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

You don't throw $100M at your company and say, "GO MAKE AAA GAME! GO MAKE NEXT ZELDA AND METROID!". That's not how game development works. That's not how it works at all.

Development is iterative and chaotic, not stagnant. You build upon ideas until you either come up with a winner or give up and send out Skyward Sword. What happened with Splatoon? Guys at the office were just messing around while working on A-tier games to help pay the bills when they came up with a crazy idea for a shooter. That idea snowballed, got worked on, improved upon, and then the higher-ups said "Oh shit, this could be our next big hit. **** Metroid (for now), we gotta get this thing out there and make sure it sells, sells, sells!" -- And that's the point they went in hard on production.

If you paid any attention to Nintendo at all, you'd have noticed they've been pushing it as hard as they have Smash.
And if you paid attention to reception, you'd know that while initial reviews were lukewarm, by the end of the year, a shit-ton of people have been calling it a GOTY contender and sure as hell snubbed shooter of the year.

Well, apart from my meltdown, i don't see much of a cow uprising here.

I'm glad Splatoon sold well and might stop Nintendo working on the other IPs they have, cause i don't care for them, just Eternal Darkness.

But Bloodborne selling just 2mill is a letdown.

If only. I swore that the successor to the Wii was going to be called the WII (with roman numerals), but that golden opportunity was SQUANDERED. They'll probably call it "New Splatoon" just to confuse everyone on the planet once again.

They should just have it be an all new game, a significantly expanded sequel, and then call it...

Splatoon. Again. Because why not.

I just want to add Nintendo Land sold 5 million and Tomodochi Life has sold 4.89 million, so I'll just leave the salt here while you rename the title thread.

@Ballroompirate: Yeah, we've already been through this in the thread already. Tamodachi is not a new IP, it had a game on the DS, and Nintendo Land received all its sales from bundles.

When im giving example as of what game is AAA caliber or not , i do that to try to make some people understand that developers and everything invested towards AAA caliber games are way and beyond versus games like Splatoon. I repeat , AAA caliber games dont mean they will meet AAA by any means just because developers put way more time , more efforts , more money or all together. I dont have anything to disagree with your review of Zelda but thats irrelevant to what im trying to say when im talking about AAA caliber games.

Since its getting confusing for you ill talk about other game. Witcher 3 is an AAA caliber game . From proffessional made soundtrack to graphic engines , from art to worlds scale and from voice acting to story and the list goes on and on. It took years to be made, hunderds of people worked for it and the list goes on. It met AAA but thats irrelevant to the point that it was AAA caliber game , means developers were clearly aiming for that AAA score since early development. Splatoon on the other hand was never such a game. It made from a single guy that he showed that prototype to Nintendo and after revision to revision they ended up to the shape it has today. How is this AAA caliber is beyond me.

Its fun ? Probably since many people think so. But so is Counter Strike Go for 10 millions out there or more . That doesnt mean these games were AAA caliber ones to begin with just because of pure fun and acceptance overall. As for metacritic score , i mentioned to let people know that what they think as AAA out of sales and all ... in reality barely made it to AA. So if that game was an AAA caliber game ... someone can easily call it a flop ... which that cant happen since it was never AAA caliber one. Period

I agree that Path of Exile was/is far better than D3. And that was my point. That AAA caliber games doesnt mean can meet AAA standards on their release . D3 after 6 years , tons of money , a really big development team , soundtrack like few games can have quality speaking , hype , marketing and still it won Path of Exile on sales only ( even if POE is free but you get my point ).

As for Wii example , i gave it so people stop coming with sales as an indicator if a game is/was AAA caliber or not . About CS GO , with charizards logic about sales and reception , that makes it AAAA since it has more than 10M unique users playing it monthly and heading for 11M. Which CS GO wasnt an AAA caliber game to begin with ( and im a big fan of the game )

As mentioned before, a game starved system will have game starved gamers. So any decent game will sell well because of the lack of options.

@charizard1605: News like this makes me so salty. And wise of you to avoid the mistake of the GAF thread by proclaiming it the "best."

Copying threads from GAF? Tsk tsk.

I totally disagree with your logic and you havent understood mine at all.

Once again , reception and sales DOESNT mean the game was/is AAA caliber. Period. Counter Strike GO having 10+ million unique monthly users and heading for 11 million. Its the biggest and most popular FPS in the market since its a single game getting EXPANDED like crazy thru in less than 2 years ( not like COD , 11 games in 7-8 years ) and not only that , but its becoming an E-sport phenomenon as well. Yes , its reception is THAT big. Way bigger than Splatoon could even dream of .

So my question to you ... Does that mean that Counter Strike Go was an AAA caliber game ? Because with you logic it should. No , no and no. As a veteran and CS GO fan , i assure you , not even close !

So , let reception aside , let the hype and momentum to settle down , let sales aside and understand please what AAA caliber game is/means VS what AAA game is.

As for companies comments ... if you think Nintendo wasting million of dollars just to experiment with ideas till they find what it works you are out of your mind.

Not true. Otherwise Bayonetta 2, TW101, and Xenoblade Chronicles X would all be selling like Splatoon.

If you want to ignore the sales from Nintendo Land cause of bundles, you might as well ignore the Wii Fit sales cause of "bundles" or any other game that comes in a bundle, which ironically Splatoon also comes in a bundle.

As I said I'll leave the salt here.

You are right. In order for a game to be successful on the WiiU it must look like and be a WiiU/Nintendoesque game.

Right so if you're argument is that Splatoon isn't triple A in the strictest budgety sense, then sure Nintendo didn't exactly put the resources to that game the way Zelda gets, and I don't think that's debateable, Zelda's dev time and polish and the scale of that game has always been proof of that. But in the same context, man Bloodborne isn't triple A, the souls games are very much middle tier games with a great reception and a crazy fanbase, but production value wise? I mean Bloodborne does not look like something the PS3 could not have ran.

The Witcher 3 is quintessential triple A, Xenoblade looks like a pretty expensive games, my larger beef other than I guess I would agree with you that it is a shame that Nintendo is willing to bet small on new ideas, and not really put the chips in the middle of a table for a bigger project. It shows a bit lack of ambition, all these debates over that term makes me question why it even matters? Because personally I'll take more Splatoon's, more fresh well focused ideas, then Nintendo's tried and true stuff.

Either wise yeah agreed Counterstrike (I mean it's a series that started as a mod) and Path of Exile aren't exactly Triple A, but that term has become as nebulous on some level as "indie". Better point would be is that Splatoon isn't exactly an expensive game, which I'm sure Chaz wouldn't exactly disagree with. It's not chump change, but it's Nintendo, and they've certainly never gotten behind a new project the way they get behind 3D Mario games and Zelda, because that much is shown when a Kirby or Yoshi game is.

Splatoon was like the first Wii U game Nintendo actually gave a strong marketing push for so I guess heavy marketing actually works, who would have thought? The only one that compares is Smash but I feel like Splatoon might have been marketed even more.

Sony should update the sales for the games, DriveClub is probably close to hitting 4 million.

a) No , it has nothing to do with budget alone. Im just giving examples. Bloodborne for its genre has all those values that can make it an AAA caliber game. Now if that meets your expectations on its release its personal taste i guess. But for the record it met the AAA criteria metacritic wise. I get what you mean about production values but still BBs overall values as a game , from sound design to soundtrack to story , atmosphere , single player aspects , multiplayer , graphics , gameplay overall ...vs Splatoon. I mean , you get my point.

b) I totally agree. Thats my bitter opinion about Nintendo the last few years. And because of that i had some heated debates. Nintendo is a talented 1st party developer. Period. With one way or another they delivering some great experiences but they playing safe. They are not willing to expand their IPs big time. Splatoon is a great new IP that seems Nintendo fans love. Why not another new ip and then another etc . I think theyll do it with NX if they really want to get attention of non-Nintendo die hard fans.

c) I agree 100%

I'm probably going to be called a cow for this but what the heck. I'm not getting this Bloodborne being attacked angle. I'm sure cows will have there 6 mill or even 10 mill sellers. Bloodborne is a success in its own loud and vital niche market but its not the game. Probably will end up selling more on ps4 then the past souls series and eventually help more people to try or go back to the upcoming Dark Souls 3.

I get it cows like to talk alot about Bloodborne critically acclaimed exclusive of last year. I would just remind everyone to calm down souls fans are known to be loud and yes they are mixture of cows in there and now heightened by Bloodborne.

Splatoon deserved it. The game is huge in japan probably caried most of the sales where wiiu sold the least. This might be looked as an excuse but wiiu should actually have a very high attach rate given the number of games releases per year. If I want to shove a game at wiiu owners ill say please f***in buy Bayonetta 2 god dammit.

A: well that's where both of us disagree on your point, in no world is Splatoon not given a similar level of effort, given the fact that it's Nintendo it's probably got more hours in the play testing department than Bloodborne ever does, and there isn't an excuse in the world other than Nintendo's programmers are a class or two better than From Software's where BB has all its technical short comings, and Splatoon is buttery smooth. If we're talking triple A in the way wikipedia puts it as in the marketing is there, the budget is there, and it's in that higher tier of critical reception, all of the above tour de force blah blah, sure again it's not the same as Nintendo getting behind Zelda the way they get behind Splatoon, and yes consensus seems to argue that Bloodborne is a tier better as a game, or more relevant as a game. But a consensus lacks some context, and whatever it's arguing over a label that is whatever.

But yeah other 2 not even remotely disagreeing, Nintendo is without question the most talented company on god's green earth from a game development standpoint, and they are being fucking wasted as far as I'm concerned on safe shit when Nintendo should be doing way more, and should be held to that standard. Which frankly they aren't held to their standard.

The Wii U has plenty of great games in its library.

Meh.... it's expected that it sold well considering the complete lack of content on Wii.....

This generation = ps4 and xbox one, who are only just now bringing out games. No Man's Sky, Horizon Zero Dawn, Cyberpunk 2077, etc etc are all new ip.

@scatteh316:

Two of the biggest reasons splatoon was able to sell as well as it did was because nintendo marketed it a lot and the game itself was appealing to lots of people. The amount splatoon sold has little to do with the lack of software on the WiiU.

@khoofia_pika: eh, it has a small handful compared to the other two in my eyes

Nintendo do their own thing - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This time it really did, but even if it didn't they would continue to go their own path.

I do usually ignore sales of bundled games like Wii Sports, yes.

The difference is the bulk of those games' sales (and all of Nintendo Land's sales) came from bundles- most of Splatoon's sales were independent.

Nah. Nice try at shifting the goalposts, though!

Except Wii U still has more games worth playing than the PS4 and Xbox One (and certainly did when Splatoon launched, even if it does not anymore)

Why would you be salty? Splatoon is a great game deserving of its sales and success. I think Bloodborne is a better game myself personally, but I see no reason why Splatoon cannot and should not be more successful than it, either.

On top of that, the three Splatoon amiibo got the top 3 sales spots for the amiibo line in Japan.

A. I get what you mean. I dont agree though because those 2 games are in way different genres as i said to the other guy. Its really easy to make an Arena Shooter with 1 or 2 different gameplay mechanics than the other games ( throw ink / hide in ink ) than a highly acclaimed action horror RPG that needs to be top notch in too many areas . Its a totally different approach , let alone being AAA caliber action RPG ( means aiming for AAA in development stages ) is a pain , needs everything to synergy and stand out vs all others out there.

There are so many decent/great arena shooters in the PC market and 99% of them playing great let alone are F2P. Hawken , Loadout , Block and Load , Team Fortress 2 the new Battleborn and Overwatchers and many others .. just because Splatoon provides 2 different mechanics than competition and it plays smooth , doesnt necessarily make it AAA caliber let alone AAA title because of reception/sales. Fun , unique , great , polished even AAA .. Sure , if thats what you think why not !! But AAA caliber game .. ehmmm nope!

"shifting the goalposts"

You said THIS GEN.

Wii U is part of the 8th gen.

You didn't say "so far", you said "this gen"

Not to mention bloodborne >>>>>>>.

Not to mention The Evil Within >>>>>>>>>>

Not to mention tons of games so far this gen >>>>>>>>>>

@putaspongeon: Evil Within isn't an exclusive, and the rest is all opinion, which has no place in a discussion predicated on facts and numbers.

It's almost like Halo 5 isn't a very good game.

Is it not? Most people I know've said the multi, at least, is really great.

I haven't played the MP, but the campaign is terrible. So, so bad.

Right, that lines up with what I have heard, lol. It's a pity, since the campaign is what I was most excited about, but hey, Warzone looks great.

I thought the campaign in general was good(like 7/10), but the story and those missions were you just walk around hurt the campaign. It was also not that fun to fight the Warden like 5+ times.The gameplay in the campaign is mostly good. The MP is downright amazing, but flawed a bit. The game is not selling as bad as charizard said in his OP based on just data from the NPD in the US(he misinterpreted that PR release about the holidays MS released awhile ago about the amount halo 5 sold) , but splatoon is beating it in Europe and Japan.

Eh, this is not true.. I just played for a good half hour, a good number of games. Not only did each game start within 15 seconds of me entering the lobby, the most Japanese players I had across all my games was 2, and that was just in one game- the bulk of my games had no Japanese players at all.

@charizard1605: ive never played a game of splatoon without 4-5 japanese players in it.

Just did six of them lol

I imagine the time of the day matters as well. Splatoon definitely has more Japanese players than other shooters, mostly because it's the only shooter that has actually sold in Japan.

If you count digital sales, I believe Halo 5 is near 4 million copies sold.

It may be but we don't know how well it's selling in Europe and the rest of world.The difference between both games is most likely under 1.2X and maybe even under 1.1X.

Those amiibos have to go somewhere.

no matter how you try to spin it its still half ass and lazy on nintendos part.

@charizard1605: don't be a hypocrite, ether you count those games with bundles or you don't (which Splatoon also has a Wii U bundle), there's no "I'm gonna accept credibility for one game while ignoring the other", that's not gonna fly here or anywhere else and you should know this.