Splatoon is officially the most successful (exclusive) new IP of this generation

Splatoon's been a monstrous success for Nintendo- the game has now sold 4.02 million copies worldwide, making it the most successful new first party IP, as well as the most successful new exclusive IP, of this generation.

• Splatoon has sold over double the copies that Bloodborne sold
• Splatoon has sold 4.02 million copies on a console like the Wii U. The implications of this:
  • Other exclusive new IPs, such as Bloodborne and Sunset Overdrive, were selling to far bigger install bases, and yet Splatoon has still managed to outsell them while selling to an install base as paltry as the Wii U's
  • The Wii U has an install base of 12.6 million- this means that Splatoon is owned by one in three Wii U owners, reaching one of the highest install base penetrations for a non bundled game of all time (Nintendo's own mario Kart 8 still leads the roost, with over half of all Wii U owners owning a copy of that game too)
  • Splatoon is now one of the most successful SKUs of this generation
• At last count, Splatoon has sold more than the following games- Bloodborne (2x sales), Halo 5: Guardians (4x sales), Forza Motorsport 6 (4x sales), Rise of the Tomb Raider (4x sales), inFamous: Second Son (4x sales), Killzone Shadow Fall (2x sales), DriveClub (2x sales, Gears of War Ultimate Edition (4x sales), Knack (2.25x sales), and Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (1.2x sales)

So yeah, guys. Splatoon is one of the biggest success stories of this generation, and also one of the most important Nintendo games of the last decade. Hopefully, Nintendo takes the hint, and continues making more new IPs, giving them the kind of push, support, and marketing that they made Splatoon.

Very cool. Splatoon 2 incoming?

I remember all the supposed rage over not having voice chat. Would you look at that? It didn't matter.

Hey, Splatoon would still have benefitted from it, there is no question. I don't use voice chat, so I don't care, but would having the option made any difference? Nope, not at all. it would have made it a whole lot easier for people to play with their friends.

That said, even major games like Destiny and Star Wars Battlefront launch without any voice chat solution these days, so I don't know what to say.

As it stands now, Splatoon is an incredible game, my favorite on the Wii U, and definitely one of the freshest, most fun shooters I have ever played. I remember all those who predicted it would die out in a month like Titanfall or Evolve, or fizzle out like The Wonderful 101 did. I wonder where they are now, and how it feels to be consistently proven wrong on a near monthly basis now.

Link?

congrats to nintendo, hopefully we get a sequel on the NX

Right, should have included that lol (I was thinking most people would check the Nintendo earnings thread).

Anyway, here you go! I added this to the OP as well.

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/sales/software/wiiu.html

Nintendo would be crazy not to have a Splatoon 2 of some sort on the NX- at the very least, a 'Complete' edition with all the DLC, and maybe 1080p graphics, should be put on the system.

Splatoon 2 will sell like crazy if they find a way to have cross platform play between the NX handheld and console.

Hopefully this shows Nintendo that Mario isn't everything. Seriously Nintendo needs to open more IP's and Splatoon show it that it's possible.

Splatoon is fun indeed and the single player is just as fun as well when you wanna play alone.

Thats cool. Until you remember Splatoon, MK8 and Smash are only really competing with each other to the point they were the only proper prominent retail releases for months on end.

Soo good on WiiU owners buying the only retail games they actually get I guess :P

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No, I'm tots not jelly >.>

Wouldnt Nintendo Land count as the most successful new IP this gen? That thing sold 5.02 million copies. Of course, most of those were probably bundled, but still.

Anyways, that game has some sick legs. Shows how well actually supporting a game goes to the goodwill, and thus maintained sales for a game. Wasnt it just in September the game had sold 2.42 million copies?

@Desmonic: You're right. It's not like Splatoon didn't outsell Smash Bros., or Zelda, or Super Mario 3D World, or Super Mario Maker, or Yoshi, or Mario Party, or Xenoblade, or Bayonetta 2. it totally just competed with Mario Kart 8, which is totally the only other retail game on the Wii U.

Also, it's not like Splatoon isn't selling to a quarter of the install base that something like Bloodborne is selling to, or that Bloodborne isn't more highly rated and better received among the core gaming community, or that Bloodborne has the backing of Sony's first party, or that Splatoon is on a dead console with a disengaged fanbase with consistently bad press. No, really, the only reason Splatoon sold as much as it did is because it sold by default.

>.> y u jelly :p

Bundled, so its sales shouldn't really count.

And yes, by September, it was 2.42 million copies. Right now it is 4.01 million copies. Also, 75% of the sales come from west, which dispels the myth that the game only sold in Japan.

Nice to hear. So that would make it 3 million copies sold in the west.

@Maroxad: Yep. Its western sales are 3x the overall sales of Halo 5 (as per the last given numbers for that game, anyway).

Yup, Splatoons very successful from what i read and hear :)

Cows and Lems should be ashamed. Buy some of your damn games for crying out loud. Cows and Sheep can keep playing pixels and frame rates I guess. The Wii U has the real games this gen. The System Wars community can deny that all they want. But now we see that most of you aren't buying the games you hype.

Definitely a fun game, I can see why it was the most successful.

Definitely deserves the sales it has. I absolutely love the game. I can't wait for a sequel.

inb4 Splatoon is kiddy and not AAA

@davillain-: They did make need IPs and non-Mario stuff.

Wonderfull 101, Bayonetta 2, SMT X FE, etc.

They all bombed.

Splatoon is an outliner. Congrats to Ninty, but after teh WII U horrible sales and more bombas, splatoon selling well is just cool.

Good to see. I just hope Nintendo doesn't take this to mean that people only desire Splatoon 2,3,4,5,6,7,8, in the vein of CoD, but also that they want completely new material as well. For how small the install base is contrasted to the attach rate, that's a ravenous feeding frenzy.

It would be disappointing to see them use this IP in exploitation instead of taking it as a clue towards producing novelty. C'mon Ninty, expand your game more. The NX would be the perfect time.

Congrats to Nintendo. I'm a little surprised it's sold better than all other new IPs this gen. Especially with the smaller install base. But my cousins who are casual gamers love it, so it definitely has its appeal.

Impressive, but cosidering there is no third party support to compete with it on Wii-U. It's not THAT impressive.

@charizard1605: What new IP did MS and Sony launch this gen again ?

For Nintendo I can think of Splatoon and Mario Maker

For MS I can only think of Sunset Overdrive

For Sony I can think of Driveclub, The Order and Bloodborne

Considering that the game does have to compete with other, extraordinarily strong games from established franchises, considering that the Wii U has a dead and disengaged fanbase, considering that it is selling to an install base a fraction of the size that the other consoles are selling their games to, considering that Splatoon has outsold games like Mario, Smash, and Zelda, it is pretty impressive no matter how it is spun, sorry.

Nintendo: Splatoon, The Wonderful 101, Codename STEAM, Nintendo Land, Super Mario Maker

Sony: Knack, DriveClub, Bloodborne, The Order 1886, Tearaway, Gravity Rush

Microsoft: Sunset Overdrive, Ryse

Notably, Microsoft only published those games. They are not Microsoft owned. They are not Microsoft IPs. The first new Microsoft IPs of the generation release this year with ReCore, Sea of Thieves, and Quantum Break.

Splatoon likely has a lot to offer but Wii U sales are padded extremely hard by the fact there is nearly zero third party support thus game purchases are limited to essentially first party availability. If a game like this launched on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One with the variety of games they offer and third party support; it would do good but not nearly as good as it's doing on the Wii U.

I wouldn't classify it as the most successful new IP simply on that basis, sure it moved 4.02 million units but that is largely in part to the fact that there's very little else available to purchase on the system. If you've got 20 choices vs. 200 choices, sales are going to all be centralized to this smaller library availability thus drive unit movement up, there's little sales disbursement.

Yet again, this is more than countered by the fact that there are only 12 million Wii Us out there, compared to 40 million PS4s, and 20 million Xbox Ones. This more than counters whatever assertion you are making against Splatoon's success. Splatoon is selling to less than a fraction of the base games on Xbox One and PS4 sell to.

No matter how it is spun, Splatoon's success is something to take note of- again, I would like to point out that it has sold more than not just competing exclusives on other platforms, such as Bloodborne, Sunset Overdrive, DriveClub, Forza 6, Killzone Shadow Fall, and Halo 5, but it has also outsold other more established Nintendo properties on the Wii U itself, including Mario 3D, Mario Maker, Smash Bros., Zelda, and Pikmin. That is impressive, no matter how you spin it.

Reading plenty of "Wii U has no third party support, that's why it is selling so well" in this thread. Well, it may not have plenty of third party support, but its library still boasts of plenty of great games, so the argument that Splatoon doesn't face any competition is one that holds no water. There are plenty of great games to choose from, and people are still buying Splatoon in droves.

Ok, you count new IP on handheld too.

Hyrule Warriors is a new IP as well, now that I think of it. And a very successful one too.

Yeah, one of the reasons Insomniac went with MS is because they got to keep the rights to the IP.

I see MS is lagging behind a bit. But that was because of that Don Mattrick. Now that Phil Spencer is in charge we are already seeing a change:

Recore, Scalebound and Qauntum Break are all upcoming new IP.

It doesn't matter if there were 100 million PlayStation 4's and Xbox One's, this isn't spin, this is just straight up logic and mathematics. With considerably smaller library viability the sales for the games which are viable are going to be astronomically inflated, not because they're something that is off the charts special, but rather because people have little else to spend their money on.

If you've got one viable game and a million people, a million people are going to buy that one game, if you've got ten viable games and a million people, the sales are going to be dispersed over those ten games thus dropping the amount of units sold per game greatly.

This isn't hard to figure out, Splatoon's sales and all of the other first party titles that are successful are a product of the Wii U's limited library and lack of viability as anything but a first party machine.

Is Captain Toad on that list? He should be

I actually made an edit that noted there is lots of new IP coming to Xbox this year, but you managed to get your post in before me, I see :P

I would not count Hyrule Warriors as a new IP- it's a Zelda skin on Dynasty Warriors (it's also not even Nintendo published).

And yes, I counted handheld games as well. I also did not count digital only games.

The same math also dictates that a limited install base like the Wii U's will throttle the potential sales for any game on it. That's a basic level of math and logic that you are ignoring- 100% of people in an audience of 10 million is still smaller than 20% of the people in an audience of 100 million.

Also, you are ignoring that the Wii U still has a whole lot of viable games- as a matter of fact, it still has more must play games than either of the other two consoles, so it's not like Splatoon had no competition, it was facing Nintendo's own, established properties, which is a formidable proposition for a new IP on a dead console.

Sorry, but this argument simply does not apply.

Honestly, neither Toad nor Mario Maker should apply, in my opinion.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My Bloodborne lost! To Splatoon of all games!

I feel dirty.

It's okay, as someone who played both games, I can tell you Splatoon is absolutely amazing :-)

New IP is very interesting to talk about. As big publishers sometimes forget it's what keeps this industry afloat.

You are right that Nintendo didn't publish Hyrule Warriors, so it's not a new IP by them.

But still, even if it's a spin off... I'd still consider it a new IP. Mario Maker is a spin off of Super Mario games.

As I said to bunchanumbers, I'm loath to consider even Mario Maker as a new IP :P

Good stuff, always nice to see a fresh new game like that do well....out of all the WiiU games this one made me almost buy the console, just looks like great simple fun

The Wii U does have a decent amount of viable games and more first party/exclusives, but once third party comes into the equation for the twins, your logic goes out the window. There's a larger install base for both of those consoles, but there's also a dramatically larger number of viable games to choose from with third party factored in. They have a larger install base, but the amount of viable games they have to choose from greatly outweighs that install base increase. I know Splatoon is the bee's knee's to you, but you have to look at this rationally, it's a successful game, but its success is mostly attributed to the state of the console itself and what is available.

If the Wii U had available to it what the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 do, Splatoon's numbers would likely be less than half of what they are if not more.

You're not helping me much.

Infact, saying this makes me hate you and the other 27.999.998 PS4 user for not getting Bloodborne.

I know, I've seen you say that Mario Maker is part of the 2D mario games ^_^

And you are right in a way: it share a lot of similarities with 2D mario games.

But it's also unique in the fact that it has the SMB, SMB3, SMW and NSMB graphical styles. And it's gameplay (the creation of levels) is also not found in any of the other mario games.

Are New Super Mario Bros U and Super Mario 3D World 2 different IP ? Or part of the same IP ?

Even with third party games, as of Splatoon's release, the Wii U had more viable games than the twins- it was only after the launch of The Witcher 3 that good, desired games, third party or otherwise, finally started to hit the PS4 and Xbox One. People don't care if a game is third party or not, they care about the number of other viable games they can buy when they purchase a game. At the time of Splatoon's release, Wii U owners could also have purchased Nintendo Land, New Super Mario Bros. U, New Super Luigi U, Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. 4, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Mario Party 10, Bayonetta 2, Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Lego City Undercover, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, not counting random third party stuff also on the console. At the time of Sunset Overdrive's launch on the Xbox One, buyers had the option of... Titanfall? Dead Rising 3, maybe? Forza 5? Battlefield 4? And at the time of Bloodborne, PS4 owners had the option to get Dragon Age Inquisition, Shadow of Mordor, Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, DriveClub, Killzone Shadow Fall, inFamous: Second Son, Battlefield 4, The Evil Within, Alien Isolation,and Knack (I'm not even going to compare Splatoon to games like The Order, DriveClub, Ryse, and Knack, which faced even less competition than these games I mentioned). Splatoon faced more competition at launch no matter how you look at it.

Yet again, the two factors- console install base size and number of games available on the system as competition- directly negate each other. Using this as an excuse to downplay Splatoon is selectively choosing context.

But I got Bloodborne at launch, and even got two endings in it.

Nintendo considers them two separate IPs (they do so for Mario Maker too), but they are still all 'Mario'

Splatoon NX

Spla2n

maybe now nintendo can make a shooter thats not catered to babies who don't play real shooters.

That's impossible. I thought the Wii U was dead and nobody bought their games.

Glad we agree! :D