Perhaps you have heard now of New Super Mario Brothers Wii sales bombing in every market all throughout the world. No one is buying the game. In fact, sales are so bad that… Wait. Hold on a minute. The reader is rudely interrupting this brilliant blog post. Give me a moment to deal with him.
OK, reader, go ahead. What are you fussing about?
”How can you say NSMB Wii sales are bad? The game launched better than any other Wii game in Japan and is seeing strong sales everywhere else. It looks like this could be one of the best selling games of the generation and perhaps in the history of gaming.”
Silly reader! This is because you do not understand how sales work in the “Game Industry”. When a game sells very strongly, especially over a long period of time, it is very bad. This was shown when the Wii was sold out for years in America, and yet the Wii was in “big trouble” and Nintendo was about to exit the console business. In order to be consistent with the “Game Industry”, we must recognize that these good starts to NSMB Wii are actually bad starts. In fact, from using “Game Industry” logic, we can only conclude that NSMB Wii is bombing left and right.
”I stand corrected,” says the reader.
Indeed. Now, where was I before I was rudely interrupted by the reader? Ah yes…
As NMSB Wii bombs left and right, I have consulted a panel of experts to explain to Nintendo how to properly make a video-game and how to properly sell it. My question to these experts was: “What should Nintendo have done in order to make NSMB Wii sell?” Let us hear from the esteemed experts:
”NMSB Wii would have sold if it was HD. By the way, Nintendo is going to release a Wii HD by 2010. Oh, and buy Take 2 stock!” said Wedbush analyst, Michael Pachter.
”NSMB Wii would have sold if it had better music,” said a forum dweller. “If it had music as good as Super Mario Galaxy, just imagine how well the game would sell!”
”NSMB Wii would have sold if it had a more interesting art style,” a game journalist said. “If the game had the artsy style as Super Paper Mario or Okami, just imagine how much better it would have sold!”
”NSMB Wii bombed because it is a casual game,” said the hardcore gamer. “If Nintendo kept its focus on the hardcore, the game would be doing much better. In fact, NSMB Wii probably isn’t a casual game at all. It is just another ‘non-game’. You know what a real game is? Modern Warfare 2. People will still be playing Modern Warfare 2 decades from now while everyone will have forgotten about NSMB Wii.”
”NSMB Wii should have had User Generated Content,” replied another forum dweller. “If we could make our own levels, then people would buy the game. Just look at the incredible sales of LittleBigPlanet and Blast Works!”
”NSMB Wii sales suck because 2d Mario sucks,” said a generic game magazine. “You know what will boost Wii sales? More 3d Mario!”
”NSMB Wii sales would have been better if there was Downloadable Content,” replied an anonymous publisher. “The game also wouldn’t have bombed if there was Internet multiplayer as well. For we all know that everyone plays multiplayer over the Internet these days, no one plays local multiplayer anymore.”
”NSMB Wii would have been a blockbuster if there was anti-aliasing going on,” replied a game developer. “And the game needed some destructible environments. That is very important to a game’s sales you know.”
”NSMB Wii would have been a killer-app if Nintendo followed the pattern of Sonic and kept to 3d,” advised Sega.
If only Nintendo had listened to the wisdom coming from the “Game Industry”! Then NSMB Wii wouldn’t have sold as badly as it did.