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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?
In other news: Wisconsin has major metro areas
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."
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Bored and worried about saving for Christmas, would be more correct. While I'm still excited about the wii, I'm also sitting around waiting for the new mario Galaxy game to be released. I finished beating Zelda, never was too fond of 1st person shooters (Metroid Prime) and so am left with a small gap until the holiday season allows my game spending budget to pick up another game or two. Since I only buy a few games a year, I don't take changes. When Brawl and Galaxy come out, I'll buy. Since Nintendo has cultivated a mostly Non-hardcore gamer market, the majority of their customers are only going to buy the AAA titles because that's what they hear about in the media. Most of those will be released in the coming months.
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.
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).
Then what on earth do you mean by FPS, if it doesn't mean "a game with a first person perspective, in which one's primary interface with the world is, in fact, shooting"? Sure Metroid isn't Doom, it's not Quake, nor is it Halo[1..3]. So you actually have objectives, and have to, god forbid, explore. So what? Does that disqualify it as an FPS?
There are lives at stake here!
Its first person perspective, and you shoot stuff constantly. That makes it an FPS. It has puzzle elements added, but its still an FPS.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Some purists might argue that it does. The main point of the Prime series (and all Metroid series really) was to explore and find power-ups that allowed you to get farther into the "dungeons". In contrast the primary goal of most FPS games is to make it from point A to point B by killing or otherwise eliminating anything that gets in your way, possibly with conditions attached such as ensuring that some object is either protected or destroyed. I think one of the key features that sets Prime apart from other more traditional FPS titles is the need to use the various Visors and jump upgrades which effectively make the game play closer to a platformer such as Mario Sunshine. The fairly constant switch to third person when performing certain jumps and using the morph ball also serves to distance Prime from a FPS.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Heh.. I know I am still waiting for games I'm interested in. For now though, I've been picking up gamecube games to hold me over. The Wii is a great game system, its just that game studios didn't think it would take off, so most of the games are the Mario varity.
That said, it looks like some good ones are coming up; manhunt, tomb raider: aniv., RE: chronicals, etc. hopefully RE: 5 will appear on the wii as well.
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 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...