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Dearth of New Nintendo Games Could Indicate Wii 2

Posted by Soulskill on from the could-also-indicate-laziness dept.

A speculative piece at Kotaku looks at the release cycle of Nintendo games over the past 10 years, pointing out a current lull that's quite similar to the one near the launch of the Gamecube. They suggest this could be because first-party developers are busily working on games for the Wii 2. Quoting: "The spring of 2002 was the longest Nintendo game drought on record, and has a number of characteristics in common with the season we're entering now. Nintendo has launched a major piece of technology (the 3DS) and is initiating the gradual retirement of a console with a large and reliable installed base. While we entered into this data mining project with the presumption that we could recognize a pattern that presaged a new console release—the Wii 2, obviously—the last time there was a Nintendo game drought this pronounced was after the release of the Gamecube. Still, you can neatly overlay the release history of the Gamecube overtop the current release history of the Wii—they match that closely."

2 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Or maybe they just aren't selling as well by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Something I've noticed with Wii owners is that the Wii tends to end up like a board game: When it gets bought they play with it for a bit, then set it aside, only to take it out at parties or the like. This isn't universal, of course, but I've observed it in enough cases to believe that it is at least somewhat prevision and it isn't something I see with the other consoles.

    It seems to me that some people get a Wii because they think the motion control looks cool, but quickly find out it is fairly gimmicky and they get tired of it and set it aside.

    I could see that leading to less interest in games for it from developers. Given that a Wii port will require more reworking than the other consoles, due to the lower capabilities and different controls, I could see developers giving it a miss in cases where they don't expect as many sales.

    That isn't to say there are no games sold on the Wii or it will die or anything, just that developers may be bringing less titles to it because perhaps people are purchasing less.

    1. Re:Or maybe they just aren't selling as well by thegarbz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I tend to think that this is based on the types of games that people are attracted to on the console. I see you observation too, but if you actually go and look through the game library of the owners of abandoned Wiis you'll typically find a lot of gimmicky crap. Ok the tennis game on Wii sport was fun for about 5 minutes, but got very boring very quickly. Yet amongst the abandoned Wiis you'll find pretty much this game, and maybe a few more like Wii Fit, Wii Play, and other similar crap.

      However the game collections of people who actively use the Wii seem to be quite different. Sure everyone has a copy of Super Mario Smash Bros to bring out at parties, but a lot of active Wii users will have things such as Guitar Hero / Band Hero, Pikmin, New Super Mario and the Galaxy games, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. If you know what you're looking for and ultimately have the ability to pick games that you can actually play rather than waving a stick at the console is fun and stays fun.

      People have been saying the Wii is dead for years, yet by Dec2010 Donkey Kong Country Returns sold 4.21million copies worldwide. Clearly there are quite a lot of people who actually are still interested in their console. I think the biggest problem is that everyone tried a Wii, even those people who simply should not be interested in such a console. My grandma has one FFS.