Sorry, I didn't want to make it personal, of course. I generally don't care for the person, only the argument. And reading your original statement that "Wii U games were superior to any Sega game (or others)" really made my jaw drop a bit :-).
Your last point that "Nintendo at its top arguably deliver the best games from Japan" is much more reasonable, and I could agree with it even.
Thanks, and I understand why you felt that way, but it wasn't what I intended. I've always put gameplay over everything else and when I started playing Nintendo games, even late compared to other people here, I felt they specialize in this area in a unique way. for example... Super Mario Odyssey, where you catpure enemies abilities, the levels were designed with using many and completely different gameplay mechanics in the same level, and yet the fluidity of Mario's movement is unreal, he's responsive in an incredible way.
When Dreamcast/PS2 were in the market, I was actually discovering The Legend of Zelda series for the first time, and playing Ocarina of Time. despite being late, it still shocked me in a big way. at the time I was used to shorter games, not many games were really long, a game like MGS1 or RE didn't take more than couple of hours. when I finished Ocarina's third dungeon, I though the game is gonna end soon.
Imagine how I felt when I discovered that I actually finished only the "tutorial dungeons"... I almost couldn't believe lol. and it was even more amazing when I did enter the Forest Temple and experienced the huge jump in scale/design. after that, I can't miss any 3D Zelda game, the franchise turned into a system seller to me.
I felt the same about Sonic in the early 90's, but I didn't feel the same about the Dreamcast software. it was varied, and it had a lot of amazing games that I love and want to release as "Sega Ages" titles as soon as possible. but I feel there wasn't that very special title that you should experience no matter what. a lot of Dreamcast games to me felt like great ideas that needs more time and more content to turn into products that you truly can't miss. I feel Nintendo games are superior in terms of both content and gameplay design.
You're right that SEGA certainly could have used a giant mainstream exclusive . They arguably came pretty close with the NBA 2K and NFL 2K franchises.
I sometimes wish Rockstar had released GTA 3 as a Dreamcast exclusive. History might be very different if that had occurred.
Sega and Nintendo both relied on themselves too much at times. Fifa is a game that could've done wonders for the Dreamcast.
Mortal Kombat was the first game I've ever did play on the Mega Drive, and I did play Fifa a lot on it too.
Maybe if those and other titles I liked were on Dreamcast, I would've bought one. but I want to be honest, I regret not getting a Dreamcast deeply. I never thought it would be the last console from Sega. even though I didn't get one, reading about the news in magazines at the time was shocking and heartbreaking, I can't really imagine how many of you guys felt.
I won't argue that much of the dreamcast library catered to a more niche audience, with Sega historic strengths being in the arcades and those not being healthy at that point in time. That isn't what makes games "truly special" however, and that has always been a weak argument that people pick and choose to deploy only when it suits them. If the cited games are supposed to be true system sellers, then they would sell the system. This clearly didn't happen with the Wii U, despite the built in brand loyalty many of them enjoyed from being long running legacy IP.
There are actually very few games that really qualify as being "system sellers" in that they would get people to buy a system almost purely for them. Tetris, Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog, Halo and Wii Fit are pretty much the entire list. Basically everything else has required a console to already have momentum to flourish. And of those that do, quality isn't generally a defining factor (a Bayonetta will never get close to the sales of Fallout 76).
Also, your GTA3 example is a game that didn't even release until months after the DC was discontinued.
GTA 3 was hot news, and other PS2 exclusives for many months before release, people knew those exclusives were coming. console games scale was starting to get really big even from PS1 days with games like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid and others. but it felt to me like Sega and SNK were really stuck with the arcade mentality. I can't think of any truly big adventure game from Sega at the time other than Shenmue, which was probably meant to be Sega's answer to those titles.. but maybe it was too Asian to catch mainstream.
If we really want to start comparing sales as a measure, then doesn't Xbox win by default ?
Also Software sales in 1999 are nowhere near comparable to Software sales in 2012. A game selling a million units was a big deal back then , selling 1 million units means hardly anything now , unless it was a low budget game or something.
The PS1 probably has lesser million sellers than the Wii U. Crazy Taxi selling 1 million back then is far more impressive than Hyrule Warriors selling a million.
True, but still, it needed more hits, and more mainstream titles, in my humble opinion, to do better than it did. I think even when Sega became third party they still had difficulties to sell their games on GC/PS2/Xbox, and a lot of their games could not turn into franchises because of that.
You are basically agreeing with me. The comparison does NOT Make sense. Which is why the comparison between WiiU and Dreamcast Software sales also doesn't make sense.
I think software sales on Wii U is very exceptional even in today's market.
It is almost a miracle that a game like MK8 sold 8.4m copies on a failed console that only did ~13m itself.
Vita sold a bit more than Wii U worldwide and its best selling games don't come even close to what MK8 or SM3DW did.
I think even PSP and maybe Xbox One don't have any exclusive games that sold that much, and those did much better than the Wii U
for a failed console, exclusives sales on Wii U are very impressive in my opinion.
