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Less than 125m is like, literally impossible barring some global catastrophe.
Thanks for the information, maybe we will get an exact number if the Switch gets close to 155m.Between 159.2m and 161.9m
What was the lifetime sales of the PS2? Not 158m [Update: Between 159.2m and 161.9m]
So I saw this tweet just earlier: I went to take a look at the lifetime sales of the PS2 on Wikipedia. On this page it says 155 million and the citations don't give that number. I went to this page that says 158 million, gives the same citations but it doesn't give that number. I then tried...www.resetera.com
2024 seems way too soon for a successor. They won't have a new Zelda to launch with it, Mario Kart DLC will have just ended so there likely can't be a new MK, I'd be shocked if there's no new 3D Mario out before the end of next year...
...Too soon? And people used to say that was too late lol
Mario Kart feels unlikely that soon after DLC ends. That's a lot of tracks to sell as DLC and then turn around and sell a brand new game not a year later.
Even if this pushes the next Mario Kart beyond 2024, launching with an Open World 3D Mario in March 2024 and a new Smash in November could work (Ultimate was developed in 3 years after DLC support for Wii U / 3DS ended). Throw a Mario Party and Ring Fit sequel in-between plus a bunch of mid-tier games as usual and that's a great launch year.
Most people are going to pay for the DLC well before the end of 2023. But I also really don't see a problem with selling a new game a few months later like you do.
Honestly I'm kinda surprised you guys think a new Smash could be on the way that soon. Without Sakurai I feel like it would essentially need a full reboot for the series and how it's developed.
I don't think they need a game to launch with the movie but I feel like they'd probably like to have one. It could be 2D, I agree, but I still have a hard time seeing them go over 6 years between 3D Mario entries. But who knows!
What makes you think Sakurai is done? He's already been going on interviews about how "we're going to cut down the roster if there's a new one". Why would someone who has made up his mind about retirement think about what's next?
I actually agree with you when it comes to Mario Kart. It was lagging behind Odyssey and I think maybe BotW by a significant margin the first year of the Switch and just took over as time went on to the point where it's close to doubling Odyssey's sales which indicates to me that it's more of a companion game that just happens to have an insane amount of appeal. Smash on the other hand, god no. It's their biggest system seller alongside Pokemon.
I don't think there's much chance that we see the successor within the next eighteen months, but you're misinterpreting Furukawa's comments there. A console's lifespan doesn't end the instant that its successor launches- from Nintendo's perspective, the 3DS's lifespan continued until 2019, despite the Switch launching two years earlier.
im sure that (Putting Aside 2020 cause Covid making it an odd year) Switch is about to have its best year
Yesterday‘s direct was really great, and I think that it will boost hardware sales over the next 12 months.
I agree. The Mario Kart DLC roadmap shows the current generation is their focus until at least the end of 2023, but it doesn't increase the total addressable market in any way. I'll always remember Iwata's words that they wanted the Wii U successor to become something closer to an ecosystem like iOS and Android rather than previous console cycles. I think that's still the plan, but we haven't seen anything yet that shows the Switch is the start of something bigger than a normal console generation. They haven't shown how they aim to become hardware agnostic, or at least break out of the traditional hardware-bound console generations. I hope they can pull something off like what smartphone manufacturers did though.
Any relatively major first party software launch will push hardware, I'm referring to it not being a "big" system seller. Like, if they launch a brand new platform with just a new Mario Kart and nothing else major for the next 3-4 months I'm not sure it would do so hot.
Huh, I actually really thought he had like, explicitly expressed his desire to be done with the series. Maybe I'm wrong with that.
Hmmm I'm not sure I'd agree about Smash. Definitely it would push systems, but I simply don't think multiplayer heavy games tend to be big system sellers for Nintendo in general. Zelda and Mario are probably the two standouts right now, Pokemon being third behind that. In terms of being a title you can reliably launch a platform with.
Well, of all the possible Games to do something as stupid as not releasing anything else for months, I'd wager MarioKart is among your best bets of surviving
Games "that you can reliably launch a platform with" have different requirements than "a successful multiplayer game on Nintendo systems".
I don't think there is data on what kind of games are or are not big "system sellers". All we can really go in is looking at what games consoles tend to launch with, and that's rarely multiplayer focused games like Smash or Mario Kart.
I agree fully with your broad point but I'm not sure I'd agree that Mario Kart and Smash appeal to that early adopter group as much as Nintendo's usual single player blockbusters do.
Sakurai did say that after Melee, Brawl and for Wii U/3DS.
If it reaches 150+ by the end of 2024(which I think it will) it will defintely beath the Ps2
the PS2 had sooo many factors leading to it reach that number
I don't have any data on whether a multiplayer game at launch would be better or worse than a singleplayer game at launch. I share your bias about exciting and fresh experiences at launch over familiarity, though I also don't have any data on that. I guess we could argue the launches of the Wii, Wii U, and Switch and their flagship launch games (respectively the new and fresh Wii Sports, the familiar New Super Mario Bros. U, and the new and fresh The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) are data points here, but probably very biased, because one could argue for non-Nintendo platforms that Killzone: Shadow Fall, for example, wasn't really "new and fresh", but still a good-enough launch game for the PS4.
Oh I think there was a misunderstanding somewhere, I'm not trying to argue that those wouldn't be good launch window games or that they don't appeal at all to the same early adopter crowd. The context of this discussion was around what games they might possibly have in the pipeline for a successor launch in like 2024. I think having a MK or a Smash ready for that launch window is a fine plan but I believe they would like (maybe not need) to have one or the big, new single player experiences I talked about above as a launch day title. As we saw with the Switch and Wii that big launch title helped immensely with early sales performance.I don't have any data on whether a multiplayer game at launch would be better or worse than a singleplayer game at launch. I share your bias about exciting and fresh experiences at launch over familiarity, though I also don't have any data on that. I guess we could argue the launches of the Wii, Wii U, and Switch and their flagship launch games (respectively the new and fresh Wii Sports, the familiar New Super Mario Bros. U, and the new and fresh The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild) are data points here, but probably very biased, because one could argue for non-Nintendo platforms that Killzone: Shadow Fall, for example, wasn't really "new and fresh", but still a good-enough launch game for the PS4.
What I tried to prove was that multiplayer games during their launch period of a console aren't necessarily a bad idea. You say you're not convinced that Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. appeal to the early adopter group. We can still argue about the exact definition of the early adopter group, but I'll go with "everyone who buys a console in its first year", and I'll extend that group to "everyone who buys a console unit shipped in the console's first year" for sake of my argument. In case of the Nintendo Switch, I define its early adopter group size as: all units shipped in CY 2017, and half of the units shipped in Q1 2018, which sums up to 16.34 million units. The install base of the Switch at the end of CY 2017 was 14.87 million.
I want to thank @acezam for his extensive post with tons of charts with quarterly Nintendo hardware and software shipments.
Other sources:
Supplementary Information for the Nine-Month Period Ended December 2017
Supplementary Information for the Nine-Month Period Ended December 2018
We have quarterly shipment data of Nintendo Switch hardware since launch, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe was released only 2 months after launch. I have plotted the quarterly shipments of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (which was released in Q4 2018, at the very beginning of the 8th quarter of the Switch's life) against hardware shipments.
As you can see, at the end of 2017, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's attach rate was 50% at a time where there was only an early adopter audience (7.33m copies). To compare (not in my graph), The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had shipped 6.70 million units as 31st Dec 2017, which means its attach rate was 45%, despite being a launch title with an attach rate of >100% in its first month.
Splatoon 2 had shipped 4.91 million units as of 31st Dec 2017, which is an attach rate of 33%, so lower than BOTW.
2018
At the end of CY 2018, the Switch install base was 32.27 million units. Based on my definition earlier, 16.34 million of those (50.6%) are early adopters.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's attach rate had only shrunk 3.4 percent-points to 46.54%.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild LTD shipments were 11.68 million, corresponding to an attach rate of 36.2%.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate had an attach rate of 37.43% at the end of 2018, despite being on the market for only 1 month(!!). Of course the game was the top choice to buy alongside a new console purchase during that Christmas season, but when 50.6% of the audience is early adopter, that's an achievement that simply is not possible if the game doesn't resonate with that audience.
Splatoon 2's attach rate had shrunk from 33% at the end of 2017 to 26% at the end of 2018, which shows it isn't as strong of an evergreen as the other games mentioned, but doesn't say much about the difference in appeal of that game between early adopters and non-early adopters.
Ah, yep, I've misunderstood your point then. My bad. But yeah, long dev cycles is something that has been bothering me for a while now, too, in particular with the launch timing of the Succ, which I expect in Q4 2024 (or perhaps a year later?). Nintendo's team structure within EPD is so fluid that it's hard to predict what kind of projects they would be able to ship in time for launch -- or the launch year -- of the Succ. The effects of the pandemic don't help here either. It takes 5 years to release sequels to Xenoblade and Splatoon, probably closer to 6 years for BOTW2, but then Next Level Games releases Mario Strikers only 3 years after the release of Luigi's Mansion 3, if it that's the most normal thing in a world struck by a pandemic.
I really think you're misinterpreting a large part of the audience that buys Smash. Obviously there are plenty of casual gamers or families that buy it too, but on the whole I think it is viewed as one of Nintendo's most hardcore franchises if anything. In lieu of actual data, some personal anecdotes: I was in college when Smash 4 was on the way, and I heard plenty of hype for. It appeals very strongly to the college age crowd that's into competitive games like LoL and TF2. Older adults that can't get together as easily for couch co-op might prefer a single player Mario or Zelda, yeah, but that's not really a problem for the younger crowd. It was basically the go to game for get-togethers. The competitive nature and tournament scene brings in lots of hardcore players.
