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The story
Nintendo’s “Nintendo Direct” episode revealing new Zelda information aired around the same time as Sony’s “State of Play” stream (nicknamed “Sutepure” in Japan), and the gap between the two in YouTube like/dislike ratios and peak concurrent viewers became a hot topic on 5ch’s hardware/industry (“Geha”) board. Posters noted that State of Play had moments where dislikes actually outnumbered likes, and while Zelda’s peak concurrent viewership hit 670,000 in Japan and 730,000 in the US, State of Play’s numbers came in at 107,000 in Japan and 260,000 overseas. Screenshots comparing view counts were also posted, and reactions on the board were split over just how big the gap really was.
What people said
Didn't even watch it, but damn, how garbage was it lol
Just business as usual.
Even the fanboys are giving up on it
9/12/2025
Peak concurrent viewers in the US: 600,000
Honestly, 40k likes is the suspicious part lol
Who actually watches garbage like that and hits like? lmao
Sorry, my bad
That one was meant for Re: #13
Normal people don't install browser add-ons just to see dislike counts, so that manipulation theory doesn't really hold up lol
For a video to end up with more dislikes than likes on YouTube, something's seriously wrong…
That's the real "incompetence rate" for Sony PR…
PR be like: "What do you want us to do when there's nothing to show?"
Same, I figured State of Play would just have slightly more dislikes than likes, so this surprised me lol
Who was it that said PlayStation is well-received overseas?? lol
Foreign fans turned out to be way harsher than that lmao
As of right now Zelda's at 5.36 million views
Cut it out with the weird manipulation claims
And that's even with Nintendo's numbers split up across things like the app's "Today" tab too
This gap is brutal
Zelda's popularity overseas is honestly scary
All anyone was posting was "no disk" this and that lol (a jab at Sony's disc-drive removal controversy) — Sony needs to fix something or there's no coming back from this lol
But concurrent viewers outside Japan have crashed hard, so honestly the people still showing up just to spam "no disk" are being pretty generous with their time
If they locked the chat down, even these guys would vanish
State of Play
Japan: 107,000
EN: 260,000
Zelda Direct
Japan: 670,000
US: 730,000
Honestly State of Play's numbers here are pretty impressive too
I had the image of it being like 20,000 tops — when did it get this big?
And that's just the opening act…
Air Riders (Kirby Air Riders) had numbers about this high too and it flopped hard
And honestly it's questionable whether these figures can even be trusted in the first place
The fact that people still go through the trouble of opening this thread and posting so diligently proves it means something lol
Guess it's a Smash Bros connection (same director)
So Smash Bros flopped too, huh lol
A gap this big wouldn't happen just from some VTuber tuning in
What really gets me about the Zelda Direct isn't the likes, it's how few dislikes there are
Was it really that well received by overseas fans?
Well, it basically just announced that the Zelda concert would be held in countries outside Japan too
But for overseas fans, that alone made it a guaranteed-win Direct
Background and Key Points of the Discussion
It’s worth keeping in mind that YouTube’s dislike counts have been hidden from everyone but the uploader since a policy change in November 2021, so most of the “more dislikes than likes” claims in the thread come from browser extensions or third-party estimation tools rather than officially confirmed figures. Peak concurrent viewers are also just a snapshot from one moment during a stream, and don’t directly translate into a game’s critical reception or sales performance. While some posters argued that “concurrent viewer counts don’t mean anything,” pointing to past cases where high concurrent viewership didn’t translate into success, the gap between Zelda Direct and State of Play was large in both concurrent viewers and total views, and it was repeatedly noted that the scale of the difference was hard to write off as simple manipulation. Some also pointed out that State of Play’s own concurrent viewership had grown significantly compared to the previous year, making the coexistence of heavy dislikes and high attention one of the more interesting angles of the discussion.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “Zelda Direct and State of Play’s Approval Ratings wwwwwwwwwwwww.”
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