Nintendogs: The Biggest Game on the Planet Right Now

RE*AC*TOR

Article here from Spong.com

Interesting read. Essentially discusses that Nintendogs is the biggest/quickest selling game in Japan/Asia at the moment. Apparently, a lot of this is down to a huge amount of females buying it (after a very female-centric ad campaign).

Even more interesting is the increased sales of the hardware as a result.

DS 96,191
PS2 33,080
PSP 33,004
GBASP 10,820
GC 8,329
GBA 422
Xbox 112

This puts the DS selling more than all other consoles combined. The start of a phenomenon?

Another interesting factoid (from Gamespy)

To test the actual quality of the game, four notoriously tough game reviewers scrutinized Nintendogs for Weekly Famitsu, Japan's leading video game magazine. All four reviewers gave the title a top score of 10, for an amazing overall perfect score of 40.

TerrorFirmer

Wow, interesting.....

And you've got to laugh at the sales figures of the xbox, oh how those asians hate it....

Dont be at yourself

It's only the 4th games to receive that score too, isn't it? Joins the exclusive club of the likes of Ocarina of Time.

Still though, anyone remember Dogz?

Loobz

Havent played Nintendogs yet but I remember seeing a video fo ity in action. That was a while back when the DS was first announced. Looked like a good laugh tbh.

Retr0gamer

Looks like nintendo have their new Pokemon and as a result will be around for the next 20 years at least

flogen

Retr0gamer wrote:

Looks like nintendo have their new Pokemon and as a result will be around for the next 20 years at least

oh God no!
Aren't there 3 or so versions coming out, so users can trade dogs with others?
Looks interesting but I wonder how long it would be enjoyable, I see a very limited lifespan on it but I'm happy to be mistaken because it looks cool.

CiDeRmAn

Maybe games like this will finally shut all those PSP fanboys up, with their "I love my PSP cos its Sony and cos, oh look a bee, come here bee!" attention span.
Anyway it could be the reason people here buy one for their spouses, I know my wife would play such a title, the last game she played was Dogz on my PC in '96!

And lets here it for Nintendo for a release schedule that isn't a litany of sequels, unlike someone elses we could mention....

RE*AC*TOR

CiDeRmAn - in fairness you sound a bit fanboish yourself.

But you make a good point about females and the DS. My better half normally hates video games - but back in the day was big into the NES. Since then she has really only liked - Tetris on the GB, Puzzle Bobble (arcade) and the Sims / Sims 2. But since I got the DS - she has been spent a lot of time with Polarium, Warioware and the mini-games on Mario64.

It opens a huge relatively untapped market for nintendo - perhaps recapturing the NES days when it was something everyone could play. Hence increasingly simple interfaces (Bongos / Touch Screen / speclation on Revolution controllers).

It reminds me of an episode of River Cottage I saw recently. Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall was entering a local vegetable competition and some people focused on particular vegetables and won individual categories (longest bean, best carrots) but the overall winner was a guy who had the widest selection of vegetables - he had vegetables that others didn't have at all (cabbage) and accumulated points for all these that the others weren't even in competition for.

monkeyfudge

RE*AC*TOR wrote:

It reminds me of an episode of River Cottage I saw recently. Hugh Fearnley–Whittingstall was entering a local vegetable competition and some people focused on particular vegetables and won individual categories (longest bean, best carrots) but the overall winner was a guy who had the widest selection of vegetables - he had vegetables that others didn't have at all (cabbage) and accumulated points for all these that the others weren't even in competition for.

Haha... Brilliant stuff...

BloodBath

Maybe games like this will finally shut all those PSP fanboys up, with their "I love my PSP cos its Sony and cos, oh look a bee, come here bee!" attention span.
Anyway it could be the reason people here buy one for their spouses, I know my wife would play such a title, the last game she played was Dogz on my PC in '96!

And lets here it for Nintendo for a release schedule that isn't a litany of sequels, unlike someone elses we could mention....

Yeah because another pokemon is what we all want to play :rolleyes: The japanese market is very different from the american and european one although i'm sure this will sell like hot cakes everywhere because a large % of DS owners will be under 16. These kind of games don't appeal to everyone. They definitely don't appeal to me. Your seriosuly putting the psp down because of that game? Have you seen the screenshots? What is the world coming to.


BloodBath

flogen

why does every thread about the DS, or the PSP or a game on either have to turn into a fight between the consoles?
Nintendogs won't destroy the PSP but it might corner a market that has been overlooked for some time. It is also a nice and original game that can show the full potential of the DS... it even barks when you have your machine in sleep mode and another DS is near!

Retr0gamer

BloodBath wrote:

Yeah because another pokemon is what we all want to play :rolleyes: The japanese market is very different from the american and european one although i'm sure this will sell like hot cakes everywhere because a large % of DS owners will be under 16. These kind of games don't appeal to everyone. They definitely don't appeal to me. Your seriosuly putting the psp down because of that game? Have you seen the screenshots? What is the world coming to.

Don't knock it before you try it. There's also a reason that Pokemon is such a success, the biggest one being that they are all fantastic RPG games that appeal to all ages. It's very rare for a game to get a 40 score in Famitsu. It must be something quite special.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah because another pokemon is what we all want to play

The very idea of Pokemon to be honest is just beyond gay and I absolutely hate it, but personally, I still loved the games, and wouldn't hesitate to buy a new version.

Fantastic lengthy and engrossing games no matter what way you look at them, played them for hours and hours on my GBC and GBA.

Hugh Hefner

Agreed, the Pokemon series is legendary.

When I first saw this game I thought that it looked a little lack-luster and, well, crappy. Now that I hear of all these features and connectivity things I've been turned. I'm looking forward to it now.

God, remember tomigotchi? (They're making a comeback, or so I'm informed) This could be huge. For the benefit of Nintendo I certainly hope it ends up that way.

Any sign of a European release date?

KdjaCL

Altho there was never an option to Kill Pikachu those games are damn good, only a 2 kinds of people dont like them fanboys and people who never played it.


Dogs does look good and Nintendo know how to milk their cash cows, so it that means more money on spent on game dev, it cant be a bad thing.

kdjac

Steven

only a 2 kinds of people dont like them fanboys and people who never played it.

Mmm, tastes irony.

Pokémon, to be honest, is a perfectly acceptable eastern style RPG (if a little childish) but it's main appeal lies in it's popularity. When games are popular you can explore their huge community aspect, discussing strategies and battling into the wee hours of the morning. It gives casual gamers a taste of what we of the hardcore persuasion enjoy with more obscure (and better designed) titles.

Well, it's better than the goddamned Sims anyway.

Gizzard

CiDeRmAn wrote:

Maybe games like this will finally shut all those PSP fanboys up, with their "I love my PSP cos its Sony and cos, oh look a bee, come here bee!" attention span.
Anyway it could be the reason people here buy one for their spouses, I know my wife would play such a title, the last game she played was Dogz on my PC in '96!

And lets here it for Nintendo for a release schedule that isn't a litany of sequels, unlike someone elses we could mention....

This kind of post is why I hate reading PSP and DS threads, you make a good point about the sequels but lets drop the fanboy rubbish

dearg_doom

Hugh Hefner wrote:

God, remember tomigotchi? (They're making a comeback, or so I'm informed)

They actually made that comeback a couple of Christmas's ago, but no-one really seemed to notice(or care:)), they had better screens and you infra-red ports to let them interact with each other.

I had a great time with my one back in the day, I got it about a month before my Junior started, so it was a welcome excuse for not studying! Got bored with it pretty quickly though.


But, in fairness, Nintendogs is exactly the type of game that non-Japanese greet with a YAWN. Even though it's brilliant, they can play and compete with each other, give each other presents, there is a huge amount of stuff to unlock, and objectives to achieve, so for high-score lovers, or shump fans it seems to be a fine game.

Apparently, in Japan at least, the 'community' aspect of it is really popular. If you leave it on while you're walking around, your puppy can play with other puppys it comes accross, these dogs are then unlocked in your game(there's 3 flavors of the game) and if it gives you a present, that unlocks some more, related, stuff. Also it exchanges a brief message between DS's and your contact details are automatically added to their 'Friends' and vice-versa.

None of that would probably work here, but they're some cool idea's imo!


If ye get a chance you should have a look at the blog: puppytimes.blogspot.com (I think that's the URL)... it is written by an American in Tokyo.

flogen

reading that blog is a pretty good way to find how the features work in the real world (and not as some press release from nintendo). I'd say I'll get this game, it seems like a bit of a laugh

dearg_doom

I wish girls would speak like that to me instead of sounding like some bastard mish-mash of the OC and Dawson's Creek:D



.well said Steve!

@flogen: do buy it, it's class, girls will love you too(more than usual, of course:)) but be prepared to feel like a proper poof when you start getting obsessive about training your dog;

dearg_doom

Steven wrote:

Mmm, tastes irony.

Pokémon, to be honest, is a perfectly acceptable eastern style RPG (if a little childish) but it's main appeal lies in it's popularity. When games are popular you can explore their huge community aspect, discussing strategies and battling into the wee hours of the morning. It gives casual gamers a taste of what we of the hardcore persuasion enjoy with more obscure (and better designed) titles.

Well, it's better than the goddamned Sims anyway.

I wish girls would speak like that to me instead of sounding like some bastard mish-mash of the OC and Dawson's Creek:D



.well said Steve!

@flogen: do buy it, it's class, girls will love you too(more than usual, of course:)) but be prepared to feel like a proper poof when you start getting obsessive about training your dog;