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Why do people treat every new Nintendo IP a sales failure even when they are objectively not?

Xaszatm

Xaszatm

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,903
This is something that has been bugging me as I still see people say "Nitnendo 1-2 Switch and Nintendo ARMS were failures" and whenever someone asks for clarification, they go "well, they sold poorly". Both games sold over 2 million copies yet them failing is taken by such an article of faith that even when presented with evidence, the argument turns just so it can still be called "sold poorly".

Even Splatoon during the Wii U was immediately dismissed as a failure right out of the gate. Even when its numbers were great, it was still dismissed as a failure until the Media Create sales proved how popular it is and even then people are insistent that its only popular in Japan and a sales disappointment at best everywhere else with people always being surprised that it sold well outside it because Nintendo IPs failing is just that strong of an article of faith. Why is this the case?
 
vestan

vestan

#REFANTAZIO SWEEP
Member
Dec 28, 2017
24,634
Because this site has a weird fixation with wanting to see new things fail.
 
Zalman

Zalman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,896
Nintendo has some of the most popular IPs in the industry, so every new one gets compared to those immediately.
 
ccieag

ccieag

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,339
Vail, CO
Very few Nintendo IP's are commercial failures. Now whether they are all good games, that is a better debate
 
Richietto

Richietto

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,993
North Carolina
People thinking ARMS was a failure or didn't do well have always been out of their minds. How is 2million not good for a new fighting game IP? It's incredibly good and you can bet your ass there will bean ARMS 2. But, you'll still get those people thinking ARMS wasn't a success when it trounced even SFVs initial sales.
 
K Samedi

K Samedi

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,990
A lot of Nintendo games sell very high numbers, like 5, 10 or 20+ million copies. People are comparing the sales numbers of something like Mario Party to 1-2 Switch, and something like Smash to ARMS. Its a faulty comparison of course, but I get why people would think they failed. I think the budgets of 1-2 Switch and ARMS were rather small, so I see them as big successes actually. They can be greatly improved with sequels and sell more in line with other Nintendo IP if done right.
 

Dark Cloud

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
61,087
They've been doing this on websites like this for years and years. It ain't nothing new for Nintendo.
 

Deleted member 32374

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 10, 2017
8,460
I wasn't really aware that this was a major issue on this site.

Although I will agree that Era loves a failure, as other posters have pointed out.
 
Neoxon

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,376
Houston, TX
The only recent new Nintendo IPs that actually bombed were Code Name: STEAM, (I think) Sushi Striker, & (unfortunately) The Wonderful 101. ARMS did really damn well, especially within the context of its genre (fighting games). Hell, ARMS is still getting Party Crashes to this day. And 1-2 Switch probably did way better than I expected it to (plus it likely wasn't too expensive to make compared to, say, BotW).

As for Splatoon, I have no idea why people expected it to fail early on.
 

Dark Cloud

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
61,087
Neoxon said:
The only recent new Nintendo IPs that actually bombed were Code Name: STEAM, (I think) Sushi Striker, & (unfortunately) The Wonderful 101. ARMS did really damn well, especially within the context of its genre (fighting games). Hell, ARMS is still getting Party Crashes to this day. And 1-2 Switch probably did way better than I expected it to (plus it likely wasn't too expensive to make compared to, say, BotW).
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Star Fox Zero probably bombed too.
 
Silky

Silky

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,522
Georgia
Era indulges in failing products and the over the counter sales analysts aren't really checked/critiqued as much as it needs to be on this board because there's only like what, three people here that could actually do it

I find it gross that enthusiasts are so comfortable with dissecting how and why a game will fail and will champion that discussion more than otherwise

I think normalizing "bomba" as everyday discussion when seeing a game dropping to low prices does more harm than good but I'm sleep
 
Asuka3+1

Asuka3+1

Alt Account
Banned
Feb 6, 2019
491
its the Nintendo (and everyone else) curse that comes with pedigree, when you are a big player name, expectation are high. so times unrealistically. Nintendo making a new IP and selling 1M is a flop, but if a lower company would to make the same new IP and sell 1M, it will be a success. its a matter of perspectives.

now, if we talk about doom posting. welp, you know how that ball roll in here and the internet overall, Nintendo is a popular "target" for that but not the only one.
 
PrincessZelda

PrincessZelda

Banned
Oct 31, 2017
149
Arms is a huge success and it established a firm foundation for the IP to build upon.

1-2 Switch is definitely a one off thing and will not grow into a franchise, but I'm sure Nintendo more than made up for development costs with over 2M units sold.
 

Deleted member 1413

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,617
Probably stemmed from Wii U's "everything was a failure". Both were launch window, probably before we were sure switch was going to do well.

ARMs did underperform, tho

There are also certain people that want these things to fail, probably for console war nonsense.
 
Neoxon

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,376
Houston, TX
MetalBoi said:
W101 isn't a Nintendo IP, it belongs to Platinum.
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The Wonderful 101 is owned by Nintendo, much like how Bayonetta is owned by Sega. PlatinumGames doesn't really own any of the IPs they create.

Green Slime King said:
People thinking ARMS was a failure or didn't do well have always been out of their minds. How is 2million not good for a new fighting game IP? It's incredibly good and you can bet your ass there will bean ARMS 2. But, you'll still get those people thinking ARMS wasn't a success when it trounced even SFVs initial sales.
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Exactly, I'd be genuinely shocked if we don't get a sequel on the next Nintendo system.
 
Neoxon

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,376
Houston, TX
Cartridge Games said:
ARMS did underperform, tho

There are also certain people that want these things to fail, probably for console war nonsense.
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To my knowledge, ARMS sold to their expectations (at least enough to justify continued Party Crash support). If you're referring to the number of DLC characters we got, 4 was the original plan (we got an extra character with Springtron). Granted, I'd imagine that if it exceeded their expectations, we would have gotten more. But I don't really get the narrative that ARMS underperformed or failed when, especially when put within the context of the rest of the fighting game genre, that's far from the truth.
 
Bazry

Bazry

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,536
That will be the same 1 2 Switch that has outsold every Metroid game ever released
 
Stef

Stef

Member
Oct 28, 2017
5,410
Rome, Italy, Planet Earth
Xaszatm said:
This is something that has been bugging me as I still see people say "Nitnendo 1-2 Switch and Nintendo ARMS were failures" and whenever someone asks for clarification, they go "well, they sold poorly". Both games sold over 2 million copies yet them failing is taken by such an article of faith that even when presented with evidence, the argument turns just so it can still be called "sold poorly".
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Actually, I don't think that "people" do that.
 
vestan

vestan

#REFANTAZIO SWEEP
Member
Dec 28, 2017
24,634
Silky said:
I find it gross that enthusiasts are so comfortable with dissecting how and why a game will fail and will champion that discussion more than otherwise
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Kinda weird that "Gaming Fail of the Year" threads are still allowed on here but whatever, people got way too much time on their hands.
 

Deleted member 18400

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,585
I think it's mostly people comparing it to new IPs from Sony or Microsoft. People see Horizon Zero Dawn sell 10 million copies and therefore assume that Arms selling 2 million is a failure.

It's not a fair comparison and both games are successful for what they are. Just people leaping to conclusions. This sort of thing shouldn't surprise you in our current culture.
 
Dre3001

Dre3001

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,853
I don't think this is a Nintendo only issue though. I think this is a "console wars" type of problem.

You see this in prediction threads all the time where people declare x game will be a flop or won't sell. Then when it does the goalposts get moved back or people still say it still didn't sell as well as *random game*.
 
TheDinoman

TheDinoman

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,098
I've always kinda felt this way when people say that Pikmin games "have never sold well".

Going by Celine's thread, all three mainline Pikmin games have sold over a million units, Pikmin 3 actually managed to sell more than Pikmin 2 despite being on an even less popular console.

No, it's not a blockbuster franchise or anything, but it's always been a decently successful series, one that's just been held back by its main games being on two of Nintendo's most unsucessful consoles. Hopefully Pikmin 4 can help the series grow, whenever that happens.
 
bionic77

bionic77

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,894
This is not limited to Nintendo.

I think it comes from a lot of people not being able to express themselves very well and resorting to the "objective" sales of a game or reviews as some sort of backing for whatever their arguments or opinions on a certain game might be.

But to the OP you don't have to read those posts. Not every post is going to be some word of art explaining the pros or cons of a particular game. A lot of are just going to be anger, stupidity and fanboyism all rolled into one. The fanboyism definitely comes out when we are "comparing" two games on two different systems as to which one is better. When I see something like that I just check out and move to the next post or thread. I try to respond to only the posts I think that are worth responding to.

This is the internet and honestly even at its dumbest those posts are still better than what the internet has come to stand for these days.
 

Dark Cloud

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
61,087
People make silly ass comparisons. I can say ARMS outsold Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and XC2 is considered by everyone a big success.
 
Ehoavash

Ehoavash

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 28, 2017
7,238
MetalBoi said:
Ok, but Nintendo didn't develop W101.
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Yes but it's still a " Nintendo game " same way Kirby games are, Pokemon games, fire emblem games are, xenoblade games are since Nintendo Owns the IP but doesn't own the developer ( Platinum, Hal laboratory, Intelligent system, GameFreak
but they do own like 98% of Monolithsoft )
 
PSqueak

PSqueak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,464
people have the weird expectation of everything nintendo does having to do Mario/Zelda/Smash numbers.
 
JB2448

JB2448

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,965
Florida
vestan said:
Because this site has a weird fixation with wanting to see new things fail.
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Milo Rambaldi said:
because people like to look edgy on a forum

or because they have no idea how sales numbers actually work
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Jahranimo said:
Some people are heavily critical of Nintendo anything.
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Dark Cloud said:
They've been doing this on websites like this for years and years. It ain't nothing new for Nintendo.
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LordKano said:
people are stupid
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These are the right answers, already being proven within this very thread.
 
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