Jsm, Super Monkey Ball has terrible controls! I assure you, Warioware is much much better, and hopefully SMP8 will be too. I never have control problems playing Warioware!
If you have ever played the previous mario parties, you know that this will be a success.
Combined with the unique abilities of the wii remote this is bound to be a hit.
4 million wii's to date(vgcharts.com). I think this should clear a million copies early and then through out the next year will shatter the 1.8 million projected life sales.
This will no doubt be one of the most popular mario parties yet and games in the mini-game genre.
Anyone else, find Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz mini-games tough to control at times?
I really hope that wario ware and mario party don't follow that suit, i have yet to play wario ware.
Agreeing with most of the previous comments, I believe this will be a hit on the Wii. I loved Mario Party 2, but making so many new ones with very similar controls wasn't too exciting; this one will be very exciting.
However, I'm only slightly positive (a little neutral) about this stock because I think the IPO price is right on target with a pretty safe estimate, although there seems to be a little room for growth, safely up to around 215-250 DKP or so.
This is taking into account that Wii controls would work really great for this, that Mario Party was a great franchise, that Mario Party 1, 2, and 4 sold in excess of 2.4 million worldwide, and that the rest of them (each) sold between 2.01 to 1.19 million.
Daft, the lack of sales did not prevent Eidos from proceeding to tack on more sequels to the Tomb Raider franchise =P.
Feikuai makes the point. By 6 and 7, the series was looking a little long and sales were diminishing. However, I believe the new Wii motion control scheme should revive this series.
If you look at the number it says "8". Companies dont make 8 games if the IP and game itself isnt succeding. I recently was hanging out with a bunch of people from work and the Wii was a hit. Its a party game machine. MP8 is going to be nasty. It might not be the best game but people will buy. O people will buy.
I disagree in that I think the casual gamer market that is obviously drawn to the Wii given the sale numbers and supply problems are more likely to purchase and enjoy minigame installments. The Mario Party games are casual and easy. It's a clear family board game that you can easily get everyone involved in. I got my 53 year old mom to play 6 & 7 on the GC, and she hates traditional controller schemes. But given the fact that she plays Warioware and Wii Sports easily and actually asks us to bring the system over to her house, I don't think I'll even need to coax her to play this game.
Nintendo has really introduced gaming to a whole new audience, and I think MP8 fits right in with that new area.
My only grief is that the wii is already bogged down with mini-game 'party' type games. I'm not saying this is neccesarily a bad thing but alot of people will be thinking "not another one". Hopefully feikuai is right and this will bring some new flavour to the series as there's alot of new games they can add while hopefully have learnt from previous version what works and from other wii games what doesnt..
Looking at past Mario Party titles. I believe this one will reach 1.5-2 million. Now it has potential to sell much more than that. But it all depends on how soon Nintendo announces Mario Party 9. Of all of Nintendo's IPs Mario Party has seen the most releases and on top of that the most releases in the shortest time. (7 MP games for the N64 and GCN released over 6 years) If Nintendo is able to hold off announcing MP 9, then MP 8 has the real potential to sell 2.5-3 million.
This is all baring Nintendo royally screwing up the game. But even then MP has an average of 72.8% on Gamerankings.com (an average of all 7 MP games, not counting the GBA version which scored a 57.5%) So MP sells despite what the critics score it.
So in summary. Based on the history of the MP franchise and its appeal despite low critical acclaim, I rate MP 8 as a buy. For now sales of 1.5-2 million are all that should be expected. And only time will tell if Nintendo allows MP 8 to last on the shelf by holding off on MP 9.
*all sales data from vgcharts.com and game rankings from gamerankings.com
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