Nintendo Co. Ltd. may still be a fan favorite, but even diehard fans have to admit that the Japanese game maker has been in something of a creative rut for the last decade or so. That is one reason gamers were surprised when the studio first announced Splatoon, a third-person shooter starring cartoony squid children called Inklings. Perhaps most surprising was that the game did not have a Mario, Link, or Samus in sight.

While some fans may have been skeptical at first, Splatoon has gone on to sell over 1 million copies within the first month of its release, accounting for roughly 10 percent of all Wii U owners.

“Ever since Splatoon launched on May 29 in the United States, we’ve seen thousands of people go online to have fun in this colorful, chaotic competition,” said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime in a statement. “This milestone puts us in a nice position as we prepare to launch 11 more exclusive Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games before the end of the year, plus amiibo, digital offerings and games from our third-party partners.”

The U.S. and Japan accounted for a vast majority of the sales, with less than a quarter of the total sales coming from Europe and Australia. According to Nintendo’s own sales data, Splatoon sold about 476,000 units in the Americas and about 368,000 units in the company’s native Japan.

Splatoon proves that Nintendo is still capable of throwing out a new idea every now and then, but unfortunately it does not look like there are any new IPs from the studio on the horizon. Of course, there are plenty of Nintendo fans who have no problem with that, which is why Nintendo has basically been re-releasing the same handful of games since the late 1990s.

Nearly all of Nintendo’s console releases can be traced back to a few games on the Nintendo 64 or Gamecube. Even the Mario franchise, which has been around for nearly 30 years now, owes most of its current gameplay to Mario 64.

All of the recent Zelda games are examples of Nintendo trying to recapture the magic of Ocarina of Time, except for the handheld titles, which are trying to recapture the magic of Wind Waker.

So while Splatoon may show that Nintendo can still try something new every now and then, you can also expect to replay the game again and again as Nintendo ports the same formula to the next few generations of consoles.

Photo by C. Fountainstand