Topic: Bloober Executive Says "Don't Blame Wii" For Poor Sales

[Deguello]

Ian's basically right.  Although we see several counter-arguments, the basic idea is that quality can and will sell on the Wii.

I did a little math work last night and averaged all of Nintendo's review scores on GameRankigs and Metacritic and stuff.  For each it's around 80% for 30+ games.  I hold that this is the highest average on the console, and thus Nintendo deserves the most sales.  For fun and giggles I did UBISoft's average as well, and it comes around 59% for over fifty games (Can you believe IGN can Imagine: Party Babiez a 7.5?), with No More Heroes being their best game at 82%.  You would not believe the filth UBISoft published on the Wii.

So, has any other developer made games as good as Nintendo's?  If so, were there any mitigating factors that might have slowed their sales and caused consumers to balk at buying them?  Does Nintendo not deserve the best sales on their console because they've made the best games on it?

[BlackNMild2k1]

No Joke: I hear Imagine: Babyz Fashion was surprisingly good.

[Stratos]

One of the 5-star reviews I read on Amazon for Imagine: Party Babiez was made by someone who realized their nephew was the baby model on the cover, they had never played it.

[NWR_insanolord]

I envy you for having enough free time that you decided reading Amazon reviews for Imagine: Party Babiez was a good use of it.

[Stratos]

This was back when I had no job.

We were informed of this game through one of our relatives in Guam. Wethought it was a family joke untill we saw the front cover forourselves. MY SON is on the front shaking those rumba shakers(maracas). All of my family here in California was shocked and wonderedhow he was on there since. Then my wife remembered, when she wasworking for a Pulbication Company in Novato... when "Kobe" was 10months old they took photos of him for greeting cards. The company isclosed now due to economic times. So we wondered how they obtained thisphoto. Kobe is now almost 6 years old and when he saw his photo, he didnot seem to care. I have a plan though, when he gets older then I canuse this in his wedding slideshow. We have other photos that weresupposed to be used in greeting cards...like one where he is bowlingand one where he is giving flowers to another baby (like forvalentine's day). We bought the game at ToysRUs and it is good foryoung kids above 5. Quite a few mini games like green light red light.Oh well...not like the violent games on the other systems but...well itis just a "GAME". Not really meant for those hard core gaming type ofpeople but maybe like the ones who like the bowling one for Wii. ThankYou Steph for letting us know he was on the cover. =)

Looked it up again, sounds like they did play it, but its obvious they rated it high because their child was on the cover.

[Deguello]

Well that's a problem, then.  The cover is so off-putting and the basic premise was so horrid nobody bought it to know.

I remember when this game was announced (along with Dogz 2009 or something) that they had "zeroed in" on the Wii demographic and made both of those titles with "them" in mind.  Both flopped hard, selling less than No More Heroes, a game UBISoft just published.  With this set of data, it seems like Wii owners don't want baby games or Pet-raising game.  (Even Nintendo knows this, they've only ever released Nintendogs, way back in 2005, with no sequelicious cram-down to follow).  But Wii owners get told that they don't buy anything, or that they are Nintendo fans, or whatever.  So no wonder Wii owners mostly buy only Nintendo games.

"You've made your bed, now lie in it."  This is the problem third parties face on the Wii.  Nintendo has learned not to try and cntrol third parties, and thus third parties are free to make whatever their want on the Wii.  What third parties have chosen to make was a bunch of really bad shovelware games, made with the idea that the consumers are idiots who can't tell the difference between "Vacation Sports" and "Wii Sports Resort."  The consequence is that Wii owners are suspicious and not trusting of 3rd party games.  This would be pretty damning to Nintendo if Nintendo weren't #1 with a bullet, and third parties' current strategy is to let Nintendo have this:



All to themselves.  They want Nintendo making half of all the money while every body else splits the other half.  that's just bad long term strategy and will only strengthen Nintendo in the long run.

A good company will own up mistakes, admit failures, and strive to always make better products.  Nintendo has mostly done this.  A bad company throws blame around to everybody else except themselves, and will close up shop just because their preconceptions of easy money are wrong.  Third parties have mostly done this.  Who wouldn't prefer Nintendo?

[broodwars]

I just love the assumption that for a game to have good gameplay it has to look like ****, and if a game has good graphics the gameplay must suck...don't you?

Who said that and where?

Just a general impression I've gotten from many forum posters here, which Chozo Ghost reminded me of previously a few posts above my original post.  It seems every time someone brings up a wish to see good looking games in general, someone just has to post the good 'ol "well, I value gameplay over graphics!" as if those were two mutually-exclusive features.  If they were, logic would dictate that the Wii would be stuffed with games just bursting with awesome gameplay, but it isn't.  If you don't care about the visual quality of your video games, fine...but we can have both great gameplay and great visuals (though good art design) on Wii.

[Ian Sane]

Looking at that chart Deg posted you can actually understand why third parties favoured the other consoles, at least initially.  The Wii and the PS360 are significantly different enough that it's hard to make a game for all three.  In 2007 and 2008 the combined market share of the other consoles was bigger than Nintendo's.  So making a game for those two consoles would in theory have a higher potential market than a Wii exclusive.  But things have changed and third parties have not.  You figure they would just shift their focus to where the money is.  But they haven't.  They'll bitch about how they can't make money on the Wii but they haven't changed their Wii output.  They're making the same stuff they did for the 37% market share console.  They have to make the Wii their FOCUS to succeed on it and that means putting in the effort I talked about before.

"Now we want our Wii game sales to carry our company, but we will not change our Wii support in any way."  Um... HUH?

[KDR_11k]

Then again the development costs are less than half on the Wii so you could afford making special games for it either way.

[Stratos]

They can certainly afford to make a DS version even if many of those don't sell well.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Something of relavance

The 3rd Party Wall of Shame
>> http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=30478.0

[Rize]

Wii game's aren't going to sell to core gamers because we can get better games with better graphics on the 360 and PS3.  For a Wii game intended for core gamers to sell really well to multi-console owning "core" gamers, it can't be merely "great for a Wii game".  It has to compete with the 360 and PS3 and that includes graphics so you developers and publishers better start looking for some Metroid Prime caliber artists.

For me the graphic aren't as important.  But the "better games" part of it is what turns me off of Wii third party games.  Nothing seems like a really serious effort.  It all seems like someone told the B-team to "make something for the Wii audience".  On the other consoles you get games where you can tell the developer has their top guys working on it and the whole thing is a labour of love.  You can tell that the goal is to make one of the greatest games ever.  Serious effort is made on the gameplay, controls, level design, graphics, art style, music, story and just overall presentation.  The Wii it's just like "pound out whatever".  Core gamers aren't interested in half-assed attempts.  We want those GOTY types of games and when a third party only makes those games on the other consoles you just develop this "eh, **** 'em" indifference to them.
 
Super Mario Galaxy, SSB Brawl and Metroid Prime 3 seem like FULL efforts.  They have that "go for broke and make the best game EVER" ambitious design, regardless of whether you think they actually acheived that.  Not every game has to be like that.  I think Nintendo very noticably cuts corners these days and even an amazing game like NSMB Wii doesn't come across as very ambitious.  But at least Nintendo has made that sort of game on the Wii.  When a third party have never even made an attempt to do such a thing how can their support be taken seriously?  It comes across like the Wii is not a priority for them so core gamers might as well stick to the other consoles and just use their Wii as their Nintendo machine.
 
The effort I think is the key thing and you can put in that kind of effort on the Wii even without HD graphics.  The best games always made exceptional use of the hardware they were "stuck" with.  There was always something better be it arcades, PCs or some high-powered but obscure console.  Square could have made Final Fantasy VI on the 3DO and thus have FMV and CD-quality music and a lot of the bells of whistles they later had in FFVII.  But instead they used the "inferior" SNES with it's chip sound, cartridge format, and slow CPU but still busted out an amazing game that pushes the console to its limits.  Despite the limitations they went for broke and knocked the ball out of the park.  Nobody does that on the Wii, except Nintendo (sometimes), and then they wonder why after 20 years of being conditioned to favour these types of games we don't buy Wii games and instead focus on the 2nd and 3rd place consoles that contain those types of games.

Exactly,  I'm a little late with this reply, but that's what I mean.  If a Wii game is *really* good, it's going to have good graphics and art direction in addition to good gameplay.  Poor graphics in a Wii game are a symptom of the larger problem that the publishers or developers don't really care.  By pitching the Wii to a huge non-core audience and neutering its hadware, Nintendo all but guaranteed that most games made for it would be junk.  Nintendo is interested in expanding its audience to include core gamers, by why would 3rd parties be interested in doing charity work for Nintendo when they can just milk the non-core base with little effort.

[KDR_11k]

Because they fail at that milking?

[Stogi]

I think third-parties are stuck between a rock and a hard place this generation.  If they make a top-tier, AAA, "expensive" Wii game, it would be unique on the platform but might not sell regardless of their effort, since the buying habits of the Wii audience is a little hard to predict.  If they make a top-tier, AAA, "expensive" 360/PS3 game, it will not be unique on those platforms, but it will *probably* sell because the buying habits of those audiences are more predictable.

I think third-parties are reticent to dive into Wii development whole-hog because very few companies besides Nintendo have really put up huge numbers.  You have your Just Dance titles that do well, but those "casual" genres get saturated too.  And people looking for the more "hardcore" titles probably already have a 360 or PS3 anyways, and abandoned the Wii long ago.

In a landscape of gambles, the Wii ironically seems to be MORE of a gamble, since the platform has been pigeonholed as a family-oriented console by gamers and press alike.  I think perception has become reality on Wii, and its hard to reverse that sentiment once it's become entrenched.

<Side rant incoming...>

Nintendo also hasn't done anything to really cultivate audiences in the more "hardcore" genres either.  Why not have the Wii equivalent of Goldeneye 007?  Why is the new installment of Golden Sun going to DS instead of Wii?  It doesn't seem like Nintendo themselves even have any faith in those genres on their own console, or even care about growing those genres on Wii.  It's not the job of third-parties to test out the waters for a genre on a console; that should be done by the console-maker, since they have the money to incur the most risk.  Nintendo would help out a lot by at least having some flagship franchises that don't involve Link, Mario, Samus, or Miis. 

Why Nintendo doesn't have a Dragon Quest-type RPG franchise, I'll never know.  They could do it as well or better than anybody else.  Somebody will say, "Oh, but JRPGs are a dying genre, Nintendo doesn't want to make a money sink, red ocean blah blah blah" but come on.  The 3D platformer could be considered a dying genre, yet Nintendo still creates amazing Mario games that set the industry on fire.  The reason why the 360 is huge for first-person shooters is because Microsoft made it a priority to cultivate the Halo franchise.  They created an audience for first-person shooters on their console out of thin air, and third-parties have been feeding off of it ever since.  Until Nintendo steps outside the boundaries of their general-interest fare, then the third-party output for the console will cater mostly to the audience that those general-interest games create.  Granted, that's a big audience, but not the total audience.

<Side rant finished>

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *coughs* AHAHAHAHAHHAHA


The only way I ever see the 3rd party situation becoming better is if there is more competition. And I don't mean competition within the big companies, I mean those little ones that are developing for WiiWare. Next generation, Nintendo needs to expand on that idea and make it even easier for unknown developers to publish games (at larger sizes as well). That is only way your going to put enough pressure on them to actually concede some real effort.