This is something I never quite understood. Over in Japan and the US, Nintendo games and consoles tend to sell many millions of copies and succeed pretty much instantly, yet it seems over here they rarely enter top ten lists or end up becoming quite as popular.
I mean, look at the difference between the US and UK Wii U launches:
http://mynintendonews.com/2012/12/03/wii-u-sells-40000k-units-in-uk-during-its-opening-weekend/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-03-wii-u-titles-miss-out-on-uk-top-ten-in-launch-week
In the US, it sold quite a lot better and had many of its games enter the top ten, yet in the UK it seems like the console was much less popular off the bat. Heck, New Super Mario Bros U and Nintendo Land didn't even reach number ten in the sales charts so far, coming in at places 14 and 11 respectively.
Additionally, it seems like the experience of people here is that they get a lot less 3DS StreetPasses than people in the US or Japan. Not to mention I saw a lot less Nintendo consoles and games back when I was in college and university, not exactly the same as how US universities seem to have a whole ton of Nintendo fans and gamers (for comparison sakes, how many times did I see someone use a 3DS in my three years of study? Once).
And heck, not once have I seen a Nintendo game sell out in game stores or require pre ordering, with perhaps the exception of the Wii console and Wii Sports. Here, it seems you could walk into GAME one day and walk out again with the latest Mario game, the latest Smash Bros game and the latest Pokemon game without pre ordering any of them.
So why is Nintendo seemingly less popular in the UK? Maybe it's because Nintendo didn't have as much of an impact of the industry here (we never had a video game crash or much of an arcade culture)? Or I don't know, maybe because it seems gaming never really took off as much until the Nintendo 64/PS1 era? Heck, we never had Mario Mania either, I'm fairly sure the Super Show/cartoons and Mario comics were never shown or released over here.
What do you think? Are there any other UK gamers here who can explain why Nintendo games seem to be less popular in this country?
I mean, look at the difference between the US and UK Wii U launches:
http://mynintendonews.com/2012/12/03/wii-u-sells-40000k-units-in-uk-during-its-opening-weekend/
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-03-wii-u-titles-miss-out-on-uk-top-ten-in-launch-week
In the US, it sold quite a lot better and had many of its games enter the top ten, yet in the UK it seems like the console was much less popular off the bat. Heck, New Super Mario Bros U and Nintendo Land didn't even reach number ten in the sales charts so far, coming in at places 14 and 11 respectively.
Additionally, it seems like the experience of people here is that they get a lot less 3DS StreetPasses than people in the US or Japan. Not to mention I saw a lot less Nintendo consoles and games back when I was in college and university, not exactly the same as how US universities seem to have a whole ton of Nintendo fans and gamers (for comparison sakes, how many times did I see someone use a 3DS in my three years of study? Once).
And heck, not once have I seen a Nintendo game sell out in game stores or require pre ordering, with perhaps the exception of the Wii console and Wii Sports. Here, it seems you could walk into GAME one day and walk out again with the latest Mario game, the latest Smash Bros game and the latest Pokemon game without pre ordering any of them.
So why is Nintendo seemingly less popular in the UK? Maybe it's because Nintendo didn't have as much of an impact of the industry here (we never had a video game crash or much of an arcade culture)? Or I don't know, maybe because it seems gaming never really took off as much until the Nintendo 64/PS1 era? Heck, we never had Mario Mania either, I'm fairly sure the Super Show/cartoons and Mario comics were never shown or released over here.
What do you think? Are there any other UK gamers here who can explain why Nintendo games seem to be less popular in this country?