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The story
The trailer for the new Kirby title revealed at Nintendo’s latest Direct was left far behind in view count by the trailer for the Yo-kai Watch 2 remake, announced in the same broadcast. According to the opening post of the thread, the Yo-kai Watch 2 remake trailer racked up 1.5 million views, while the new Kirby game, which closed out the presentation, managed only 840,000. The numbers sparked debate on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry board over whether Kirby can really be called one of Nintendo’s flagship titles, and whether comparing games by view count even makes sense in the first place. Posters also revisited the sales trajectory of the Yo-kai Watch series and Kirby’s popularity overseas.
What people said
Kirby, closing out the show: 840,000 views
The disconnect from the fanbase is incredible…
The more buzz Yo-kai Watch gets, the more Switches it sells though
Back when my oldest was little, Yo-kai Watch was an even bigger juggernaut than Pokémon — wonder if it can make a comeback
Sorry, but
the moment they erased the female protagonist it already fell below Pokémon,
so there's no comeback for this one
Honestly, there was never a period where Yo-kai Watch outsold Pokémon
Looking back at it, the games themselves never sold all that well to begin with
That's pairing the minor refresh version against the flagship one
It's like adding in Pokémon's third-color version (like a Yellow) too
It's hilarious that someone posting something like this is the one bringing up ages, please stop
We're talking about a level where not a single game has sold 2 million copies domestically on PlayStation since launch — and that's what just ONE Yo-kai Watch 2 game did lol
Kirby, a flagship Nintendo title???
Yo-kai Watch 2 remake
Mecha Kameleon
Derby Stallion
None of these are coming to PS5 🤣
Glad I got a Switch 2 instead of a PS5 lol
Tag Force was huge back in the PSP days too
For its time it actually had more cards than the mainline DS version, plus more enemy variety and more anime-accurate presentation — if you wanted solo play, Tag Force was the way to go
This time it's finally getting online battles too (standard now, but a long-awaited feature back then), hope this one breaks out again as well
And the fall from grace is just as incredible
Yo-kai Watch: 1.3 million copies
Yo-kai Watch 2: 6 million copies
Yo-kai Watch 3: 2.2 million copies
Yo-kai Watch 4: 300,000 copies
Wild that they managed to drop to 300k even on the Switch, a console that pushed record sales for so many other games
That's a steeper decline than Final Fantasy
Kind of like Palworld
Is nobody interested in Nintendo games anymore…?
Lol there's way too much Kirby
At this rate it'll catch up to the State of Play announcement numbers in a single day
People used to say a lot that the anime ditching its handsome-guy appeal to middle/high schoolers for a gag-comedy school setting was them copying Yo-kai Watch
Reminder: kids back then had room for both — they were still playing plenty of Pokémon on the side
Those didn't just generate buzz, they actually sold well, and the bugs were even enjoyed by some to a degree — but even accounting for the announcement, the post-launch period, and the quality, they still got panned
For better or worse, that game is nothing more than Diamond/Pearl without the sluggishness
Bringing up the Diamond/Pearl remakes with a "but they sold well though"…😅
It's just not that kind of game…
I'm pretty sure Forgotten Land was also in the finale slot, if I remember right
There's no way Nintendo is chasing buzz when they put the Paper Mario RPG remake in the finale slot
The finale is for whatever title they most want to sell — buzz-bait tends to show up more in the middle-to-late section, or as the opener
Have you never played BoxBoy?
Kirby as the grand finale really was a step too far…
Getting talked about on some backwater board like this counts as success now?
Then Sony's move this time was a massive success. Congrats
Kirby and the Forgotten Land domestic sales… 1.8 million copies
You just don't know how huge Yo-kai Watch 2 was
It even got a slot on Kohaku (NHK's New Year's Eve music special) — back then it was a title that outdid Pokémon domestically
Looking at this, maybe Kirby is actually more popular overseas than in Japan
I think Forgotten Land sold 7.5 million worldwide, if I remember right
Earliest case, the year after next
If it were coming next year they'd be saying '2027' by this point
Though knowing Level-5, it'll probably actually be more like 5 years from now
Background and Key Points of Discussion
Putting the numbers from the thread together: Yo-kai Watch’s domestic momentum peaked at 6 million copies with the second installment before falling sharply to 2.2 million for the third and just 300,000 for the fourth. Kirby, meanwhile, saw its previous entry, Forgotten Land, sell 1.8 million copies domestically but a reported 7.5 million worldwide, making it hard to judge popularity from Japanese view counts alone. The thread split over two points: how much a same-day view count actually reflects later sales or popularity, and whether Kirby can really be called a title on the scale of a Nintendo “flagship.” Some argued that placing a game in the finale slot isn’t necessarily about chasing buzz but rather signals high sales expectations, and there was overall caution about drawing conclusions from a simple view-count comparison.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch Hardware/Industry (Geha) board thread “[🐷 Sad News] New Kirby Game Gets Utterly Crushed by the Yo-kai Watch 2 Remake.”
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