Splatoon producers on the game’s success, Callie and Marie’s popularity

At Gamescom last week, IGN spoke with Splatoon producer Hisashi Nogami and Nintendo EPD general manager Katsuya Eguchi.

The Wii U shooter has been a big success having sold well over four million units. On the topic of its success, Nogami said:

“It felt like it has been a while since we created a brand new franchise. We’re really happy with the response to Splatoon and with the amount of fans who are supporting it.”

Speaking of popularity, the Squid Sisters Callie and Marie have really taken off. The two characters even ended up receiving their own amiibo and closed out Splatoon’s final Splatfest, which weren’t originally planned.

Nogami shared the following on the Squid Sisters:

“We didn’t realize how popular the squid sisters would be. It’s only after the release that we saw how much people like those characters. We hadn’t thought of doing a Callie and Marie Splatfest until we saw what a great reaction it had from the fans.”

So which Squid Sister do Nogami and Eguchi prefer? Here’s what they had to say on the matter:

“I just want to say, in response to this question, they both feel like daughters to me. This is a very difficult question to answer. It’s like being asked which of your own daughters do you prefer. But, to be honest, in the last Splatfest I played as Team Callie. And I was disappointed by the final results.”

“This is a really tough question. I really like both of them. But, if I’m going on my first impression based on when I saw the two characters for the first time, I slightly liked Callie a bit more as well. That was my first impression, but now I lean more towards the Marie side. Similar to my answer to the dog and cat question earlier and their personalities, … Callie is the more energetic one and her personality would be the equivalent of what a dog is like, in terms of being more fond and coming up to engage with you. Whereas Marie is more cat-like one that does her own thing and isn’t so bothered about stuff. I initially was fond of Callie and then over time I started to prefer Marie. As time passes, I will probably go back to liking Callie.” – Eguchi

You can see Nogami and Eguchi take sides on a few other Splatfest topics on IGN here.