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Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

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Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#31
post #8

It is impressive that a game running on an 8-year-old phone GPU will likely be game of the year. Nintendo proved again that gameplay and art direction matter more than anything.

Minecraft's formula of poor graphics + open-ended gameplay wins again.

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#32
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note this strategy is mainly only being executed by Nintendo, who insists on selling their hardware at a profit. I still suspect they are making more money on their software though. I believe Microsoft And Sony lose money per console sold

I thought they only lost money per console early in the builds, but as the production ramps up efficiencies are realized and the consoles themselves become profitable. Are they really sold at a loss throughout the product lifecycle?

I've heard that the turning point on the hardware profitability tends to occur around the halfway point of a given generation, but haven't seen anything to really substantiate that—just echoing what I've seen in past discussions.

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#33

There are over 118 million Switches out there. So they hit nearly 10% of their total addressable market in three days.

I ordered the standard and just before launch they optioned a collectors edition. I ordered that at two spots in the off chance it didn't come. So now I'm sitting with three copies. I know a few people in this boat. Still bodes well for the number of copies moved.

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#34
post #16

Achieving (what feels like) true gaming freedom with such a simple UX is really impressive. I know Zelda has always had a great UX, but they've added so much complexity. Games like this remind you why Nintendo has had so much staying power.

They even somehow managed to simplify the UI vs BOTW and made it genuinely easier to use.

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#35

Afaik this is the first time that the second installment of a Zelda game per generation is better than the first one. Zelda 1 is considered to be better than 2. Ocarina of Time > Majora's Mask. Twilight Princess > Skyward Sword. Pretty darn good.

Link is better than Zelda 1

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#36
post #16

Achieving (what feels like) true gaming freedom with such a simple UX is really impressive. I know Zelda has always had a great UX, but they've added so much complexity. Games like this remind you why Nintendo has had so much staying power.

The only potentially bad UX is attaching things to arrows or choosing what item to throw. Using the sorting options helps, but you still end up doing a lot of scrolling through a list during combat which takes you out of fun of combat.

They might've gone with a grid display, but with the amount of items they have, they're inevitably going to have some UI sprawl, so it's a hard problem.

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#37

...and it's actually very good.

Is it? It plays like a clone of the first game without a lot of meaningful improvements over the criticisms of the first. Weapons still break, the story still sucks, the dungeons aren't dungeons... It plays more like Minecraft.

I grew up on SNES and N64 Zelda, so admittedly I'm biased towards the old gameplay loop and mechanics.

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#38
post #8

It is impressive that a game running on an 8-year-old phone GPU will likely be game of the year. Nintendo proved again that gameplay and art direction matter more than anything.

+ optimization

It looks fantastic for the compute budget

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#39
I think the general consensus will end up giving this game a solid 8.5/10 (user consensus of course, not journali$t consensus. You can already see that in the user score on metascore.)

Someone mentioned online "which part of this game constitues giving it a 10/10?" and I totally agree having been playing since the leaks. This is coming from an OG OOT 1998 player too. Happy Zelda is back, but still think they could have done more with this one or at least innovate more.

Worst is the Switch hardware making this unplayable until emulation catches up. How on earth did a game that looks and runs like how TOTK not get dinged EVEN A TINY BIT for graphics and performance? I'm not a graphics whore by any means, but there's a limit here.

Re: Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days

#40

[flagged]

Does it? I've been playing quite a bit and the framerate feels steady and I also have not been bothered by the fps even when the game is in fast motion. And I'm a longtime Melee player so I have eyes used to 60fps and am usually bothered by poor framerate in games.

It’s capped at 30 and regularly drops to 20. Terrible indeed.
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