of course it will have great leg. Its' free!
That's what I said. Making it free will give it great legs. You're not pointing something out to me by repeating what I said.
And people were underestimating Dragon's Dogma too in these threads. I correctly predicted that it would become the most successful new IP on PS3 (based on past Capcom new IPs like RE and Onimusha) but would not reach a million as did past such new Capcom IPs, because of the lower PS3 install base compared to PS2 and PS1.
Dragon's Dogma was also very late in the console's life cycle which was due to Capcom supporting X360 early in the cycle, because PS3 was late and expensive, both to the consumer and to develope for. But launching a new IP early in the life cycle works best because new console owners are looking for software to play so console and software can feed each other's sales.
Deep Down can capitalize on the building phase and can wow people with the new system's capabilities. Capcom have a great track record for establishing new IPs that way.
I'm also not saying how much the PS4 will sell this year (because I have no idea), just that from the titles announced so far for this year or already released, DD will be the most important system seller. And that it won't be front loaded but sell the console over time.
Deep Down becomes that one game to make players in Japan to pick up PS4.
It will be for some, and I say it will be more than those who bought a PS4 for the already released MGS and Yakuza.
Hm interesting. Out of curiosity, is the game making its money entirely out of ads? Or does it have lots of microtransactions (thus what you mention about "buying" above is with real money)?
You get 100 gems each day for logging in. You can buy more gems for real money. With these you can buy stuff like lottery tickets to win monster recruitment maps where you go straight to a boss and obtain it on its defeat. The current campaign ties in with DQIV and you can get Necrosaro (the game's last boss) from a lottery.
A ticket for this lottery is 300 gems (there are others that are cheaper and also ones that are paid with gold and support points instead which are earned in game). Of course the chances to actually get Necrosaro are low so some people might buy lots of gems to maximize their chances.
DQMSL has age controls restricting the amount of gems a user can buy for kids under a certain age.
I think the Smash gap is just going to further illustrate the problem Nintendo has with making the WiiU seem like an attractive unique platform. I mentioned this before back when Mario 3D World was coming out, and now it's looking worse than ever. Almost every major first party title with strong sales potential can be perceived as a "follow up" to a 3DS title, instead of something unique to the WiiU.
NSMB2 -> NSMBU
SMB3DL -> SMB3DW
MK7 -> MK8
With the 3DS being a very popular platform and the WiiU being an unpopular platform, the perception would only make more people think "Oh, if I have a 3DS I probably don't need to get a WiiU since the games are on the 3DS anyway." Whether that perception is fair or not is irrelevant, because if it has an impact on whether people want to buy the system, then the perception becomes a market reality.
With Smash being a huge title and one which actually has strong console appeal over portable, if they came out at the same time, it could have still been an advantage to the WiiU. But with potentially a half-year gap between the two, if the majority of fans in Japan get used to playing it on portables instead and enjoy it well enough, it's just going to hurt the WiiU more. No question about it.
What you're also showing here is that we have a very consistent strategy from Nintendo so opposed to your evaluation of it I'm guessing they're satisfied with the results (or still believing it will increase in effect). Enix has used the same for DQM (3DS) to DQX (Wii) and DQVII (3DS) to DQX (Wii U). Basically they're building hype by releasing a title on a platform with a huge install base and then release a similar title on the platform that still needs to be expanded.
Since most people in these threads agree that consoles can never live up again to the success portables are claiming now, haven't sales for these titles actually been pretty good? Maybe Wii U would do even worse if it weren't for these 3DS tie in games.
Another things is, winter is the right time to release a Wii U title. Holidays are where Nintendo can maximize console sales. And the graphical gap between the 3DS and Wii U versions is huge. The sales point of the Wii U should be the superior hardware; with DQX people were commenting that it wasn't actually that much of an improvement over the Wii version (and accordingly not that many upgraded even though half of the active console player base is now on U). Smash on the other hand impressively proves that Wii U offers superior graphics.
The 3DS version will both hurt and benefit the Wii U version. But if it were only on Wii U, sales would also take a hit because of weak Wii U performance (which was somewhat expected because of the Japanese console situation). This release strategy can benefit sales on both systems and grow Wii U install base long term.