Game reviews ranked Nintendo Co.¡¯s ¡°Splatoon¡± almost on par with best-seller ¡°Call of Duty,¡± giving an early indication of success for the company¡¯s first-ever foray into the online shooter genre on its console.
¡°Splatoon,¡± a family friendly action game where players spray ink instead of bullets, sports a score of 81 on the review aggregator Metacritic after its release last week. That compares with 83 for the PlayStation version of Activision Blizzard Inc.¡¯s ¡°Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare,¡± the industry¡¯s top-selling console title in 2014.
Without the draw of last year¡¯s hits like ¡°Super Smash Bros.¡± and ¡°Mario Kart 8,¡± Nintendo is looking to ¡°Splatoon¡± to revive flagging demand for its Wii U player. The game has sold out in stores across Japan since its May 28 debut, prompting an apology from the Kyoto-based company on Twitter.
¡°This game creates a new genre, precisely the thing that has driven hardware sales in the past,¡± said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute in Tokyo. ¡°¡¯Splatoon¡¯ will undoubtedly become a million-seller worldwide. It has the potential to become the next great franchise for Nintendo.¡±
¡°Splatoon¡± players wield spray guns, rollers and ink bombs in a four-on-four turf war where the goal is to cover as much of the map as possible in your team¡¯s color. In a departure from the graphic violence common to the shooter genre, the characters get sent back to a spawn point when splattered and can shift between squid and human forms.
Yasuhiro Minagawa, a spokesman for Nintendo, declined to give sales numbers.
Nintendo last month forecast a slump in demand for Wii U software this fiscal year as sales of the hardware are projected to remain little changed at 3.4 million units. The company is starting a smartphone service this year to win back casual gamers and partnering with Universal Parks & Resorts to offer theme-park attractions based on its iconic characters.
The Wii U struggled to gain traction after its 2012 debut amid a shortage of new software titles, while Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. used advanced graphics and hardware to lure serious gamers when they released new machines.
¡°The company had a rough few years with no new hit titles,¡± Yasuda said.
¡°The momentum seems to be changing.¡±
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