Comments on: Super Smash Bros.Brawl and the fanboys

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:27:24 +0000

I have already said that GTA IV outsold SSBB in America (only) by less than I expected. Please read what I write. But it still outsold SSBB by over a million copies when all the fanboys said SSBB would come out on top. They were wrong.

And the failure of more HD titles to outsell is largely down to the failure of the PS3 in the market during 2008. I didn’t factor in that Sony could make such a complete mess of things.

And this is the end of me wasting my time with fanboys on this subject. So I am not going to approve of any more comments on this article.

By: Nik

Nik — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 14:08:33 +0000

I’m quoting you: ” GTA IV will sell several times as many as SSBB. And by the end of the year there will be many HD titles that feature on the annual charts ahead of SSBB.”
How many HD titles worldwide???
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/33116/Mario-Kart-worlds-biggest-seller-in-08
1 GTA4… the game you said: “going to transform the balance in the market strongly in favour of the HD consoles.”

Let me quote you again:
“I think many commentators are underestimating how big the shift in the balance of power will be with GTA IV.”

You underestimated SSBB and overestimate GTA4.. just admit it…

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:59:09 +0000

Firstly let’s look at the real NPD figures for the USA instead of the VGChatz guesses:
Game Software (in units sold)
1) Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) – 5.28 million
2) Mario Kart Wii (Wii, Nintendo) – 5 million
3) Wii Fit (Wii, Nintendo) – 4.53 million
4) Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, Nintendo) – 4.17 million
5) Grand Theft Auto IV (360, Take-Two) – 3.29 million
6) Call of Duty: World at War (360, Activision) – 2.75 million
7) Gears of War 2 (360, Microsoft) – 2.31 million
Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, Take-Two) – 1.89 million
9) Madden NFL 09 (360, Electronic Arts) – 1.87 million
10) Mario Kart DS (DS, Nintendo) – 1.65 million
Please note SSBB came 5th when you add in the formats.

Then let’s look at the original article: http://www.bruceongames.com/2008/02/16/how-big-will-super-smash-bros-brawl-be/
And you will see that I was a lot more right than I was wrong:
I said it would be massive.
I said GTA IV would beat it (though not by as much as I thought, that 18+ must bite).
And I said that Wii Fit would beat it (though once again not by as much as I thought, largely because it was supply constrained).

Obviously SSBB did amazingly well for a serious game on the Wii. But my point remains that HD serious games and Wii casual games can and will beat a serious game on the Wii, all other things being equal. This is because a large number of the total installed base of the Wii are very casual “toy” users. Nobody can deny this.

Also if you look back to the launch of SSBB, the fanboys were whipped up into a frenzy that this would be the best selling game of 2008. And they poured abuse on anyone who questioned this. Yet they have been proven wrong and have egg on their faces. My predictions were far more accurate than theirs, as you would expect.

And, finally, all the above is for the USA. The UK is now the second biggest market for video games in the world. And here SSBB came 36th. Doing far worse than even I expected. And I live here.

By: Fred

Fred — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:33:35 +0000

In 2008, Super Smash Bros Brawl sold approximately 4.5 million copies in North America, making it the fifth best selling SKU in that region. It trailed only Wii Sports (11.4m), Wii Play (6.1m), Mario Kart Wii (5.5m), and Wii Fit (4.9m). It outsold all 360 and PS3 SKUs, including GTA IV, Call of Duty: World at War, Call of Duty 4, and Gears of War 2.

By: Wei

Wei — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:22:05 +0000

The biggest sales of SMBB was in America, not Japan, and it sold pretty well outside of UK in the PAL regions as well, as far as I know, UK is the only place where the 360 is selling well in Europe so I’m not surprised that you’d want to do comparisons like these, but unfortunately, looking at things at a non-global perspective during this day and age is very outdated and ignorant hence why your article is flawed and not actually useful to anybody. UK is after all, not the center of the world, perhaps a refreshing way to look at the world is needed on your part.

By: David

David — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 03:15:08 +0000

Wow you are a funny one. Why don’t you revise this page with worldwide numbers and then see who has egg on their face. Face the fact that it sold very well worldwide and even though it may have sold well in Japan it still sold unlike games on the HD consoles. Cherry picking numbers to suit your article just to have another go at the Wii will make you look foolish. Vgchartz has it at 8.25 million sales and GTAiv is at 6.82 million for 360 and 5.4 million for the PS3. Shows how well it has done compared to what many people were calling the game of this gen.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:22:33 +0000

So Bruce, rather than cherry picking data to try to convince people that you’re awful prediction wasn’t as bad as it was, why don’t you just admit that you were wrong?

Seriously, anyone who can’t admit that a game that sold more than 8 Million units worldwide (of which over 6 Million are outside of Japan and continues to sell tens of thousands of units worldwide every week a year after it was released) was one of the biggest games of the year is not thinking rationally.

By: SuperChunk@vgchartz

SuperChunk@vgchartz — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:59:14 +0000

lol, you never fail to amaze.

As pointed out you are clearly misrepresenting the sales numbers. Wii Fit was the only ‘casual’ game to beat SSBB. GTAIV only beat it due to being on multiple consoles and Mario Kart is not a casual game by any means.

You are the one who needs to eat crow. Also, what will you say later this year when new ‘gamers games’ become multi-million sellers and topping the best games on PS360.

Madworld, The Conduit, and many others are coming…

Face it. Wii is the PS2 of this gen. It has loads of casual games simply because it has by far the largest marketshare. 2009 and beyond will also see Wii take all the ‘gamers games’.

Here’s to missing your crazy theories on vgchartz.

By: Nik

Nik — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:53:11 +0000

Besides the fact that Super Mario Galaxy was a November release so it had 1,5 month to be one of the biggest game in 2007… I could say that Halo 3 was a failure cause looking at the Japan data it only sold 100.000 copies… But I won’t cause that would be cherry picking data…

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:45:25 +0000

It was still only 36th best selling in the UK, where I am.

I suspect that the world figure was influenced a lot by Japan, not the biggest readers of these articles.