Legend of Zelda game sells 10M copies in three days • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by cptcobalt » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:31 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #110

dzonga wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nintendo's playbook: bet on withered technologies. which means their focus is only on gameplay mechanics, story and art direction. not focusing on bugs that are well not known cz of using something too new, expensive etc. not fancy graphics, or other modern fancy things - that don't really add anything to the game. wish the software industry would learn to bet on old technologies and develop novel experiences on thos…

You are wrong there. Nintendo instead been always pushing the tech. The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were part of the "bits race" and kept pushing forward in hardware power. Mario 64 is credited along with Wing Commander for creating the AAA graphics race at all costs behavior in the industry. The Wii wasn't entirely a direction change, Nintendo felt competing on CPU power now was not interesting and went for motion c…

I do not believe calling Steam Deck a clone of the switch is a truly charitable argument or characterization of the product. The Steam Deck is an infinitely moddable PC that play your steam library on the go. It's been long needed, but exists with a different consumer persona than steam deck.

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

#252

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:31 PM UTC

zeta0134 wrote: post #148

mcphage wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were part of the "bits race" and kept pushing forward in hardware power. The NES wasn't—it was an 8-bit machine in a time where 16-bit processors were available. I don't really know if the SNES pushed the envelope at all, but you're right that the N64 did.

The impressive part of the NES was its picture processing unit, which among other things finally delivered on an arcade-like experience at home and gained mass appeal in the process. For the time it was considered quite an advanced chip in its price range. The other extremely clever thing Nintendo did with the NES was to put the video bus on the cartridge , and this enabled them to expand the console's apparent capab…

> The other extremely clever thing Nintendo did with the NES was to put the video bus on the cartridge, and this enabled them to expand the console's apparent capabilities by adding new features to game paks.

Can you imagine putting the video card in every copy of a game now? What a time that was.

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

#253

Post by Farbklex » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:31 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #81

Farbklex wrote: post #12

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.

What do you mean by generation? BotW was released originally for Wii U, wasn't it? Which belongs to the previous generation. EDIT: I looked it up. It was first aimed to be a Wii U exclusive, but in the end was released simultaneously on the Switch.

Similarly, Twilight Princess should have been released earlier for the GameCube but was then released on GameCube and Wii simultaneously.

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

#254

Post by crtasm » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:32 PM UTC

flybrand wrote: post #113

chottocharaii wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splatoon ... Arms ... Nintendo Labo ...

Splatoon is an amazing franchise. Advanced Wars also has real potential. I'd buy a sequel to Arms. There's a great video out there on the history of Mario Kart, where they detail how they set out to make a two player version of F-zero and wound up with Kart after balancing the technology capabilities and existing character IP.

I was aware Advance Wars is a remake of a Gameboy Advance title but didn't realise the series goes back to 1988:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_(series)#Games

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

#255

Post by chrisco255 » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:32 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #149

speeder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong there. Nintendo instead been always pushing the tech. The NES, SNES, N64 and GameCube were part of the "bits race" and kept pushing forward in hardware power. Mario 64 is credited along with Wing Commander for creating the AAA graphics race at all costs behavior in the industry. The Wii wasn't entirely a direction change, Nintendo felt competing on CPU power now was not interesting and went for motion c…

You are proving their point. Nintendo switched to the "don't care about tech" strategy because they had been pushing tech for 2 generations and only doing worse as a business. People preferred the Playstation 2 over the Gamecube because it had more and better games, and Nintendo spent the n64 and Gamecube console generations losing their third party support. That's also why the doubled down on their first party games…

The graphics and power competition existed ever since Sega entered the ring. To be honest, the console wars are more nuanced than that. The N64 had superior graphics to PS1, but the lack of discs meant publishers had to spend $10-15 in wholesale costs on cartridges (vs GameCube's proprietary "micro-DVDs" also meant limited game sizes compared to PS2. And PS2 could play DVDs, which was a strategic advantage at the time. With both Sony and Microsoft now competing for hardware dominance, however, it became a tougher position for Nintendo to hold, plus the company was not willing to sell consoles at a loss (as I believe both Sony and Microsoft did at first, to gain adoption).

So both N64 and GameCube were limited in significant ways, and it cost Nintendo its market dominance. The Wii was an example of Nintendo taking the console tech in a totally different direction than its peers, explicitly focusing on motion controllers and casual gamers. It was a smash hit, but eventually the novelty of the Wii wore off. The Wii U was a flop. The Switch successfully blended their portable and console offerings.

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

#256

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:33 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #224

byby wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The budget and scale of totk is triple A. Also the amount of art in totk is triple A levels. Totk is your classic AAA game it just was programmed for older hardware. >more detail doesn't make a game better Have you played red dead redemption 2? The detail elevates the game to one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.

And the control schemes drag it back down into the quagmire of unplayable mess despite all that work. An excellent example of the broader point about development focus.

The clunky controls of rockstar games is intentional! They think it's "more immersive" for your character to just not do what you want it to do.

Saints Row 4 is better than GTA 5, change my mind.

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

#257

Post by BudaDude » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:33 PM UTC

manuelabeledo wrote: post #18

hospitalJail wrote: post #5

The marketing was insane as usual. Nintendo performed excellent. Multiple front page reddit posts, multiple 10/10 reviews from big name outlets. Nintendo rivals Apple as the best company in marketing. Nintendo has done some sort of mass psychology that allows them to have sub 30fps with no complaints, I was born too early to see this reviewed in business schools, but we are starting to see a bit of the innerworkings…

> Nintendo has done some sort of mass psychology that allows them to have sub 30fps with no complaint Or perhaps the game is really that good? Good looking games aren't necessarily good games. This is just a good one.

Not to mention, Good products sell themselves. Nintendo's marketing isn't that much different from anyone else. They just make products that people want to talk about.

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

#258

Post by datpiff » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:33 PM UTC

hammyhavoc wrote: post #207

datpiff wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever play one? The display had so such smearing that individual frames weren't distinct. We still loved it though.

Yes, and every subsequent generation. I still play, I've even IPS-modded the display on my DMG-01 to appreciate what the console could actually draw in terms of frames.

> even IPS-modded the display on my DMG-01

Haha, me too.

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

#259

Post by Zvez » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC

sanitycheck wrote: post #88

hospitalJail wrote: post #5

The marketing was insane as usual. Nintendo performed excellent. Multiple front page reddit posts, multiple 10/10 reviews from big name outlets. Nintendo rivals Apple as the best company in marketing. Nintendo has done some sort of mass psychology that allows them to have sub 30fps with no complaints, I was born too early to see this reviewed in business schools, but we are starting to see a bit of the innerworkings…

Nintendo didn't really need to do any marketing beyond "Hey we are releasing a new Zelda game, it will run on the Switch you bought years ago mostly in order to play the previous Zelda game". I've been playing games for 30+ years, at no point have I cared deeply about the difference between 30fps and 60fps. I do not like 5fps-stuttering, which happens sometimes in poorly optimised AAA games no matter how good (within…

>Nintendo didn't really need to do any marketing

still they did.

I'm in Warsaw and I see countless of zelda ads: whole walls of huge buildings are covered with them. They probably spent insane amount of money if they advertise it like this everywhere

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

#260

Post by toyg » Thu, May 18, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC

Judging by activity on eBay and FB, a lot of those copies are already changing hands. Wild reviews must have had a role in overselling the title a bit; I've never played Zelda before and I'm not a massive RPG player, but I just bought BotW to dip my toes into it because the hype is so massive. Before, to me it had always been just "that game that gave Zelda Williams her name". (We miss you, Robin)