I mentioned this in another post earlier, but since 2005, I have said that Animal Crossing and handhelds go together like peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and chocolate. The way this franchise has grown and developed, its handheld iterations have been the best selling, highest rated of the series. I think part of it is development.
It debuts as doubutsu no mori in Japan in 2001 on the Nintendo 64. It's just LOADED with Japanese culture too. It gets ported over to GameCube, and that version gets localized into America as Animal Crossing, and localized back into Japan (doubutsu no mori plus is not a direct port either, it's got extra content AC doesn't). Then, Wild World comes out. It's the first on a handheld, so Nintendo revamps the series, A LOT! That one becomes their most popular (still to date) of the franchise. They then try to instill those changes while mixing in the original's feel in City Folk, basically blending the two together while adding a little new content, and it's one of the lowest rated, lowest selling of the series. They go back to the drawing board, figure out what aspects of each game were the best, mixed them all together, and added in loads of new content, to make New Leaf. They took the strengths from the previous 3 (minus the NES games), and made easily the highest rated of the series. Will it become the best selling? It'll be close, that's for sure, only because of a smaller 3DS install base compared to the insane amount of DS systems sold. If the 3DS had the sales numbers of the DS though, there's no doubt in my mind New Leaf would blow Wild World's sales away. Either way though, New Leaf and Wild World would still be the highest selling of the series. They're also the most innovative of the series. If Nintendo really wants to keep this series going on consoles, they're going to have to learn from their mistakes on City Folk, and again go back to the drawing board, and create a game that feels fresh to longtime series fans, but is still simplistic enough for anyone to pick up and play.
The biggest problem they have when the original came out it ran on a real time clock, but it's on a television, and is a game intended to be played roughly 1 hour a day or so, so it's not something that normal console games are known for. Shoot, I've played console games as long as 3 days straight, but Animal Crossing isn't the kind of game you can binge play like Zelda, unlocking massive amounts per play (unless you time travel, and even then is still going to take a LONG time to achieve a little). Basically Nintendo has been doing these short bursts of gaming since the days of Game Boy when those games were smaller to their NES counterparts, intended to be played for shorter periods of time. They're not only going to have to instill new ides should this go console again, while keeping it simple, but figure out a way to get players to play longer per play- good luck Nintendo!
It debuts as doubutsu no mori in Japan in 2001 on the Nintendo 64. It's just LOADED with Japanese culture too. It gets ported over to GameCube, and that version gets localized into America as Animal Crossing, and localized back into Japan (doubutsu no mori plus is not a direct port either, it's got extra content AC doesn't). Then, Wild World comes out. It's the first on a handheld, so Nintendo revamps the series, A LOT! That one becomes their most popular (still to date) of the franchise. They then try to instill those changes while mixing in the original's feel in City Folk, basically blending the two together while adding a little new content, and it's one of the lowest rated, lowest selling of the series. They go back to the drawing board, figure out what aspects of each game were the best, mixed them all together, and added in loads of new content, to make New Leaf. They took the strengths from the previous 3 (minus the NES games), and made easily the highest rated of the series. Will it become the best selling? It'll be close, that's for sure, only because of a smaller 3DS install base compared to the insane amount of DS systems sold. If the 3DS had the sales numbers of the DS though, there's no doubt in my mind New Leaf would blow Wild World's sales away. Either way though, New Leaf and Wild World would still be the highest selling of the series. They're also the most innovative of the series. If Nintendo really wants to keep this series going on consoles, they're going to have to learn from their mistakes on City Folk, and again go back to the drawing board, and create a game that feels fresh to longtime series fans, but is still simplistic enough for anyone to pick up and play.
The biggest problem they have when the original came out it ran on a real time clock, but it's on a television, and is a game intended to be played roughly 1 hour a day or so, so it's not something that normal console games are known for. Shoot, I've played console games as long as 3 days straight, but Animal Crossing isn't the kind of game you can binge play like Zelda, unlocking massive amounts per play (unless you time travel, and even then is still going to take a LONG time to achieve a little). Basically Nintendo has been doing these short bursts of gaming since the days of Game Boy when those games were smaller to their NES counterparts, intended to be played for shorter periods of time. They're not only going to have to instill new ides should this go console again, while keeping it simple, but figure out a way to get players to play longer per play- good luck Nintendo!
