Software
1. Pokemon Sapphire (Game Boy Advance/Nintendo) 61,046
2. Pokemon Ruby (Game Boy Advance/Nintendo) 60,798
3. Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix (PlayStation 2/Square) 41,303
4. World Soccer Winning Eleven 6: Final Evolution (PlayStation 2/Konami) 36,445
5. Momotaro Railway 11: Black Bombee Arrives (PlayStation 2/Hudson) 33,923
6. Mega Man Exe 3 (Game Boy Advance/Capcom) 28,861
7. Unlimited Saga (PlayStation 2/Square) 25,061
8. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube/Nintendo) 24,514
9. Mario Party 4 (GameCube/Nintendo) 21,495
10. Tales of Destiny 2 (PlayStation 2/Namco) 18,311
Hardware
1. Game Boy Advance: 95,400 (Annual: 95,400)
2. PlayStation 2: 79,095 (Annual: 79,095)
3. GameCube: 19,902 (Annual: 19,902)
4. Xbox: 3,900 (Annual: 3,900)
5. PSOne: 3,165 (Annual: 3,165)
6. Wonder Swan Crystal: 2,718 (Annual: 2,718)
7. Wonder Swan Color: 1,691 (Annual: 1,691)
8. Game Boy Color: 1,125 (Annual: 1,125)
All the consoles went way down in sales after last week. Also most of the games have taken hits as well.
Good to know that Zelda is still hanging in there with 700k copies sold.
GCN seems to be selling 1/4 as many units as the PS2. Oh well, that's still a lot of units.
However, poor XBox is only selling 1/20 as many units...
I'm surprised that lesser versions of backwards compatible systems (GBC, WSC, PS1) are still selling at all. Well, not at all, but in the thousands is surprising.
Different tracking services have different cumulative totals for Zelda, but the main difference in the surveys is in Zelda's first week. Dengeki and Famitsu say that Zelda sold 300,000 units in the period between 12/9 and 12/15, while Media-Create records it as 400,000. Therefore, Media Create has the total at about 700,000, while Famitsu and Dengeki have the total at less than 600,000. It's quite a difference.
Anyway, I worried about how fast Zelda dropped off from the holiday season. It needs to have a longer sales window if it is going to make a run for the million mark.
From IGN's Gaming Life in Japan report:
Once again, a warning. These sales figures do not represent the full number of games sold; rather, they're just an accumulation of sales from a large number of stores in Japan. Notable absences in the stores polled by Famitsu are Toys R Us and Sega's Online service, among others.
That is why Famitsu always has less sales than the other, but I'm also surprised at that large of a difference.
Here are the latest US sales charts from the magic box:
Quote:Top 10 Videogames in North America
(Last Updated: Jan 19, 2003)
1 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Take Two Interactive PS2
2 Tom Clancy's Spinter Cell Ubi Soft XB
3 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Electronic Arts PS2,XB,GC
4 Dragon Ball Z Budokai Infogrames PS2
5 Madden NFL 2003 Electronic Arts PS2,XB,GC,GBA,PS,GBC
6 Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance Midway PS2,XB,GC,GBA
7 Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Ubi Soft PS2,XB
8 SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals Sony PS2
9 Metroid Prime Nintendo GC
10 James Bond 007: NightFire Electronic Arts PS2,XB,GC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is
insane. One of Nintendo's best games ever is at ninth place during its third month of release. Nintendo just can't win, can they?
Totals:
Metroid Prime: 700k
Splinter Cell: 800k
MP isn't doing horrible, but it should be doing better than that.
Yeah, with actual FIGURES we can see that it may be lowest, but it's by chance more than anything. I wouldn't say Nintendo is "loosing" at all.
You mean "losing".
Guys, these are pathetic figures. Splinter Cell, while being a fantastic game, is a no-name franchise. Metroid on the other hand is one of Nintendo's most popular franchises, and fans have been begging them for a new Metroid game for eight years now. This is one of their best games ever, and there is no reason why it shouldn't have sold better than Splinter Cell. Nintendo is doing something wrong, and if they don't fix it soon they're going to be in big trouble.
Umm... I wouldn't call Tom Clancy a no-name franchise... even in the world of gaming. Or do you forget the great success (on PC, anyway) of Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear?
Even so, yesm Metroid should be outselling it... this is not good. Not good at all. I bet Zelda doesn't even do that well... Nintendo's making games as good as ever, but it seems fewer people are interested or something... :(
I was going to attempt some sly, sarcastic, cut on the intelligence of people, but I don't have the heart to do it. And I'm really trying to stop badmouthing other people.
Nintendo my guess is making out great financially even when it appears to be losing to the xbox. They manage to sell 600,000+ pieces of hardwear which doesn't cost them much to produce and they practically own the handheld market which their cheap GBA system. Microsoft constantly loses money with production and including all these free crap in their 50+bundles...
Now that I got that out of the way...
Anyway look, Nintendo right now appears to be sitting on its ass. I think NOJ has done well even if Zelda hasn't managed to match great numbers. The real culprits are NOE and NOA. All I know about the situation in Europe is that it is shit so I won't say much more than that. NOA has just been awful with their advertisements.
Prime has had the best advertising than all of the GC games so far, but that just isn't saying much. First off Prime is the first Metroid title in how many years? 8 manbe 9 years? How about selling the game on that fact? How about trying to make the release of this game special? When SMS came out instead of having a commerical saying that this was the first new Super Mario game in 6 years, we instead get some lass as fuck Jamaican themed commercial. Oh, even though many people were itching to get the game sooner, I would have delayed the game till September and release it on the day SM64 was released to give it that special feeling.
I think Zelda is going to sell great but I don't think it will be reaching OoT numbers. The hype just isn't there. The internet game sites that existed in those days and created hype are gone for one. The game is comming out in March. December or November would have created a bigger demand. The third strike will probably be the advertising. Lastly, unless you visit the unvisitable IGN, you have almost no info about the game. I know the game exists and I have a general idea of how it looks, but never before have I lacked info about a new Zelda game as I do now.
I agree with certain aspects of your points. However, NOJ is the one at fault, not NOA. Nintendo of Japan has too tight of a hold over NOA. Do you think that NOA wanted the main GC color to be purple?
And Nintendo's marketing is seriously bad, but I don't know whose fault it is. Mario Sunshine should have been a huge success but it wasn't. Their commercials showed the game as some sort of weird painting simulator. People were confused! And while Metroid Prime's commercial was pretty good as a mini-movie, it didn't show enough gameplay and even confused some stupid individuals. They didn't even add any quotes to the commercials to show the general public the incredible scores that it got from EGM, IGN, and everyone else. Halo is a very flawed game but it got rave reviews from just about everyone, and MS flaunted that in their commercials so that the casual consumer knew this and the hype spreaded like wildfire.
ABF: Tom Clancy is a big PC franchise. It's nothing compared to Metroid on the console front.
Tom Clancy is a big enough author for me to say that his name on a game is going to be fairly big, even if only the PC has in the past had games with his name on them. Equal to Metroid? No... but hardly some no-name franchise...
Oh, and yes Nintendo desperately needs to get rid of their advertising division... but they have had to for years so I don't see that changing anytime soon. :(