jgwhiteus said:I actually don't think it was a horrible idea, in terms of (jokingly) trying to get gamers to "graduate" to more "serious" racers than Mario Kart. It wasn't meant to be taken seriously - it's like those old Crash Bandicoot commercials.
The bigger problem? Mario Kart is a Wii game. Blur is a 360 / PS3 game.
So if you're a Wii owner, and you see a commercial trying to encourage you to get into more serious racing games...great! Um, just plop down $60 for the game, oh and an extra $200-$400 for a system you don't own.
If you're a 360 / PS3 owner, and even if you also own a Wii, you probably already have access to a lot of "serious" racing games, so why would a commercial making fun of Mario Kart want to make you pick up another one?
If Blur were on the Wii, I could maybe see the concept of the commercial working - getting you to try out something different on the same system. Otherwise, making fun of games on other systems only works if you've got a serious system seller, not another racing game in a genre full of them. Seems like the commercials didn't quite know or think through which audience they were targeting. Ultimately, I don't think it's to blame for the poor sales as much as oversaturation and general weakness all around for May.
That explanation only works if you consider sim racers to be superior in ways to the arcade racers. Which is not the case for many racing fans.
The same way you theorize it could work on Wii should also work in the same way if it was on the 360 or PS3, because just like the Wii has more arcade than sim racers, the HD systems have more sim than arcade racers.
The reason Blur flopped is most likely another reason in it's entirely.
JudgeN said:So did we get any 3D Dot Heroes numbers?
This I also want to know!