Addressing the SS hate

Originally Posted by Double A

oh dear, only 25-30 million.

But seriously, keep in mind that most of these WM+s were sold to people because of 1-1 swordplay (Resort). SS had an advantage in that sense, because the market for 1-1 swordplay games was large and clearly-established. So for SS' sales to die away so fast is pretty disappointing.

That doesn't change the point: that "released near the end of the Wii's lifespan" is irrelevant.

When I bought SS (I bought it on the first day), I also bought a third-party Wii Remote Plus. The third-party Wii Remote Plus worked very well, though I had to recalibrate it excessively when it is very low on batteries.

Note that the 25-30 million figure is because of official WM+ (both the addon and the Wii Remote Plus) and does not include third-party ones.

Originally Posted by Double A

That doesn't change the point: that "released near the end of the Wii's lifespan" is irrelevant.

Irrelevant? The release date is one of the most relevant things there are to game sales. Here's some historic evidence.

NES (1985-1994) best sellers:
Super Mario Bros. (40.24 million) (1985)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (18 million) (1988)
Super Mario Bros. 2 (10 million) (1988)
The Legend of Zelda (6.51 million) (1986)
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (4.38 million) (1987)

Super NES (1991-1998) best sellers:
Super Mario World (20.60 million) (1991)
Donkey Kong Country (9 million) (1994)
Super Mario Kart (8 million) (1992)
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (6.3 million) (1992)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (4.61 million) (1991)

Nintendo 64 (1996-2002) best sellers:
Super Mario 64 (11.62 million) (1996)
Mario Kart 64 (9 million) (1996)
GoldenEye 007 (8 million) (1997)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (7.6 million) (1998)
Super Smash Bros. (5 million) (1999)

Gamecube (2001-2007) best sellers:
Super Smash Bros. Melee (7.09 million) (2001)
Mario Kart: Double Dash (7 million) (2003)
Super Mario Sunshine (5.9 million) (2002)
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (4.6 million) (2002)
Luigi's Mansion (2.64 million) (2001)

I did the math (your welcome) and the only top seller released in the second half of the console's lifespan is Donkey Kong Country (its less than a year into the second half too), and that's because the game had ground breaking graphics that won Nintendo the SNES vs Genesis console war. The other 19 games were released in the first half of the console's life.

So yeah, SS being released near the tail end of the Wii's life is a big deal, and I'd eat my shorts if it wouldn't have sold better if it were released within three years of the Wii's launch. If the game were there at launch instead of the TP port (and it should have been, along with built-in WM+ from the start instead of waggle), it would have sold a bare minimum of 6 million units (probably around 7-8 million) because unlike TP Wii, the game actually showcases the Wii's hardware/controls potential and isn't a last gen port.

But in reality, the Wii hardware/software sales momentum has been slowing to a halt since 2010, so there's no surprise that SS sales would suffer from that. If Nintendo wants Zelda Wii U to succeed saleswise, they had better learn from the MM and SS sales and not wait for the console's last year of life to get Zelda out. My suggestion for them is that they recycle the SS controls, leave the Wii U tablet out of it (unless for bonus stuff similar to Tingle Tuner), get Retro to help with graphics (the Zelda team's way too small to produce graphics like those in the E3 demo throughout the entire game), and release the game by 2014, 2015 at the latest.

See, you can pull up as much data as you want in order to support a proposition, but it doesn't mean anything unless you can link the data to that proposition. Until then, there are multiple things you can link to that proposition.

Or in layman's terms, "correlation does not equal causation". It simply does not make sense for the sales potential of a game to die down later in the console's lifespan specifically because of the late-lifespan release, especially if the next console is back-compatible (which it is, in the case of SS).

In this particular case, there is more than one pattern visible in the data you showed me, the most notable of which is that Mario > Zelda in sales, which most certainly is not because of when the games were released - this generation has shown that. It is entirely feasible that the games which sold the most merely correlate with the games released early in ^those consoles' lifespans.

The only thing that harms sales of any product is a lack of interest in that product. I'd even be willing to concede that the late-lifespan time period is responsible for other factors that are responsible for lessened overall interest in games. But to derive the following from that:

If the game were there at launch instead of the TP port (and it should have been, along with built-in WM+ from the start instead of waggle), it would have sold a bare minimum of 6 million units (probably around 7-8 million) because unlike TP Wii, the game actually showcases the Wii's hardware/controls potential and isn't a last gen port.

... is a massive leap of faith. It is almost certain that SS would have had more total sales had it been released earlier. However, to claim an improvement of 100% is making a claim about SS' ability to create passion/interest that just can't be measured from bare sales numbers (it is ludicrous to explain away as many as 4M additional sales as the result of merely having been released earlier).

In fact, it is doubtful that SS could have gathered enough interest at launch to overtake TP. Simply put, the reaction to SS outside of the Zelda community (maybe even inside it) was pretty tepid, while TP had this (E3 is a venue for people both inside AND outside of the Zelda fanbase).

You also use "showcases the Wii's hardware/controls potential and isn't a last gen port" to justify this assumption, which is also largely irrelevant. Who cares if SS showcased the Wii's control scheme potential? If it can't generate interest in itself (as shown by the sudden death of sales and the generally lukewarm reaction to the game by the gaming community), how can it sell at all, let alone act as a Wii showcase? Wii Fit didn't sell because "OHEY LOOK AT HOW THEY'RE USING THE WII IN A STRANGE WAY", but because it was genuinely gathered and maintained the interest of many gamers. Same for MKWii or NSMBWii or WSR. Only technophiles care about "control scheme potential".

And of course, TP disproves the importance of "last-gen port".

Originally Posted by Kailuh727

If you don't like cutscenes, then play Tetris or Pacman, there are no cutscenes in those games.

Pac Man has cut scenes. In fact, it was the first game to ever have them.

Wait, so this thread is too prove that people have differing opinions on Zelda games?

Well I'll be damned.

No, I think it's the opposite. The title implies there is something unjustified about disliking SS, and the OP implies that SS-dislikers shouldn't be taken seriously.

I'm just going to say this...

Any Zelda game that's not Ocarina of Time is underrated.

Originally Posted by Double A

See, you can pull up as much data as you want in order to support a proposition, but it doesn't mean anything unless you can link the data to that proposition. Until then, there are multiple things you can link to that proposition.

Sure. Like I said before, many hardcore gamers have since sold/traded in their Wiis or packed it up. Many of them were disappointed by the Wii’s lack of games and have bought an Xbox or PS3 to fill the gaming void. Have you heard all the comments about people's Wiis "collecting dust" in the last few months by both the gaming media and gaming community? The Wii had lost its momentum, NA only getting three major retail games the entire year of 2011, and even WiiWare/Virtual Console releases flowing a halt. Not surprisingly, both hardware and software sales for the Wii have plummeted in the last two years; you can probably connect the dots and see that interest in the Wii and its games have dipped. Certainly you can’t tell me that SS sales weren’t affected by this in the slightest bit, can you?

If the Wii U launch lineup is disappointing, there is a chance that we'd see a increase in late-term SS sales from people who would like to play the game but not buy a Wii (there are quite a few), but otherwise, backwards compatibility of the Wii U should not affect sales much. (The Wii U isn’t out yet anyways, so I don’t see how its backwards compatibility would affect current SS sales.)

As far as launch/early titles selling more, think of it this way. In the early days of the console’s life, people are more hyped for their brand new system and more eager to go out and buy games for it. After three or four years, they could get bored of their system and lose interest OR they could own enough games in their library so they don’t feel the need to buy more OR they could be saving up their money for Nintendo/another company’s next gen console and games for THOSE consoles. I for example fall in the last category, in which I stopped buying Wii games for a year so I could afford a 3DS and some games for it. There’s a whole bunch of other reasons why sales data have consistently shown higher sales for games released earlier, and while there is incredibly slim chance that it’s all coincidence, I don't see any good reason to believe in the later.

My “ludicrous” estimate of SS sales as a launch title was based on the sales of the TP Wii port, which were at 5.82 million. In my mind, there would be more people interested in buying an original Zelda game built for the Wii for their new system that a GCN port with tacked on waggle controls, so an estimate of 6 million is rather conservative. You keep on dismissing my points as “irrelevant,” but do you honestly think back in 2006 that people wouldn’t be more interested in 1-on-1 sword play than waggle? People can genuinely be interested in seeing the potential of new technologies without being complete technophiles, you know.

Funny thing you bring up the TP E3 trailer, seeing how nearly none of the material shown made it to the final game. You might as well consider the 2000 Spaceworld Zelda demo as evidence of interest in TWW. But in all seriousness, don’t you think part of the fantastic reaction to the TP trailer was just because of the change in artstyle? Those people knew nothing about the game itself, just that it’s Zelda and now has a realistic artstyle that they didn’t get with TWW. If a dark and gritty artstyle is all it takes to get people pumped for Zelda, then I’m severely disappointed.

Originally Posted by Double A

No, I think it's the opposite. The title implies there is something unjustified about disliking SS

We all have opinions and therefore are susceptible to conformation bias, but I find this borderline absurd. Please explain why "addressing the SS hate" implies "something unjustified about disliking SS," because to me, the only way I could see this as implying that is if I already disliked the game AND was biased against the opinions of those who didn't dislike the game, i.e., a person with a strong case of confirmation bias. Don't take this as ad hominem because that is not my intention; I just don't understand why this particular title would imply that to you.

If the goal of writing the title was to suggest any unjustification in disliking SS (there isn't any, btw), depending on whether I wanted to be subtle or straight-forward, I would have used one of the following titles: "Why the SS haters are wrong," "SS hate is just a fad," or "Disproving the SS hate." I did in fact think about an appropriate title for a while and found "Addressing the SS hate" the most appropriate, because that was precisely what I was trying to do. "Addressing" an issue does not imply any opinion on it at all (can you tell me the message of "Addressing the Welfare Issue" by name alone?), and we all can agree that "SS hate" does in fact exist.

Originally Posted by Double A

and the OP implies that SS-dislikers shouldn't be taken seriously.

As for my OP, yeah, there are some parts that seem dismissive of anti-SS opinions, in particular the first paragraph that in hindsight was irrelevant to my main message. But as I've already stated, the purpose of the OP and this thread is to point out that a) the SS hate will eventually die down, b) SS will be looked upon more favorably in the years to come. If you try to take any more out of it, I as the author can tell you that you are over-analyzing and coming to conclusions of which I had no intention. There are few things more pointless than debating the author what his intentions are, and I've already stated mine.

Talking Point: Why Skyward Sword Sales Failed to Soar - Wii News @ Nintendo Life

Woah, I swear I just posted that a while ago, went on Nintendo Life, and the first article I see is this. That's a bit...spooky... Maybe Nintendo Life is following me for article ideas. XD

Well Double A, they give pretty much the same reasons as I do for the lackluster sales, and I'm not even a sales expert. Interestingly, SS sold more than 250,000 more than TP (either the Wii port or both versions, I'm not sure) in its first 5 months, so I take that as further evidence that SS would have sold at least 6 million if it were a launch title.

Skyward Sword had a LOT working against it commercially.

-The Wii had no momentum
-It did not have a "realistic" art-style
-It required an add-on
-Competition from other platforms was stiff

I don't want to get overly abstract/academic about it, but I think a larger point TGV is making (without stating it explicitly) is that it's a mistake to think a game's "quality" can be assessed beyond the preferences of any given individual. It's very hard to make an objective argument that one game is better than another unless we try to use dubious criteria like sales or review scores.

The fact is, as TGV has shown and we all know, perceptions of the various Zelda games have changed dramatically over time. A game can go from masterpiece to overrated, overrated to underrated (or the other way around), and everything in-between. Obviously the games themselves didn't change, only the way people thought about them.

In fact, an opinion doesn't always remain constant even in a single individual. I'm a prime example, as I went from disliking Wind Waker to appreciating it over the years.

Originally Posted by Thegargoylevine

Sure. Like I said before, many hardcore gamers have since sold/traded in their Wiis or packed it up. Many of them were disappointed by the Wii’s lack of games and have bought an Xbox or PS3 to fill the gaming void. Have you heard all the comments about people's Wiis "collecting dust" in the last few months by both the gaming media and gaming community? The Wii had lost its momentum, NA only getting three major retail games the entire year of 2011, and even WiiWare/Virtual Console releases flowing a halt. Not surprisingly, both hardware and software sales for the Wii have plummeted in the last two years; you can probably connect the dots and see that interest in the Wii and its games have dipped. Certainly you can’t tell me that SS sales weren’t affected by this in the slightest bit, can you?

Strawman. What I claimed was that SS isn't interesting to enough gamers to sell an additional 3-4M (i.e. outsell TP) if it released at launch instead.

"Many Wii gamers have sold their Wiis", that's true. But it's pretty irrelevant since lots of gamers (even the ones you call "hardcore") still own their Wiis. Fact of the matter is that SS isn't even interesting enough to appeal to the "hardcore" gamers that still own their Wiis.

My “ludicrous” estimate of SS sales as a launch title was based on the sales of the TP Wii port, which were at 5.82 million. In my mind, there would be more people interested in buying an original Zelda game built for the Wii for their new system that a GCN port with tacked on waggle controls, so an estimate of 6 million is rather conservative.

People can be interested in seeing the potential of new technologies, yes. But that is a selling point (if it even is) for a console, not for a game. Games largely don't sell on how well they showcase a console's potential (i.e. the merits of something else), but on their own merits.

"GCN port with tacked-on waggle controls" IS irrelevant because that completely dismisses the effect of the content of the game in terms of creating interest (what you're claiming is that the bulk of the interest for SS would have come from how well it did 1-1 swordplay rather than the content of the game which, if true, also means SS is a gimmicky game). Likewise, "it showcases the Wii's control scheme potential" is irrelevant for the same reason.

ou keep on dismissing my points as “irrelevant,” but do you honestly think back in 2006 that people wouldn’t be more interested in 1-on-1 sword play than waggle? People can genuinely be interested in seeing the potential of new technologies without being complete technophiles, you know.

It's not about 1-1 swordplay, but about the spirit of combat. Sure, there was interest in SS' 1-1 sword control. However, the content was arranged in such a way that made swordplay largely unsatisfying. In contrast, TP had waggle, but the combat was more fluid and fast-paced. TP captures the spirit of combat better than SS does, while I would say that WSR captures it better than both.

Funny thing you bring up the TP E3 trailer, seeing how nearly none of the material shown made it to the final game. You might as well consider the 2000 Spaceworld Zelda demo as evidence of interest in TWW. But in all seriousness, don’t you think part of the fantastic reaction to the TP trailer was just because of the change in artstyle? Those people knew nothing about the game itself, just that it’s Zelda and now has a realistic artstyle that they didn’t get with TWW. If a dark and gritty artstyle is all it takes to get people pumped for Zelda, then I’m severely disappointed.

Really? All you inferred from the first TP trailer was "new artstyle"? I'll admit that the artstyle was the biggest part of it, but I wouldn't say that it was the entire story.

I watch the trailer even today and get chills. The majority of the trailer was Link simply being a badass. "Blades will bleed, swords will shatter" accompanied by scenes that really emphasized the spirit of combat (fierce and fast attacks, horseback combat, loads of enemies charging at you). True, we didn't learn much about the game itself, but the trailer did imply that TP production was headed in a particular direction, and that direction was more satisfying combat (which we didn't really get beyond what we got in the trailer - and a game generally ends up disappointing if it doesn't massively surpass its trailer in an aspect).

Trailers are all about the overall direction a game is headed in during production. For many gamers, TP's first trailer showed a more interesting "direction" than any of SS' trailers.

Originally Posted by TheGargoyleVine

Well Double A, they give pretty much the same reasons as I do for the lackluster sales, and I'm not even a sales expert. Interestingly, SS sold more than 250,000 more than TP (either the Wii port or both versions, I'm not sure) in its first 5 months, so I take that as further evidence that SS would have sold at least 6 million if it were a launch title.

A couple hundreds of thousands of extra sales in a short period of time is simply not indicative of the long term interest in the game. For instance, it tells us nothing of how quickly sales are dropping, or how much more/less front-loaded they were, etc.

Originally Posted by Double A

Strawman. What I claimed was that SS isn't interesting to enough gamers to sell an additional 3-4M if it released at launch instead.

Okay, my bad. I thought when you said this:

Originally Posted by Double A

That doesn't change the point: that "released near the end of the Wii's lifespan" is irrelevant.

you actually meant what you said. So what is your stance? Is SS's release date "irrelevant", or does it just not effect sales enough to claim that it'd sell 3-4 million units more as life-long sales?

Originally Posted by Double A

"Many Wii gamers have sold their Wiis", that's true. But it's pretty irrelevant since lots of gamers (even the ones you call "hardcore") still own their Wiis.

If "many" Wii gamers have sold their Wiis, I don't see how it could be "irrelevant" just because "lots of gamers" have not. None of us know the statistics of how many hardcore gamers sold their Wiis, so until one of us can come up with a good estimate and back it up with evidence, you cannot dismiss it as "irrelevant." All I know is that there is a group of people who wanted to play SS but didn't own a Wii, but I have no idea how large or small that group of people is.

Originally Posted by Double A

Fact of the matter is that SS isn't even interesting enough to appeal to the "hardcore" gamers that still own their Wiis.

Fact of the matter, 3.52 million gamers did buy SS. You either made a typo by not saying "some of the hardcore gamers," or you are suggesting that the 3.52 million units sold were to casuals. Please don't say that 3.52 million units is "irrelevant;" that's getting very irritating.

Originally Posted by Thegargoylevine

Okay, my bad. I thought when you said this:



you actually meant what you said. So what is your stance? Is SS's release date "irrelevant", or does it just not effect sales enough to claim that it'd sell 3-4 million units more as life-long sales?

"Irrelevant in the bigger picture" then. IIRC I did say "largely" irrelevant.

If "many" Wii gamers have sold their Wiis, I don't see how it could be "irrelevant" just because "lots of gamers" have not. None of us know the statistics of how many hardcore gamers sold their Wiis, so until one of us can come up with a good estimate and back it up with evidence, you cannot dismiss it as "irrelevant." All I know is that there is a group of people who wanted to play SS but didn't own a Wii, but I have no idea how large or small that group of people is.

So the default position, in this case, is "I don't know how much more SS would have sold had it been released at launch, but I do know that that there was more initial interest in TP, which means that it is unlikely that SS would have outsold TP if released at launch."

Fact of the matter, 3.52 million gamers did buy SS. You either made a typo by not saying "some of the hardcore gamers," or you are suggesting that the 3.52 million units sold were to casuals. Please don't say that 3.52 million units is "irrelevant;" that's getting very irritating.

I said that "lots of hardcore gamers have sold their Wii's" is irrelevant, not the number of copies SS sold.

But yeah, I missed out "a large number off" when I said that "hardcore gamers" on the Wii are not interested in SS.

Originally Posted by Double A

I watch the trailer even today and get chills. The majority of the trailer was Link simply being a badass. "Blades will bleed, swords will shatter" accompanied by scenes that really emphasized the spirit of combat (fierce and fast attacks, horseback combat, loads of enemies charging at you). True, we didn't learn much about the game itself, but the trailer did imply that TP production was headed in a particular direction, and that direction was more satisfying combat (which we didn't really get beyond what we got in the trailer - and a game generally ends up disappointing if it doesn't massively surpass its trailer in an aspect).

Trailers are all about the overall direction a game is headed in during production. For many gamers, TP's first trailer showed a more interesting "direction" than any of SS' trailers.

I think this is a very important point.

I wouldn't say that it had a huge impact on SS's total sales, but it definitely played a part. I think most people would agree that Nintendo completely blew it when it came to SS's initial reveal. Like Double A pointed out, trailers give the first impression (and in this case, first impressions are very important) of what direction and style of content a game will have. With TP, it gave a sense of grand adventure fighting against a large amount of enemies, as well as promising-looking environments such as the open forest.

SS's initial reveal was a tech demo. That's all it was. There was no indication of the actual content of the game where we'd be making use of all the motion- controlled mechanics, besides a very rough looking forest setting. It doesn't help that it wasn't until almost a year later at the following GDC when we got significant new footage of the game. The first impression of SS for many people was underwhelming.

TP's marketing was how you do hype. The only catch is that the game actually has to live up to whatever content is being shown in early trailers, which was TP's downfall. I think that scared Nintendo into playing it way too safe with SS's marketing. Instead of an initial "wow" impression, we slowly had to build up the excitement as more footage got shown. That initial "wow" is important because that's what is going to urge people who may not be interested in the game to bother to keep up with subsequent footage in the first place.

Although....in a way, I guess it kind of is fitting that SS's initial reveal was a tech demo, because with the excessive handholding throughout it, it certainly felt like a glorified tutorial session at times.

Originally Posted by Common Knowledge

TP's marketing was how you do hype. The only catch is that the game actually has to live up to whatever content is being shown in early trailers, which was TP's downfall. I think that scared Nintendo into playing it way too safe with SS's marketing.

A slight and irrelevant nitpick: it's about more than "living up to the trailer" (since every game with a trailer technically lives up to the trailer), but about massively surpassing it (since the trailer is merely meant to be a taste of what's to come, rather than the whole course). Be careful about saying that TP didn't "live up to the trailer".

But yeah, I think you were right that Nintendo were scared into playing it safe with SS' marketing. I'd like to expand on this and say that this was the wrong move from the gamers' point of view, as it only gives Nintendo an excuse for sales that would have been better had the marketing been improved.

Though I'm not sure what Nintendo could have shown from SS that would have created an initial "WOW" that could be sustained over a long period of time.

Originally Posted by Celeryyy

I'm just going to say this...

Any Zelda game that's not Ocarina of Time is underrated.

Great thread OP. I'm 25 and I watched this kind of crap happen with OoT. I remember friends I played A Link to the Past with during sleepovers telling me how ♥♥♥♥ty OoT was and how horrible of a mistake it was for Zelda to move in that direction. It might not have been as loud as the TP or SS hate, but it was still there.

Coming from someone who always tries to appreciate what is good in a game I can say I have observed this phase through multiple Zelda titles and I have also observed it as a HUGE Final Fantasy fan. Some people just never stop complaining long enough to enjoy.

I know that it's the fans that make Zelda possible, but some of you guys should acknowledge that the artists are the inventors of video game universes and characters, and though you may have certain expectations, due to the games of the past, you should still respect the artists right to creative freedom and let them develop their characters and games in a surprising and enjoyable way.

All I can say is that A Link to the Past was my favorite (and second) Zelda game of my childhood and it was undoubtedly my favorite until Skyward Sword. No hate here.

Originally Posted by Samurai Blur

I know that it's the fans that make Zelda possible, but some of you guys should acknowledge that the artists are the inventors of video game universes and characters, and though you may have certain expectations, due to the games of the past, you should still respect the artists right to creative freedom and let them develop their characters and games in a surprising and enjoyable way.

Who isn't respecting the artists' right to creative freedom?

They already CAN do whatever they want (within given financial constraints anyway, but that's entirely reasonable). But doing whatever they want isn't necessarily what is best for the gamers. Telling the gamers to "shut up and eat what they put in front of you" when they blatantly express distaste towards it is inherently anti-gamer, and the industry can only suffer in the long term if this is the mindset under which game designers operate, especially if the gamers are told to "respect" this position.

It never ceases to intrigue me whenever a gamer promotes an anti-gamer position.

To paraphrase Charlton Heston, "The trouble with video games as a business is that they're an art, and the trouble with video games as art is that they're a business."
Sure, "artistic integrity" is a fine goal (though I have my doubts that many things that have gone into Zelda games lately have been artistic choices as opposed to lack of planning or laziness), but you're still releasing your "art" as a product. Consumer reactions need to be anticipated and respected.

I'd also argue that artistic integrity isn't necessarily conducive to quality, as it was "artistic integrity" that landed us with the Star Wars prequels and numerous changes to the original trilogy.