Universal's New Park/Site B Blue Sky Thread

[Alicia]

In that case Mario is niche as well. Odyssey has only sold 10 million copies.

You can call the franchise niche all you want, but there's a reason Pikachu is one of the most recognizable characters on the planet.

I have no interest in Pokemon. Never played a single game. Even I have purchased Pikachu plush. He's just soooo cute!

 

[Imperius]

For comparison, Deadpool sold 42 million tickets in the United States alone. I'm sorry but niche is exactly how I would describe the modern Pokemon franchise.

$8-10 ticket compared to a $40 game plus $150 system. Fair comparison.

 

[Viator]

I have no interest in Pokemon. Never played a single game. Even I have purchased Pikachu plush. He's just soooo cute!

That's the same way I feel about Eevee. Even though I have had no interest in Pokemon at this point, they have the characters and settings that can work extremely well both creatively and financially in a theme park setting.

Hell, if it was niche, Legendary probably wouldn't be making the first Live Action Pokemon film right now.

 

[NuteGunrayWasFramed]

Sun and Moon were the fasts selling Nintendo games EVER in North America. They sold 3.7 million copies in 2 weeks.

To say Pokemon has a niche reach in NA is just not true in the slightest

Okay, and Overwatch sold 9 million copies in six days, albeit on multiple consoles. Once again, the numbers this forum originally cited are cumulative over the 22 year lifespan of the franchise. If you want to talk about how something is selling TODAY, their are plenty of other options that outsell Pokemon and outweigh its popularity.

To address your statistic, 3.1 million out of the 25 million 3DS users in the United States isn't necessarily "small" but it isn't big enough to constitute Pokemon a reigning cultural phenomenon as it once was, especially since those are two separate games taking 3.1 million sales.

 

[Palutena]

Sun and Moon were the fasts selling Nintendo games EVER in North America. They sold 3.7 million copies in 2 weeks.

To say Pokemon has a niche reach in NA is just not true in the slightest

Gonna add to this that not making what I assume is the top 10 best sellers list for NPD in 2016, with 2 different skus of your game, exclusively on one system when many games on that list are multi-platform and while releasing in mid November isn't indicative of not being relevant and a highly disingenuous comparison and "context" to present. And that even besides that the relevance of Pokemon at this point couldn't be judged on just what the games sell (which is still a lot) .

For comparison, Deadpool sold 42 million tickets in the United States alone. I'm sorry but niche is exactly how I would describe the modern Pokemon franchise.

Pokemon Go in comparison 2 years after release still has 60m monthly active users and a daily revenue of 2.5 million since June (up from 1.8m).
‘Pokémon Go’ Earning $2.5 Million Daily Since Trading Update (Analyst) – Variety

 

[Orlandofan12]

again a random retail store not selling shirts is evidence of nothing.

I'll add that we do get nationwide reports from corporate with reported sales of particular merchandise, along with directions of what to do with merchandise. Modern department stores all behave exactly the same with directions from corporate every step of the way. If a shoe is ordered for one store, it's ordered for all of them. If a purse is marked down to clearance in one store, it's moved to clearance in all of them. Price change events happen on the same nights nationwide (you can check on social media for retail employees from the same company complaining about their overnight shifts). If corporate saw that Pokemon shirts were strong even in a particular region they wouldn't mark it down to clearance, because EVERYTHING is structured for maximum profit.

 

[NuteGunrayWasFramed]

In that case Mario is niche as well. Odyssey has only sold 10 million copies.

You can call the franchise niche all you want, but there's a reason Pikachu is one of the most recognizable characters on the planet.

On a brand new console, dude. 3DS is one of the best selling consoles of all time. That's not comparable.

 

[JungleSkip]

Okay, and Overwatch sold 9 million copies in six days, albeit on multiple consoles. Once again, the numbers this forum originally cited are cumulative over the 22 year lifespan of the franchise. If you want to talk about how something is selling TODAY, their are plenty of other options that outsell Pokemon and outweigh its popularity.

To address your statistic, 3.1 million out of the 25 million 3DS users in the United States isn't necessarily "small" but it isn't big enough to constitute Pokemon a reigning cultural phenomenon as it once was, especially since those are two separate games taking 3.1 million sales.

That's 3.7 in TWO WEEKS not lifetime in the US. There's also a difference between "cultural phenomenon" and "niche". To say Pokemon is niche and not one of the strongest video game brands around is completely and utterly ignoring all the data.

On a brand new console, dude. 3DS is one of the best selling consoles of all time. That's not comparable.

Okay. Mario Galaxy only sold 13 million copies on the Wii, one of the highest selling consoles of all time. Man, what a niche franchise. Can't believe they're going to base a land off it.

 

[Alicia]

Seems like this comes up a lot, every few months or so. And we get lost in the numbers end of the conversation.

Again, when it comes to theme park attractions, even if the IP was a complete failure (Waterworld,) or no longer available (Song of the South) doesn't mean you cannot make a good attraction or land from it (Pandora).

We go in circles, but at the end of the day, Pokemon has brand recognition, it has a fanbase, kids like it. I think it's just fine for the parks.

I'm sure it's more popular than Secret of Life of Pets or Jason Bourne currently.

 

[NuteGunrayWasFramed]

That's 3.7 in TWO WEEKS not lifetime in the US. There's also a difference between "cultural phenomenon" and "niche". To say Pokemon is niche and not one of the strongest video game brands around is completely and utterly ignoring all the data.



Okay. Mario Galaxy only sold 13 million copies on the Wii, one of the highest selling consoles of all time. Man, what a niche franchise. Can't believe they're going to base a land off it.

That's because the Wii was sold as a bundle and captured an untapped market. Additionally, in regard to selling software, it did poorly.

 

[JungleSkip]

That's because the Wii was sold as a bundle and captured an untapped market. Additionally, in regard to selling software, it did poorly.

Man these goalposts are moving an awful lot

 

[NuteGunrayWasFramed]

Man these goalposts are moving an awful lot

And you're taking a total blind eye to market context and looking strictly at numbers. You pull out that Super Mario Galaxy didn't do well "Why would they make Nintendo Land?", but Mario Kart for the Wii is the second highest selling Mario game! Why? It was included in a bundle, same as New Super Mario Bros which also did well.

 

[Orlandofan12]

$8-10 ticket compared to a $40 game plus $150 system. Fair comparison.

No it's not a fair comparison, but for theme park entertainment breadth of familiarity is a key factor. The number of people who have seen Deadpool is an order of magnitude greater than the number of people who played the Pokemon game. Do you think that because a Pokemon game costs more, the general public would be more willing to spend more money to experience a Pokemon-land than a movie franchise with far greater reach?

It's simple really. The video game market profit model is the luxury model (big prices, smaller sell-in). The movie industry operates under the mass-market model (smaller prices, big sell-in).

When it comes to theme parks, the latter makes for a vastly more strategic partnership because it means greater familiarity with the general public.

 

[Magic-Man]

Jesus. This thread went downhill fast.

 

[Alicia]

Jesus. This thread went downhill fast.

Happens regularly. Usually in the KidZone or Nintendo threads though.

Just wait till someone brings up whether Star Fox, Metroid or F-Zero would be popular enough to bring to the parks lol.

 

[OrlLover]

Seems like this comes up a lot, every few months or so. And we get lost in the numbers end of the conversation.

Again, when it comes to theme park attractions, even if the IP was a complete failure (Waterworld,) or no longer available (Song of the South) doesn't mean you cannot make a good attraction or land from it (Pandora).

We go in circles, but at the end of the day, Pokemon has brand recognition, it has a fanbase, kids like it. I think it's just fine for the parks.

I'm sure it's more popular than Secret of Life of Pets or Jason Bourne currently.

Whose to say Pokémon is getting a full giant land. To me it’s a great replacement for kidzone. Like you said were going around in circles with this argument.

 

[Palutena]

Seems like this comes up a lot, every few months or so. And we get lost in the numbers end of the conversation.

Again, when it comes to theme park attractions, even if the IP was a complete failure (Waterworld,) or no longer available (Song of the South) doesn't mean you cannot make a good attraction or land from it (Pandora).

We go in circles, but at the end of the day, Pokemon has brand recognition, it has a fanbase, kids like it. I think it's just fine for the parks.

I'm sure it's more popular than Secret of Life of Pets or Jason Bourne currently.

Considering where the thread is going and how baffling it's becoming just gonna agree with this and also say I trust universal creative to create an appealing land and rides for pokemon if it were to happen regardless of where it stands on a supposed cultural phenomenon/"niche" scale and that's all that really matters.

 

[JungleSkip]

No it's not a fair comparison, but for theme park entertainment breadth of familiarity is a key factor. The number of people who have seen Deadpool is an order of magnitude greater than the number of people who played the Pokemon game. Do you think that because a Pokemon game costs more, the general public would be more willing to spend more money to experience a Pokemon-land than a movie franchise with far greater reach?

It's simple really. The video game market profit model is the luxury model (big prices, smaller sell-in). The movie industry operates under the mass-market model (smaller prices, big sell-in).

When it comes to theme parks, the latter makes for a vastly more strategic partnership because it means greater familiarity with the general public.

Pokémon Go was downloaded by 650 million people. How’s that for mass market?

Whose to say Pokémon is getting a full giant land. To me it’s a great replacement for kidzone. Like you said were going around in circles with this argument.

...replacing KidZone is a full land?

 

[Magic-Man]

Since we’re on the topic, how much would Metroid Prime 4 have to sell for it to get a ride? What about Splatoon?

 

[JungleSkip]

Since we’re on the topic, how much would Metroid Prime 4 have to sell for it to get a ride? What about Splatoon?

Metroid would have to become better selling than the rest of the franchise combine. The franchise has only sold like 17 million units total.

Splatoon has been selling really, really well in Japan and respectable elsewhere. But only way there would be an attraction is if he Japanese Park got it and they just decided to clone it instead of retheming