Does it surprise you that Luigi's Mansion 3 has sold almost double the copies of Death Stranding?

[cyrribrae]

I was curious about Luigi's Mansion 3 sales and I did a search and lo and behold, what came up but this locked discussion from 2019: "What will sell more? Death Stranding or Luigi's Mansion 3". https://www.resetera.com/threads/what-will-sell-more-death-stranding-or-luigi's-mansion-3.151407. If you look at the poll, Resetera was skewing significantly toward DS [60% to 40%].

Many thought that perhaps, in the long term, the eventual win might fall to LM3 once it became heavily discounted. Well, 2 years later, Luigi's Mansion 3 is still selling at $60, while DS PS4 is selling for $25 and you can pick up the forthcoming DS:DC on PS5 for $50 on Amazon. And the current sales, according to official sources in May 2021 (Nintendo's financial report) and from March-June 2021 (KJP reporting), stand at 9.6M for LM3 and 5M for DS on all platforms (PS4, PS5 [kinda], PC). That's nearly double the sales. That's despite DS seeming to initially outsell LMS3 according to Japanese and UK charts (why do we put so much stock in these again?).

How did we get it wrong? Or with the benefit of hindsight, do we think it should it have been obvious then?

Is this a bad thread? It might be a bad thread. But let's just take it as a moment of quiet self-reflection :D

 

[JetstreamRorschach]

Getting Final Fantasy VII vs Animal Crossing vibes from this

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Era thought Luigi would have to suck it up, but they never realized they were correct in the wrong way.

 

[HK-47]

I love that thread. Death Stranding did very well for itself (given how odd the game is and it being a new IP) but if LM3 at all lived up to Dark Moon, it was gonna do better as a Switch first party. I didn't realize that meant 10 million and still going strong but definitely better than Stranding.

 

[Deleted member 81119]

Switch software sales are crazy good. I think it's taken most people by surprise how pretty much every Nintendo title sells lorry-loads.

That said, now I know that is the case, I would expect the majority of Nintendo first party Switch titles to outsell the majority of Sony exclusive games.

 

[ghostcrew]

I personally think those 'which will sell more' polls are useless if we don't look back and have a laugh about how terribly we all got it wrong.

Luigi's Mansion quietly became an absolute beast. Every one of my young nephews who have a Switch are obsessed with it. More than Mario.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Getting Final Fantasy VII vs Animal Crossing vibes from this

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Truly the greatest Era bubble moment.

Well, no, actually Toy Story 4 vs. Detective Pikachu still wins that one.

 

[Simba1]

LM3 sold more than people expected, on other hand DS is not exactly game with mass market appealing.

 

[Kalor]

Of course not. Death Stranding is a more niche game than Luigis Mansion by comparison. I don't get why they'd be compared.

 

[Bard]

Getting Final Fantasy VII vs Animal Crossing vibes from this

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Man that thread was hilarious.

 

[HK-47]

Getting Final Fantasy VII vs Animal Crossing vibes from this

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The funniest for me is still New Pokémon Snap vs RE Village.

 

[Clov]

It's crazy that so many people were convinced Death Stranding would do better. It never stood a chance.

 

[cyrribrae]

I personally think those 'which will sell more' polls are useless if we don't look back and have a laugh about how terribly we all got it wrong.

Luigi's Mansion quietly became an absolute beast. Every one of my young nephews who have a Switch are obsessed with it. More than Mario.

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My favorite part is how certain everyone was then. And how certain everyone is now that it was obvious back then ;) The mind works in wonderful and predictable ways sometimes haha.

 

[Kwigo]

Of course the vacuuming simulator would beat the walking simulator.

 

[MondoMega]

Era aren't great at judging these things and Death Standing never stood a chance, but Luigi's Mansion 3 really did perform better than most expected; by now it's probably passed the first two installments combined.

 

[Neiteio]

I'm not surprised -- Switch is a sales performance beast, and Luigi's Mansion 3 is super-fun, clever, and features Pixar-like presentation.

That being said, Death Stranding is also incredible -- in fact, Death Stranding was my Game of the Year 2019, and I wasn't even hyped for it.

Both games deserve our time and support.

 

[Dan Thunder]

Nintendo's 1st party titles are always massive sellers, I'd have been incredibly surprised if it had been the other way.

 

[Deleted member 5491]

- People want to play and buy games on the Switch
- LM3 is awesome and always looked awesome
- It is the seqeuel to a game that sold nearly 6 million copies
- DS was a complete new IP and a game that doesn't appeal to everyone

To think DS would sell more, after all what we have seen with the Switch, shows you that mene here live in a Bubble

 

[Aurora]

I haven't played Death Stranding but Luigi's Mansion 3 is great fellas, don't sleep on it.

 

[Raigor]

If there's one thing ERA is always wrong is predicting the sales/success of games.

LM3 is a game for kids and adults, DS is a weird non-mainstream game aimed to the adults.

Like, of course the former was going to sell more.

 

[Lotus]

How did we get it wrong?

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[Jawbreaker]

I never thought about it because I'm a normal person that doesn't compare the sales potential of two entirely different games reaching two entirely different audiences.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

muchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh better game

like considerably so

huge kojima fan too but hated DS

 

[ghostcrew]

For the sake of crow eating, here's the poll with my tick firmly next to Death Stranding. Oh...

I was with the wrong majority on that one.

 

[Nightengale]

A quiet self-reflection meant not making a thread.

 

[WhateverItTakes]

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Innit. Nintendo's output, especially the Mario series, naturally has a much broader appeal than something like Death Stranding. Even with Kojima's name attached it's not like everyone who played a metal gear game would move across with it- it was that different, both in genre and standing.

Also the second poll option seems to just be designed to rile people up- we all know what's 'good' is subjective and only plays a part in sales.

 

[Glio]

Resetera is terrible at predicting Nintendo stuff. Just clueless with anything other than AAA single player "core" games.

It was obvious that Luigi's Mansion would sell a lot more. Even so, I am surprised that it was by so much margin.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Most users that vote in these threads just go with whatever they want to sell more and disregard data and historic figures.
So you probably dont want to take it too serious, but yeah LM3 performance was quite impressive.

 

[BassForever]

More like Sales Stranding, because Luigi's Mansion left it behind.

In all seriousness, Death Stranding was always gonna be a harder sell to a larger general public. Using lots of weird "what is happening?" trailers will get a certain sizable audience in, but it doesn't have the universal appeal of Mario and friends.

 

[Jawbreaker]

Also, those poll options suck, OP.

 

[NuclearCake]

Luigi's Mansion sold well on GC and 3DS. LM3 was going to sell well on Switch. While Death Stranding looked weird and it turned out to be the worst Kojima game ever made.

 

[cyrribrae]

A quiet self-reflection meant not making a thread.

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Can't reflect if you have nothing to reflect on. I'll probably put up the followup thread soon: are you surprised that we made a thread about whether you were surprised that Luigi's mansion 3 outsold Death Stranding?

Also, those poll options suck, OP.

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lol, I apologize. I usually do better with polls. What would you have suggested?

 

[Glio]

The funniest for me is still New Pokémon Snap vs RE Village.

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People always, ALWAYS overestimate Pokemon spin-offs. Like "It's Pokemon, people will buy anything." It happened with Mystery Dungeon, it happened with Pokken, it happened with Pokemon Masters, it will happen with almost every spin-off.

Most people only care about Pokemon GO and Game Freak's games.

 

[Kaleide]

I'm gonna say no.
But the poll text is crap so not voting in it.

First party Nintendo on a system where First party Nintendo titles are few and far between is always going to sell better than a shit tonne of stuff.
I think even after the first reveal and subsequent showings of Death Stranding you could see that it was a 'niche, experimental game' and judging it on pure sales figures was always going to put it behind many many other titles.

 

[bushmonkey]

Luigi's Mansion is arguably the better game (I prefer DS but I know I'm in the minority) but I am surprised as we never heard much about LM3, it just quietly did its thing. I suppose DS suffered from bad word of mouth?

 

[Deleted member 1839]

Wasn't there one with Animal Crossing?

 

[regenhuber]

Resetera is terrible at predicting Nintendo stuff.

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fixed that for you

And it's not even a knock on ERA users. I'm an enthusiast myself and DS was a much bigger deal to me than LM3.

 

[Kemono]

Death Stranding was too wild for most players out there. Luigis Mansion 3 is a save bet for fans of the series and new players.

I played both and had fun but i only completed DS. Luigis Mansion 3 bored me after a few hours, as did the second game on 3ds.

 

[Mekanos]

I'm more surprised that it passed Donkey Kong Country to be the best selling western-developed Nintendo game.

 

[Aarglefarg]

I wouldn't have thought of comparing them.

 

[Deleted member 10737]

not at all.

the numbers being thrown around for DS before were really crazy, people had some insane expectations. 20, 15 and 10 were numbers being thrown around. then after release people came to their senses. it was never going to do those numbers, it was the ridiculous marketing that made people lose it.

also era can be really clueless when it comes to nintendo sales. nothing will beat people thinking ff7 can outsell animal crossing.

 

[Peleo]

People severely underestimate how much some Nintendo 1st Party franchises actually sell.

Many thought that perhaps, in the long term, the eventual win might fall to LM3 once it became heavily discounted. Well, 2 years later, Luigi's Mansion 3 is still selling at $60,

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This is the most absurd part about it though. Nintendo is notoriously known for not providing discounts for their 1st party games, did anyone actually have this expectation?

 

[Glio]

fixed that for you

And it's not even a knock on ERA users. I'm an enthusiast myself and DS was a much bigger deal to me than LM3.

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In Resetera we are practically all "enthusiast gamers" (God, I hate that expression), it can be used as an interchangeable term, indeed. I don't think we are any better or worse in that regard than other communities made up of similar demographics.

 

[Geobros]

Luigi 3 is simply one of the best video games of current generation. Every gamer has to give it a try.

 

[cw_sasuke]

People always, ALWAYS overestimate Pokemon spin-offs. Like "It's Pokemon, people will buy anything." It happened with Mystery Dungeon, it happened with Pokken, it happened with Pokemon Masters, it will happen with almost every spin-off.

Most people only care about Pokemon GO and Game Freak's games.

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NPS is the best selling spin-off in quite a while - no one was overestimating its performance this was just a very ridiculous thread and premise from the start.

 

[cyrribrae]

I'm gonna say no.
But the poll text is crap so not voting in it.

First party Nintendo on a system where First party Nintendo titles are few and far between is always going to sell better than a shit tonne of stuff.
I think even after the first reveal and subsequent showings of Death Stranding you could see that it was a 'niche, experimental game' and judging it on pure sales figures was always going to put it behind many many other titles.

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Hmm. That was what the first No option is for - Regardless of quality of the games, Luigi's Mansion 3 was always going to sell better than Death Stranding just due to... whatever reason (past history, Switch, lack of other 1p, audience, etc. etc.). I probably could have worded it better :'(

I'm more surprised that it passed Donkey Kong Country to be the best selling western-developed Nintendo game.

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Haha yea, that is the funny thing. While Nintendo 1p does really well generally, I think many of us are still underestimating HOW WELL Luigi's Mansion 3 did - even in relation to other Nintendo properties. Maybe obvious that it was better poised than DS (and honestly, with all the Sony hype behind it, I don't blame people for being led astray). But I think shocking to most people that it's sold anywhere near as well as it has - though, props where it's due to the people who knew exactly what they were talking about in that thread haha.

 

[LostCauseUnite!]

People severely underestimate how much some Nintendo 1st Party franchises actually sell.

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To be honest, many people over and under estimate how much their first party titles sell. It's honestly more of a mixed bag.

 

[Pyro]

Not really. Nintendo first-party is kind of a class of it's own when it comes to awareness (evm more so for Mario/Zelda) and while there's obviously crossover, I'd say ultimately attracts a different audience. Kojima making a PS4 exclusive is a big deal say on here, not so much for the average player. It clearly doesn't even matter that a big star like Norman Reedus stars.

 

[wrowa]

Resetera is terrible at predicting Nintendo stuff.

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Absolutely. If you'd taken a look at Luigi's Mansion 2's sales numbers, it should have been obvious that Death Stranding would have a very hard time outselling LM3, but people here are too often stuck in the enthusiasts bubble where they judge things by the hype among themselves instead of actually looking at market indicators.

 

[Nightengale]

Can't reflect if you have nothing to reflect on. I'll probably put up the followup thread soon: are you surprised that we made a thread about whether you were surprised that Luigi's mansion 3 outsold Death Stranding?

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My reflection on the matter is that aggregately speaking, this community is very disconnected from VERY VERY large segments of the gaming community. We ( generally speaking ) aren't fans of sports games, mobile games, casual games, MMOs not-named FF14, PC-community focused games, has never heard of names like Garena, Lilith, etc - among other things.

Heck, we are even surprised when it turns out some open world games sell well and is popular in spite of not having copied enough ideas fom BOTW. /s

tldr; we're no better than Michael Pachter as much the community likes to clown on his misses. And he isn't even making those seriously, because his 'professional' work are behind paywalls.