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Wii 'Popularity Bubble' to Burst?
A combination of industry and developer observations has prompted Tech.co.uk to wonder if the Wii's overwhelming popularity is due to end sometime soon. This is based on a report from Japanese business newspaper The Nikkei, which published an article recently entitled 'Software Houses Miscalculate Audience, Demand For Wii'. "The report goes on to discuss the likelihood that many Wiis are gathering dust in owners' cupboards, citing one software house president as saying, 'People bought it out of curiosity, and it's likely a lot of them haven't used it.' Given that September saw Wii sales fall sharply in Japan for the second consecutive month, it seems reasonable to speculate that the bubble inflated by the novelty factor is starting to deflate, but writing Nintendo off at any stage is a perilous course to steer." Is this just worrying, or is there validity to this?
"Wii are bored".
from Japan to the US. I still can't get one in a major metro area of WI. And I can see at least 5 games that I want to play.
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
This statement is very poorly timed and thus most likely completely inaccurate. 1. Christmas season starts soon. Christmas = high sales period. 2. Wii has 3 extremely popular games being released between now and february.
I don't know anyone that has a Wii that is gathering dust, and that includes the one at my Mother's house.
Games for -all- consoles tend to be a bit lacking this year, as far as I'm concerned, but the Wii has definitely kept up with the others in terms of game count. If anything, they should be asking if the PS3s are gathering dust. There's hardly any good games yet, and the ones that ARE out came out later than their 360 counterparts. Gamers aren't known for their patience at the time of a game's release... They buy what's available.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
It also 'seems reasonable' to speculate that everyone who bought one still plays it every night...
They should have added "It 'seems reasonable' that the company the 'software house president' works for isn't selling as many games as they would like because their particular games suck balls."
With all the heavy hitters that Wii has lined up in the next few months, one can only conclude that this article is BS. I bet these are the same 'analysts' who predicted that Nintendo would remain a distant third last year at about this time. They were wrong then and they're wrong now.
Suggesting that tons of people bought the Wii and have never even used it is a really awful assumption. While it's true some people will buy it and use it less often than other's that's not to say it will sit in a box collecting dust. I got the Wii on launch day and my girlfriend and I have gone through periods where we use the Wii and lot and then periods when we dont play for a while. It has more to do with our jobs then a lack of interest. Some of the games we most want to play have not even come out yet. Regardless, the Wii does not have some special characteristic that will make people lose interest and not buy games for it any more that they would for the PS3 or Xbox 360.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
In the months leading up to the release of Halo 3, XBox 360s dropped and dropped in monthly sales.
In the months leading up to the release of [Super Mario Galaxy], [Wiis] dropped and dropped in monthly sales.
Not to say the Wii's popularity isn't dropping, I just think it's too early to draw a definitive conclusion here.
I know my credibility on this issue is near zero around these parts, as I've not been afraid to state all along that the Wii is over-hyped, but I agree with the fundamental tennet of this argument; many Wiis are not getting used because there is very little on them worth playing for more than about 10 minutes at a time. Looking at the "new releases" reviews on the average game-site (IGN is my personal preference, but your mileage may vary), it's easy to see that games coming out for the Wii mainly fall into 3 categories; "party" games (or extended tech demos, as I tend to think of them), rushed and nasty cross-platform ports and virtual console games (whose quality varies from the stellar to the derisory - but which many games will have been emulating for free for years).
The first category are ok on occasions when you have friends over, but are no use at all the rest of the time. A brief glance at gamerankings will show just how badly Wii ports of cross-platform games tend to fare. And virtual console games... well... great... but I don't want to spend all my time on my new console playing games that came out a decade ago.
There are a tiny number of other titles which actually have some gameplay value. Zelda is ok... slightly above average for its genre. Metroid Prime 3 is pretty good, although I still have problems with the backtrackeriffic gameplay style of Metroid games. Resident Evil 4 remains one of the only two cross platform games to actually be enhanced through being on the Wii (the other being Rayman Raving Rabbids, which falls into the "insipid party games" category anyway).
I know what people are going to say at this point; the Wii isn't for me, it's for the casual crowd. Thing is, I suspect that over time, even the average Joe will realise that, cheap though the Wii is, the limited use it eventually gets still means its horrible value for money.
Right now, Nintendo have things pretty easy. They had an unprecedented hype-machine for the launch of the console and some excellent initial sales. However, it seems to me that for those of us in the UK, the comparison to Gordon Brown's political honeymoon as Prime Minister are most appropriate; there comes a point at which people realise there's no substance there and the wheels fall off spectacularly. Happily for Nintendo, Sony continue to shoot themselves in the foot at every opportunity. They have an excellent machine out there, which, despite the high price-tag, is significantly more future-proof than any of its competitors (especially with the Blu-Ray drive, which is looking like a better and better idea). However, because they've mismanaged their relationships with developers and insisted on pushing their horribly broken and unnecessary motion-sensing controller, they've yet to attract a significantly better range of games than the Wii (although at least the PS3 has slightly more in the way of "substantial" games).
My instinct still stays that when all the dust settles, the slow-but-steady pace set by the 360, with no gimmicks, few headline-grabbing features, but an increasingly solid and well-rounded games lineup will win the day.
So they package "Wii Sports" in with the system (or "Wii Play", I can't remember which one Japan got)
Japan didn't come with a bundled game.
The much anticipated Adventure II finally hit the market just a few months ago. Though I'll grant you that new games for the 5200 are nowhere near as common as the Atari 2600 releases. The 2600 is just more popular, I'm afraid.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
For the past week the top five games for the wii included Carnival Games at #1 and DDR at #3. Resident Evil's been up there, Rayman's been up there, and you have to go back six weeks to find one in which there aren't two games in their top five that are from a company other than nintendo. Developers that put out games for the wii have, so far, been reaping some nice benefits from the data that I've seen.
Well, that's what I thought about the Dreamcast too. I mean, who cares if it only sold a fraction of what the PS2 was selling? Mine will still work, right? And Sega will surely keep making games for it, right?
Well, I'm proud to say, I was partially right there. My Dreamcast still works flawlessly. Hasn't had a new game made for it for a damn long time now, though.
Seriously, the prices of developping a new game are insane these days. Actually, make it: for a decade or so now, and it's only getting worse. So they need a certain market size just to recoup the costs.
And no matter what game you make for a console, not every single owner of that console will buy it. Doesn't matter what game it is. Even Hallo 3, not every XBox owner on the planet bought it. And that was a major success. You have to hedge your bets a bit for the case when it's a lot less of a success. I.e., you have to have a bit of a safety margin there.
So if a bubble bursts, it can be bad news. But, hey, your own console will keep working.
And before someone pipes up with "But Nintendo itself will keep making games for it"... well, so much good that did to the popularity of the N64, eh?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I'm a game developer, and before that an administrator for a gaming website. I don't buy a new game every week. Studies I've read suggest that this "once a week" demographic only accounts for 3% of all gamers.
You're right, according to last week we should expect the 360 to win in Japan!
The Wii is also quite capable of dropping price. This is less of a big deal in Japan, mind you, and more of a big deal in North America where people continue to buy GBAs over DSs for being $30 cheaper.
My experience with siblings is the opposite--younger sisters tend to take interest in whatever the older brother is playing. People get into arguments like "I want to play the NES" "No *I* want to play the NES".
As for the 18-24 male have-moved-out-of-the-house range, why would they care what their relatives are playing? If playing a game can get them into girl's pants, they'll do it, but otherwise they'll play whatever they like, or their dorm-mates like.
In North America the Wii games are selling better than PS3 games, and worse than 360 games. More 360s have been sold than Wiis in North America, and more Wiis have been sold than PS3s in North America. It's almost like install base is important after all!
Now, yes, the 360 has a spectacular attach rate--the 360 probably having the most hardcore of the ownership bases, and having achievement points which seem to be an obsession for some people. For this reason, the Wii could pass the 360 in America and still not control the region. This doesn't mean that the clear #2 console will be ignored by developers, though (the original XBox wasn't ignored last-gen; only third place (GC) was).
Hope it does mean more availability. Three of my work colleagues have been hunting for one to no avail. Oh yeah: That's an attorney (male, 45 y.o.), an accountant (mid-30's, female) and an IT guy (mid-20's hardcore gamer).
This little box has a lot of broad appeal. Mine? No dust. Had it since January and still play it 4 or 5 hours a week, but only because I don't have more time. Beat Zelda, finished Paper Mario, almost done with RE4. Metroid is next. Also, I keep coming back to Tiger Woods. But my wife and I honestly get the most replay value out of bowling, billiards and tennis. I'll admit there aren't too many other titles out there I'm itching to play at the moment, but I've got such value out of the ones I've picked (with IGN's help) that I am happy to wait for the pipeline to get going.
Others have said it, I'll concur: graphics be damned. If the games make you smile, people will line up for them.
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
I have a Wii and I barely play it.. My kids play it every now and then but days (weeks?) go by without it being turned on. My son continues to play his gamecube more. Why don't I play it more? I can't stand playing against AI.. I want to play real people and 1 year later where are the network games?!? Are there any?? I think there are a couple like the Pokemon one and I heard Call of Duty or some such is coming out in a few months with game play up to 16 people. The Wii has alot of potential but if they keep focusing on party games and things like Wii Fit, then people are going to get tired of it.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
This is the problem with purists: endless classifications that serve no real purpose except to exclude. Classifications do this automatically -- of course -- and some are valid -- of course! -- but when it comes down to an absurd pissing contest about who can be the most pure on a particular subject, you have to ask if there isn't something wrong.
I see this in music all the time. You get "purists" who believe that it's somehow helpful to have jazz fusion and Indo-jazz fusion and Indo-jazz Bollywood fusion and Indo-jazz Bollywood fusion fuzz-pop. The same with games. Is it a first person shooter? I don't know; is it in the first person, and do you spend a lot of time shooting? The answer to this question seems pretty straight-forward.
Of course now some purist purist is going to come along and tell me why it's important that purists constantly and consciously engage in follicle division, and why there are seven kinds of purists, and this is their genus, et cetera. You know what? We're not 19th century scientists any more. Not everything needs a rigorous classification system.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
If they wanted people to go online with it they should have put a fucking ethernet jack on it. sorry, just bitter, my wireless router sucks.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
I know I personally really wanted a Wii when it first came out. I attempted to find one for a few months after (3 or so) and when it was still 4-5 months later and there were still none on the shelf, I simply just lost interest. It's one thing to hold back a bit to create demand, it's entirely another to not make sales because you can't meet demand (or you don't want to meet demand to give the illusion of excessive demand). I recently checked at a local store the other day in Toronto (almost a year since it was released) and they still don't have any on the shelf. Pretty lame if you ask me, they definitely lost at least one sale there with me...
History has shown that once a console gains market dominance it's all but over bar the fat lady singing for the competition. Sure they may be able to eke out a borderline existence but no console has ever had a heartwarming come from behind Disney style win once a clear leader was established.
The NES bitch slapped all comers. The Playstation surprised everybody, destroyed Sega and did Japanese fetish like things to Nintendo. The PS2 laughed like a bad guy in an anime at the competition before crushing them all.
Despite all this the current crop of "games journalists" seem to be adamant about how Sony will execute an amazing come from behind win. "It's has the hardware that gives me wet dreams." "It's a Playstation and therefore is sent from heaven to save us from actual gameplay." "It's bigger than the first generation XBox controller." "Zero Punctuation owns one so they must be the shit."
I believe that Sony has fluffed this generation in a way that rivals the mistakes made by Osborne or Apple in the early 90s. They took a name that was the pretty much the definition of sex in the nerd world and turned it into the equivalent of COBOL for masses. Unless a Y2K event happens in the near future, Sony will be pan handling for change soon.
As for the 360, MS has never made hardware this complex before and it shows. It is less reliable than a business person who honestly believes that ties make you more professional and successful. Consoles are supposed to be something that gets about as much attention as a VCR. You plug in in under 2 feet of cables and the charming photos that Aunt May sent you last Christmas and it just works. Not something that requires raised floors and dedicated air conditioning to survive the harsh environment of the average consumer's home.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.