4th March 2004, 5:41 PM
Quote:[QUOTE]You just wrote that Nintendo can only compete in certain months and that what I said was wrong!
I'd call it 'unsure' myself. :) I don't really know.
Quote:Yes... and last month was february...
So?
Quote:F-Zero sold a few hundred thousand copies, RE0 sold less than REmake I believe, and Rebel Strike sold very poorly compared to Rogue Leader. It's already been discounted to $20.[QUOTE]
Okay... RS is $20? Um not around here! I was in the local gamestore and they had a used copy for $42 and then went to Kay-Bee (Toy Works; yes, they DO still have videogames!) and they were selling it for $50...
[quote]It didn't sell well because it was overshadowed by other, "bigger" titles. They should have given it more of a marketing push, methinks.
And Sunshine didn't sell well because most people didn't know what the hell it was. I think BG&E had the same problem.
Each of those games is a different case... I think RE0 was overshadowed by REMake and REMake had gotten better press and RE0 looked like just another game very similar to REMake... as for F-Zero I have no idea. More ads maybe? RS... again I don't know. I know it had plenty of TV ads (I know I saw it a bunch of times...)! Did people actually listen to the poor reviews or something, or was it drowned out because of the volume at christmastime?
As I said it's a conundrum -- at christmas more games sell, but at christmas there are more games so each stands out less... in the rest of the year fewer games sell but they stand out more because there is less clutter... but there is more focus on games as well. Most companies clearly solve that by releasing at christmastime but some games, like RS, seem to fail anyway... I wonder if it'd have done better if it hadn't been released when it was...
BG&E was advertised but it was an original property and those are dangerous -- it's sad but true, franchises sell and original games don't as much. BG&E was new and somewhat underadvertised (I know they did but not enough clearly)... and anyway it was the kind of game I could see people ignoring -- adventure-ish, artistic, etc... oh sure some of those sell but (as we can see given the state of the graphic adventure genre) not enough...
Quote:Big games like Zelda will sell well no matter when they're released! WW did big numbers last March, and I'm sure Twin Snakes will do relatively big numbers this month (although have you noticed how there's almost zero marketing behind TS? *sigh*). Nintendo doesn't need to release their biggest games around the holiday season, and releasing some smaller games with a big marketing campaign during the first half might be good for them.
Yeah, Zelda doesn't need the holidays. But the problem here would be releasing them with enough, adaquate, marketing -- a Mario Sunshine job would NOT be enough! For some others like that see F-Zero GX, or Eternal Darkness... shoddy or half-hearted marketing jobs helped lead to mediocricy in sales... now of course a big marketing push will hardly gaurantee good sales, but when combined with a good game it definitely helps. Mario Sunshine should be a case study in how to turn off the consumers.