 The switch effect has done it again. Yes folks, we will be talking about Paper Mario, the origami king today, talking about this MPD sales charts, and we'll probably see an update worldwide here soon when Nintendo does their own little financial update here and I believe 2 or 3 months whenever their next one is due. But before we get into that, we're sure to enter our giveaway for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition. Yes, we are giving away a copy of that for the Switch or PlayStation for your choice. We will pick a winner at the end of the month to enter all you need to do is comment down below, like the video, subscribe to the channel, and hit that bell icon. Alright, beyond that, don't forget, we're on our road to 50,000 subscribers and if we can hit 50k before the month of November of 2020, I will give away a PlayStation 5, an Xbox Series X, or a Nintendo Switch that month. Okay, let's get going folks here. We need to talk about this because the MPD released today. I'm sure you guys might have seen it by now, if you haven't. What you need to know is that Paper Mario debuted at number 3. I mean, there's more than that to go over. If you want to know the full top 20 here, I guess I'll go over it. We got Ghost of Shishima at number 1, not a surprise there. We know that's the fastest selling PlayStation 4 game to date, not the best selling but fastest selling. We have Call of Duty Modern Warfare at number 2, Paper Mario at number 3, Last of Us Part 2 at number 4, Animal Crossing New Horizons at number 5, Ring Fit Adventure in at number 6, Mortal Kombat 11 at 7, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at 8, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at 9, Sword Art Online at number 10, we got Minecraft PlayStation 4 at number 11, Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild at 12, Rainbow Six Siege at number 13, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe at number 14, MLB The Show at number 15, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order at 16, Need for Speed Heat at 17, Marvel's Spider-Man at 18, Assassin's Creed Odyssey at 19, and then Rounding it out as Call of Duty Black Ops 3 at number 20. So it's important to know obviously that none of the eShop sales are coming into this, so all of the Nintendo games that you see in this list are strictly physical. If you include digital, a lot of the games would be a lot higher. Animal Crossing might be in the top 3 instead of down at number 5. Who knows where Paper Mario would be if it included the digital sales. Now, also for those that are curious, obviously this means we got a sales update for the Nintendo Switch itself, and yeah, no surprise, it was the best selling system for the month of July. It's the best selling system for the entire year in the United States, so yeah, that's all you need to really know there. No different. Nothing exciting or big here, like, oh, best selling month of Nintendo system in forever now? Not really. Tops of sales that did last year, it's topping all systems right now. Switch is just dominating this year. There isn't much to talk about there, but there is a little bit to talk about with Paper Mario, because Paper Mario, the origami king, according to MPD, has set a new launch month sales record for a Paper Mario title. Now, remember, this is physical games only, with physical launch month dollar sales, more than doubling those of Paper Mario the thousand year door. That's right. One of the most beloved games in Nintendo's back catalog. The game everyone points to them wanting Paper Mario to be this way. That was like the best selling Paper Mario game ever, was thousand year door, until the origami king landed and just destroyed those launch sales. So Paper Mario is likely well on its way worldwide, to be honest, to be the best selling Paper Mario game of all time. I don't think this is a surprise, but there is some people excited about it and some people disappointed. And I think it becomes from the two different Paper Mario camps. You have the Paper Mario camp that really wants it to go back to its more RPG-like roots with thousand year door and all that. And then you have those people that really like what Paper Mario is today, where they seem to change the combat system every game. They seem to do different things with every game and it gets away from the RPGs. It feels like there's a little bit less originality with some things, but more originality and other things. It's definitely a very different Paper Mario today versus what I play growing up as a kid. And so I feel like there's a divide, there's a love-hate relationship where there's a huge fan base that loves Paper Mario the way it is now and a huge fan base that really dislikes Paper Mario the way it is. So when you see sales like this, obviously there's going to be some people out there that aren't very happy about these sales. It is important to note though that the switch effect is in place. And to me, the switch effect is basically anything Nintendo releases is boosted in sales on Switch in comparison to any other platform they've ever released in the market. And this is because of a pattern of behavior that has happened with all of their games that have released, whether or not they're the best game in the series or not. Obviously Breath of the Wild has more than doubled the best-selling Zelda game of all time in terms of sales. Super Mario Odyssey is way the hell up there. I mean, you go back to the Wii days and you look at Galaxy, oh, Galaxy did really well. I'm like, yeah, it sold almost 10 million. Odyssey is at almost 20, like almost double the sales of Galaxy One. So it's kind of crazy when you think about the switch effect there. Two-Sell Better. Arms, you know, for fighting games of a hard time selling a million copies. Arms had no problem getting over two million. You've seen this with even Mario Tennis Aces being the best-selling Mario Tennis game of all time. You have Super Mario Party. Pretty much the list goes on and on of every game Nintendo releases. I think except for the Yoshi's Crafted World, I think was one of the exceptions that didn't do it. But I think every other IP Nintendo throws out on the platform, including Animal Crossing New Horizons, it becomes the best-selling game in that franchise ever. So there is definitely a switch effect in a place where, for some reason, I'm not sure what it is about the switch, but the consumer base that bought Switch seems to be a little different from Nintendo's traditional consumer base because they are just picking up games every time they come out from Nintendo. Whatever Nintendo throws out there, people pick it up, including Ring Fit Adventure. So whatever Nintendo decides to throw out there just sells at record levels. So I think that plays a role in this, but I also think we have to remember, if you look at the history of Paper Mario sales, it's consistently sold decently well. I'm talking like for a spin-off series that doesn't come out super often, it sells way the hell better than the Metroid franchise does. The Metroid is considered like a tentpole IP for Nintendo, but it doesn't sell well. Paper Mario is traditionally sold just as well, if not better than Metroid. So that's something to take into consideration when we talk about these sales, that Paper Mario the Origami King, as much as I've heard, I've heard way more complaints about this game on the internet than I've heard praise. Yet, I sit here in August of 2020 and I'm telling you that the consumer base for Paper Mario, the Origami King, and I feel like the consumer base for a lot of video games are not vocal on the internet. And it feels weird because we are in an era where the internet is a bigger deal than maybe it's ever been, especially during this pandemic. People have more free time and are online a lot. But I'm sitting here and I'm like, you know, when I look at all the sales of the games, we think about all the people complaining, the thousands of comments, the hundreds of thousands we read across, whether it's Twitter or Reddit or whatever, but the games are selling in the millions. Do you realize all the conversations combined for say, even Breath of the Wild might not even top how many units of Breath of the Wild is sold. So I feel like we need to put the internet reaction in its proper place. It's important and it matters. But in the end, sales are king and sales determine if Nintendo is doing the right thing with their IPs. Clearly they're doing the right thing with Paper Mario, the Origami King, not just because it has a boost from being on Switch, but because it seems to be well received in general. In fact, I'm going to look it up right now because I actually didn't plan to talk about this during it. I want to go to Metacritic. I know some people are not fans of Metacritic and that's okay. I understand that. But even on Metacritic, you're seeing a score of 79, which I don't think is that bad. I mean, if we just look at the Paper Mario series and the whole time Metacritic, you know, Color Splash was a 76. So it's widely considered better than that. You know, Sticker Star was a 75. It's widely considered better than that. It's better than Paper Jam. So really the only games that it's trailing are what? Paper Mario, the first one, Super Paper Mario on Wii and then Thousand-Year Door. That's it. Those are the only three Paper Mario games that are critically considered better than this one. With the original Paper Mario just being top tier 93 plus must play kind of game. So I think that we need to cut them some slack. Well, obviously, you know, when you look at even just the Metacritic ratings, you're like, oh, they need to go back to that, that more RPG style like they did. In the end, sales are king. And they're selling a shitload of Paper Mario. So I honestly, I know sales shouldn't be like the main determining factor, but that's how the people speak. We speak with our wallets. And Paper Mario, the origami king is clearly by fans of Nintendo or fans of Paper Mario, fans in general, well received. So kudos to Nintendo for that. Good for them. Obviously, if you guys are wondering about anything else on the NPD, because we're focusing on Paper Mario here. Ghost of Shishima is Sucker Punch's fastest selling release ever. And it's the fifth best selling debut for a game in 2020 so far. Also, there's some notes on Last of Us Part Two. Like-to-date dollar sales of Last of Us Part Two are another third highest for a Sony published game just behind Marvel's Spider-Man and then the 2018 God of War. But yeah, hardware spending declined 2% in July compared to last year. But year-to-date spending has increased by 22% to 1.8 billion on Nintendo Switch, which was obviously the best selling hardware platform. And it is the only one to not show decline year every year, which isn't surprising there. Switch is dominating. Switch has benefited from the pandemic. Switch has benefited in general from being a really, really awesome system while we wait for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X to finish their battle and actually release this holiday. Can we get a price, guys? Like, I mean, you have Digital Foundry throwing out there, but I think they're going to be $600 systems. Maybe they will be, but I don't know. We'll see what happens. Anyways, folks, let me know what you think about this all down in the comments below. Do you like Paper Mario the Origami King? Again, I feel like the general internet reaction to Paper Mario has been negative, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's warranted. So let me know what you think down in the comments below. I am Nathan Ropajans from Nintendo Prime. Be sure to enter our giveaway. Help us on our road to 50K, and I'll catch each of you in the next video.