Breaking down Super Smash Bros for Nintendo
When I was younger, I remember starting a game of Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 64 at midnight with 99 stocks against three of my friends. The idea was to duke it out for glory, but we all ended up falling asleep before we came close to ever finishing a game. Super Smash Bros (SSB) has been one of few games that most if not everyone has heard of, or even played to some degree in their lives. Upon each release, SSB has re-defined its core gameplay – whether it be balance adjustments for core gameplay, redeveloping the feel for the movement of the game, or even adding new cool characters. Game director and lead game designer Masahiro Sakurai has pushed the envelope for each game – developing a cultish following amongst its players. Each iteration has improved upon the prior in some fashion, and this write-up will lightly touch a good portion of what makes Smash tick, and why its gamers love it so much.
Release Analysis
With Nintendo as its publisher, Super Smash Brothers operates off a traditional distribution model seen in games prior to F2P and subscriptions. Gamers, parents, and gift-givers alike would walk to their local store, and purchase one of the smash iterations for a sticker price (see prices below). While the Nintendo Wii offered an eShop, users could not purchase the game on their eShop – the first SSB digital copy was available on both the Wii U’s eShop and the 3DS eShop. Below analyzes each release at their respective costs:
Super Smash Brothers (SSB)
The game that started it all – Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 64. Released in 1994, it followed a traditional sticker price of $50. Global sales were listed at 5.55 million, netting revenues of approximately $2,750,000,000.
The gaming industry hasn’t been drastically affected by costs of inflation compared to other industries. The resale price has fluctuated, but appears to be relatively stable at about $45 for the full game, however, it has somewhat become a collectors item. Both the original game and its box now net a cost of about $167.91
(https://www.pricecharting.com/game/nintendo-64/super-smash-bros#completed-auctions-cib)
Super Smash Brothers, Melee (SSBM)
Super Smash Brothers Melee was introduced at a unique time. Esports started to become a real job opportunity with organizations like MLG starting to bloom, and professional eSports teams signing players. Fans and players alike went to watch players like Mang0, Hungrybox, and Leffen compete in tournaments around the world.
SSBM performed incredibly well, outpacing SSB64 by a good margin. Released in 2001, SSBM debuted with a similar price of $50 at launch, selling 7.09 million units; netting revenues of approximately $354,500,000.
Now, prices are approximately $47.16 for the disc, and $66.00 for both the disc and the case.
Super Smash Brothers, Brawl (SSBB)
Super Smash Brothers Brawl had a historic release for the franchise. Nintendo licensing, with a big help of Masahiro Sakurai, started to reach out to studios to use IP. We saw characters like Solid Snake from Sega (check this), Ike from Fire Emblem make appearances.
Brawl continued the upward trend that melee started. Released in 2008 with a sticker price of $50, Brawl made huge strides for the SSB series. It is listed as the 4th highest selling fighting game of all time with total sales of 13.32 million copies, netting estimated revenues of $666,000,000.
Prices are approximately $47.16 for the disc, and $66.00 for both the disc and the case.
Super Smash Brothers, Wii U (SSB4)
While the overall sales for the Wii U, it released on two major platforms for Nintendo: the Wii U, and the Nintendo 3DS. Furthermore, SBB4 offered brand-new product offerings: DLC. We saw multiple “DLC Fighter Packs” with additional IP across various brands. We saw another addition of a Fire Emblem character in Corrin, Bayonetta starring from her own franchise, and Final Fantasy’s famed Cloud Strife.
Released in 2014, continuing the trend of a $50 sticker price, SSB4 sold 5.38 million units for the Wii U, and 9.63 units for the Nintendo 3DS at $40 each. Net sales for the Wii U would be $269,000,000 and $385,200,000 for the 3DS.
Sales for the 3DS were found, and have been decreasing the past 5 years with approximately $8.99 for the cartridge and $11.73 for the package.
Super Smash Brothers Ultimate (SSBU)
Super Smash Brothers Ultimate broke multiple records – it is the number one selling game of the Smash series, and the highest seller amongst fighting games. It also offered a series of DLC characters in 4-packs, releasing characters like Kazuya Mishima, Sora from Kingdom Hearts, and even Steve from Minecraft.
Released in 2018, SSBU has sold 28.82 million units with an upped sticker price of $59.99. Net sales estimate out to roughly $1,729,200,000 – the first billion dollar game for Masahiro Sakurai! The sales above were measured differently because it was one of the flagship releases for the Nintendo Switch. Gamecube controllers were the tool of choice for most Smashers, and since they had not been in production for almost 10 years, they offered bundles with SSBU for approximately $90.
The loose cost for a disc is $36.00, and $36.31 with the official case.
Core Gameplay: Percent, Movement, and Items
If you think back to your first fighting game, maybe Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, or Mortal Combat, they all shared a core gameplay mechanic: health bars. For example, if we pit Ryu against Ken, the more times Ryu successfully strikes Ken, Ken’s health bar will drop. Once Ken’s health bar drops to zero, Ken is knocked-out (KO’d), and Ryu wins the match.
Super Smash Brothers introduced a completely new mechanic that has not yet been seen by fighting games – a percentage mechanic. This percentage works hand-in-hand with a mechanic known as knockback. Unlike fighting game characters who lose a match once their HP hits zero, SSB characters start with a percentage of 0, and work their way up. As the percentage increases, your knockback increases – this means as your percentage goes higher (E.g, 90, 100, 110%), your chances of being KO’ed increase drastically with each strike.
(https://www.ssbwiki.com/Knockback)
Masahiro Sakurai’s vision of Super Smash Bros was a party game. We would gather together a group of friends, and play Super Smash Bros, and it would be aided with a handful of items. Players would be able to grab a super-star and become invulnerable, throw a Pokeball to summon characters like Snorlax or Lugia, and even KO their opponent with one-swing of the homerun bat (https://www.smashbros.com/en_US/item/index.html). Items in super smash bros truly gave itself a competitive advantage when it came to the fighter genre. Fighter games garnered a very hardcore, intense player base. Super Smash Bros was able to close that gap and open up its player base to a more casual audience. In fact, the tripping mechanic in Super Smash Bros Brawl was added to ensure players could no longer abuse a movement tool called ‘Wavedashing’ which will be briefly explained later on.
Furthermore, Smash sets itself apart from other Fighting Games with character weight. Characters like Pikachu and Bowser are very different in terms of weight – Bowser can handle more hits before knockout than Pikachu because of the weight mechanic. This is incredibly important because this plays into a desired ‘Player Profile’ as well – Bowser is a heavier, tanky character while Pikachu is a nimble, and swift character.
Smash competitively also offers a ton of unique niche tools across its gameplay. Public sites like Ultimate Frame Data analyze each character’s frame rate to develop advantageous situations amongst characters. For example, Zero Suit Samus’ frame 1 jab will beat out Captain Falcon’s frame 3 jab if they were to start at the exact same time. In each iteration, players have pushed the envelope of character profiles to enhance their competitive advantages. I won’t go into too much detail as it gets complex, but each mechanic listed below offers a significant advantage in competitive play:
“Wavedashing” allowed players to move multiple squares within frames – a move that could take the regular player multiple seconds was reduced into a couple inputs. It is a huge competitive advantage as you are able to continue to record inputs and even combo utilizing this mechanic.
SSB4 and SSBU utilized techniques like B-Reverses, Wavebounces, Perfect Pivots, and more to confuse their opponents and obscure their movement options. While there are no screenshot’s, here’s a great YouTube video that showcases a couple of these moves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL4EKnsBYRo
DLC Analysis
As part of the switch release, Nintendo has directed and ramped up their feature releases to have DLC. Titles like animal crossing, mario kart, and super smash bros ultimate have been key towards its digital growth. While Nintendo does not release specific DLC sales figures, meaning there is no specific information available on the performance of the SSBU fighter packs, a correlation can be made with the info given. However, it is a valid conjecture that characters like Joker, Sephiroth, and Sora were behind some of the big digital sales for Nintendo. Below is a chart created by Statista that visualizes Nintendo’s digital sales.
SSBU released in 2018, and Nintendo did not release any specific DLC related to that title in that year. To kickoff the first DLC fighter, SSBU released Piranha Plant; the antagonist to the super mario series. While it was not an official release of ‘Fighters Pass 1’, it was a prelude to a roster of incredible characters. Here’s a list of fighters that were released and their relative release dates:
| Fighters Pass Vol 1 | |||
| Character | Franchise | Release date | |
| Joker | Persona 5 | April 17th 2019 | |
| Hero | Dragon Quest | July 30th 2019 | |
| Banjo & Kazooie | Banjo-Kazooie | September 4th 2019 | |
| Terry Bogard | Fatal Fury | November 6th 2019 | |
| Byleth | Fire Emblem: Three Houses | January 28th 2020 |
| Fighters Pass Vol 2 | ||
| Character | Franchise | Release date |
| Min-Min | ARMS | June 29th 2020 |
| Steve | Minecraft | October 13th 2020 |
| Sephiroth | Final Fantasy VII | December 17th 2020 |
| Pyra/Mythra | Xenoblade Chronicles 2 | March 4th 2021 |
| Kazuya Mishima | Tekken | June 29th 2021 |
| Sora | Kingdom Hearts | October 18th 2021 |
Keep in mind that Masahiro Sakurai did something a little different when he initially began down the route of adding DLC fighters to the Smash series. Sakurai opened up character requests, and even discussed why some characters made it into the series and others did not. Smash players are routinely avid JRPG players, and a character that was at the top of every request was Sora, from Kingdom hearts. Sora made waves upon his official announcement, and was trending on YouTube, and Twitter alike. While every character was not able to make it in, Sakurai has confirmed he worked with Nintendo to attempt to get popular IP’s into his games.
(DLC also marked a huge turning point for Nintendo’s digital strategy. In the past, Nintendo has been relatively conservative with their portfolio. DLC was rarely considered really a part of their Nintendo Wii U. Until the Wii U, the Smash series never showcased any DLC unlike their console counterparts like Playstation and Xbox. Now, the Nintendo eShop offers ton’s of DLC add-ons, 3rd party applications like Hulu and YouTube, and now a variety of indie titles.
All in all, Super Smash Bros and Nintendo continue to update their strategy, and portfolio. While they show no signs of delving into popular spaces of F2P, or Web3, Nintendo has shown that they will adapt with digital portfolio based strategies, and continue to be one of the strongest interactive entertainment companies in the world.
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