Yomerodes

This article reminds me of the years of people begging for the 3DS software lineup to "die with honor" long before it did. The truth is, I do like to see a console still getting good and even exclusive support for a long time after the successor is out. A masterpiece like God Of War 2 on PS2 was released months after the PS3 was already out. The whole mania of ending all support for the predecessor the moment the success is ready was just a necessity with unsuccessful consoles or when their last years were particularly bad (i.e. N64 and Wii). In short, I hope the Switch enjoys a good long drawn fadeout like so many greats in the past like the NES and PS2.

Sees Link jumping from a cliff and not opening his glider
(Lol, the guy wants to kill himself hahaha🤣)

Ten seconds later we see Link drowning on the sea
(Ok, now I'm worried for this man😰)

@steely_pete

I can understand being confused. The thing is, the whole "party" system is about developers...and in this page we are talking about distribution.

As far as developing goes, a game can be first party (made by an internal studio of the console maker) second party (made by an external and exclusive studio to the console maker) or third party (made by an external and non exclusive studio to the console maker).

As far as distribution goes, you only have two groups. 1) Games published by the console maker, 2) Games published by any other company. And sometimes, as we see in this article, the two groups are called first and third party respectively for simplicity sake, further increasing confusion. It is in this part were things get a little messy because the very same game can have many different publishers depending on the region or even the console and year of release, while the developers of course remain the same as long as the game itself is the same.

@Deviant-Dork

Oh, so your issue is about remaining on point then. If the article is about million sellers we also shouldn't go around mentioning any game that is not a million seller?

@Deviant-Dork

I never said they were first party. They are "games published by Nintendo", that is, in one or more regions. I was surprised with a few of them to be honest.

It would be easier to count the Nintendo retail published games that are not in the million club:
-Snipperclips
-Advance Wars (too early to say for sure I suppose)
-Fire Emblem Warriors
-Tokyo Mirage Sessions
-Hyrule Warriors
-That DC supergirls game.
-Dragon Quest XI
-Dragon Quest Builders 1 and 2.
-Sushi Striker
-Labo Robot, Vehicle and VR.
-Daemon X Machina
-Mario Rabidds Spark of Hope
-Go Vacation
-Bravely Default 2

Of course, some of this games, most notably perhaps DQ sold more than a million when you combine all the versions and all the regions...but Nintendo in the info that they share only counts the sales on the region they are publishing the game, so DQ XI for example on the Switch was unable to reach the big number outside of Japan. Same thing with games like Machina or Go Vacation, the sales numbers of Japan and the rest of the world are not combined in the reports...not that I think those two would reach the million even then, unfortunately.

The same deal explains SMT V position on the list. The game sold worldwide more than a million a long time ago...but Nintendo published the game only in PAL regions and in that market it just barely reached the million copies

Bah, never was much of a fan of Penny Arcade anyway.

Speaking with a little more brain and less heart, there is I believe a big factor making this movie a success in countries like mine, our beloved Mexico.

In the past decade and half, not only the rental stores were killed by streaming platforms, but the whole movies in discs market collapsed. How the disc market affects a new theater release like Mario? Piracy, movie piracy was rampant in this country for most of the past 20 years. You could practically buy in any corner store fairly serviceable copies of newly released movies days after the theatre premier, if not before. And they would cost you only a buck or two. Therefore, parents could get their families entertainment giants like Zootopia or Moana for cheap and make everyone at home happy. The practice was so widespread that you would sometimes see public schools or hospitals using those kind movies as officially endorsed entertainment.

But with the pandemic, and the rise of smart tvs, people started to forget discs. Too much clutter you see, why get those pieces of plastic or hook/move/repair your old DVD/blu-ray to give your child entertainment when they can view the same old repeats of Peppa Pig Spiderman or Paw Patrol again and again. And with that we have a market with no easy access to pirate movies, with children that spend two years growing in a world in which the regular state of entertainment is to see a movie like Encanto one...two...three times and many more just because they love "No se habla de Bruno".

And the result is this. Kids like the movie, they want to see it again...and again...and again. Ticket prices are less of a hassle than searching for a serviceable copy of the movie in the web that will likely be taken down in a few hours or days, not to mention hooking the smartphone to the TV, they just don't bother and instead go to the cinema to see it...one...two...and many more times just because they love "Peaches Peaches..."

People take their entire families to see it...and families in Mexico are BIG. I for one, my girlfriend, and all my nieces with their parents saw it two times already, once in English 2D and once again in Spanish "4DX". We required an entire row of seats.

There are a few things to consider here...

More than any other movie, I think The Mario movie shows us how different the movie and game industry is in the critic sense. In gaming you can have a relatively simple and archaic masterpiece like Tetris or Tecmo Super Bowl share the spotlight with a masterpiece like Super Mario 3, OOT or Last of Us, in short, the game reviewers have a very different way to review something like Madden, COD or a new Sonic game. In movie verse, perhaps because critics wholeheartedly believe the craft is art, they review the thing with a more absolute mindset. Sport movies, comedies, animation, dramas, period pieces, super hero movies...they are all sized with the same tools.
Because of that you have many people saying things like Space Jam (90s) or Armageddon are the best movies ever, and yet, critics would fall from their chair laughing from that notion.

Another thing I think we see here is the bandwagon mentality. When the first negative reviews started, I believe many sites just climbed on the negative train just from sheer impulse. Otherwise they risked the shame of being ridiculed for looking like simpletons or fanboys. When the movie proved to be a megahit and likely to reach the billion in little time, you can bet many sites (including this one XD) wish they have given the movie a higher mark, if nothing else to ride this time the winning bandwagon.

Got the VR basic set, and got far more than enough hours of sheer entertainment for the 40 bucks. In fact, I did my very own and working versions of the elephant, camera and rc Car/toy using my own recycled cardboard.

Never bothered with the other sets though. As far as Labo goes, I wouldn't brand it a failure, just 4 more games on the system that came, sold mildly for a couple of years and were discontinued because they required more store space than your average game. The fact that no more games used the toy cons speak little of the success of the experiment. Take Ring Fit Adventure, the game was and still is a sales juggernaut, and yet the ring perioheral doesn't work with anything else.

Just saw it this weekend with my wife. I think the voice fits in the role of "the man before he was a legend" way. Now for the sequels, we shall see how it does it.

I'd say, stick with Mario. We are right now seeing how this whole craze for shared universes and pulling "5 year plans" of content can saturate the market and sink millions in overpriced productions and films released just because they were contractual obligations. Take it one at a time, and go with the Moustache.

As everyone, I am hoping for something amazing from this trailer coming from that legendary 2017 January trailer. Unlike most, I was also rather indifferent towards BOTW with all the 2015-2016 footage, it was that last trailer that made my a believer, wo I hope history repeats itself.

@Bunkerneath
You must have pretty low expectations for the game if you believe that 3 minutes of footage could give you enough to make playing the game unnecessary.

@Bret
In all fairness, while BOTW had no direct, it had one better: an E3 entirely for itself. Seriously, remember Nintendo lineup at E3 2016? It was all and only Breath of the Wild, all the demos, all the screens, all the discussion , all the reports of Nintendo presence at that event were for just that single game.

Seems like a proof of concept video, particularly the JSR part. While the footage might as well be real, it doesn't mean a the game itself is real. Same as Link fighting Ganondorf in 2000, or FFVII on PS3, or this footage from Zelda on Wii U:
https://youtu.be/UGSKW4d1kbI
You look at that without context and you would think a Twilight Princess full blown remake was in the works for Wii U.

I might be in the minority here, but I was equally underwhelmed with most of the BOTW trailers, the old E3 gameplay showcases did nothing for me. It was not until that incredible 2017 Switch presentation trailer that I was on board with the game (and even then, I waited months to get it). With Tears I am in the same plane, all this gameplay trailers do little to increase my interest and I doubt they can achieve such a perfect story trailer again, but we shall see.

So there was no final recommendation, this was the last of the countdown?

@Poodlestargenerica

Here goes my theory as for why many dislike the idea of this game.
Going from the notion that videogames are escapist fantasies for many, they want to play as idealized characters: handsome guys, muscular dudes, sexy voluptuous honeys, or even if they are losers or weirdos, they have their redepmtion arc to bring them peace. On the other hand, they see Gollum, and just picture a grotesque being, smelly, weak and scrawny, and they want nothing to do with it.

One thing I dislike is how after Engage release many gamers, fans and press are making this absolute divide of: Story/characters vs gameplay...and particularly, how Story/characters is somewhat intrinsecally tied to the whole "social sim" "waifu simulator" and "dating sim" aspect of the franchise etc.

If anything, those two parts have very little to do with each other. Awakening was a hit in part because people loved the character dynamics and the great flexibility in support options but pretty much everyone agreed the story was lackluster. Radiant Dawn soryline is considered rather good and the cast is dearly beloved as a whole, but their supports system is laughably simple and half the cast never says anything after the very chapter they are introduced. Fates characters are widely mocked for making a circus and illogical mess of its whole second generation gimmick...and the story is widely mocked for being a crazy pastiche of ideas when it was hyped as "too big and complex that it needs three games (plus extra paid DLC)".

And then we have 3 Houses and Engage. Both 3 Houses and Engage have a story full of twists, surprises, betrayal, loss and the like. Happy moments, sad moments, nostalgia bait you name it. But speaking of the characters, the cast of 3 Houses is more beloved not because you play as an authority figure that can bed pretty much any student you fancy after they turn 18. It is beloved because the characters are far more likeable and more evolved from the two dimentional caricatures the franchise is well known for, and since you spend so much time with them (perhaps tediously, begrudgingly, repetitively) you see how they change and how they mature, and not unlike a real professor finally you feel happy for them when they have a happy ending at the end of the game...but more importantly, you feel bad when you see how they fail...or worse, they die. And unlike any other game in the franchise, your direct decisions and triumphs instead of your mistakes will cause the death of at least some of your beloved main characters, perhaps of many of them.

Fantastic idea for a list, but I would add it would benefit greatly from a video.

I think when people whine about video articles in Nintendolife is when you make an article about this "Three games that we miss from Dreamcast etc etc" or the like, that give far too much video for just a couple of games. But here, we are talking about dozens of games spanning 5 decades, and a video would not only compliment the list well but also give us an incredible visual reminder of videogame evolution, a truly history lesson.

For comparison sake, Three Houses numbers at the same period (three weeks) were: 19,616 / 198,550.

On the other hand, some people are still waiting for the sequel to the game that was announced before the movie was even released XD.

Such negativity, look at the bright side, less waiting times for us and the kiddos that can get in the ride.

I have 13 games from that list...and not a single one of them in digital format. I pass, first party games get better discounts at brick stores than this. At least in the continental U.S., you can find half of this catalogue for 50 every day at Wal Mart, and Best Buy reduces the 60 to 44 every once in awhile.

My biggest gripe is how little most of the levels and enemies had to do with the Nintendo brands themselves. It made it a chore, and something with little replay value. A game like this should have scrolling stages like Clock Tower from Castlevania or Emerald Hill Zone...instead we have Mario and co. Trekking across The Cave or Ancient Temple.

I would prefer something like Melee adventure mode, but with some radical changes, since that mode would hardly work with the +80 current characters in Ultimate. The best compromise would be to create one or two quick small side scrolling stages for each big universe in the game, but only play a small selection of them each time you play, to avoid attrition and give you reason to replay the game to see all the stages and replay your favorites.

I have never played Wonder Boy game, have no interest in this collection, and I do agree pretty much how it stings to spend money in a product just to learn that a superior version that makes your previous version obsolete is just around the corner, and even then, if the game itself is that good, I go for it, like how I got both Theathrythm Final Fantasy games on 3DS.

BUT, I do believe this particular review is badly written, even for a mini. The first paragraph reads as a continuation, it lacks introduction, or any kind of opening statement. Including information about how you can find a game 10$ cheaper on "some listings" just doesnt gel with me, it could be said in a feature, a soapbox article, or of course a buying guide, but in a review, it just seems inapropiate.

For the people curious about the actual number, Three Houses sold 143.130 physical copies in the same time period. Impressively small difference.

DQ music is always problematic because of licenses, Square Enix has to pay extra fees to use the songs because they have only partial ownership, same reason why the music selection for Hero was so limited in Smash Ultimate.

The scaling back in social elements seems rather logical, if anything, Three Houses also scaled back the romance element with the removal of S supports for everyone but the protagonist from the main story and Three Hopes was also lesser in romance and bigger in platonic relationship.

Yet, those banal few lines long support conversations are a turn off. Two lines conversations often gives you two dimensional characters. The main strength of Three Houses was in his cast, how almost no character felt like filler, how every one of them had its funny moments, serious moments, cute moments, and overall different vices and virtues explored in the many many dialogue scenes. So far, this and the art direction is making me wary of this Emblem, we shall see how things go when more details become available, perhaps they do show nuanced and interesting characters with little dialogue.

I just finished Royal two days ago, excellent game, had me glued to the Switch to the very end. I played vanilla P4 in the PS2 more than a decade ago, so I am looking forward to revisit Inaba with all the golden extras, and for that measure 5 strikers too for the first time at some point this year.

"Atlus: the company that only counts from 3 "
Bethesda would be proud.

Weird poll 🤔 as others have said, the notion of the of the first two Theathrythm games getting potential ports screams lack of knowledge of that spinoff series.

But more bizarrely, the poll includes a "3DS game" that never released on that system to begin with (Chocobo Racing 3D) and instead was cancelled for that matter.

I suppose this fixes the disconnection issue any time you go to the home menu. Somewhat irritating, but not a big deal. The screen dimming issue is particularly notable in the interrogation scenes, but I thought it was my TV smart lightning getting in the way.

@Sisilly_G

XD Three Hopes never got any DLC, what are you talking about?

Anyway, I was not interested in this game, this DLC announcement does nothing for me, but it is completely expected both in content and announcement timing. After two Fire Emblem (3H and Warriors) games on Switch with season pass, I never not once read someone praising or at least describing Three Hopes for being a "complete experience" or "the whole game for 60 bucks" or something of the sort, instead you either have in one side people who got it asking for DLC, or bizarrely enough, people who never got it thinking It got DLC as we see in the example above. I suppose Nintendo can do far better research than I do, and figures that DLC announcements and comments (even if negative) is a better marketing tool to keep the games name circulating rather than releasing a game without any of that buzz.

@Sisilly_G

OlI get the point of being some cases when all digital makes sense, like with your sister or my mieces. Still, the "substantially lower" is the part that I find amiss here.

As you said, you know at least one kid who lost/was robbed of a physical game and by the looks of it, he is a careful gamer kid, something I can't say of my sister in law daughters. On the other hand, you don't know a single person that has lost an eShop game, because such a thing has never happened, and comparing a situation that happens quite commonly among a fairly sizeable demographic, against a situation that has yet to happen ever, I just can't see how the latter event is in any way or form "more probable". Even delisted game (around 40 in 5 years of Switch eShop) are not lost if you already paid for them, you can redownload them as many times as you want. The same goes for the soon to come 🖤 of Nintendo digital storefronts, you paid them, you can download them as many times as you want. Even the ancient Wii shop channel, if you got Super Mario 64 in November 2006 on Wii, you can still redownload it as many times as you want. Going by probabilities, I would venture that is far easier for the average person with a functioning Wii to still have/easily get ALL the digital games that they paid for in 2006 over the physical games they got at the same time period.

@Sisilly_G

I am not entirely sure your "probability" comparison works in the end. I for one know a couple of young working parents whose children have lost already 5 switch carts. That's 5 times more than the number if times the Switch eShop have gone "kaput" or they have lost a single eShop game. They have now gone completely digital obviously. But still, they want to give their kids the joy of opening a wrapped present at their birthday or the holidays. They were in no small part disappointed that Ring Fit Adventure was only available with a physical cart and they wish it came with a code in a box.

Definitely not for me (I paid 60 bucks for P5R physical when I could get it for half that digital), not for everyone here perhaps, but this releases are useful for at least some people out there.

@Guru_Larry

That is a story mixed with myth, but in the end, is all about time periods. Look at the release date of those games. Aside from the pack in game SMB, all the games came after DQ3, long after that particular game had its time as the best selling and back when the Japanese market was (comparatively speaking) bigger than the western markets, so selling +3 million in a single week was a big deal and 3.8 million total was enough to become the best selling not pack-in game at the time.
Come today, and when you consider that GTA V sold 170 millions you can see how the market has changed and how the Japanese is but a small fraction of it.

As for the legend, is precisely because of the success for it's day of games like DQ3 that companies do release their games at weekend ...not because if some japanese law as the myth goes but just to increase initial sales.

@Matroska

And here we see how it goes both ways.

Compared with the PS3 version, The switch port runs better (stable frame rate) looks better (810 vs 720p) and has far more content (Royal improvements). And compared with the PS4 Royal version (that released not that long ago as you well say) it runs at exactly the same frame rate, has the exact amount of content plus all the paid dlc included, but it does take a hit in resolution. Less than ideal, but an all around solid port.

Oh, and no, the less stable version to play on the toilet is actually the Steam Deck port.

@Snatcher

It's a a biased perception to say "...seem to be acting like it's a sucky port..."it just helps to paint people as some kind of fanboy that neither grasp the video or at worst are spouting nonsense without having seen the facts.

• They not once say anything against the frame rate on the Switch version, it is a rock solid 30 fps, same as the far more powerful PS4 and XBox one, and they clearly said so. Saying "omg, 30 fps is unplayable to some etc etc" is just fanboy straw talk in this particular case. The frame rate for this particular port is PERFECT and they make it clear in the video itself.
• As they clearly show, the only port that actually fails at the frame rate test is the Steam Deck. And is a testament in favor of the Switch port and the video creators opinion of Performance>Resolution that they recommend the Switch version over the Steam Deck version beacusenof this, less resolution, but a rock solid performance makes for a better handled experience.

I'm sorry, but jumping from this positives and the less than ideal resolution, to reach the conclusion of "digital Foundry is saying it sucks"...it sounds like fanboyism, or plain delusionism.

Digital Foundry according to reality: It is a close match, but the best Persona 5 portable experience is on the switch instead of the more expensive and powerful steam deck.

Digital Foundry according to fanboys: Bad resolution, unaccepabwe!

@Shambo

Biggest obstacle for a Siren port is that the series is not only published by Sony but also developed by a Sony first party studio XD. It would be easier to release Eternal Darkness on PS5 than Siren on Switch.

As for Silent Hill, a better HD remaster of 2, 3 and Shattered Memories priced at most on the level of the RE games on Switch would be enough for me.

I for one, get my physical games for the sake of being able to lend them to my friends and family and not using too much of my SD card, so this is definitely not for me.

Speaking of middle ground, I wonder how successful would be the antithesis this kind of strategy: A physical release that is just the cartridge in a disposable plastic bag with at most a small sheet of paper with the legal print. No box, no cover art, just the physical cartridge...a part of me thinks it would be even more of a failure than a code in a box release.

@Chocobo_Shepherd

Nah, they always did:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/01/random_artist_draws_smash_bros_characters_in_the_style_of_cuphead

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/04/gallery_arms_already_has_loads_of_cool_fan-art

Not bad, but my most wanted remaster in this series is by far, Rune Factory Frontier...just remove/fix the runey system and they would be set.

Well, even Monolith ruled out a Xenoblade Chronicles X port because it would be too expensive, I can't hold this against SNK, particularly when they did released possible ports like SS.

The lack of a local (single system) multiplayer option, even as a mini side mode keeps disappointing me with this franchise. Third game, third skip.

@Eel

Three diferent evolutions according to which set of abbilities you prefer: Smeardali, Smearcasso and Smeargoya.

BS F-Zero, for SNES online.

Definitely a winner. While not all songs are perfect, most of them adapt incredibly well to the action. A top notch localization effort, and one that absolutely baffled me back then.

While I was never able to nab the Ouendan games (only japanese DS Game I got was Jump Ultimate Stars), the soundtrack of the first game is amazing, catchy and almost every song is a Jpop contagious beat...Ouendan 2 track list on the other hand, was lacking in comparison.

As far as playable characters, I think Old Snake in MGS4 might be the best example of a playable senior in a mainstream game...but playing with a cranky old man was not all the rage back then.

Perhaps the one who asked for this games was the new investor from Saudi Arabia we heard about recently 🤯🤣