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Can Nintendo Court the Casuals Again?
An anonymous reader sends this quote from Eurogamer:
"Do you remember the last time? When the Wii launched at the tail end of 2006, it was to an air of excited curiosity that went well beyond the borders of core gamers, with Nintendo conjuring what ran close to a full-blown phenomenon. ... Nintendo's masterstroke, of course, has been resurrecting the ultimate hardcore poster girl with the announcement that Bayonetta 2 is heading exclusively to the Wii U. There's something slightly incongruous about an over-sexed, incredibly violent action game rubbing shoulders with Mario and co., but then again that's exactly what makes the proposition so very exciting. ... There's still one very important section of the market that may prove a little tougher to persuade. Right now it's harder to see the broader appeal of the Wii U, and it's not simply a case of fearing that it'll fail to replicate the success of its predecessor — there's every chance that it could endure the same rocky start that plagued Nintendo's 3DS."
The iPhone and iPad hadn't been introduced yet. The casual gamers have already moved on to other things.
We had the Wii - managed to score one the weekend it came out. But after about 18 months it became apparent this was going to have some real dumbed-down titles. A few stick out in my mind, most notably the Endless Ocean and Endless Ocean 2 games. I miss those enough I've been thinking of picking up a Wii after the Wii U comes out to replay them, when the price drops.
As for the Atari 2600 I had as a kid - I recall that having a greater variety of games that were almost more challenging. I don't miss it enough to buy the controller/ROM combination, but I distinctly remember titles we traded with friends and played for years. Maybe some of that is nostalgia for long summers and the lack of overall console variety then, but I was distinctly unimpressed with the Wii; with the notable exception the two titles I mentioned above.
When our Wii gave up the ghost I relented and bought an XBox for my son and that's been a great console - a good variety of games and ab online game store worth dropping some dough on. There will have to be something extraordinary for my generally Nintendo-friendly family to even consider by a Wii U. They lost us with the terribly poor game selection on the Wii and DS systems.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.
That's partly because no one wants to develop a game for the Wii when it's massively underpowered compared to the 360 or PS3.
At this point the term 'casual' gamer really means someone who games occasionally, it doesn't necessarily mean they want to play shitty games with low production quality, they just don't want to spend 3 hours a day every day playing games.
For the Wii basically all of the good games that have a broad appeal are first party nintendo products. That's a problem, because without the ecosystem there's no long term monetization strategy. Although just dance managed to do well as a franchise.
Also, I tend to think the premise of 'are they going to win back casuals' is wrong. I don't think they want to. They sold 100 million Wii's, and then pitifully few games. That's not a good business strategy. Now admittedly, they made money on the consoles, but they'd be happier to sell 50 million consoles and 4x as many games sort of thing. Lots of people bought a wii, wii sports, and one game, and never touched the thing again, all of that unrealized potential turns out to be really really really hard to capitalize on. It's easier to make something people who buy a lot of games want, so you can keep selling them games.
As far as I can tell, the definition of a "casual" gamer is "anybody who isn't a 15-30 year old male". I mean, I still hear of puzzle adventure players (who tended to be middle-aged women) being seen as casual gamers, while the people who play really quite simple hack-and-slash games (which appeal more to younger men) are considered hardcore. The mistakes, I think, are:
1. to aim most video games at a particular demographic and then wonder why nobody else is getting interested in them, and
2. hire young male game designers and wonder why they can't write a great game that appeals to older people or women.
It definitely has nothing to do with the difficulty or intracacy of the game.
I am officially gone from
Drop the middle man and sell me $20 games rather than $70 dollar one (I live in Sweden) and I may start buying games.
I think I read that 97% of the games played in PCs was pirated copies? No, price wont solve that I suppose but you're pretty lame if you copy a full game you could had bought for $10.
Like:
Is Zelda worth it and something you really should buy at $20?
Definitely.
Is it a better purchase than something like Angry Birds for $5?
Yes.
Is it something the iPhone doesn't and won't have in the near-term future?
Likely.
Would you rather play real console games on a real console rather than silly simplistic crap on a phone?
Best Buy and Target have already stopped taking orders for both the deluxe and regular systems, and Gamestop has sold out of the deluxe systems. So it's already eerily similar to the Wii's pre-launch situation, and that console was very hard to find for months.
So no, there's little evidence that a rocky start is in store.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
...with lots of automated violence. It's more casual than something like Pikmin by miles.
it's harder to see the broader appeal of the Wii U
The broader appeal of the Wii U is that it is no longer just a video game/fitness machine, it is now a TV set-top box and an intelligent TV remote as well. It is an aggregator of multiple internet-driven entertainment choices. The opportunity for Nintendo to may serious money is immense. I can sense the determined hand of Reggie Fils-aime ( Nintendo US CEO) behind Nintendo's newest push.
No. But it goes beyond just the law, for a number of reasons:
Wii was introduced before the housing bubble burst and long before the global economic recession. People had the idea that they had money to spare, whether or not they actually did. This helped fuel generic consumer interest along with the "newness" that is motion controls. In addition, the new price points puts Nintendo out of that "sweet number" they had in 2006. The $250 price point for the Wii at release in 2012 dollars is $285; the cheapest model is $299, and wages haven't kept up with inflation.
Motion controlling was a big thing when the Wii released--while it was not exactly new tech, Nintendo managed to mainstream it and make it work (sort of, the Wiimote Plus greatly improved this but still had issues.) Furthermore, the controllers for other consoles were seen as "intimidating" to your average consumer due to the myriad of buttons and inputs on them (whether or not this is true I don't know, but it was common thought both then and now). The Wiimote was extremely simple and could be used as a controller harking back to the NES days.
The Gamepad doesn't offer anything in the "wow-factor" to pull consumers in. Touch-screens have been around for quite some time (the original DS had a touch screen, after all) and everyone is tablet-crazy these days so it acts like a me-too. In addition, it integrates all those scary buttons. Furthermore, at least to someone like myself who is a regular gamer, the controller looks horribly clunky (my understanding from reading testimonials of those who have been able to hands-on is that it actually works decently, but that's not going to stop perception of those on the outside.)
The Wii U is, from my understanding, about as powerful as the 360. While I can understand that Nintendo wants to focus on user interface, they can't ignore that having a lower-powered system hurt them greatly this last gen. It wasn't the controller, it was the system processing power that kept a lot of otherwise-multi-console games from coming to the Wii (and when they did they were relatively bad). Nintendo has caught up, but as soon as the PS4 and XBox720 come out (supposedly in the next 18 months), they'll be lagging behind once again. Furthermore, by tipping their hand this early, it gives Microsoft and Sony a chance to integrate whatever features into their next system and likely do it better (the Kinect and Move have their own issues that will likely be firmed up and integrated better for the next console cycle).
A big selling point for the Wii was that it came with Wii Sports. The Basic (read: cheap) version of the Wii U comes with no games (except whatever demos or utilities they have on the system, like TVii), which only intensifies the economic issue. This may be intentional, though, as the tie-in (how many game were sold per console) for the Wii is extremely low, especially compared to the other consoles. By forcing "casual" consumers to buy games off the bat they can increase that number this time around; many bought the wii, played Wii Sports, and then never bought another game.
Nintendo also has a lot of uphill battles with 'core' gamers, too:
--Their online capabilities seem to still lag entire generations behind the competition (those horrible friend codes will apparently make an appearance on Wii U)
--Aforementioned power
--A number of AAA games they have announced are mere ports of games have been out for some time
--Internal Storage is limited to a max of 32GB, important as digital sales increase; however, this can be expanded (supposedly easily)
--Games, games, games, games. Nintendo didn't learn from the 3DS, apparently--the launch window library is fairly "meh", and we don't even know launch titles except for NSMBU
I've been a devout Nintendork for my life, fighting many a troll online for the Gamecube
no, but they get a little closer every generation
The problem was Nintendo never put any quality control on third party software
That's not true at all. Remember the "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality?" In fact, that was one of the reason so many developers were happy to jump ship to the other options when they became available, since Nintendo's "quality control" crossed the line and wandered deep into the category of "censorship" in the NES/SNES days.
I think I read that 97% of the games played in PCs was pirated copies?
For us the ratio is about 50-70% piracy, but a LOT of that is in china where you can't sell your game.
Cutting out the 'middle man' and charging a lot less is harder than it sounds. If you're a niche product (think Hearts of Iron from your own Paradox, who happen to publish the stuff I work on), then you can build a direct relationship with the customers through steam and gamersgate and just give up on retail. On the other hand, if you're someone like Bethesda, and selling Skyrim, you need walmart and gamestop to carry your game, and they won't if you sell it from your first party store for a third the price, at which point you sell a lot less games, and it's much harder to get any money at all.
At some point in cost you're better off not selling your game at all unfortunately. The 'per copy' support costs work out to a couple of bucks, pirates don't get support - that's PC at least. Console piracy is a different problem.
I think the main thing that disappoints me about the Wii U is the way it completely abandons motion control. I bought a Wii for Wii Sports. I had minimal interest in classic Nintendo titles, and absolutely no interest Xbox/PS3-style games. Then there was MotionPlus and Tiger Woods Golf, and that was fun for a long time. EA makes the same game on other platforms, but I have zero interest in mashing buttons together in order to simulate a golf game.
Since then, I've bought a handful of different games, some of them with pretty traditional controls (with lame waggle "enhancements") (e.g., Galaxy), and that's been fun, and I love Nintendo's creativity in a lot of their titles, but, still, the motion controls in something like Skyward Sword are far more interesting to me than anything else.
Enter Wii U. Doesn't do anything to push the motion control technology forward. Doesn't even ship with motion-sensitive controllers or a sensor bar. All that is abandoned in favor of a touchscreen melded with traditional gaming controls. I have a hard time seeing how new games (the next Zelda, for example) are going to improve on the experience I enjoyed the last time around -- because now Nintendo's going to be all about producing games that take advantage of the new controller. How do they even release a new Sports for the Wii U? Seems like that title is just put on hold...
I will gladly give my money to Nintendo for the Wii U. I am a gamer, with a huge passion for games. Finally Nintendo will provide next-gen gaming on their consoles. Nintendo, compared to Sony and Microsoft, is a company for gamers.
They dont charge you for online play (Looking at you M$), they dont charge you for additional storage by selling you some proprietary hdd. They dont remove features after the sale ( install other OS??) and they dont go in rage mode and start suing their customers. They also did not have any security breaches...
For me it is quite clear, if there will be a game which comes to all consoles, Ill be getting the Wii U version (unless there is a PC version ofc)
That's partly because no one wants to develop a game for the Wii when it's massively underpowered compared to the 360 or PS3.
That and Nintendo's developer qualifications scare away small-time developers who would be happy with the lower graphical complexity associated with the Wii. (See Bob's Game.) So these developers stick to mobile phones and tablet computers unless a game design requires physical buttons.
Although just dance managed to do well as a franchise.
Yeah, that song had two sequels: "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha and "California Gurls" by Katy Perry.
What Nintendo really needs to do is make a family of kick-ass high-powered Android phones with proper game controls, then make them usable as game controls for the Wii-U.
it has ABC(ESPN) sports, for streaming, finally I can say f the cable bill!
Are you sure it doesn't A. require a name and password issued by a pay TV provider, or B. query your cable ISP's database to see whether the current DHCP lessee of a given IP address also has a cable TV subscription that includes ESPN?
The one big advantage of the Wii U over is that the tablet isn't the only controller. The Wii U GamePad also has physical buttons, which work better than an on-screen gamepad in some genres for reasons I've described before. Furthermore, extra controllers for players 2, 3, and 4 will be available in stores, unlike tablet computers whose iCade and iControlPad controllers are available only through mail order.
is playing Angry Birds
I'm sad that Sega is giving them the only release of Bayonetta 2, but that's all I've lost. I won't be buying a Wii U until I can get one for $50 behind the counter at Publix, if even then[0].
They've managed to not just "milk into boredom" but actually antagonize me into abandoning their core franchises that I've been a fan of since The First Days. First, the abomination that was Metroid: Other M, which took all of the "cool points" that the prime trilogy had earned for itself and flushed them down the crapper.
Then Twilight Princess with it's stupid gimmicky motion control scheme[1] was bad enough, but the new one which had not only more of the same crap, but required me to buy a new controller, too? It became the first Zelda game in 25 years (except for one of the CDi games) that I didn't play. I'm thirty-*mumble* years old, work on a keyboard for 8-12 hours a day, and the last thing I want to do in my relaxation time is flip my aching arms, hands, and wrists around like I'm having some sort of fit.
Of course, Mario's been sort of "meh" for years. Mario 64 made a nice comeback for it, and then down it went again. The only Kid Icarus since 1991 is so stupidly designed that it requires you to have a stand for your portable game system, since the guy who came up with the control scheme apparently had 3 hands. Star Fox and Mario Kart haven't had a decent iteration since the 64, either, and DKC's hope left with Rare.
I don't speak for all "core" gamers, or even all of the old school demographic, and don't claim to, but IMO, they'd BETTER court the casuals, and not half-ass it this time, since they've burned most of the goodwill they earned in the 80s and 90s.
[0] Which isn't meant to imply that I will buy either or both of the XBox360+1 or the PS3+1. But those are different rants, and I'm trying to keep on topic. :)
[0] Which was COMPLETELY unnecessary (as evidenced by the fact that it was also released on the Gamecube), which makes it a textbook example of a "gimmick," lest I be accused of fanboying.
No.
Casual gamers are playing games on their phones. NIntendo fucked themselves over by not bothering to put out any titles at all for the Wii during its entire run.
Oh sure, you had a couple of Mario games, one Zelda, and... No More Heroes? I think that was about it. The rest were junk, they never released a "greatest hits" $20 version of any titles until early in 2012, and there's nothing compelling in the library.
Jerk off over the hardware all you want. No games -- no sales.
And again, people who want to play a game casually for five minutes at a time are going to whip out their phone and play a $1 game.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Or perhaps you were thinking of Stargate
SG-1 or Atlantis?
Star Fox
Could players do a barrel roll?
The Gamepad doesn't offer anything in the "wow-factor" to pull consumers in. Touch-screens have been around for quite some time (the original DS had a touch screen, after all) and everyone is tablet-crazy these days so it acts like a me-too. In addition, it integrates all those scary buttons.
So for a touch-screen-only device, how would you recommend making effective control for a platformer without scary physical buttons? I tried playing a game using the on-screen gamepad paradigm on a tablet, and I kept missing the buttons because I couldn't feel where my thumbs were relative to the buttons. That frustration is part of why the Wii U GamePad still has buttons instead of relying on a single flat surface with a capacitive sensor.
Haha. No. The Wii/DS generation was extremely profitable for Nintendo and far more successful than the Gamecube/GBA generation before it. Now the 3DS hardware is profitable again and Wii U hardware is supposedly profitable right from the start, so Nintendo's prospects are pretty good.
Sony, on the other hand, is in serious trouble. If anyone's getting out of the console business, they'll be first to go.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
people who want to play a game casually for five minutes at a time are going to whip out their phone and play a $1 game.
Provided they have a phone. True, a grown-up interested in video games can almost be assumed to own a smartphone nowadays. But any game rated E or E10+ includes kids as part of its intended audience. A phone capable of gaming costs well over $1,000 once you factor in an iControlPad and the cost of cellular voice and data service for two years. I'm under the impression that a lot of parents can't afford this for their kids, so they buy each kid a flip phone on a $80/year prepaid carrier as a pay phone replacement ("this is for getting a ride home; use the land line at home for long calls") and a DS/3DS for gaming.
The only requirement for Nintendo's "Seal of Quality" was money. Pay them and you got it. 90% of all NES and SNES games were absolute crap because of that.
The 97% pirated number comes from an idiotic Ubisoft executive who was lying about how necessary DRM was. Please do no promote this myth.
Drop the middle man and sell me $20 games rather than $70 dollar one (I live in Sweden) and I may start buying games.
This won't ever happen and it's stupid to even hope it would (beyond some niche/indy games).
1) Inflation. The 20$ of 1990 was 26,35$ in 2000, 33,37$ in 2010 and 35,25$ today.
2) Development budgets have grown many MANY times over.
Some other consoles have offered ESPN streaming, the trick is that you can only stream that if you have a cable subscription that includes ESPN and is provided by the same company as your internet connection. Did you really think they'd let you get away so easily?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
That's only kind of true. It depends on the game, but some titles, ya, the piracy rate is easily up in the 90% range. If you only release your game in the US, or France or the like you have to realize that it's going to be pirated everywhere else, a lot.
My biggest piracy gripe at the moment (as a game developer) is when one of my friends pirates a game and says something like 'I spend enough money on games already". As in, they paid for world of warcraft, call of duty etc. All the ones that have an online component you can't get out of, and can get banned from if you pirate. But then the rest of us, who make smaller indie-niche-no massive online service titles are the ones not getting paid, and it's not like EA (or paradox for that matter) just throw us money for being nice people.
Ubisoft is interesting because they don't have a lot of focus in their publishing, they have Assassin creed, splinter cell, Far cry, and then the ANNO series, and Rayman legends and just dance type stuff. For them I'm sure they are constantly grappling with using the profits from the successful games to fund popular but unsuccessful games, and trying balance that out against piracy cutting into particular portions of their business isn't going to be fun. I'd be surprised if the 97% figure is accurate, but I would not all be surprised to hear a 90% piracy rate for some of their smaller titles like shoot many robots and the like. Well that, and they got themselves enormous bad press for DRM so lots of people are pirating their stuff on principle.
We're a family of casual gamers. We don't game a lot, and when we do they tend to be games many can play together (Rock Band, Glee, etc.). We also play more traditional head-to-head games, but all gaming comes in spurts, days/weeks where we do it a lot followed by months where we don't. The Wii worked for us.
But that was then.
Since then, we've slowly gotten tired of more and more remotes, more and more devices, and we've slowly discovered more and more on-line distractions. Hey, we just finally signed up for Netflix a few weeks ago, partly because we didn't have a decent device for it - we don't enjoy being our own tech support anymore. What changed is that we got Apple TV to make it easier to show pictures to friends, and Apple TV is a bit of a gateway device....
Which brings us to the Wii U. I want something more than the Wii, something more than Apple TV, and I want fewer remotes and few devices in my living room. Recent announcements of the Wii U having universal remote capabilities and integrated media streaming capabilities made me very excited!
But guess what? The lack of DVD and Blue Ray capabilities is a deal-breaker.
My living room is cluttered. The tech is good enough that one device can do it all. So I ain't buying a device that doesn't. If I add one device (a U) I want to remove two (the old Wii and my DVD player).
People are calling the Wii U the first eighth generation console. Nope. It's the last seventh. Or the only 7.5. To be next-gen, you have to raise the bar, and the Wii U doesn't: it has some cool features, but it doesn't come close to being truly new, a true replacement for what we have, a new way of doing anything.
Universal remote? Been there, done that.
Touch screen? Ditto. Game transfer? Yup. Networking? Social? DVD? Streaming? Motion control? Yup, yup, yup, yup.
You want to get "the casual gamer", the folks like us and many like us? You give us one device that does all of the above, and more, without being intrusive, without binding us to you (like Apple does - hey, we've already got iTunes, like Google wants to, etc.). I'd buy that. And if you can throw in something really mind blowing, many more would buy it.
But the U is just "meh" enough for me to wait to see what's next.
I'm probably not the only one.
I'm here EdgeKeep Inc.
They release plenty of new games but whenever they announce multiple games everybody only cares about the Mario and Zelda parts, the rest gets overlooked (with the exception of some of the Wii Whatever games). Yet games like Excite Trucks/Bots, Fluidity, Xenoblade, Sin & Punishment, Pushmo, Picross 3D, etc generally receive a lot of praise by critics. Of course there are also duds which I won't bother trying to remember right now. Stuff like Steel Diver.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
1) Inflation. The 20$ of 1990 was 26,35$ in 2000, 33,37$ in 2010 and 35,25$ today.
Inflation has nothing to do with it. Right now the way our arrangement works (which is fairly standard but not exactly the same as everyone else) - retail chain takes 30%, the remainder is split 50/50 with the publisher, so on a 60 dollar game we make 21 dollars. The '70' dollar figure presumably includes tax, or the added costs at retail due to sweden paying more than in north america. If we could somehow market and fund development for years on our own (bank), advertise distribute etc without added costs we could sell you the game for 21 dollars and make the same amount of money. Theoretically if the game was only 20 dollars we could sell a lot more copies too, but you'd have to sell 2x as many copies to make up for the loss of the publisher, and that's without ever putting your game in retail or on a digital distributor other than yourself.
2) Development budgets have grown many MANY times over.
Sure, but the games business was hugely profitable at one point too. Budgets crept up to meet the income, it's a competitive market, if you can get an edge by having better art, more art, voice, animation, better graphics etc. than you competitor then you spend more money. Without a doubt the huge production cost on games (easily in the 10's of millions of dollars for AAA titles) creates a huge problem in locking people out of the market, stifling innovation and making companies risk averse. If you look at something like SWTOR, which you effectively can't pirate, and cost EA upwards of 200 million dollars to make, that is going to cost them probably a 100 million dollars in losses. Now EA is big enough they can handle it, but that sort of clusterfuck is going to cause a lot of shakeup in the MMO funding space, and after losses like that they will likely be very averse to trying to build a subscription MMO at all, let alone one with a pricing structure no one has tried before (in this case trying to cut the price by 2/3rds to see if you can pick up more customers). Whether free to play will help them recover or not I don't know, but the end game is bad, a new business model won't make it a better game.
That and Nintendo's developer qualifications scare away small-time developers
That's always a challenge when dealing with console guys. Those crazy requirements are good for consumers, but hard on developers, especially when the Apple App store and Google play just don't have the same requirements.
Contrary to what many hardcore gamers seem to believe, casual gaming has nothing to do with quality or price. It has everything to do with time.
Casual gamers simply aren't able or don't want to spend hours learning a game's mechanics, then spend more than an hour on a single level.
Imagine never being able to play gaming sessions longer than 15 minutes. A game like Zelda would be unplayable to such a casual player.
A game like Angry Birds is definitely a better purchase for a typical casual gamer than Zelda, even if Zelda was $5 and Angry Birds cost $20, simply because they'll actually be able to play a few levels of Angry Birds every day.
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Mario has seen a high recently, while the GC/GBA era was pretty meh for him the Wii saw the Galaxy games (extremely positive critical reaction, Metacritic score at times the highest of any game in the database!) and following the DS iteration got New Super Mario Bros Wii (extremely high sellers, the DS one broke all Mario sales records, the Wii one still sold over 20 million showing that the general public still loves this style more than the 3D style) and the 3DS got Super Mario 3D Land which also got a ton of praise and sales. If you don't like any of those then Mario just isn't for you.
DKC got DKC Returns which was widely loved. Probably more than anything Rare has done since the split from Nintendo (though Viva Pinata and Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts deserved more recognition than they got).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
And that is dangerous.
The motion control on the Wii was largely a gimmick. While there were a few games that made really effective use of it or could be made well without it, most didn't. They just translated certain gross motion in to the equivalent of a button press, they didn't really do much special. However for all that, it intrigued may people and they wished to have it. The gimmick worked.
Ok fair enough, but that kind of stuff tends to be very hit or miss. People can see a gimmick and say "meh" even if it is new and original. It is rather impossible to predict to what level people will care. However as you say if they've seen it before, then they are less likely to be interested as with touch screens.
So I don't think it is a good idea on Nintendo's part or likely to do well for them. People just won't care, the gimmick won't sell. It'll be left to perform on its own merits and as you say, those are a bit lacking.
I think a better idea would be a cheaper system (those tablets cost a non-trivial amount), better online service, and better launch titles. The power/graphics issue isn't a big deal so long as the games are good and the online service is good, particularly if the price is right which wouldn't be hard to do with lower spec hardware and no silly tablet.
We'll see. I was wrong on the Wii, I didn't think it would catch on like it did, so I've certainly been wrong before. However it is less likely lighting strikes a second time, particularly since tablets are nothing new.
1) Inflation. The 20$ of 1990 was 26,35$ in 2000, 33,37$ in 2010 and 35,25$ today.
Inflation has nothing to do with it.
Sure it does. You need to come to grips with the simple fact that the purchasing power of fiat money decreases with time. 70$ today is just 40$ in 1990 money. As a matter of fact, games have gotten LESS expensive since 1990 in real terms, because games back in 1990 sure as hell costed more than 40$.
How did having a lower power machine help Nintendo in the last console generation?
Will Microsoft and Sony bring 500-700 dollar machines to market this time?
Will concentrating on the user interface pay off like it did last time for Nintendo?
Consoles sold from last generation:
Wii 96 million, XBox360 68 million, PS3 66 million.
I gotta agree, kinda hard to see what audience they are aiming for with the frankly bizarre line ups they have been having of late. And Bayonetta 2 as a launch title? Since when does softcore porn fit into the casual player demographic? yeah I can really see the soccer moms sitting down to play Bayonetta 2.
For a funnier take on the Wii U everyone ought to watch Francis the fanboy's take on the subject, although by the end you have to wonder if they needed to call an ambulance for his ass, dude really needs to lay off the cheeseburgers.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You need to come to grips with the simple fact that the purchasing power of fiat money decreases with time.
Which is irrelevant to this discussion. We're not talking about 1990 dollars versus 2012 dollars. We're talking about 2012 dollars versus 2012 dollars.
The discussion isn't 'oh games were so much cheaper in the past why are they so expensive now' because aliquis wasn't accounting for inflation. This is a ' if I buy from a retailer you get 20 dollars, so why don't I just buy directly from you for 20 dollars and skip the 40 dollars going to publishers and retailers'.
You're confusing a monetary issue with a business model one. Lots of companies (notably paradox and Stardock) sell games, or expansion packs for games, for less money online than they did with boxed copies. The upcomming HOI3 expansion is 20 bucks on gamersgate, if they were doing a big retail push it would be 30 everywhere because of the added distribution costs from using the retail chain.
I grant, there is some nominal price rigidity around games, and people don't want to lower the price knowing that customers will pay 50-60 dollars for a new game, but valve with their steam sales has had some success (and some fucking of developers) with selling even new games for a lot less money.
Those numbers are from the same bunch that says more software is pirated than the GDP of the planet times ten or so, really wouldn't put much stock in them. And does Sweden have Steam? if so you are in luck, I've not paid more than $20 for a game in years, most less than $15. hell i just got Crysis collection for a dirt cheap $17, that's four games for less than take out around here, can't beat that.
The problem with Nintendo is, and lets be honest here folks, other than a SMALL handful of Nintendo made titles their software is shovelware city. My youngest insisted on getting a Wii and i tried to warn him but he talked his grandma into getting him one...its in the closet next to his DS and PSP while he spends all his time on PC playing his MMOs. Why is it gathering dust? Simple because once he had the handful of decent titles there really wasn't anything to get that wasn't "rampant stick waggling crap" as Yahtzee put it on ZP.
As we have seen making money on the consoles only goes so far and if you can't get people to buy the software that goes with the consoles the money just dries up. Last figures I saw had the X360 having a sell through of 8 games per console, the PS3 4 and the Wii was something like 2, really pathetic. Hell I know several people that bought one Mario or Zelda and the pack in title and that's it, they got bored and just set the thing in the closet.
So while I'm all for competition there hasn't been anything announced so far that really "wowed" me about the Wii U. Sure the hardware looks cool but like the Wii and PSPs if you don't have anything cool to play on it who cares if the locked down hardware is cool? Hell maybe Nintendo ought to open the thing up to modding and homebrew, i know I bought for the original XBox long after it quit being mainstream because it also made a kick ass media tank, maybe the modders could find enough cool things to do with the hardware to make it worth $300.
All I know is looking at the lame launch lineup I'm glad i got my kids on the PC, last thing I need is another console gathering dust in the closet.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
sales a * price a vs sales b * price b.
Neither of those arguments say anything about that.
Also if the damn FED didn't printed trillions maybe your dollar would keep its value.
Casual gamers simply aren't able or don't want to spend hours learning a game's mechanics, then spend more than an hour on a single level.
Serious gamers don't want the vast majority of their games very long either. That's why a 'big' game these days is 20 hours, and a typical one is 7-10. Looking at my list of games completed in the last 4 months (19 games completely) about half took less than 15 hours, give or take how you want to count Dawnguard.
Serious gamers play one or two games seriously (MMO, online FPS etc.) and then the rest of it they just chew through and move on.
Some of it is presentation and attitude, people think Torchlight, battlefield 3, max payne 3 etc are 'serious' games, but they aren't, you can play them in stints of 40 minutes or so at a time, and then be done all of them in under 15 hours each. Some of it is also self delusion, where a 'casual' gamer who plays farmville 3 hours a day, everyday, doesn't want to call themselves a 'gamer' because those are nerds who spend 3 hours a day playing games. And believe me, we have a lot of data on the so called 'casual' gamer, and they spend a lot of time playing games.
Sony, on the other hand, is in serious trouble. If anyone's getting out of the console business, they'll be first to go.
Actually, Sony's console business is doing pretty well, making money on both hardware and software especially the latter. Sony's losses are due mainly to getting completely hammered in the tv market. (Koreans set took it upon themselves to drive Japan out of the TV market and by all appearances are now just mopping up.) What Sony can't afford is another disastrous specs war with Microsoft. I expect, next generation neither will be foolish enough to try to cram state of the art hardware into a space that just can't dissipate the heat. Next generation will be about leveraging bespoke game properties like Little Big Planet and Playstation at Home and not trying to take over the world. Basically, Big Console had its last hurrah and the torch is now passed to mobile and indie gaming.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I'd like Nintendo a whole lot more if I didn't hate the Mario world so much, and it's all about the fucking, boring, racist and campy mascot everywhere on every title in every iteration. It's not funny. It's not sexy. It's not cute. As a pop culture icon, it's just as dull as it's always been and the only reason left to insist on it (in the US) is to pander to Generation Xs and Generation Ys who think they're Generation Xs.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Last figures I saw had the X360 having a sell through of 8 games per console,
Those are more like per year figures, with PS3 and 360 almost dead even now.
Hey I'll be the first to admit that is probably old data, thank the FSM I was able to get both my boys into PC gaming when the AM3 socket chips were dirt cheap so I don't have to deal with the damned consoles anymore.
We now have two hexacores and a quad for the youngest, we all have HD4850 GPUs, and thanks to Steam all I have to do is pop up a window and say "Hey want to jump in?" and we are blasting some Saints Row 3 or TF2 and in a few days we'll be pounding through some dungeon goodness in Torchlight II, woo hoo!
But if you ask my opinion the PS3 was Sony's Saturn, they went too complex with the design which meant they couldn't save money down the line designing it cheaper and using less chips like MSFT could and it was a royal PITA to program for. if the rumors are true ironically the PS4 will simply be a midrange AMD PC running a custom OS so it'll be Sony's turn to go COTS just like MSFT did with XBox 1.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The FED printing more dollars shouldn't affect the price in Sweeden....
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Agreed.
Wii Sports Resort, Red Steel 2, and Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword are the most amazing electronic home entertainment experiences I've had thus far --- I just wish the latter two were longer or extensible via DLC.
Wish Pandora's Tower would come to NA and hope that someone will make a motion controlled RPG.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
It likely does anyway.
I don't know if gasoline is much more expensive but if the economy was allowed to survive on the money which was actually available in the system, take loses, clean out the burden and debt and so on demand wouid decresase and with that so would the price.
Now the stimulus and additional debt keep things going anyway at a higher rate than it would otherwise had done.
As far as dollar printing goes though the SEK is way stronger against the dollar than it was before QE 1, 2 and 3 so yes, it doesn't affect us as much as you americans.
And by the FEDs inflation measurement (which is to a big extent measured against prices within the country?) your inflation isn't that high because they want to separate the price of real raw material, energy and such from their inflation measurement.
In reality you're dumping your salaries and value of everything within the country against the rest of the world.
"Core" gamer, "hardcore" gamer... I'm going to take my own stab at defining these lame-brained terms.
:)
They have nothing to do with violent games, time spent playing, or anything else I've seen mentioned so far. What they are is euphemisms for "PC gamers". And this is true regardless of platform - PC=Xbox and Playstation is a bite off of that market. So what defines them? THEY ALWAYS WANT MORE OF THE SAME, but bigger, faster, and flashier. Minimal to no fucus on innovation or fun. We've been living their dream since the early 90's! (Anyone check out the cost of developing a new PC/XBox/PS game? Glitz doesn't add fun to a game, but at least it costs a lot!! How about the number of original titles in their Top 10? Hahahah.)
Wii was (and I'm hoping just a little here) the beginning of a revolution against that whole way of thinking. There is almost no reflection of "hardcore" in their game library. I and the rest of the people still enjoying their Wii's LIKE THAT.
What there is in the Wii equation, is a less ridiculously priced console, better prices on games, tons of classic console and arcade games and some decent new ones on Wii Online Store, and games that are establishing new dynamics in gaming. Personally, I still dig Wii Sports, as well as the Sports and Play sequells and Wii Fit+. Those and associated titles have alone more than justified the cost of the console (and two ROM drive repairs). The fact that I've gotten a great darts game for $5 as well as a dozen or more classic console and arcade games from the online store is just a huge bonus! I do watch Netflix on it, and the seperate Netflix-kids app is a really nice touch.
I will add that the 90/10 rule of computer games still applies, even on the Wii - only about 10% of the games on any platform are really all that good/worth playing. A Gamefly account (or generally renting vs buying) is the best thing you can do for a new console. I have many good games as a result of that.
As to the f'ing article, it sounds like a puff piece for whatever software they mentioned. People (within the industry and without) pretty soundly laughed at the prospect of the Wii. In spite of the success of the Wii, some people are still trying to laugh at Nintendo and their strategy. The magazine's failure to see potential of the Wii U isn't interesting for the same reason, IMO.
If Nintendo can maintain their price point against the other consoles and deliver the new feautres and experience as promised, I see no reason that Nintendo will do any worse than the trajectory they are on - selling more consoles and more games than their competitors. And with those new features, it seems there should be a lot of new potential as well.
The hard part for Nintendo (due to their being the pioneer) is getting a third party who can - after pouring money down the "hardcore" rathole - still afford to develop a new kind of game. Their catalog of super-fun games is growing, but it will take some time given the momentum third parties have in the style of games you find duplicated across all the other platforms.
-Matt
I'm not in a hurry to disagree with you but I think you might not have this quite right.
:)
Someone sold more consoles and more software....so plz define "pitifully few" and then come again with who wouldn't want to develop software for them?
(Software numbers are easy to find and current...hardware numbers are harder to come by...these are 2011 hardware numbers...but solid source.)
Xbox360
Consoles: 39 million
Games: 618 million
PS3
Consoles: 30 million
Games: 595 million
Wii
Consoles: 59 million
Games: 827 million
The elephant in the console-room is really the PS2.
PS2
Consoles: 155 million
Games: 1.5 Billion As of last year they were still selling something like 8 million PS2 games per year on is 12-year-old platform! The biggest selling game on the PS2 was in 2009 (San Andreas) for crying out loud - 4-years after the 360 and 3-years after the PS3. LOL!
More than anything else the PS2's continued success puts the lie to the "underpowered Wii" theory. Too much power just makes it too easy on the devs...too little is not a real limit, but a challenge. (Recall how much fun was had with "all the power" of the Atari 2600 after all. Go 4K ROM!)
I can understand your frustration with Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. Motion controls just aren't for everyone, it's that simple. I wouldn't say motion control was a gimmick, but making them default with normal controls optional may have been a better way to go.
Mario 64 was possibly the finest 3D conversion for a 2D game ever seen - everyone else followed Nintendo's recipe after that. Sunshine was a bit of a let-down, but honestly, how do you follow a game that ground-breaking? By breaking even more ground with Galaxy. It's had it's hiccups, but the main Mario platformers are pretty awesome, and it's hard to argue otherwise without purely nitt-picking. Not that I'm a fanboi or anything, I just think if you liked Mario 64, you'll like Galaxy. A lot.
Also, keep up man! Nintendo has introduced some great new titles and franchises in the past ten years or so - Pikmin, Chibi Robo, Battalion Wars just to mention my favourites - so don't ditch the platform just to spite the software.
I played Galaxy. It was fun, but all it really added to the Mario 64 "recipe" was motion-sickness. When you said "everyone followed the recipe after that" you weren't wrong. Nintendo did, too.
Nintendo has introduced some great new titles and franchises in the past ten years or so - so don't ditch the platform just to spite the software.
As for the new titles... none of them appeal to me. Not even a little. So why would I stay with the platform if the software is worthless to me? Hell, even if the software was good, I'd be giving this one a pass, based on Nintendo's ongoing "War on Ergonomics."
Well, with wii homebrew you can play those c64 roms on your Wii.
Cheap storage VM.
Apple stole the "adult" casual gamer market and pretty much assured that any child of these adults are also highly invested in games on the Apple platform. I can't get my niece and nephew off my iPad or iPod touch when they come to visit. When you have a platform of Free to $4.99 games that keep children interested for hours, what is the point of the Wii U?
Nintendo is trying to mimic Apple's success my mashing (more like mangling) a touch pad with a game platform, and I think this is ill conceived. Its coming off as a cheap novelty act. The fact they are not supporting multi-player games on release speaks to fact that WiiPad is a cheap gimmick rather then a fully vested feature of the new WiiU. Why wouldn't Nintendo WANT people to buy multiple expensive controllers to support multi-player games? Nintendo just didn't figure out how to use the WiiPad properly for games and so never bothered to develop multi-player games. Also Nintendo forgot to make it a "next" generation game console. They finally add yesterday's features, such as HDMI port and 1080p support, but what about 4K displays? And I doubt they will offer 3D gaming in spite of speculation.
The Wii U seems like it was quickly drafted up to try and stave off the loss of revenue from lackluster Wii and 3DS sales and I don't think this console will do much to bring casual gamers back to the Wii platform that are happily entrenched in the world if iOS. I think Nintendo did more to turn people off the Wii then it did to lock them in. I don't care how many consoles you sell, if you can't find a market of people willing to buy your games, then you failed, period. I have friends that never played anything more then Wii Sports.
Its going to be a tough next couple of years for Nintendo because I think the Wii U will suck money away from them as they try to promote and sell it. They will probably have to sell it at a loss in the very near future to boost sales, and I think a $250 Xbox 360 with Kinect bundle and Second Screen features is a hell of a lot better deal then the Wii U.
Also Wii U the dumbest name for a game console in the history of game consoles. Nintendo couldn't even come up with an inspirational new name for their next-generation game console and I think that speaks gobs about the lack of innovation and enthusiasm Nintendo has (not) invested into this thing.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Nintendo is going to have an impossible mission ahead of them. On one hand, if they try to take on X-Box or Sony they will never match their technology or number of games/developer support and on the other hand the novelty that dragged in the casuals is no longer a novelty that is unique to Nintendo. Advertising Brisbane