So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh?

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Printable Version

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So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 13th February 2003

Take that, subspace!

Quote:Zelda Tops 250,000 Preorders

And the official pre-sell program has yet to start, says Nintendo.

February 13, 2003 - Nintendo of America today announced that more than 250,000 gamers in the US have already pre-ordered its anticipated action-adventure Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. That figure is made all the more impressive, according to the publisher, because it's official pre-sell program for the game has yet to start.
Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker follows child hero Link on an all-new epic quest, this time to rescue his kidnapped sister. The game's unique cel-shaded style mingles with traditional play mechanics and never-before-seen additions to the franchise. Wind Waker has repeatedly garnered high praise by the press and Japanese importers alike and is considered to be one of the most important releases of the year.

Nintendo said that on February 16 it would kick off the official pre-sell program for the next chapter in the Zelda series. The firm reiterated that with a deposit for the game at participating retailers, consumers would immediately receive a bonus disc that includes both Ocarina of Time and Master Quest Zelda games free of charge to "keep them busy" until the March 24 release of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

"This truly is Zelda cubed! Two impressive Zelda games, leading to the highly anticipated new Zelda adventure, for the price of one and only for Nintendo GameCube," said George Harrison, senior vice president, marketing and corporate communications, Nintendo of America. "What better way to celebrate the forthcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker than to give Zelda fans a collectors item that will provide a nostalgic or for some, a classic introduction to the series."

We'll have much more on Zelda in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

:shake:

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 13th February 2003

Well the true test would be if it can maintain momentum. 250,000 could easily be the informed, and "hardcore" group of gamers on the GCN. If it continues to sell over a million, then you could easily make the claim that the US market has no problem with the Cel Shading aspect.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 13th February 2003

Also note that they referred to it as an "action-adventure"

:shake:

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - WhiteFleck - 13th February 2003

I think it would be funny if Zelda sold ONLY preorders.

Why?

Because that would mean the game appealed to only the die-hards and would leave OB1 a very, very sad panda.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - The Former DMiller - 13th February 2003

Keep in mind that these preorders are all hardcore people who already knew about the preorder bonus. Now that the preorder bonus has been officially announced I hope these preorders increase even more.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 13th February 2003

Right, so the only people that would buy the game are the ones who pre-ordered. Verrry realistic. Rolleyes

Your criteria for what makes a "hit" for the Gamecube is way off, Hudson. This is not the PS2 we're talking about. Metroid Prime, which was considered to be a big seller by Gamecube standards, sold 250,000 copies within nine days of its release. Right now that's how many per-orders WW has, and that's before the special per-order deal "officially" starts. So forgive me for a second while I :shake:

And yes, it's an action-adventure. An action-adventure, which is a type of adventure game. Again, :shake:

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Laser Link - 13th February 2003

I don't care what system a game is on, I don't think it's right to have varying degrees of success. If we were measuring percentage obviously you would have to (that's the meaning of percentage), but in this case its bogus. 250,000 is great so far, especially considering it's ALL been word of mouth. But anything short of a million will be a HUGE disapointment. PH is right. Otherwise you can just make up sacling factors to decide what game you want to be the best. I could make a case for Conker's BFD being the best selling game ever by that logic. So, sorry, no sliding scales.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 13th February 2003

Unfortunately you cannot compare the sales of PS2 games with GC ones. The PS2 userbase is ten times (not a real stat) that of the Gamecube's, so a million-seller on the GC is much more of a big deal than a million seller on the PS2. If you take into consideration Nintendo's half-assed marketing, the Gamecube's impopularity, and the Gamecube's small userbase, just under a million is still incredibly good.

Nintendo is going to end up in third place this generation, no doubt about it. They still refuse to change their ways while Sony and Microsoft keep on beating them. Will Zelda pass the million mark eventually? I'm positive of it. But will it sell a million copes within thirty days of its release? Ah... I'd give it an 75% chance. But I'm sure it will be the highest-selling GC title yet.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - A Black Falcon - 13th February 2003

It probably will be the top selling NGC game... it IS Zelda, after all...

Nice to see all the preorders... though I wonder if its because of the special offer... I bet that the number of preorders will be WAY higher than it otherwise would have been because of the free OoT/OoT:MQ disk... WAY higher. That's good for Nintendo, but might mean that it'll sell less non-preordered games at the beginning... we'll see.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Darunia - 13th February 2003

Despite my previous objections, I too have preordered the new Zelda...largely inspired by the OoT disc...but I'm sure, no matter what, the fact that it's a Zelda game would've won me over anyway.

Long live Zelda!

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 13th February 2003

Remember OB1, Splinter Cell had 1.1 million pre-orders and it still hasn't sold that many yet.

Erm

Can't be arsed arguing with you about a few other minor points. :)

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 13th February 2003

That's the first I heard of that, Hudson. Could you provide us with some proof?

GTA Vice City had a few million pre-orders but only sold a million copies in the first week. It did manage to pass the pre-order number within a few weeks, however. But with Zelda, if you decide that you don't want the pre-order the game and you already got the bonus disc, you have to return that as well. But whatever the case is, 250,000 pre-orders is the highest yet for a GC game.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - The Former DMiller - 13th February 2003

Someone was making that same arguement about SC at Nintendophiles. MS must have said something about that, but the preorders they meant were the number of copies being shipped to retailers. The preorders in Zelda's case are by people who actually intend to buy the game. You can see the entire arguement <a href=http://forums.n-philes.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8123>here</a>.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 13th February 2003

You hadn't heard of what?

That it had 1.1 million pre-orders, or it hadn't sold that many yet?

Actually, SC may well have eclisped that figure now, I'm thinking of it's sales as of a month ago.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 13th February 2003

Ah, good point, Derek.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Laser Link - 13th February 2003

Quote:Unfortunately you cannot compare the sales of PS2 games with GC ones. The PS2 userbase is ten times (not a real stat) that of the Gamecube's, so a million-seller on the GC is much more of a big deal than a million seller on the PS2. If you take into consideration Nintendo's half-assed marketing, the Gamecube's impopularity, and the Gamecube's small userbase, just under a million is still incredibly good.

Okay, you started it...

Ladies and gentlemen, I will now show why Conker's BFD should be considered the best selling game ever. (If you make me mad, I'll get out the mathematical formulas. You don't want that.)

Since Conker was released at the very tail end of the N64's life cycle, nobody paid attention. If the game had been released a couple years earlier, it would have sold much better. As it was, Conker accounted for the vast majority of sales for all N64 games released from March 2001 on. I would say 90% would be an accurate guess. Certainly this is remarkable. By extending this logic, I will now say that if Conker had been released as a launch title, it would have accounted for 90% of sales in the N64's history. I don't really know how many N64 games were sold, but it was a lot. Now, if Nintendo had advertised Conker better and the N64 was not considered a kiddy machine, this number would have been even larger. And if the N64 had the userbase of the PSX, or, gasp, the NES, it would have sold even more. Undoubtably, this makes Conker the best selling game ever.

Now why did Nintendo ditch Rare again?

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Nintendarse - 14th February 2003

I have the opinion of Laser Link, in that when you're comparing games between consoles, you can't make sliding scales. One sold better than the other. End of comment. The sliding scales are only valuable when you want to find out "Why?"

On a related note, I hate the statistic used to represent "user base." The number used is the number of consoles sold, but we should remember that there is a scale of involvement in the console for each user. At the ends of this scale, there is the completely active user and the innactive user. The innactive user does not buy games for the system anymore. The completely active user buys more than 20 games per year for the console. Thus, while the "user base" of N64 was higher when Conker was released as compared to, say, Ocarina of Time, I think everyone can agree that software sales were harder to come by in early 2002. Thus, I dislike the whole, "Well, the "user base" is larger, so it should have sold more" argument.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 14th February 2003

Quote:Okay, you started it...

Ladies and gentlemen, I will now show why Conker's BFD should be considered the best selling game ever. (If you make me mad, I'll get out the mathematical formulas. You don't want that.)

Since Conker was released at the very tail end of the N64's life cycle, nobody paid attention. If the game had been released a couple years earlier, it would have sold much better. As it was, Conker accounted for the vast majority of sales for all N64 games released from March 2001 on. I would say 90% would be an accurate guess. Certainly this is remarkable. By extending this logic, I will now say that if Conker had been released as a launch title, it would have accounted for 90% of sales in the N64's history. I don't really know how many N64 games were sold, but it was a lot. Now, if Nintendo had advertised Conker better and the N64 was not considered a kiddy machine, this number would have been even larger. And if the N64 had the userbase of the PSX, or, gasp, the NES, it would have sold even more. Undoubtably, this makes Conker the best selling game ever.

Now why did Nintendo ditch Rare again?

That's not a fair comparison since Conker was one of the last games to be released for the dying N64. Would it have sold better during the system's prime? Yes, it would have. But would it have accounted for 90% of the system's software sales? Probably not, since it would have had a lot more competition.

As much as you might want to ignore it, the Gamecube's userbase is a lot smaller than the PS2's, and Sony's marketing is far more aggressive and effective than Nintendo's. It does take a lot longer for a Gamecube game to pass the million sales mark than it does for a PS2 game, believe it or not. Even the guys at Capcom acknowledged this.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - big guy - 14th February 2003

regardless of userbase, i still consider a games success, not by percent who bought it, but by it crossing the million seller mark. why? i'm not really sure.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Laser Link - 14th February 2003

OB1, you're just not getting it. I know you are too stubborn to ever change your mind about anything, so I don't even know why I bothered. Just, go on thinking what you want. I won't argue.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 14th February 2003

What don't I get? Your bizzare logic? Ok, ok! I'm wrong! Even though there are five, ten times as many PS2 owners than Gamecube owners in the world, there is no reason why a big GC game shouldn't sell as much as a big PS2 game! Who cares about userbase? That doesn't mean anything!

Rolleyes

Is that better?

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 14th February 2003

That Conker point doesn't make any sense. I never said anything about any Gamecube game being the best-selling game ever, I was simply stating that it's easier for most PS2 games to pass the million sales mark than it is for GC games. Why do you think that the PS2 has the strongest third-party support out of all three consoles? Because it's currently the best-selling system and has the highest userbase out of the three.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - A Black Falcon - 14th February 2003

Hmm... I don't know. It does make sense that directly comparing sales between consoles with vastly different installed bases just isn't logical...

But also, its not unfair to say that Nintendo's games are definitely selling less than they should. Mostly because of Nintendo's pathetic marketing. I think plenty of you will agree with me when I say that they haven't had a good marketing campaign for the GC yet... the last decent ones from Nintendo I remember were on the N64...

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 14th February 2003

Right. Their marketing is atrocious.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 15th February 2003

Ok, OB1..

Do you think Halo would have sold much more than it did if it would have appeared on the PS2, rather than the XBox?

I sure don't...

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Lt. Boris Grisjenko - 15th February 2003

I don't really have a comment on the subject....

I jes' wanna check out my new... eeehm, subname!!!!

As final touch, God created the Dutch!!

~Boris~

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 15th February 2003

Quote:Originally posted by Private Hudson
Ok, OB1..

Do you think Halo would have sold much more than it did if it would have appeared on the PS2, rather than the XBox?

I sure don't...

No, because it was the only really good (in the eyes of the public) X-Box game for more than half a year. It had nothing to compete with, and everybody wanted it.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - A Black Falcon - 15th February 2003

Quote:Take that, subspace!

What DO you mean by 'subspace' here? The multiplayer PC game?

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 15th February 2003

It's a Sealab 2021 quote.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 15th February 2003

Quote:Originally posted by OB1
No, because it was the only really good (in the eyes of the public) X-Box game for more than half a year. It had nothing to compete with, and everybody wanted it.

That's my point.

The same can be applied to the present situation. When you have less to compete against, or one thing stands well above the rest (ala Halo), then that game is going to sell in monsterous proportions.

Thus, sales can be comparable between two machines that have a sizeable difference between their userbases (and game library). Because there are more factors that go into how a game sells than just userbase.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Nintendarse - 16th February 2003

*Claps for Hudson*

I think the point that Hudson, LL, and I are trying to make is that if you're going to scale, you have to scale on ALL of the factors of circumstance, not one. But this gets quite difficult, because you can't completely discount Halo's popularity. Part of that popularity was based upon the quality of the game, so what percentage of sales are dependent upon actual quality, and what percentage is dependent upon Halo being a standout title? And what percentage of Xbox sales were caused by Halo? Isn't there at least SOME interdependence? How much? And how much of that "how much" is based upon personal biases?

As a human being, sometimes it is just more accurate to look at it from a 3rd party developer perspective (no sliding scales) than to create a faulty sliding scale, trying to be omniscient.

After all, software projections for a game are supposed to account for all of these factors. But what is the conclusion of the percentage of this goal that a game sells? It is not the objective success of a game, but rather the degree of satisfaction of the developer. So the scale that OB1 is moving toward is, perhaps, not really his goal.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 16th February 2003

Quote:That's my point.

The same can be applied to the present situation. When you have less to compete against, or one thing stands well above the rest (ala Halo), then that game is going to sell in monsterous proportions.

Thus, sales can be comparable between two machines that have a sizeable difference between their userbases (and game library). Because there are more factors that go into how a game sells than just userbase.

True, but Halo was completely alone. Zelda has Mario, Metroid, SFA, RE O, etc. to share the spotlight with. Of course, Zelda is the biggest Nintendo release in four months and has nothing brand-new to compete with on the Gamecube, but neither did Eternal Darkness, Mario Sunshine, or Metroid Prime (to a lesser extent) when they were released. What happened there?

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - A Black Falcon - 16th February 2003

I think Nintendo's marketing skills and brillant abilities to change the public's opinion of their games has already been mentioned... Rolleyes

As for Halo, I really don't know if it would have sold better on PS2. As some people have said, there are just so many variables... yes, the PS2 has a MUCH bigger installed base, but it wouldn't have been such a standout game on that console... so I really don't know.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 16th February 2003

Quote:Originally posted by OB1
True, but Halo was completely alone. Zelda has Mario, Metroid, SFA, RE O, etc. to share the spotlight with. Of course, Zelda is the biggest Nintendo release in four months and has nothing brand-new to compete with on the Gamecube, but neither did Eternal Darkness, Mario Sunshine, or Metroid Prime (to a lesser extent) when they were released. What happened there?

And XBox has Mech Assault, Unreal Championship, Splinter Cell, Morrowind, Project Gotham, Munch's Oddysee, Dead or Alive 3, Rallisport Challenge etc etc.

It's not as if Halo actually is completely alone. At least, no more alone than Zelda is.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 16th February 2003

Um... forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Mech Assault, Splinter Cell, Morrowind, and Rallisport challenge didn't come out during the X-Box's launch. Rolleyes

And DOA 3, Munch, and PGR are hardly Metroid and Mario-calibur games.

Smash Bros. Melee would have sold at least as well or better than Halo in 2001 if it weren't for the shortage of the game during the first few months of it release.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Private Hudson - 16th February 2003

XBox's launch?

Are they not not competing with Halo to this day? And still being pounded by Halo?

Point is still valid.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - OB1 - 16th February 2003

The only competitor that is close to being as big as Halo is Splinter Cell, and that is most certainly not being "pounded" by it.

So nobody in the U.S. wants a cartoony Zelda, eh? - Dark Lord Neo - 17th February 2003

Quote:Originally posted by OB1
True, but Halo was completely alone. Zelda has Mario, Metroid, SFA, RE O, etc. to share the spotlight with. Of course, Zelda is the biggest Nintendo release in four months and has nothing brand-new to compete with on the Gamecube, but neither did Eternal Darkness, Mario Sunshine, or Metroid Prime (to a lesser extent) when they were released. What happened there?

Yeah but who would want a Metroid game developed in the US and not Japan, or a Mario game where he has a stupid water gun that on first look seem just like the horrible vacume on Luigi's Mansion and why would anyone in their right minds buy a game developed in Canada?

j/k

I hope the succes of this will make Nintendo consider releasing ports of other N64 or even SNES or NES games as pre-order bonus's for some of their bigger titles, like a copy of Mario Kart 64 or even Super Mario Kart to tide us over until Mario Kart, or F-Zero whatever for up until F-Zero is released