Ok, well it's not true. When Ultimate launched it sold
five million in its first week, and then between
September 2020 and
November 2020, it sold one million. Which seems fairly standard for a game of its trajectory two years later over the early holiday period.
Doing a might bit of disservice here: 5 million in the launch week, sure, but how about
12 million in it's opening month? You need to give a better scale because, while impressive, doesn't begin to scratch the surface.
Now, why would I bring up something that should make my argument even weaker? Because it actually strengthens it.
2019 would only bring Ultimate to 15 million +, so while it did make more sales with more people buying the game over FP1, the cashflow really came from FP2. But wait, you were being slightly misleading here,
because it actually sold another mil within the month of Dec alone. How many of those sales do ya think were parents buying Smash and FP2 so their whiny kids can play as the funny block man and they just waited for Christmas? But wait, there's MORE!
Sora was revealed and released in Oct,
but a report from Nov is when we see that Ultimate hit 25 million copies sold. What does that mean? It means, my friend,
that it's too damn early for Sora numbers yet. So, am I being told to believe that from Sept 2020 to Nov 2021, it was Sephiroth who got people to buy the game almost as much as it's launch month? The Aegis Girls? Min Min? Kazuya? Get real, dude. If Steve wasn't in that pass, you could MAYBE argue Sephiroth, but facts are that as big as these characters are (which realistically, two of them really just aren't) none of them compare to the blocky boi.
Now, if you are being incredibly pedantic and are arguing "Berr, they didn't sell 12 million copies between Steve's reveal to before Sephiroth's reveal, berr' then sure, you can be correct there. But if you look at an FP that had Banjo, Joker, Hero, the latest FE craze and a fighting game legend only pushed out 3 million copies and then suddenly the next pass pushes it to from 15 million to 25 million before Sora could even be factored in...you'd be a fool to think anyone but Steve brought it there. Remove Steve from the pass, and it would be lucky to hit 5 million. I won't throw in the increase from 25 to 27 mil to Steve because I'm not sure when that update was listed, but it's also not needed to make the point.
I rest my case.
First off, this is actually funny. It's almost as funny as a video that was shown to me where it's Pinocchio doing the 'I have no strings to hold me down' with Geno's head and when he falls he gets the Geno Mii Costume head. I'm going to steal this and put it to great use because I'm pretty sure many Geno fans really feel like this from time to time.
However, you guys seemingly constantly misunderstand me when I refer to this 'inevitable' thing. No, it's not just quoting a meme from a relatively well-written cinema villain: it's looking at how Sakurai gets to what people want, but slowly. The thing with big names with star power is that they will inevitably make it into Smash because Smash has to do so to stay relevant...but long-term fan requests fall into the same boat. Do you think Smash Ultimate would have sold as much if it never brought back the rest of the veterans? What about just never including Ridley, K Rool, Simon or Banjo. Do you think people would have cares as much if you just replaced those with low-requested 1st party characters? If they were replaced with big third party requests, the voices of those who felt like the FPs (especially FP2) flat out ignored them would have been so much worse. Sora was chosen BECAUSE of fan demand...wipe that away and it could have been anything else that would excite the average crowd but piss off long-term fans.
Smash HAS to appeal to both sides. It's an important balance to maintain for the rest of it's relevance. The Geno requests are still here, and they surged so hard during Ultimate it's pretty much impossible to ignore, and that's enough on it's own to have confidence in his eventual inclusion. You couldn't breath freely without someone bringing him up in some way, so acting like all of that is somehow lost of forgotten already is pure naivety. Geno was already heading to Ridley territory for being meme'd before now, and he's already there as the next 'That character will NEVER get in!' meme that people with low IQ will spread around laughing, only to act like they had faith all along when it does happen. It's the nature of this fan base.
Currently the first and fourth best selling Switch games came out within its first two months. Evergreen titles that spend longer on the market will have a better chance, even if the console peaks later. Think about it, the first Zelda on a system always sells better than the second.
That's cool, but the second, third, fifth and sixth didn't though...so who cares about this point really? Also, 1-2-Switch and to a lesser extent ARMS show that being on the market longer isn't the only factor: game has to be worth buying as well.
Smash will always sell very well but it will be inhibited by the limitations of the install base, which is why you can see the correlation between audience size of the system and units moved of any given Smash game, from Ultimate at the top to Smash 4 Wii U at the bottom, despite having the second most impressive roster.
That's why MK8 can sell around 9 million and MK8D sells 40 million, despite being basically the same game.
If Smash 4's whole thing was 'Everyone Was Here!', you would have sold a **** ton more Wii U's, so I'm not sure where you are trying to go with this. I'm not saying you don't have a point, I'm saying it doesn't really do anything against mine. More people playing your system obviously means more people likely to buy games for it, but if no one wants to buy your games because they suck, it doesn't matter how many of your systems collect dust.
I wouldn't honestly call Geno "inevitable". Geno is still a quite irrelevant character from a game that's not even getting a port despite all it's popularity, and he's no main character or a villain. Square will probably want many of their more recognizable characters before Geno too, and we've seen exactly this with Ultimate.
At some point you guys gotta learn to be content with that Mii Gunner costume.
Yeah, you know, like Lightning or Noctis or Terra...wait, didn't we get Cloud over all of those? And then Sephiroth over all of them again? Even though Square wanted Sakurai to choose one of them for Smash 4? Sometimes Sakurai comes in and grabs what he wants, he has that kind of sway.
More importantly, I THOUGHT I saw someone say irrelevant and frankly...I guess we can't learn from every other irrelevant character that has gotten in so far. It's like Smashers have brains that reset after every character with star power gets in, ignoring that the base game and the FP1 did a number on the irrelevant argument after Smash 4 sucker-punched it in the throat.
Someone here even said that he needs a remake to have and chance, and I'm just over here looking at all the new games and remakes Ridley, K Rool, OG Simon, Richter and Banjo are in wondering when I get to play those games.
Stop going back and trying to debate against things that have already been proven to not mean anything anymore. It's fine if you think Geno has little to no chance, but either say it's what you want or how you feel with no evidence, or come up with something better than him being in one game from 1996 because that just doesn't cut it anymore.
Hell, if you tell me 2B is getting in instead, I'd respect that much more than saying he's irrelevant. Saying that Square has really molded Nier into a huge success after the failure of Drakenguard and that 2B is in basically everything ever at this point and that clearly they would want her in Smash is incredibly reasonable and I have nothing against that. I would want her in Smash as well if I was the one making that decision, Geno-bias or not, it's a smart business move. Whether or not that is stronger than the likelihood that Geno placed relatively high in the actual Ballot and what Sakurai would decide is more important or valuable I think is something that can be seriously discussed.
Also no, I won't settle for less. I'll always fight for more.
