Domestic sales of Splatoon 3 for Nintendo Switch surpass 3.45 million in first three days

They do because it’s an actually pretty insular culture, and frankly … what else is there to do? Japan is beset by several problems and a few are a high work/high burnout which means work hard, play harder. Low incentive to start families, very high cost of real estate, isolation and loneliness across all age groups, etc.

People here often turn to vices such as smoking, alcohol, promiscuity and yes gambling, obsessive collecting and video games.

Did you go to the dragon quest themed Lawson's?

I don't have a Twitter but felt the same about deleting my Facebook/Instagram. Have not looked back

How I always feel when I see people make those comments. My twitter is just full of nsfw and art. Even with some of the influencers, it never really gets into those "hot takes" territories

That title belongs to this treasure.

I know you might be joking or meming but DQ means Dragon Quest.

Splatoon had all the ingredients to be a hit in Japan when the original release. A kid friendly multiplayer shooter that's cartoony, colorful, urban, unique gameplay, fantastic soundtrack, the sealife aspect. It was very fresh (lol) and marketable. For being an entirely new IP on Wii U it was a complete success. The portable aspect of Switch and the fact that Switch actually sold systems only skyrocketed its popularity with Splatoon 2.

I think a lot of people sleep on Splatoon just because the aesthetic and overall feel of the game looks like it's made for kids, but it's legitimately one of the best competitive shooters out there and one of the only few games in the industry (not counting VR) that uses motion aiming as its main mechanic, and boy does it do it very well.

From a gameplay stance, the importance of inking the ground/walls so that you have much better maneuverability opens up complex ways to strategize and move around your opponents that I haven't seen in any video game since the first Titanfall. The fast-paced mobility in that game because of the ink also creates some crazy almost action-anime like fights where you have to play close attention to your opponent's movements unless you want them to suddenly feel like they just teleported behind you. Keep in mind that the enemy can also deny that movement by just cutting your path off with their own ink and vice versa, and this is something you always have to be aware of because otherwise you may just end up getting out-inked and surrounded by enemy ink which slows you down to a crawl leaving you vulnerable.

The multiple different types of weapons and the many sub-varieties of each type changes squad dynamics and how you approach going against the other team, as well as how you cooperate with your own team. And most of the weapons feel pretty unique, as opposed to something like the typical M4 vs AK47 in most modern FPS.

Overall, the polished and precise aiming system of the motion controls, the beautiful and unique aesthetic and soundtrack, the highly competitive and team-based gameplay mixed in with the solid single player campaign, and to top it off, just about anyone regardless of age has a place in the game, makes it one of the best shooters out right now.

It's a damn shame that some people will never try it just because it looks like a kid's game though.

just a guess but, people love multiplayer games. But some multiplayer games takes long to finish and a pain especially if you are losing(like MOBAs), splatoon only takes few minutes per session, good for quick play in-between whatever you are doing. Add in appealing character design, collectible fashion and an online hub to socialize/show off your collection.

Good at all levels. Little Timmy can have fun painting the floor, playing around in the lobby's, and looking at the memes. More hardcore can get into the ranked mode which easily sits among the greatest of competitive shooters.

Not too dissimilar from smash bros.

As someone living in Japan, I feel like the release was really hyped up by Nintendo with all the little merch and collaboration with convenience stores and such. I usually don't notice first party Nintendo game launches outside the internet before they're released.

Also, Splatoon 2 was pretty much the go to game for me and a few of my friends to play online. Most of them work so much that they don't have the time to devote to "true" shooters, and now that I think about it, the ones I play with are all women, so the game's aesthetics might jibe with this demography more.

Fully fleshed out videogame, has a ton of great modes to absorb time, has amazing visual design and aesthetics, is the most fleshed out of any of the 3 splatoon releases with a great map list, tons of great qol changes, over 40 unique weapons available, and easily the best story mode yet, on a very popular console, and doesn't have any of the scummy predatory bullshit all Other AAA releases have been played with the past 15 years?

Also an insanely addicting gameplay loop that only gets better with all the tweaks they do to it?

It's a sequel to one of the best selling games of all time in Japan and it's the best game in the series.

Tbh. I think that’s the underrated part of the game. Many outside of Japan don’t recognize how great and fun it is. “A lot of games are great and fun”, except that there really isn’t that many.

In Japan, culturally, the atheistic of splatoons doesn’t decrease adoption and gamers are free to evaluate the game mechanics and story for what it is where as outside of Japan, many discount the game purely based on the art style alone.

Splatoon has one of the strongest campaigns for a shooter. Imo, a very well balanced and supported pvp (in splatfest) and throw salmon run on top for an arena pve mode and it’s as good as it gets as a 4v4 shooter game.

If any of the preferred shooters such as Valorant, overwatch, apex, fortnite has what splatoons have, it would easily dominate over the other ones.

Splatoon sells well in Japan. It appeals alot over there.

I think what sets it apart from other shooters is that kills are clearly never the goal. It's unique in the sense that you can be horrible against other players, but you can still be a great asset to your team if you now how to maneuver and cover ground.

FF is definitely big, but it had less cultural impact domestically than Dragon Quest did where it is very much a traditional thing that connects through multiple generations. FF by comparison is a bit more diverse in their main entries, but also receives the benefit and risks with also having alot of entry-points for different audiences to participate in; you can take a look at this 2019 poll made by Japan's biggest TV-network NHK of viewers's favourite FF-games and sub-categories, and their most popular games are quite varied in setting, character, gameplay and player-bases's demographics, and where each game pretty much has its own cultural momentum while sharing the FF-franchise's name.

You say that but I've seen how a few nwer games released for both platforms perform on the 5 vs the 4. The difference is remarkable

Zelda surprisingly enough is actually much more popular in the west than in Japan from what I have heard. It is considered pretty niche there.

Technically yes. But realistically, I'd bet more people own it on Switch than even own a WiiU.

Truly the Celeste of Nintendo games

They're an indie company. It's hard for them to get attention sometimes

just like the witcher 3.

As others have said, the online services that Nintendo offers are horrid. However, it’s also important to note that Free to play games on the other consoles don’t require you to have PS+ or Xbox live.

And people who would typically play games like Splatoon have a lot of other free to play options available.

Nintendo Online service is trash tier even when it was free.

Nintendo still doesn’t have that many notable games to play online, on top of really terrible base online services.

It’s kind of surprising as you’d figure that’d be one of the first things you think of when you think ink

Nintendo’s always been a very gameplay-first company. Designers there make lots of small prototypes like that to try and find fun mechanics, and then the ones that stick have a chance to become full games.

It’s so funny that the most natural-seeming solution didn’t come to them immediately. Just shows how much making games is an iterative and collaborative process.

That's not uncommon for Nintendo. They perfect gameplay first, then find a theme that works with that design last. That's the opposite of how most devs work. Most will make a story/characters first, then make the gameplay work with it.