5th March 2004, 11:12 AM
Quote:I'd call it 'unsure' myself. I don't really know.
You're messed up, did you know that?
Quote:So?
I just said that Nintendo needs to release more games in q1 and q2.
Quote: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...
RE0 did the same numbers as REmake, which isn't all that great. BG&E did poorly because people don't know a good game when they see one, and Ubi Soft really didn't know how to market it.
Quote: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 consumer.
Nintendo counted on Mario being as big of a name today as it was six years ago, and obviously they were wrong. That coupled with their odd advertising and making it out to be some weird paint game instead of a very Mario 64-ish title led to its poor sales. Zelda did well because it still looked like a Zelda adventure, and when people saw it in motion they were obviously quite intrigued by it. But some things just don't make any sense, like Prince of Persia. It got very positive reviews, a good marketing campaign, and the game looks terrific in every way. Why it sold so poorly I will never understand.