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Nintendo Coming to Universal Parks

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The Legend of Zelda | Video Game Sales Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia

If you just averaged the total games sold at around $40 per considering inflation/discounts it would be not far under 4 billion in sales for Zelda before factoring other merch sales in. I think the appeal for Zelda is enormous considering it appeals to multiple age groups and has consistent investment from Nintendo. I wouldn't underestimate how big of a draw it would be.
 
The Legend of Zelda | Video Game Sales Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia

If you just averaged the total games sold at around $40 per considering inflation/discounts it would be not far under 4 billion in sales for Zelda before factoring other merch sales in. I think the appeal for Zelda is enormous considering it appeals to multiple age groups and has consistent investment from Nintendo. I wouldn't underestimate how big of a draw it would be.
Nintendo games don’t see discounts all that often. Especially popular ones. If they do it’s years later when it’s released as a “Nintendo Select.”
 
Does any character in the Nintendo universe tug at the heartstrings like those in Harry Potter, Star Wars or even Despicable Me? I guess that is one of the issues with Nintendo for me....I just don't feel any emotional attachment to this IP. I never really played the games so I understand that for many of you and others...there will be a strong sense of nostalgia.

I could compare Nintendo with Avatar. I saw Avatar but was sort of "meh" about the movie & characters.....but I love Avatarland & give Disney a 9 out of 10. There is no doubt that Universal could and probably will hit a homerun with the execution of Nintendo...but unlike the realish world and characters of Avatar, Nintendo will be relying on a cartoonish world. It will be interesting to see what develops. No doubt it will be a lot of fun though & that is what people will ultimately remember from their theme park experience.
 
Speaking personally, I have way more of a connection with Mario, Link, and the Pokémon than I do with Star Wars, Despicable Me, DreamWorks, TRON, GOTG, Ratatouille, etc

I respect that. All of these IPs are about personal experiences & preferences. One thing that we can all agree on is that when Universal executes something well...it turns into something fantastic & we'll all have a lot of fun. :)
 
I respect that. All of these IPs are about personal experiences & preferences. One thing that we can all agree on is that when Universal executes something well...it turns into something fantastic & we'll all have a lot of fun. :)
Yea. It stinks that it looks like I'll have to wait so long to see it, but I'm confident it'll be worth the wait. And if I do end up getting a Zelda land in the process? I'll be over the moon
 
Does any character in the Nintendo universe tug at the heartstrings like those in Harry Potter, Star Wars or even Despicable Me? I guess that is one of the issues with Nintendo for me....I just don't feel any emotional attachment to this IP. I never really played the games so I understand that for many of you and others...there will be a strong sense of nostalgia.

I could compare Nintendo with Avatar. I saw Avatar but was sort of "meh" about the movie & characters.....but I love Avatarland & give Disney a 9 out of 10. There is no doubt that Universal could and probably will hit a homerun with the execution of Nintendo...but unlike the realish world and characters of Avatar, Nintendo will be relying on a cartoonish world. It will be interesting to see what develops. No doubt it will be a lot of fun though & that is what people will ultimately remember from their theme park experience.
It really just depends on your connection to the franchises, I guess.

For me, I played all the old Mario, Zelda, Pokemon games in the early 90s through early 00s back when Nintendo was really the dominant video game company.

My favorite video game ever is probably Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, which I've played fully through at least a dozen times, and I have as much of a connection to Geno/Mallow (which certainly aren't recurring characters by any means) as I have to any Star Wars side character. Of course, I don't expect those two to show up in any Super Nintendo World, but the connection is always there.

For somebody like me (and I'd assume a lot of people that grew up with NES/SNES/N64 or grew up later with the Wii or now with the Switch), Nintendo probably had a more important impact on my youth than any movie franchise by an order of magnitude.


The best way to show the impact of these franchises is to just look at what happens when they're offered cheaply as an app. They explode; i.e. Pokemon Go or Super Mario Run can get tens of millions of downloads in a week even for low quality experiences. That shows how much pent up demand there is for Nintendo's IPs.

And this even goes back to the Zelda argument on these pages earlier. Let's just wait and see what happens when Nintendo releases a Zelda app; I'm almost willing to guarantee it'll get more downloads by at least triple or quadruple than any single Zelda game has sold.
 
It's not just nostalgia. Nintendo still releases amazing games. The last Zelda / Mario games were some of the highest rated games of all time.

The Switch is currently the best selling console in North America.

It bugs me when people think that Nintendo is a "nostalgia" product. It's only nostalgic because they have been producing incredible games for 3 decades.
Yes, adults my age (40) feel nostalgia for these characters, but kids today still enjoy them and play the new games. Having a Mario theme park ride is not that different from having a Mickey theme park ride, although I'd argue that Mario is more relevant to kids then Mickey is.
 
Having a Mario theme park ride is not that different from having a Mickey theme park ride, although I'd argue that Mario is more relevant to kids then Mickey is.

I think they're pretty close, but Mario may have the overall edge, mostly because Mickey kind of went missing as a character in the late 90s until Disney started making the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show
 
Speaking personally, I have way more of a connection with Mario, Link, and the Pokémon than I do with Star Wars, Despicable Me, DreamWorks, TRON, GOTG, Ratatouille, etc
I think A LOT of people will disagree with you on the Star Wars point.

We all have our personal tastes, but some things are more popular than others and there's no way you're going to convince me that a Zelda Land or even a Pokemon land will be a bigger draw than Galaxy's Edge.
 
I think A LOT of people will disagree with you on the Star Wars point.

We all have our personal tastes, but some things are more popular than others and there's no way you're going to convince me that a Zelda Land or even a Pokemon land will be a bigger draw than Galaxy's Edge.

Yea that's why I said personally.
 
Universal themed merchandise would sound interesting, i.e. Pikachu or Mario in a Universal hat. Just to let you know where it comes from...

But I don't know about crossing different franchises. You have to be careful with that.
 
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