet Set Radio Series Tops Sega AGES Poll As Most Wanted Retro Release
@Eef I know. It’s probably my number one most wanted Sega port. It’d be perfect on Switch.
The real question though is where is Chu Chu Rocket? Switch was made for that game.
Re: Turn-Based Strategy Game Civilization VI Is Headed To Switch This November
@NEStalgia I don't remember the play by email mode (though it probably had one) but I do remember that Deirdre had a network node.
Such a great game - in many ways the high point of the series (although Civ IV was probably superior overall and has the amazing Fall From Heaven II mod).
I've not played Civ V or VI. In another life when I had time this release on Switch would be terrible news because it would steal all of my time.
Re: Hollow Knight Developers Don't Mind If You Miss Secrets In Their Game
@RadioHedgeFund I had a similar thing on the original Pokémon Red & Blue for the GameBoy. I figured out that if you get all 150 Pokemon and then go to the van that’s parked in the city by the SS Anne then use a Machop with “Strength” you can push the van out of the way! And underneath once i did this I found Mew!!!
I don’t think anyone else has ever thought to try this despite the game being out for more than 20 years now!
Re: Review: Freedom Planet (Switch eShop)
@riChchestM because NL doesn’t want Mitch to be poached by IGN?
Re: Bethesda's Pete Hines Says Switch Game Releases Have Been A Huge Success
@Angelic_Lapras_King being frozen in anticipation of a post nuclear wasteland adventure is the canon reason why Waluigi isn’t in Smash.
Re: Miyamoto Regrets Design Choices Made During Development Of Super Mario Run
@MegaVel91 unfortunately the only lesson you have to learn from games that “do it right” like Fortnite is that if your game is huge then it can work. Those games can only work because of their scale and they pound the rest of the industry that can’t match their economies of scale into the dirt as a result.
Great for Epic and players of Fortnite (& Nintendo and players of Pokémon Go) but terrible for everyone else. It salts the Earth.
Super Mario Run is a great game. I loved it - toad rally feels in many ways like the culmination of the Mario series. They got a few things wrong - the always online thing, the number of levels in the demo, the price being a few pounds too high - but, sadly, the main thing they got wrong was over estimating the audience on mobile platforms.
I’ve not really touched a mobile gaming app since buying my Switch and I think I’m unlikely to ever go back to them in the future.
Re: Nintendo And ROM Website Owner Looking To Avoid Lengthy Court Proceedings
@Crono1973 I don’t need to come up with anything more than I have. Nintendo owns the rights. We’re free to disagree with their pricing but they’re free to set it. It’s their legal and moral right.
Everyone knows that. Some are happy to take regardless while others live in denial. I don’t really care either way.
The questions about costs of production and value are interesting but they’re not the questions you’re interested in debating.
Re: Nintendo And ROM Website Owner Looking To Avoid Lengthy Court Proceedings
@Crono1973 I’m sure they are making a fortune!
You’re mistaking the cost of production with the marketable value though. Anyone can produce unlimited copies of a ROM but only Nintendo - holding the licenses for those games can legally sell them. And it’s within their gift to set whatever price protects their position in the industry.
Re: Nintendo And ROM Website Owner Looking To Avoid Lengthy Court Proceedings
@Crono1973 ROMs have no value - they can’t be legally sold.
They have a perceived value because they are games you’d normally have to pay a high price for.
Re: Nintendo And ROM Website Owner Looking To Avoid Lengthy Court Proceedings
@Crono1973 the limited numbers of resold games (& the market determined price) means that the inherent value of Nintendo’s games isn’t unduly undermined.
A ROM on the other hand can be copied a million times and downloaded for free as soon as a game is released. It erodes the value of Nintendo’s games so it’s obvious why they would oppose ROM sites.
Re: Nintendo And ROM Website Owner Looking To Avoid Lengthy Court Proceedings
@Wanjia copywrite law already has a time out period of the sort you’re describing. 100 years from now Little Sampson will be well and truly in the public domain for anyone to legally download and play!
Re: Nintendo Grabbed Every Top Ten Spot In Japanese Charts Last Week, Minecraft On Top
Salesbowl grand slam!!!
Re: Random: Amazon's Gaming Pre-Order Discount Cancellation Sparks Nintendo Sale Surge
@Not_Soos this goes some way to explaining Bezos’ Space One project...
Re: Last Month The Nintendo Switch Was The Top-Selling System
@Nehalem they’ll get there eventually. It’s also possible they won’t and they’ll make up the difference by increasingly bundling in software like Mario Odyssey.
Re: Switch Physical Game Sales Increase As Octopath Traveler Crowned July's Best-Selling Game
@GrailUK easy answer - they’re not planning to. They’re hoping to drip feed Switches into the market via eBay resellers at 200% mark up. Cha ching!
Re: Last Month The Nintendo Switch Was The Top-Selling System
@blockfight I wouldn’t have. It’s much more expensive than the competition at this point in it’s life cycle and doesn’t benefit from a marketing budget on the same level. Or, crucially the cumulative effect of the marketing budgets of big 3rd party AAA releases (the really important part of the AAA model - far more so than lacking the games themselves).
When the Switch is available at 2/3rds the price (or in attractive bundles equivalent to that) it’ll start to dominate the unit sales... But fall behind in value of sales.
Re: Last Month The Nintendo Switch Was The Top-Selling System
Nintendo’s headed to the 2018 Salesbowl!!!
Can’t wait until Reggies waving his championship ring in the face of those Sony & XBox fanboys!!!
We’re all going to Disneyla... er Universal Studios!!!
Re: HD Remaster Of Grandia And Dreamcast Sequel Revealed For Nintendo Switch
@NinjaWaddleDee I think the original Grandia is one of the only RPGs in which I’ve actually really looked forward to getting in a turn based battle. It’s a genuinely fun and involved system that rewards your time.
The story and characters are pretty good fun too.
I probably wouldn’t quite put it in the very top tier of jRPGs but it’s definitely towards the top of the second tier.
Re: Japanese Analyst Predicts Switch Sales To Surpass Nintendo's Forecast
@PanurgeJr absolutely. We’re not the sizeable minority. We’re the 1%. Most (the majority) people don’t buy a game a month. They buy one every 6 months.
Mario Kart 8 could very realistically sell more than a million units for each of the next 5 years. That game (& Pokémon) are the games that will sell the next 30 million Switches. A lot of Switches will never have much more than those two games inserted.
Re: Head Of Abstraction Games Addresses Technical Performance Of The Switch
@electrolite77 that seems like a reasonable plan.
Realistically there’s no way they’re going to significantly fragment the platform they’ve only just created for the sake of 3rd parties who might not come (& certainly Nintendo can’t attract the audience that buys those games to buy on a Nintendo platform over a Sony or Microsoft one).
A “Switch Pro” in 2020 means that devs have 3/4 specs to target but that’s just about doable...
Re: Random: How Much Would It Cost To Buy A House In Breath Of The Wild In Real Life?
@MichaelHarvey they say Boris Johnson killed Angela Merkle with his voice!
Re: Random: How Much Would It Cost To Buy A House In Breath Of The Wild In Real Life?
@Mortenb killjoy.
Of course there can’t be exact equivalence when one world has quasi magic rules arbitrarily set by a team of invisible directors behind the scenes.
The other is a video game.
Re: Blizzard's StarCraft Series Unlikely To Be Released On Nintendo Switch
@Razer seriously though the thing about “PC exclusives” in the year 2018 (or indeed any exclusive on any format) is that they’re rarely exclusive for technical reasons. Since everything is made in middleware and all “consoles” are just bespoke PCs games can be pretty easily made to work on anything.
The reasons for not porting are; audience, sales projections, interface (I.e needing a keyboard and mouse or a touch screen or a physical controller or a kinnect etc.) or other marketing arrangements. It’s the interface that would keep a game like Starcraft off Switch.
It’s a different world from the 16 but era when a game like Sonic simply wouldn’t have been possible on SNES and a game like Super Castlevania couldn’t have been done on the Mega Drive.
Re: Blizzard's StarCraft Series Unlikely To Be Released On Nintendo Switch
@Razer hey - the PC got the exclusive Mario game “Mario teaches typing”. The master race got the best in the series and it’s been a PC exclusive ever since...
Re: Random: How Much Would It Cost To Buy A House In Breath Of The Wild In Real Life?
I’m confused. In this analogy is the “calamity” Brexit or Trump?