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The 27 Known Wii Launch Titles
Via Joystiq comes a long list of the launch-day titles for the Nintendo Wii, posted at Nwizard. I was aware that they had quite a few coming out around launch, but 27 is pretty impressive. Selections include highly anticipated titles like Red Steel and Twilight Princess, as well as several titles that I personally am looking forward too, such as Metroid Corruption, Trauma Center: Second Opinion, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers.
Nope. Technically, the Gamecube didn't, either, unless you count Luigi's Mansion, which most people probably don't.
* Avatar: The Last Airbender
* Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
* Blitz: The League
* Call of Duty 3
* Cars
* Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2
* Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors
* Elebits
* Excite Truck
* Far Cry
* GT Pro Series
* Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers
* The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
* Madden NFL 07
* Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
* Metal Slug Anthology
* Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
* Monster 4x4 World Circuit
* Need for Speed: Carbon
* Open Season
* Rayman Raving Rabbids
* Red Steel
* SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab
* Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
* Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam
* Trauma Center: Second Opinion
* Wii Sports
Mmm, CoD 3, Red Steel, Zelda, Metroid Prime 3, Metal Slug. No, that's not a Wiimote in my pocket, I'm just really excited to see this lineup.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Does this surprise you?
What some industry insiders must have figured out is that it simply makes sense to support the Wii; and I don't mean this in a "Nintendo Rules!" fanboy sort of way.
The reality of Next-Generation game development is clear, if you make a moderately graphically impressive XBox 360 or PS3 game you will be spending (at least) twice as much as your most expensive XBox or PS2 game; at the same time you will not suddenly start to sell twice as many copies of your game for switching to the new platform. Even if you charge more for your games you will not (necessarily) increase your revinues because people will be far more reluctant to purchase a $70 game as compared to a $50 game. What this means is your costs will increase, your revinues will remain about the same, so your margins will get tighter; or you may even start losing money.
Now consider the Wii, the system is designed to be much more powerful than previous generation systems while still maintaining the general (technical) graphical style of the previous generation; essentially, it's goal is to eliminate the problems with the previous generation rather than to start a new generation. The result of Nintendo's design is that the cost of development has not increased at nearly the scale of either the XBox 360 or PS3. The Wii may also (through its unique input device) bring in new gamers which (potentially) could increase sales. If the Wii delivers on it's potential, development costs stay the same while revinues increase meaning your margins are fatter and you become more profitable.
The buisness case for supporting the Wii is sound.
I (personally) suspect why certain developers are not supporting the Wii more heavily now is that the company makes it's decisions from a marketing standpoint. Marketing people are more likely to say "our game is mature so it should be on the most mature system", buisness analysts will choose the system with the largest userbase or best margins, and designers will choose the system with the greatest technical advantage or the system with the unique features that enable them to create their vision.
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam is the only confirmed launch title that will feature online play. A page on Nintendo's website actually specificly talked about the online functions, but was taken down shortly after (it wasn't done- there was still placeholder text on the page).
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However, Square Enix officials talked about Crystal Chronicles being online way back when we were still calling it the Revolution. They haven't mentioned it since, so they may have dropped it, but it was *supposed* to be online.
I'd guess Madden, Need For Speed Carbon, and Call of Duty 3 would be online too, as those games are online on other platforms. That's just a guess though, don't quote me on that.
However, there is very little first-party online support from Nintendo. We've got an article on that over at NintendoPlayers...
http://www.nintendoplayers.com/feature.php?featur
(written before Tony Hawk was confirmed to be online, but still just as relevant about first party games)
MGS4: TBA 2007
FF 13: Unknown Hell, FF 12 for PS2 is only coming out on Halloween this year.
Possession: 2007
Killzone: TBA 2007
Tekken: TBA, not playable at E3 so I'm betting early 2007 at the earliest.
Warhawk: You finally get one right.
GTV: Q2 2007
But hey, at least it only costs $600 for a Blu-Ray player, because you're certainly not going to be playing any games on it in the near future.