Remember when Splatoon was supposed to fail?

[Switch]

This gen would mark the era for the end of the console under the TV and mobile sector would take over.

Online gaming wouldn't take off. Yeah right, Miyamoto-san.

The 32X is the only true mass market console and will sell millions... Thanks for nothing Tom K.

MS was selling the Xbox division and pulling out.

Kinect and the $500 million dollars MS wasted on a unit that never worked.

Xbox One Cloud

 

[rochellepaws]

I remember a lot of excitement with Splatoon, it was the first big new IP Nintendo had shown for a long time and had a very positive E3 reveal. I don't remember it being a popular view that it would fail at all, but I suppose those people exist for every game.

 

[Deleted member 36622]

Splatoon isn't a very good example. It was just a few people taking the opportunity to shit on the Wii U.

I don't know if this was a popular opinion at the time, but I thought the Vita would at least be a modest success and hold sales pace with the 3DS.

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Are you kidding me? I remember those years everyone (gamers, journalists, even some of the developers) took the chance to poop on Nintendo, as a company but also trashing all their IPs because they didn't move hardware units, so they must be not appealing enough, right?

What a shitshow that was. Switch proved all these people were dead wrong.

 

[Deleted member 4208]

From what I remember the people who actually played it at the E3 booth after its reveal were very positive about the game, and it was just a vocal minority composed of forum posters who were all

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[Deleted member 4886]

I don't recall anyone saying it was going to fail, and after the first testfire. Nearly everyone loved it, no idea where that came from.

 

[TheMrPliskin]

I don't. I only really remember it generating a lot of excitement due to it being a really unique looking new IP. I don't doubt there were people who said it would fail though,since they exist for every game announcement.

 

[Treasure Silvergun]

People thought the PSP would destroy the DS.

PSP turned out to be pretty successful anyway, but... yeah.

The Game Boy was considered doomed from the start even within Nintendo's own walls, so much that the project was actually canned at one time and only lived on because of the staff's persistence. And when it was confirmed that it would be monochrome, it seemed the writing was on the wall for it even before it launched.

 

[Deleted member 37233]

How is the Switch doing sales wise? I feel like it's lost some momentum in comparison to the Wii and DS, it hasn't quite crossed over into mainstream appeal the way they did.

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If I'm not mistaken the Switch is above the Wii in Japan and the US at least (launch aligned).

 

[shinken]

Mario Kart 8 and polygon lmao. Whoever has that chart please post it. They estimated it wouldn't sell even half (3 million) at the time i believe . And look at it now. A juggernaut.

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Polygon projected Mario Kart 8 to sell 1.26m copies on the Wii U. It's sold 8.42m on Wii U alone. And over 23m copies including the Switch version. This number will only continue to grow.

 

[Aostia82]

It happens
The important thing is to predict in good faith

I predicted the switch to fail at that price while..
On the other hand, I predicted the 3ds to beat the crap out of vita and I was right

I predicted the wiiu to be the last nintendo home console and somehow I was right lol

 

[Deleted member 9971]

That and the switch predictions were the ride of my life online wise.

 

[Dragoon]

The Switch is an obvious one.

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Did people actually think this though? It was a console on the go. I didn't think it would sell this much, but the idea from the offset was quite great.

 

[Era of not Yakuza]

what revisionist confirmation bias bullshit is this? There was never significant amounts of people saying Splatoon would fail. Stop limiting your scope to what a handful of posters said on some game forum.

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Remember when 3 or 4 people said they did not like Breath of the Wild and then someone did a thread asking why people's opinions about the game had changed and if the honeymoon period was over?

 

[Sander VF]

Did people actually think this though? It was a console on the go. I didn't think it would sell this much, but the idea from the offset was quite great.

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Yes they did.

And then some continued saying the sales would fall of a cliff for a long while.

And a few still believe it will end up below 3DS via a magic drop off.

 

[KushalaDaora]

Horizon Zero Dawn.

One person even got banned in one of the game sales thread for quoting what seems like every single "bomba" post from the flop prediction thread.

Oh and it was also the first post of the thread, so basically the poster already have the post readied lmao.

 

[Sander VF]

How is the Switch doing sales wise? I feel like it's lost some momentum in comparison to the Wii and DS, it hasn't quite crossed over into mainstream appeal the way they did.

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As of the end of 2018:

 

[NHarmonic.]

No. Actually i felt the vibe was the opposite. Specially after E3 where many people praised it, and showed high level play with it's mechanics.

Still, considering the crap that was the wii u and the low userbase, i can't blame those who thought it could fail.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

Sony's going out of business this generation.

 

[dom]

Polygon projected Mario Kart 8 to sell 1.26m copies on the Wii U. It's sold 8.42m on Wii U alone. And over 23m copies including the Switch version. This number will only continue to grow.

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Nothing wrong with this prediction.

 

[AniHawk]

basically just look at what currently is happening now and predictions sorta/kinda fall in line with that continuing like there's an actual pattern instead of a series of events and consequences and nuances to the world and how stuff works.

it would be easy to point to overt pessimism over nintendo and overt optimism over playstation, but i remember around 2012 there were people expecting the wii u to be a major continuation of the wii, while the ps4 was (and this was before it was announced) going to stick around in third place like the ps3 generally was (sony was coming off the psp, ps3, and ps vita around this time).

i expect that, despite whatever moves microsoft is making to move xbox into the future, the general expectation will be nintendo and sony occupying the lead roles of their own spaces while microsoft is a distant third. i believe that expectation will just come from current sales of hardware and not anything about how the companies are planning their future.

 

[OmegaDL50]

Monster Hunter World lmao.

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Yep. Some of the hottest of takes were result from this.

In retrospect you'd think those specific threads that tried to downplay the games success, such as that one thread that automatically assumed MHXX was a better game just based on the monster count and all of the nonsense saying MH couldn't possibly do well if not on a handheld. So much downplaying from the same suspects every time the game hit a milestone of success.

You even had some folks that convinced in their delusion that MHW wasn't the 5th mainline MH game and was nothing more than a side-title and an *actual* Monster Hunter 5 is coming. Embarrassing.

 

[SuperSah]

The game came out in the May and I bought it in the July, just 2 months later, for £21.99 brand new sealed, in a local Sainsbury's supermarket. They didn't realise what it was and assumed it was a new budget game.

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Crazy! Splatoon 2 is FANTASTIC and was my first Splatoon game. I paid £40 for it on Amazon and regret not a single penny!

 

[jts]

Nothing wrong with this prediction.

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Nothing, besides being shockingly wrong.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

I don't remember Splatoon getting trashed. I bought it day one and it was hands down the best Wii U game.

Wii U owners were proclaiming it's greatness.

 

[shinken]

I don't remember Splatoon getting trashed. I bought it day one and it was hands down the best Wii U game.

Wii U owners were proclaiming it's greatness.

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Erm....there was a prediction thread on Neogaf with over 30 pages of replies. Not everyone was negative, but just from the first page:

Lol, it will bomb.

It will be a miracle if it will sell 1mm worldwide.

It's on Wii U, no lol. I'm expecting w101 levels of bomb.

You mean the next major Nintendo bomba.

Make it free and Splatoon 2 might have a chance.

I expect it to sell around the same as the wonderful 101.

I'll be legit surprised if this game doesn't bomb.

 

[Atheerios]

Yeah, but it's been relegated. In games like Mario Tennis Aces it's clearly inferior to Wii. The joycon tech isn't quite up Wii Motion Plus level motion control.

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Uh no...that's just incorrect. The only thing the Wii Motion Plus added was a gyroscope to complement the controller's accelerometer. ThebJoy-con and the Switch console have both accelerometer and gyroscope built in. And on Switch it's better because you don't need to calibrate it every time.

 

[Barry Sandwich]

Uh no...that's just incorrect. The only thing the Wii Motion Plus added was a gyroscope to complement the controller's accelerometer. ThebJoy-con and the Switch console have both accelerometer and gyroscope built in. And on Switch it's better because you don't need to calibrate it every time.

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So Aces Motion mode was just bad due to design choices?

 

[jts]

Uh no...that's just incorrect. The only thing the Wii Motion Plus added was a gyroscope to complement the controller's accelerometer. ThebJoy-con and the Switch console have both accelerometer and gyroscope built in. And on Switch it's better because you don't need to calibrate it every time.

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Wasn't calibration on the Wii Motion Plus needed mostly for gyro pointer controls? The Switch is not able to do that calibration which is also why pointer controls in general aren't nearly as feasible on it.

 

[Skittzo]

So Aces Motion mode was just bad due to design choices?

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I haven't played it but if we're speaking specifically about the actual technological components used the joycons have everything Wii motion plus did, outside of the IR pointing capability. The gyro and accelerometer modules are newer too so they should be more sensitive.

The software determines how each sensor is used in each game. But I've generally found them to be on par with Wii motion plus when gyro aiming, and definitely a step ahead in games like 1, 2 Switch.

 

[Atheerios]

Wasn't calibration on the Wii Motion Plus needed mostly for gyro pointer controls? The Switch is not able to do that calibration which is also why pointer controls in general aren't nearly as feasible on it.

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You can calibrate it from system settings. Any game can use the Joycon gyro as a pointer if it wanted, just like World of Goo currently does.

 

[Barry Sandwich]

I haven't played it but if we're speaking specifically about the actual technological components used the joycons have everything Wii motion plus did, outside of the IR pointing capability. The gyro and accelerometer modules are newer too so they should be more sensitive.

The software determines how each sensor is used in each game. But I've generally found them to be on par with Wii motion plus when gyro aiming, and definitely a step ahead in games like 1, 2 Switch.

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I guess the jury is out until we get some motion heavy Wii ports.

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

Erm....there was a prediction thread on Neogaf with over 30 pages of replies. Not everyone was negative, but just from the first page:

Lol, it will bomb.

It will be a miracle if it will sell 1mm worldwide.

It's on Wii U, no lol. I'm expecting w101 levels of bomb.

You mean the next major Nintendo bomba.

Make it free and Splatoon 2 might have a chance.

I expect it to sell around the same as the wonderful 101.

I'll be legit surprised if this game doesn't bomb.

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I'm guessing this is before the reveal?

I can see people weighing in on a concept. Mario paintball shooter, yeah right Nintendo. I'm going to guess that's what the predictions were based on and not post reveal footage.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Did people actually think this though? It was a console on the go. I didn't think it would sell this much, but the idea from the offset was quite great.

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In what reality? I would say the number of people who thought the Switch was going to be a monster like the Wii wasn't even outnumbered 2 to 1 on this forum. The number of people who thought the Switch would be a success was far from insignificant unlike the OP's example of Splatoon where derision was overwhelming.

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https://www./threads/betting-time-do-you-think-the-switch-will-be-a-success.1333545/

The joycon tech isn't quite up Wii Motion Plus level motion control.

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I disagree.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

I'm guessing this is before the reveal?

I can see people weighing in on a concept. Mario paintball shooter, yeah right Nintendo. I'm going to guess that's what the predictions were based on and not post reveal footage.

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This was after not only the reveal, but also after the conference

 

[ShinUltramanJ]

This was after not only the reveal, but also after the conference

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Really? Damn lol

Oh well, they were dead wrong

 

[tareqsalah]

Honestly as soon as i played the first launch test demo i knew it was gonna be something special. It felt and played like nothing before.

The idea that in order to win you dont have to kill other players is just genius.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

In what reality? I would say the number of people who thought the Switch was going to be a monster like the Wii wasn't even outnumbered 2 to 1 on this forum. The number of people who thought the Switch would be a success was far from insignificant unlike the OP's example of Splatoon where derision was overwhelming.

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You must not have been around the time when the reveal conference was held and the price announced lol.

 

[Servbot24]

Sure are a lot of threads recently holding onto grudges against people who underestimated Nintendo sales figures 3 years ago

 

[NotLiquid]

The moment the "you're a kid/you're a squid" trailer hit a million views and became a meme, Splatoon's success was locked in

 

[Skittzo]

I guess the jury is out until we get some motion heavy Wii ports.

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I mean, in terms of the technology the jury isn't out, the Switch's motion controls are more sensitive. Like I said 1, 2 Switch's motion controls were noticably more sensitive than any Wii motion plus game I've played. Super Mario Party appears to have better controls too, at least from what I've heard.

It just may not have been put into practice well in the games you played like Aces.

 

[flkRaven]

I agree with the consensus in disliking these monday-morning quarterback threads, calling out people that made a bad prediction. It's one thing if it was incredibly controversial or if you had predicted the exact sales figures or something, but this just comes off as a defensive, petty Nintendo fan putting non-believers in their place.

We could just as easily have a thread on Arms and people who thought it would be the next big esport, or the people that thought Labo would be a run away success.

 

[Axisofweevils]

I did think the Wii U would do far better once the games came out...
I always knew Splatoon would be a hit. I've never seen any game generate so much fanart so quickly.
Labo I was in two minds about, until I saw a "Let's Build" and saw all the work you had to put in for a relatively limited game at the end.

 

[Strat]

Why is this community obsessed with bringing up these anecdotes so often? You see the "old site said Splatoon/Switch/MHW/Horizon/whatever would fail" thing daily here, followed by someone linking the old threads. To what end? I love to see super negative people eating crow too, but there's a weird obsession with a handful of those bad predictions that people here can't let go of.

 

[Gold Arsene]

I agree with the consensus in disliking these monday-morning quarterback threads, calling out people that made a bad prediction. It's one thing if it was incredibly controversial or if you had predicted the exact sales figures or something, but this just comes off as a defensive, petty Nintendo fan putting non-believers in their place.

We could just as easily have a thread on Arms and people who thought it would be the next big esport, or the people that thought Labo would be a run away success.

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I mean make those threads.

I'm not gonna stop you.

I just thought it was funny how off base this was in particular especially given it seemed to be a pretty popular sentiment back then.

 

[CaptainK]

To be fair to Polygon, g r a p h aside their logic was fairly sound - it took a lot of aggressive deals (buy this game and get another completely free!) and being a really good entry in general to make it really sell.

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Nah their logic was really dumb too. They took the average hardware/software sales ratio of past Mario Kart titles, and applied it to the Wii U hardware sales. The data set only had seven values and lots of variance. Even without the graph, the article and sales prediction was a friggin' joke.

It felt like the author was trying to play an expert sales analyst with fancy graphs, but hadn't even taken a high school statistics course. A more appropriate method would be to plot hardware sales on the X axis, software sales on the Y axis, and do a linear regression. Then report the prediction along with the uncertainty. Problem is the correlation between hardware and MK software sales is pretty poor. But at least doing a linear regression would give some semblance of credibility.

 

[MrCarter]

Yep. Some of the hottest of takes were result from this.

In retrospect you'd think those specific threads that tried to downplay the games success, such as that one thread that automatically assumed MHXX was a better game just based on the monster count and all of the nonsense saying MH couldn't possibly do well if not on a handheld. So much downplaying from the same suspects every time the game hit a milestone of success.

You even had some folks that convinced in their delusion that MHW wasn't the 5th mainline MH game and was nothing more than a side-title and an *actual* Monster Hunter 5 is coming. Embarrassing.

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The salt was and still is delicious. Whenever these threads pop up MHW is probably the best answer.

 

[Deleted member 4037]

I dont recall people saying it would flop, but Ill take your word for it

 

[bane833]

I remember that some die hard Nintendo fans after the e3 2012 expected the WiiU to be the next PS2 saleswise and play all multiplatform games in 1080p/60fps. Good times.

 

[GalvoAg]

This sort of thinking swings both ways. Like, you can go back and read all the posters convinced that Labo is going to annihilate the market because the trailer has a ton of views.

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Yep, anyone who disagreed at the time was looked at as a Nintendo hater or "it's for kids not you". Turns out kids and just about anybody don't want the thing.

You still have people going down this path, just look at the Labo VR thread. Some people can't call a spade a spade.

 

[Barry Sandwich]

For me, issue with Labo isn't the concept or that it's cardboard. It's a two-fold problem:

1. Software longevity.
2. Storage.

If the piano came as a stand-alone pack at a lower price it might do well. But I don't want to pay more than a full-price game for a bunch of cardboard accessories I won't know where to store, for games that don't have any depth for adult players.