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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.
Although release games do not mean much in the long run, this list is not the tradition batch of driving, shooting, and shooting while driving games that other consoles seem to love.
Information wants a fueled airplane waiting at the hangar and no one gets hurt.
Nope. Technically, the Gamecube didn't, either, unless you count Luigi's Mansion, which most people probably don't.
The article is right, if this doesn't get you excited nothing will.
It also takes the 360 launch and the PS3 launch and makes them both decently laughable.
But I don't know if it'll be a great launch, time will tell. Though with Metroid Prime, and Zelda it's going to be great for nintendo fans, a Hawk game, and Madden (perhaps working with the new controller and not the VC controlleR) that's going to be exciting.
Excite Trucks and Dragon quest Swords is interesting.
The only flaw is that there's a LOT of racing games. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing but it will be interesting in the least if the controller is good for that I'm hopeful for a good GT style sim. I'm also hopeful for interesting online multiplayer in Crystal Chronicles.
The only thing I wonder about is COD3, NFS carbon, and Madden are all made by huge companies, Madden should be ready in time, but the other two... I am not sure if they'll make their dates.
This is a very promising start, IMO, for the Wii. Good variety of games and enough "full" games that they don't come off as gimmicky. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2, Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors, Far Cry, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers (for some reason, I read Crystal Beers), The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Metal Slug Anthology, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, Trauma Center: Second Opinion.
All of these resonate as being good, solid starters on the Wii and giving us a reason to buy launch titles. The promise of more games to come seems just vunderbar.
I am curious as to what online features these games are going to introduce on launch, and if we are going to be waiting for the online features like we did for the DS.
The Wii doens't need a price drop, as it will be priced well below the XBox 360 and the PS3.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
* 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.
but I'm looking forward to Mario and Spore the most!
I'm an Avatar and I'm ok
I work in Space and I play all day
I wear Square Pants and dress up nice
My Spore's on straight but my Truck's Excite!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
google wii
Only on slashdot is that a) a sentence and b) a sentence that won't get you labeled as a pervert. Though Google's lawyers might take you out back and rough you up a bit...
Monstar L
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.
In general, Nintendo titles do NOT quickly drop in price after release. At least not first party titles. This has pretty much been the case with the Gamecube, and will remain to be the case on the Wii. How long did it take for the launch titles you mention to get to the budget price they're at now? It took years, not months! The only thing that tends to make a nintendo title quikly drop in price is when a sequel comes out. Unlike the other consoles, becoming a "players choice" title does not grant an immediate $20 price tag either. It just means that they'll keep making more copies of the game, with small price decreases every now and then.
Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata has said before that he feels the game market is much healthier if games are given an appropriate initial priced based on various development criteria and costs, and then not discounted at all for several years.
While the downside to this philosophy is that you do fork over a lot of money for the AAA titles, the benefit is that you also don't have to risk much on low-budget gems. We've also seen this philosophy being played out in the DS market. There, the AAA titles generally run $30-35, while "cheaply produced" titles such as Brain Age and Big Brain Academy hit the shelves at only $20.