Yoshi's Woolly World and other Yoshi games

[Anacybele]

Actually, it did. While you still have to get all of a particular collectible in one run (say, the flowers, for instance), you can grab every subset of collectibles in multiple runs and still be counted for 100% (flowers on one run, no damage on another, stamps on a third, and round it out with yarn bundles. Or whatever order.)

Almost correct. You don't even have to collect all of one collectible to count towards 100%. You can end up getting only a few flowers, yarn bundles, and stamp patches in one go, and come back for the rest later without touching the ones you already picked up beforehand and it'll still mark it as 100%. I should know, I went through one level just to get one flower I was missing or one yarn bundle and that was it. I didn't have to collect the others.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Anacybele

[Locust]

I gave the game to someone as a gift so we could play through it together. It's a pretty good game; even better than I expected it to be.

[Zera]

Almost correct. You don't even have to collect all of one collectible to count towards 100%. You can end up getting only a few flowers, yarn bundles, and stamp patches in one go, and come back for the rest later without touching the ones you already picked up beforehand and it'll still mark it as 100%. I should know, I went through one level just to get one flower I was missing or one yarn bundle and that was it. I didn't have to collect the others.

Oh. So they DID fix the scoring problem? Great! Now all Yoshi needs is a machinegun and flamethrower, and then this game will sell like Call of Duty.

[Falaflame]

Oh. So they DID fix the scoring problem? Great! Now all Yoshi needs is a machinegun and flamethrower, and then this game will sell like Call of Duty.

That was one problem on SNES Yoshi's Island that kinda nagged me.

and technically we already have a machine gun and flamethrower lol..

Edited January 2, 2016 by Falaflame

[animeapple]

its selling good.... what bombed was Amiibo Festival.... people who bought it are only buying it for the amiibo that comes with it.... barely anyone plays the game

[Tangerine]

Huh? Wooly World isn't doing bad on sales. It's not Top 5 on the Wii-U, but it's certainly doing well for a brand that doesn't exactly house a cult following.

But the reason why it didn't top the chart is probably a multitude of factors.

The lackluster Yoshi games before it is one factor. I mean, before Wooly World, we had (in order from old to new): the godawful Yoshi's Island port on GBA, Yoshi's Topsy-Turvy, Yoshi Touch & Go, Yoshi's Island DS, and Yoshi's New Island, all of which were either mediocre-at-best, or awful games in general. So a lot of the Nintendo fanbase didn't really have too much hype on Yoshi games in general.

Advertising was also another issue. Nintendo, for some strange reason, has a major problem with advertising in general, so it isn't just reserved to Yoshi products.

Another factor is the Wii U is flopping mad hard in terms of sales in general. There was a time where Nintendo was going to have a net loss in profit for the first time in a very long time. In fact, Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8, and Splatoon are pretty much the 3 games keeping the Nintendo Wii U out of the red in terms of sale profit, and not much really comes even close to those 3 games..

Another factor is, although it's just in general, that the console generation war is just bad in general. Sony PS4 is leading the way currently, but even they know for sure they're not where they really should be. A lot of people are getting into mobile gaming, such as iphones and androids, and even the Nintendo 3DS, and as such, consoles are slowly starting to lose their footing. All 3 companies will have to outdo themselves this coming new generation to make up for possibly the worst generation Gaming has ever had (well, arguably. there's the generation that had the 3DO, Virtual Boy, and *shudder* CD-i, but at least that generation didn't last very long), lest they start selling less products than handhelds.

There's probably more I could think of, but I've gotten tired halfway through tyoping this message.

Consoles are not losing their footing. The PS and Xbox are doing better than the brands ever have, and the Wii U is performing by pre-Wii Nintendo standards. I think you're being fooled by the Wii's sales, which for all intents and purposes was not a console that sold on the merit of being a gaming console. Compare this generation to the 5th, 6th AND 7th generations and you will see that two of the three console brands have grown significantly - only the casual Wii Fit/Sports fanbase is gone now, as was expected.

Dedicated handhelds are the ones losing massive market share to mobile gaming. Handheld gaming sales are in the gutter, and that's a problem for a medium of gaming that has always had weak software sales compared to consoles.

As for Yoshi: WW, I haven't played it personally, but I can agree with the quoted poster about the poor game releases in the series leading up to this point. I stopped buying Yoshi games despite being a huge fan of Yoshi's Island specifically because they've been consistently bad. I think if they keep making quality games like WW, the sales will improve over time.

Edited January 2, 2016 by Tangerine

[Anacybele]

and technically we already have a machine gun and flamethrower lol..

Yeah, the green and red melons lol.

[Kirie]

I'm really enjoying YWW and I've recommended it to a lot of people. The base game itself is very easy, but it's fun to go through and get all the extras (flowers, yarn, stickers, full health) and I certainly feel like my husband and I have gotten our money's worth out of it. We've been playing through rather slowly so we're only a bit into World 5, but we've 100%ed everything we've touched so far, so by the time we're actually done, we'll have everything, too.

[peener weener]

Consoles are not losing their footing. The PS and Xbox are doing better than the brands ever have, and the Wii U is performing by pre-Wii Nintendo standards. I think you're being fooled by the Wii's sales, which for all intents and purposes was not a console that sold on the merit of being a gaming console. Compare this generation to the 5th, 6th AND 7th generations and you will see that two of the three console brands have grown significantly - only the casual Wii Fit/Sports fanbase is gone now, as was expected.

This is explicitly false. If there's anything that the wii u is on par with in terms of sales it's the gamecube, which was widely considered a failure even by nintendo itself. All other nintendo consoles sans wii u have outsold the gamecube by at least over ten million units. It's not that the wii or the wii u are outliers, it's that nintendo has been making outliers for the past 15 years.

Edit: except the virtualboy i guess lmao

Edited January 4, 2016 by fuccboi

[peener weener]

Oops

Edited January 4, 2016 by fuccboi

[Falaflame]

This is explicitly false. If there's anything that the wii u is on par with in terms of sales it's the gamecube, which was widely considered a failure even by nintendo itself. All other nintendo consoles sans wii u have outsold the gamecube by at least over ten million units. It's not that the wii or the wii u are outliers, it's that nintendo has been making outliers for the past 15 years.

Edit: except the virtualboy i guess lmao

let's also not forget to mention Virtual Boy also competed with the likes of 3DO, Atari Jaguar, and CD-i, among other things that aren't even worth mentioning. All of which were equally bombed failures, themselves.

i agree with everything that has been said

[Tangerine]

This is explicitly false. If there's anything that the wii u is on par with in terms of sales it's the gamecube, which was widely considered a failure even by nintendo itself. All other nintendo consoles sans wii u have outsold the gamecube by at least over ten million units. It's not that the wii or the wii u are outliers, it's that nintendo has been making outliers for the past 15 years.

Edit: except the virtualboy i guess lmao

Except not? For the GameCube you have to factor in that a legitimate third competitor entered the market. And no, the Saturn was not a legitimate competitor. You'll find a reason somewhere in there for why the U compares similarly to the GC and not to the N64.

You can't compare a Nintendo with only 1 competitor to a Nintendo with 2 and claim the market is shrinking because Nintendo is selling less than they did when there were less competitor products. That the Gamecube sold less than the NES/SNES/N64 and the U is tracking around GC numbers suggests that that is what a dedicated Nintendo console will sell on its own merit with Sony and Microsoft in the business. You have to flat out ignore Sony and Microsoft's existence to make silly claims like that.

The only Nintendo consoles that have sold that much more than the GameCube and Wii U (and weren't the Wii, obviously) have not had more than a single legitimate contender in the market. Also largely irrelevant (NES). The Wii U is underperforming, but not to the extent people like to claim and not unexpectedly for those who actually follow the consumer electronics market.

For the record, the GameCube was not a failure, Nintendo made a profit on it. Maybe it could be considered a "failure" in the sense that Nintendo was no longer at the top of the market and weren't seeing the large profits they were accustomed to pre-Sony, but it certainly was not from the standpoint of financial sustainability - the only figure that really matters in a market where you're expected to release something that sells over a period of 5-7 years. I'd love to see where you're getting your numbers.

As for the Wii, you need only take a deeper look at its software sales. To claim it is not the outlier is a farce. The hardware sales progression from N64-GC-Wii U is expected. Nintendo console sales had been on a steady decline since their very first entry into the market. The Wii's success can almost entirely be attributed to the fact that it was a fad that blew up and captured a casual audience that never had any intention of staying in the console market. Which is exactly what everyone was saying when it was actually happening. 10 years ago. That's no slight to Nintendo either, they did a fantastic job of appealing to that market, and they created great games that appealed to that audience like Mario Olympics, Link's Crossbow Training and even a rejuvenated Mario Party. There is absolutely no denying that the Wii captured the audience that fell in love with casual party and sports games, but anyone could have told you they wouldn't stick around for a dedicated console.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Tangerine

[Alex95]

It's a good game to me. That's all I need to know.

[peener weener]

Except not? For the GameCube you have to factor in that a legitimate third competitor entered the market. And no, the Saturn was not a legitimate competitor. There's a reason that the U compares similarly to the Gamecube and not to the N64.

You can't compare a Nintendo with only 1 competitor to a Nintendo with 2 and claim the market is shrinking because Nintendo is selling less than they did when there were less competitor products. That the Gamecube sold less than the NES/SNES/N64 and the U is tracking around GC numbers suggests that that is what a dedicated Nintendo console will sell on its own merit with Sony and Microsoft in the business. You have to flat out ignore Sony and Microsoft's existence to make stupid claims like that.

The only Nintendo consoles that have sold that much more than the GameCube and Wii U (and weren't the Wii, obviously) have not had more than a single legitimate contender in the market. Also largely irrelevant (NES). The Wii U is underperforming, but not to the extent people like to claim and not unexpectedly for those who actually follow the consumer electronics market.

For the record, the GameCube was not a failure, Nintendo made a profit on it. Maybe it could be considered a "failure" in the sense that Nintendo was no longer at the top of the market, but it certainly was not from the standpoint of financial sustainability - the only figure that really matters in a market where you're expected to release something that sells over a period of 5-7 years. I'd love to see where you're getting your numbers.

As for the Wii, you need only take a deeper look at its software sales. To claim it is not the outlier is a farce. The hardware sales progression from N64-GC-Wii U is expected. Nintendo console sales had been on a steady decline since their very first entry into the market. The Wii's success can almost entirely be attributed to the fact that it was a fad that blew up and captured a casual audience that never had any intention of staying in the console market. Which is exactly what everyone was saying when it was actually happening. 10 years ago. It is absolutely, 100% the outlier.

the gamecube sold way under expectations. the fact it turned a profit doesn't mean it wasn't a failure: it horribly underperformed by nintendo's internal standards, and it lost a lot of market presence. note i didn't say commercial failure lol

i said it wasn't the outlier, but an outlier. nintendo consoles for the past 15 years have been either horribly overperforming (wii, ds, arguably 3ds as initially it wasn't expected to be as big a success as it was) (due to the temporary casual user attention in the case of the wii and maybe the ds, granted) or moderately underperforming (wii u, gamecube), relative to nintendo's expectations.

[Tangerine]

the gamecube sold way under expectations. the fact it turned a profit doesn't mean it wasn't a failure: it horribly underperformed by nintendo's internal standards, and it lost a lot of market presence. note i didn't say commercial failure lol

i said it wasn't the outlier, but an outlier. nintendo consoles for the past 15 years have been either horribly overperforming (wii, ds, arguably 3ds as initially it wasn't expected to be as big a success as it was) (due to the temporary casual user attention in the case of the wii and maybe the ds, granted) or moderately underperforming (wii u, gamecube), relative to nintendo's expectations.

Whose expectations? Nintendo's? A company isn't going to expect their product to do poorly, and when something underperforms there will always be disappointment. As an onlooker you can evaluate the state of the market yourself, however.

NES - 61 million

SNES - 49 million 18% loss

N64 - 32 million 35% loss

GameCube - 22 million 32% loss

Wii U - 16~ million (my expectations) - 18 million (possibly, if zelda captures people) 27% loss (20%)

There is a pretty easily observed pattern that only a single console breaks, the only one of which attracted a casual market that was not previously buying game consoles (and did not continue to). You can also see the downward spike when the PlayStation enters the market. Dedicated Nintendo consoles have lost a very similar % of their sales every single release; the GC wasn't anymore a failure than the N64 was comparatively, save the fact that it "continued to lose". A new market was established and Nintendo was a smaller part of it. The competitors, however, are doing incredibly well with the PS4/One continuing to increase their lead over their predecessors.

Console and handheld markets are a separate beast, the DS/PSP and 3DS/Vita don't enter the equation because their trends are very different from console trends. A handheld that sells as many hardware units as a console won't sell nearly as many games. You'll often see multiple handhelds in one household, but a console is typically not bought for individual family members. Their losses can much more easily be attributed to mobile gaming. The DS and PSP both sold fantastically and broke records in the handheld market, but by the time their successors were coming out, mobile gaming was becoming a realistic avenue for all sorts of gamers and presented an advantage in that they'd not have to spend a couple hundred dollars on something that they only use to play games on the go. They're the ones actually losing footing to mobile gaming, and you can observe it in a sales comparison between generations. Core gamers don't really go anywhere, they still buy consoles, there's just another affordable mainstream medium for playing core games on now (PC).

My argument is essentially that the core console market hasn't changed much at all. It's not really improving by significant amounts and absolutely not "losing its footing". The PS and Xbox brands are stronger than ever, and Nintendo is continuing a slow decline that started well before cellphones and PCs were affordable choices for gaming. The idea that consoles are declining rides on obfuscating the fact that the only brand whose sales are declining is the brand whose sales have been declining since 1989.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Tangerine

[Mackc2]

its selling good.... what bombed was Amiibo Festival.... people who bought it are only buying it for the amiibo that comes with it.... barely anyone plays the game

Did anyone really expect that game to sell?

[kingddd]

Did anyone really expect that game to sell?

Nintendo certainly did.

Even my friend who is a huge animal crossing fan regrets getting the game.

[Falaflame]

Yoshi isn't a cult franchise. It's also had 5 very mediocre games one-right-after-another leading up to Woolly World.

Of course it wasn't going to sell double figures of millions of copies. In fact, it's lucky it's gotten as many sales and reception as it did, because that might be just what was needed to revitalize Yoshi.

Edited January 11, 2016 by Falaflame

[Zera]

I was playing Yoshi's Island GBA and was surprised that every time I play it in a while I have to readjust to its unique drop-like-a-rock physics. What are the physics like in Wooly World?

[Jave]

Bumping this because this is relevant:

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2016/160202_2e.pdf

Up to December 2015, Yoshi's Woolly World sold 1.31 million units worldwide. (1.19 million in the West, 130k in Japan)

[Anacybele]

Wow, the game didn't even sell half as well in Japan as it did in the west. Can't believe the Japanese are ignoring it, they should to give it more of a chance. It's a great game and far outshines Yoshi's New Island (the previous Yoshi title).

[Czar_Yoshi]

It's also had 5 very mediocre games one-right-after-another

Everyone keeps saying this without elaboration. What exactly made the GBA port and DS bad?

[Falaflame]

Everyone keeps saying this without elaboration. What exactly made the GBA port and DS bad?

Mostly gameplay. The controls and mechanics were very stiff, and as well, in DS's case, the levels itself weren't much better. (in fact, both games had VERY questionable level design)

The games didn't even feel very inspiring. In fact, a better way of putting it is, the DS game in particular wasn't as bad as New Island. Rather, it felt like it was trying to be like the SNES game, but didn't quite hit the mark at all.

Plus it didn't help that the GBA port had VERY AWFUL sounds. I mean, the GBA didn't have a bad sound chip per se (Super Mario Advance versions of SMB2, 3, and World sounded just fine), but it was completely incompatible with Yoshi's Island, a game with very memorable tunes.

Edited February 8, 2016 by Falaflame

[Zera]

As someone who's played the GBA port of Yoshi's Island, I can confirm that it is very good. It also has 6 extra levels, which is a huge bonus to me. The DS Yoshi's Island had the dreaded "blind spot" between the two screens, but the levels were NOT designed to accommodate it.

[maybe]

Everyone keeps saying this without elaboration. What exactly made the GBA port and DS bad?

the GBA port isn't usually considered bad

the 5 games between those are yoshi story, yoshi topsy turvy, yoshi touch and go, yoshi's island ds, and yoshi's new island

out of those i've played yoshi story and yoshi's island ds

yoshi story is... bad

there are lots of problems such as how ridiculously easy it is, and how you beat levels by getting fruit, but it's generally not very good

yoshi's island ds just has really bad level design in a lot of places

there's also a lot of really not fun gimmicks used

i haven't played it in a long time but i got bored with it pretty easily