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Breath of the Wild BotW is already the second best selling Zelda title

Between Gamecube and Wii Twilight Princess has sold 9million copies to date globally.

Between Wii U and Switch Breath of the Wild has sold 6.7million globally (1.4 million being Wii U copies).

Well done BotW. It is well on its way to becoming the best selling Zelda game of all time.

This is a good thing for Nintendo but its likely with the great sales and positive feedback and Aonuma stating he wants the next Zelda to follow in BotW's footsteps, we probably cant assume the next Zelda will play, feel or look much different... which sucks for those who had issues with BotW.

Do you think BotW will take over TP in the next year in sales?

Will Zelda Switch outsell TP and BotW if it exclusively appears on Switch?

(Considering TP and BotW both saw two consoles)
 

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I wouldn't be surprised if BotW surpasses TP sales, but I'm going to hazard that it won't.

Reasons:
The WiiU was a flop - No one has a WiiU. No one wants to play anything on it. BotW WiiU sales are 1/6 that of Switch sales. Lifetime Wii sales of TP surpass that of GCN, but the Cube carried TP ahead of Wii sales in the first few months. Then as Wii sales took off, TP sales went with it. 3/4 Wii sales were tandem with TP for several months. While Switch sales aren't exactly sluggish, BotW sales are compared to Switch units sold. Other games are selling with the system ahead of BotW. And WiiU is not carrying sales of BotW. At all.

TP was ridding off OoT's legacy at a time when Nintendo still held its 'core' audience - BotW is obviously designed to appeal to the western neo-gamer Ninty is so keen on courting. The "modern" gamer wants pretty, they want vapid, they want simple. At least this is what entertainment execs think their consumers want these days. (hint: the execs are as wrong as they are stupid.) The Zelda series lost a lot of its core audience with Wind Waker, and TP looked like a return to form back when Ninty's core base was still lingering around holding out hope. I am utterly convinced that TP's more sophisticated stylings brought in more dedicated consumers and core Nintendo fans than WW, SS, or BotW. Ninty doesn't seem to realize that it is actually more lucrative for them to court their core fans with their Zelda and Metroid series than it is to aim for the broader mainstream market. To dedicated core gamers, BotW looks like more of the same insipid regurgitated wash we've come to know from Nintendo and other lazy trend chasing corporate developers. And Nintendo completely lost this core audience a long time ago. It may be too late to get their attention back, even if they tried. But TP seemed to indicate that core gamers were willing to pay attention to the House of N if given reason to.

BotW was made for Japan - WW, SS, and BotW's graphical stylings are a big hit in Japan. Essentially, the aesthetic is about all they have over there. In the west, however, if a consumer can't take it or leave it, chances are they're put off by it. There is a clearer distinction between child and adult cartoons in the west, with adult cartoons being almost exclusively for adult humor with children's cartoons being unpopular with adults. Zelda's toony aesthetic looks like a children's cartoon, so adults naturally aren't into it. WW, SS, and BotW all have one thing in common. They outsold western sales in Japan by an extensive margin. In its first week, BotW sold more copies than TP did in Japan. Lifetime sales of TP are many times greater in Europe and NA than in Japan. Shigsy has even lamented (because he's a dingus) that he feels TP is disappointing because it didn't sell well in Japan. Obviously, an international market is far larger than a domestic market. Unless western sales of BotW pick up and carry some serious extended momentum it won't overtake TP for overall lifetime sales. And young kids are the primary consumer demographic of BotW. So far, it hasn't shown that young audiences are much interested in it.
 
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The Switch is still young. I think it's only a matter of time until BotW becomes the highest selling Zelda game and TP is dethroned (as it should be).
 

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