James McGeachie

I honestly dont see them being more willing to buy it. Hardcore Wii games in Japan sell like trash, plain and simple. If it makes 1000 copies on its first week I'll be a little impressed. If it makes over 5,000 I'll be like "Oh it's doing way better than I thought" and if it makes over 15,000 I'll be blown away.

This is so unbelievably not true. You must have got lucky on SM or had a huge amount of energy tanks and missiles as it is flat out nowhere near as easy as Zero Mission (which on anything other than hard mode is a complete joke difficulty wise). Most people playing SM at the time would've had difficulty on bosses such as Phantoon (unless you figure out quickly not to hit him with super missiles), Draygon (unless you use the grapple trick) and Ridley (always a challenge unless you're experienced and drastically harder than Zero Mission Ridley). The Golden Torizo miniboss can be a pain in the ass too. To be honest even Crocomire challenged me as a kid...because I was stricken by fear! That was another form of difficulty for me as a kid and something no 2D Metroid game has had since...an atmosphere that could actually be scary and intimidating (as far as 3D games go, Prime has this with the Chozo Ghosts or whatever). The first time I fought Crocomire I wasn't experienced with "shoot them in the mouth" gameplay in games yet and just had this huge scary guy screaming at me, pushing me towards a spiked wall and throwing my super missiles back. Exploration in Super Metroid without a guide is a huge part of the difficulty too. You have to LOOK for where to go. None of this silly "hold your hand" gameplay of Fusion and Zero Mission. Some parts really required you to think of a solution or take risks (such as when having to descend past fake spikes, not something everyone would think of instantly).

For the record it even has the exact same Director as Final Fantasy X-2 as well. Oh boy!

None of the olders games take longer than that. There is no requirement for games to get progressively longer as a series goes on.

http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=110180 Just read this. Didn't want to bump the Z&W thread for a sales story. In the over 2 years since release, Zack and Wiki has sold 126,000 units. I'm not sure if this is worldwide or just US though (although I'm positive the Japanese sales will be EXTREMELY low and the European ones not much better/worse). That might've seemed decent if it was sales for a few months or something but over 2 years and that's it...pretty damn poor. Some titles sell that amount in a few hours. I can count myself of one of those few that own the game. Definitely one of the most well executed original concepts on Wii.

Based on the new classes I'll probably want to be virtually anything OTHER than a Soldier this time. Most of the classes look fun and interesting to play as in some way.

If it is 260,000 I guess the figure I saw was just missing a 0. That does seem better, although it does at least seem to be performing poorer in Europe than UC did by a noticible margin, especially the UK sales going by charttrack.

To be honest the 26k was going by comments from someone else in the same GoNintendo thread that had the story about 16k "in Europe". I figured it did sound a bit dodgy since only selling 10k across the US and Japan (if it's out there) seems a bit too strange. Is there any hard facts on worldwide figures from respected sources that can be linked? Going by Charttrack the UK sales don't seem hot anyway. The game's debut was at like 22nd in the Wii specific charts (pretty low considering for example, the 6th ranked Wii specific game this week isn't even in the All console top 40 at all) and has stayed in the 20's every week since launch. That suggests maybe a few hundred copies selling per week.

This is very strange news. If this is the case then surely at least one of Metroid: Other M or Galaxy will be delayed to next year... I'd rather it was Zelda in 2011 and Metroid this year. I want to play a third person Metroid game damnit.

You can find it around places like Gamestation for like £7.99. Anyway glad to see even though it's only one of many components this time, surgery looks to have been improved further! Really looking forward to this, all the Trauma Centre games really needed to elevate above "great" to "truly awesome" was a bit more variation. This has tons of it.

I seriously doubt those sales just apply to France if there are serious complaints about the sales levels.

I guess it might have to do with the switch to Western developers although I don't know why that would stop them releasing completely. I mean I think everything Silent Hill related has been developed in the West now since The Room? Except the music obviously. Not sure when the Arcade game came out mind you.

Not surprising. Was just reading this on Gonintendo. Worldwide sales of 26k supposedly. Oh boy!

I'm pretty sure there's going to be no Japanese release.

Sure they said "engine" and this isn't the quote about them looking at Twilight Princess as a starting point to where to go for Zelda Wii? That quote wasn't refering to building on the Twilight Princess ENGINE, it was just looking at what they done with TP in terms of game design and coming up with ideas for where to go from there.

I just really don't want to see them delaying a Zelda title for launch on a new system again. We should have been playing Twilight Princess a year before it released, with a Wii entry subsequently in development afterwards that would've been out by now (probably in time for Christmas 09, filling the empty gap of hardcore Wii games for year end. NSMBWii is considered more of a "bridge" title). I don't like the approach they've had to Zelda on Wii so far, especially the fact I read that Aonuma wanted to work on a Link's crossbow training 2 instead of a true Zelda Wii but he was encouraged to work on a new entry in the main series instead. I really don't think it's too good a move for them to move a new Zelda to a new console in all honesty either. At this point they should be trying to right their wrongs and get rid of this "lazy" image they're getting branded with. Porting over a Wii developed title to a successor just to have a key franchise for launch is not going to help that image. I don't believe a successor will be coming until probably late 2012 by the way so don't think they need any "rush" to have a key franchise ready for launch. They could have like 2 years for a team to work on a brand new Mario for launch for that point.

No that would be stupid, we haven't had a TRUE Wii Zelda yet because of the fact they took that cheap and easy route with Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess is a Gamecube game with Wii controls shoehorned in. None of it was designed around the Wii. Zelda Wii is being designed around the Wii. It needs to release on Wii to be a good example of what a Zelda designed around the Wii is going to be like. Then a new Zelda can be built from the ground up for a new console and be released at a decent point in the next generation, instead of the ridiculous wait we're getting until a proper Wii Zelda.

http://www.gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=107891 For the record here's the quote on them not having chosen a visual style for Zelda yet. Also the fact they were "hopeful" it'll be at E3 2010. If they had something they could show off just now then I'm sure they'd be confident it would be there. "Well under development" I think means like "We have plans for a lot of the content and dungeon themes and we've decided on the control scheme and got it working". That could be considered a massive step forward and I'm sure for a long time the project was in "limbo" with them unsure of what to do with controls. The fact that they've only decided within the last year or so seemingly to make it all motionplus shows that any development on the game before that point was probably minimal and meaningless!

There is seriously no chance for Zelda. In an interview from a few months ago they said they hadn't even decided on a visual style for the game. They also have NEVER said it's using the Twilight Princess engine and considering they're using motion plus entirely it would make sense for it to be a brand new engine that's designed around that! Also 2011 wouldn't be a "delay" as they've NEVER said it's coming out in 2010! I'm sure Miyamoto would always "want" games to come out sooner than later as he wants fans to be happy but one man's desire is not a release date listing.

Well most of the time games that are bombs have stayed bombs! Third parties still complain about hardcore being tough to sell on Wii, or at least that's the impression I get from looking down GoNintendo and seeing interview quotes.

Played a little of this over Christmas on co-op. Honestly didn't really enjoy it much so far. Felt very slow and the shooting just didn't feel very satisfying. So far I prefer how Umbrella Chronicles felt even. The visuals seem good for Wii though although I was playing on a 32" HDTV and there was noticible jaggies. I suspect it'll look better on my standard def ancient brick CRT TV since most Wii games seem to.

Yeah but the problem is Wii games don't tend to have legs! I'll be surprised if the total worldwide sales make it over 200,000.

I'd say there's no chance of Zelda at all actually. I'm positive Zelda is a 2011 game and will probably be the last "huge" first party Wii title.

Really? Do you really expect a Metroid game to be advertised as the big Christmas game for hardcore gamers? See that works for me but the vast majority of the Nintendo fanbase are far more interested in Mario, Zelda, Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, etc. Other big key franchises. I just can't seem them choosing to release Metroid as the Christmas game and Mario as a summer one, assuming they're both near the end of development at the same time. I'd expect it to be the other way around.

Just saw the supposed August release stuff on the first page and man...I really don't expect that to be true. I've always thought of this game as being this year's big Christmas hit. It just seems like Nintendo's style to do that. There isn't going to anything better for hardcore gamers at Christmas. They can't market Metroid: Other M as a big Christmas game as Metroid has only ever appealed to a pretty small number of people sadly. Zelda is definitely going to be a 2011 game so it can't be a Christmas title either.