From our other sites
The story
Nintendo’s Switch 2 release of Star Fox is a remake of 1997’s Star Fox 64 that keeps the original’s stage layouts while giving the graphics a major overhaul — on sale for ¥4,457 (31% off). On 5ch’s Hardware/Industry board (Geha), a thread sprang up over the game’s sales performance, with posters pointing to the decline of the rail-shooter genre itself, divided opinions on the character designs, and a general sense that the remake doesn’t offer enough. Others countered by citing a figure of ‘over 60,000 units sold total,’ arguing that’s a solid showing compared to other niche titles — so opinions ended up split.
Star Fox — Switch 2
Sale price: ¥4,457 (31% off)
Star Fox is based on Star Fox 64, released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997, keeping the same stage layouts while dramatically upgrading the graphics. It features all the familiar banter with Peppy, Slippy, Falco and the rest, plus newly added cutscenes.
Source: famitsu.com / Original article here
What people said
Content's the same as before
No real selling point
Kind of pricey for what it is
Gameplay feels dated
Character designs are creepy
3D shooters just aren't popular
The demo alone was enough to fill me up
Also the character designs are creepy
Their passionately made first-party title and it's only 60k lol
It's no mystery at all why crap Switch games don't sell lol
It's a bad game, so of course it doesn't selllll lolol 😂
It's just a remake, after all
But I bought it for the online multiplayer, and that's genuinely fun, so I'm satisfied
Honestly they should just lean fully into the online multiplayer for this series going forward
I just don't like the character (doll-like) designs
Even ¥2,000 would be a stretch, and that game design is dated by today's standards
That fanbase is all talk and no wallet
For some reason Nintendo just can't let this series go though
Yeah, I remember that talk
Something about Nintendo seriously trying to reboot it, even making a brand-new entry
But Nintendo's real goal here is relaunching the IP, so I'm curious what they do with it next
I'm curious how well the plushies are selling
It's a genre that hadn't had a new release in years
Stuff like the Mario Galaxy Wii port, or a straight remake of Star Fox
Feels like Nintendo's playing it a bit too safe
And that's for a remake, no less
In PS5 terms, that's outselling Pragmata
This is for people who never played it, and for the fans
Keeping the core systems untouched is fine, but they should've reworked the presentation and level design
By today's standards it's honestly a bit weak
Reality caught up with the old-school image sci-fi used to have, so it just doesn't land with Gen Z or Gen Alpha
For younger people it's probably closer to 'dolphins and octopuses invading from space!' at this point
For kids, fantasy is even more played out as a genre than sci-fi, though
Compliance cutting the [lick] animation (a signature bit from the original) aside, who even is this random new cat character
Honestly I think the N64 version gets over-deified, like it's in the Guinness Book or something
Because they look too hard
Casuals avoid it because the genre skews hardcore
Hardcore fans avoid it because the look skews casual — it's an IP that's unclear who it's even for
Though Zelda's sales will obviously stay way higher
Can't speak for newcomers, but as a fan who's already cleared it, I've got no complaints
Music plays a huge role in that game, so an orchestral arrangement should change the feel a lot
Honestly that's a game you can't really judge just from the surface
Stuff like Tensura (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) is popular though
You again?
Even a bot could come up with something else to say
Background and key points of this debate
Star Fox 64 launched for the Nintendo 64 in 1997, and this Switch 2 release is essentially a port-like remake that keeps the original stage layouts while boosting the graphics. Rail shooters (3D shooters) are a genre that saw new releases dry up sharply from the 2000s onward, and that decline came up repeatedly in the thread. That said, figures cited in the thread like ‘69,657 units’ or ‘over 60,000 units total’ are based on individual posters’ own memory or tallies, not official numbers released by Nintendo or the press — worth keeping in mind. Comparisons to other titles (selling 20x more than another game, outselling PS5’s Pragmata, etc.) also don’t translate cleanly into a simple ranking, since the platforms and genres involved differ. Underlying the split reaction to its sales seems to be less about the remake’s quality itself and more about the ambiguity of who exactly it was made for.
This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, aka Geha) thread ‘[Sad News] The Real Reason Star Fox Didn’t Sell Well Is Genuinely a Mystery.’
Leave a Reply