NWR Interactive => TalkBack => Topic started by: Crimm on November 01, 2009, 03:56:43 PM
Title: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Crimm on November 01, 2009, 03:56:43 PM
This is the talkback thread for NWR Round-Table 3 (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/specialArt.cfm?artid=20225). Feel free to provide feedback, and your thoughts.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Neal on November 02, 2009, 01:26:27 AM
Love the inserted pictures.
So, anyone want to place bets on who the next Spyborgs Line offender will be?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: King of Twitch on November 02, 2009, 02:03:59 AM
I went through most of it thinking about saying something that James finally says:
"I don't think MadWorld is a fair example. It simply wasn't a top-quality game...The challenge is to make the quality and "innovation" public knowledge, especially among traditional gamers. "
Plus, it was pretty violent. Disaster "wasn't good" and RE and WWII have been done to death. Doesn't sound like third parties are even trying. And you can't blame the success of Wii __ on it.
And... "since many people can't afford to always buy $60 dollar games on release day" for 360/PS3 why do they put so much effort into them anyways?
WHAT'S THE POINT OF MAKING SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Enner on November 02, 2009, 02:40:29 AM
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WHAT'S THE POINT OF MAKING SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR
Well, not all people. I'm guessing there are enough people to purchase whatever big-ticket or niche-ticket game there is on the 360 and PS3. Cases in point are Capcom's Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4 and Atlus's Demon's Souls.
As for Spyborgs, it's a disheartening to see it sell so poorly. However, the gameplay videos I've seen makes it look like an antiquated beat'em up that doesn't have nostalgia or a license to help it.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 02, 2009, 02:52:26 AM
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Zach Miller It really disappoints me that Dead Space Extraction isn't doing better. Like I said in my review, it's top-shelf horror with great gameplay to back it up. And EA has been doing a valiant job of advertising it in print and on websites. I think that just means that MOST people with a Wii just don't care about "mature" titles. Meanwhile, Wii Fit is the 3rd-best-selling game of the decade.
I disagree here. Most people with a Wii didn't want yet another on-rails-shooter game, especially with a game that was from another genre that is more sorely needed and strongly desired on Wii. If this were a 3rd person action type game it would have sold a lot better I believe.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: that Baby guy on November 02, 2009, 03:07:53 AM
"What's a Spyborg?"
"Oh, about a buck fifty."
Get it?
Edit: I think SpyBorgs didn't sell because there's nothing interesting about it. EVERY consumer would look at it and say "Who cares?" 500 copies is the range where the developers' parents, friends, siblings, and teachers bought a copy of the game, really. No kidding.
As far as Resident Evil selling well? It's new content. There was reason to buy it. It takes an established, big-name franchise, and then gave in backstory and new content. Yes, some of what was shown is the same "story" as what was in a few RE games, but all in all, it's a new experience, created independently, offered as a new game. I reiterate, there's new content, story and gameplay-wise. If I own console X or Y, it doesn't matter, because there wasn't any delay for this, either.
You look at Dead Space Extraction, or whatever it's called, it's one of several things: It's late to the game. Why not get one of the other Dead Space titles on another console? After all, they came out first, and as far as I'm aware, the Wii is essentially the same game, except on rails. Am I wrong? To be honest, I'm not certain if it is or isn't. Who's responsibility was it to tell me otherwise, though? Exactly, that's a marketing problem. To be honest, all I know about the game is that it's a thriller-type game in an on-rails setting. I read early on it was a remake, but I don't even know. Had I bought the original dead space, there'd be no reason to pick this up. It's new content, but the story isn't new, and there's nothing worth visiting if you've already played the first. If you haven't played either, why not get the first? It's the original, and this game is just a method to reach the story out to more people. EA got themselves in a lose-lose scenario here with dedicated console gamers. There wasn't really a "win" scenario here.
MadWorld is a niche title. Didn't it's sales meet or grow near expectations anyways?
What about No More Heroes? There's a sequel underway on that. The new RE game? Developers making mature titles still aren't taking the platform seriously, as a first-tier system. Why not? Because they never did. It's a self-perpetuating system. The developers that did treat it well are coming back, like Capcom and Grasshopper. The ones that never have are still seeing failure. Seriously, that's all it is. No one ever expected anyone to care about Spyborgs, and Capcom knew it was a lost cause. Who knows why they didn't just scrap it, but honestly, it was probably very cheap and very easy to produce, so they just decided to keep going when they realized it would bomb. It's seriously a game that wouldn't sell on any system.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Dasmos on November 02, 2009, 03:13:36 AM
Why wasn't Disaster good? I've probably had more fun with it that most of the Wii games I own.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: KDR_11k on November 02, 2009, 03:45:31 AM
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Lukasz Balicki Why should they focus just on the gaming-centric sites? If they put some TV ads on popular TV stations they will get more awareness.
This. A thousand times this. The people who read gaming websites are a microscopic fraction of the entire game market, even without the Wii's audience expansion figured in (remember how we used to call those who play Madden and Halo casual?). Word of mouth via forums is even more niche, only a tiny fraction of those who read gaming sites actually go to the forums. The proper path for word of mouth is in real life but with niche games you aren't going to find many people with interest in it close enough together for word of mouth propagation. Apparently Nintendo's big hits work in part on word of mouth which is why their sales speed up some time after release.
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If I own a Wii and a 360/PS3 and can buy Dead Space, why on earth would I even bother with Dead Space Extraction (unless I'm a raging Dead Space fanboy who must have every game in the franchise)? If I can buy CoD4: Modern Warfare, why would I even bother with The Conduit? I could go on and on. Nobody is going to buy a mature title on Wii if they can get a better-looking version - with the addition of kick-ass online play, in most cases - of a similar game on 360/PS3. It's just not gonna happen.
Are you certain that the graphics are the only difference between Dead Space and Dead Space Extraction or The Conduit and CoD4? I distinctly remember Dead Space being an entirely different genre from DSE and The Conduit being a fairly shitty game while CoD4 was crowned GOTY by many publications. That sounds like a much bigger difference than just the graphical fidelity.
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Neal Ronaghan Mainline Final Fantasy games will eternally be on the most graphically powerful consoles as long as Square Enix has their way.
"Eternally" apparently meaning "when it fits the argument" because I've never seen any believable claim that the PS2 is more powerful than either of its competitors. Last gen the argument went that Square Enix will eternally only support the market leader.
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It's also hard to put new games in existing franchises on Wii without making it look like a step backward for the franchise. Part of RE4's appeal was its amazing graphics. On the Wii, RE5 would have looked almost exactly like RE4. What's the point in that? Fans of the franchise want to up the ante from a visual standpoint, so RE5 went to 360/PS3 and was a massive hit. Much more of a hit than it would have been on Wii, I'm sure.
I'll have to call citation needed on that because I got the impression that the graphics were just icing on the vastly improved gameplay compared to previous Resident Evil games. Just making the assumption that people demand better graphics doesn't make it so, without proper data we cannot say if RE5 wouldn't have sold just as much with less advanced graphics (and better aiming controls).
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In general, I'd say video game developers (ESPECIALLY the top-tier developers like Konami, Bioware, Capcom, etc.) want to make their games using the newest technology, not technology from 2001. The result? Outside of Nintendo's own development teams, the best of the best developers in the industry are NOT developing on Wii, because they want to make the best game they can make on the best hardware out there. Developers aren't robots or outsourced labor; they want to be challenged, and in the console realm the Wii's hardware is old news, freaky-deeky control scheme or not.
Anyone giving a **** about what developers want is also a new argument just for this generation. I distinctly remember developers wanting to get the **** away from the PS2 (because it was EXTREMELY clunky and had tons of hidden pitfalls) but PS2 game development kept happening while XBox and Gamecube development stagnated. Developers are salaried employees whose job it is to develop the product management deems necessary, they don't get a say in the platform choice unless they're massive celebrities who have a reputation of knowing how to make a profitable game (and even then they tend to get ignored on that aspect). I'm pretty damn certain management would rather not see their employees challenged because that means more man-hours necessary to deliver the product (and possibly a need for more skilled labour, i.e. higher salaries).
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But again, Nintendo does what's best for Nintendo, and Nintendo was tired of sinking more and more money into game development. All of the "we can't do anything more with graphics, it's all about gameplay now" is smoke'n'mirrors and PR to a large degree. Nintendo just wanted higher return on investment, so they fixed one of the variables in the development cost equation.
I really suggest you read up on the Blue Ocean Strategy and Disruptive Innovation, the lower graphics investment was a necessary part of the Wii's success and they would have failed had they spent much more on that (overspending on graphics beyond what the customer cares about was the weakness Nintendo exploited to beat the incumbents). If you want to conjecture on Nintendo's intentions at LEAST read up on what their plan is.
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Consumers are a finicky bunch. Just when you have them figured out, them don't buy your game. Just when you think no one will pay attention to it, they buy it in the droves. Again, it can be hard to determine what your consumer wants, especially in this rough financial climate. Hell, even when your fans say they will support you, they just plain don't. And not even a winning game can capture the people's attention. The only guaranteed way that a game WILL sell is if its based on a beloved franchise (like Mario, the Wii series, Halo, etc.), something that consumers are familiar with.
Of course it's hard, that's why there are entire professions dedicated purely to figuring it out. When you pay someone to research that and all he can show for it is sales numbers for already released games (that you could have read up yourself in five minutes) do you think you've got your money's worth? Do you think Wii Fit was just a random fluke? Of course not, they aren't stupid! They observed what the customer wants (which, as is hammered into you in any course on analyzing customer demands, is rarely what they say they want) and made that. If you take the word of your fans for anything you're plain stupid and will go out of business, fans are a very selective sample of your customerbase and thus not statistically useful.
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But Nintendo does bear the brunt of the blame in creating a console that doesn't...let's say..."serve the interests" of most third-party developers.
What interests? Making a quick buck with bullshit? Resident Evil and Call of Duty aren't the only core market franchises that have a legacy to call upon, I'm pretty damn sure if they made for the Wii what sold on the PS2 they'd have success, just noone really tries that (mot PS2 ports are of games that DIDN'T sell on the PS2) and that's just the laziest possible approach.
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Right now the Wii's 50 million+ userbase is, for many companies, one in which about 49,750,000 people will never even think about touching their game, because all they care about is Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and whatever derivatives Nintendo can spin off of them.
Nintendo isn't gifted by god or privileged by the government, what Nintendo does is what anybody could do if he had the smarts to do it. Instead of taking Nintendo's domination for granted we should ask how third parties let that happen. Nintendo isn't the only company that can make Wii Fit but they are the first one who did it anyway. Why didn't third parties figure that out before Nintendo and earn all that money instead? Because they're lazy fucks, that's why! They want every idea handed to them on a silver platter and their marketing department to sit idle while forwarding NPD numbers to the CEO with a note "let's clone that" attached. They could have made Wii Fit but they had to wait for Nintendo to come around and show them how it's done (and leaving only table scraps for them).
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 02, 2009, 03:52:19 AM
It's also hard to put new games in existing franchises on Wii without making it look like a step backward for the franchise. Part of RE4's appeal was its amazing graphics. On the Wii, RE5 would have looked almost exactly like RE4. What's the point in that? Fans of the franchise want to up the ante from a visual standpoint, so RE5 went to 360/PS3 and was a massive hit. Much more of a hit than it would have been on Wii, I'm sure.
I'll have to call citation needed on that because I got the impression that the graphics were just icing on the vastly improved gameplay compared to previous Resident Evil games. Just making the assumption that people demand better graphics doesn't make it so, without proper data we cannot say if RE5 wouldn't have sold just as much with less advanced graphics (and better aiming controls).
On top of this, didn't people complain about RE5 being way too much like RE4 except with a co-op option? That is a content and gameplay issue not a graphical matter.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: that Baby guy on November 02, 2009, 07:18:00 AM
KDR just completely dominated this topic. A billion valid points, and yes, many third parties had the financial fidelity to create Wii Fit and the balance board, they just didn't. They did with Guitar Hero, for example, though, and it's worked. They just didn't think of the rest.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: AV on November 02, 2009, 10:29:16 AM
this should be a podcast . i do't want to read.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BeautifulShy on November 02, 2009, 10:40:05 AM
Do we need any more podcasts. I don't think so. Besides it isn't going to kill you to read something.
As far as this topic why are we continuing to post about this KDR knocked this out of the park.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Neal on November 02, 2009, 11:21:32 AM
I think Dead Space: Extraction was marketed as a new entry in the Dead Space series. It might have been marketed superbly, but that is what it was marketed as. Anyone who didn't know that obviously didn't give a crap about the game to begin with.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BeautifulShy on November 02, 2009, 11:25:53 AM
How can you assume that of someone?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 02, 2009, 11:31:38 AM
I think Dead Space: Extraction was marketed as a new entry in the Dead Space series. It might have been marketed superbly, but that is what it was marketed as. Anyone who didn't know that obviously didn't give a crap about the game to begin with.
When was Dead Space marketed? I have never seen a mention, ad or anything for this game outside of the internet. Who is supposed to give a crap about a game they don't even know exist? I'm still not even sure when the game came out and I was kinda keeping an eye on it.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Smash_Brother on November 02, 2009, 11:43:07 AM
No amount of playing "Wii Make Excuses" is going to change a simple fact...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsQBn3g4K4k
This game looks like it might be a lot of fun, comparable to other games in the genre, nice graphics, high production values. On a console with 50,000,000 sold, this game should've sold 50,000 copies by ACCIDENT. I'm serious: 50,000 people (.001% of the Wii userbase) should've picked this game up because they thought it was a different game or maybe just because they thought it would shut their kids up.
No amount of excuses are going to change the fact that something is inherently screwed up here. Here was a title which should've been a slam-dunk kids game and it hasn't sold because...it wasn't marketed? Dead Space WAS marketed and marketed like crazy (I've seen ads for it all over the net), and yet it STILL didn't sell well. What the hell is going on here?
What developer wouldn't look at the situation and shy away from developing for the Wii? Basically, you either release an established franchise that gamers are familiar with or you can expect squat for sales, EVEN with marketing. Or maybe, JUST maybe, you'll manage to catch the interest of the Wii core fanbase and your game will do semi-decently (like Muramasa did) but you still shouldn't expect sales like you could probably expect on other platforms.
Who can blame 3rd parties for not wanting to develop for it when you have such an uphill battle just to get your game NOTICED so you can break even on development costs?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Neal on November 02, 2009, 11:50:12 AM
I think Dead Space: Extraction was marketed as a new entry in the Dead Space series. It might have been marketed superbly, but that is what it was marketed as. Anyone who didn't know that obviously didn't give a crap about the game to begin with.
When was Dead Space marketed? I have never seen a mention, ad or anything for this game outside of the internet. Who is supposed to give a crap about a game they don't even know exist? I'm still not even sure when the game came out and I was kinda keeping an eye on it.
Did EA give full support of the game? Not really, no. That's not what I'm arguing.
Still, every piece of internet marketing/PR/preview coverage talked about how it was an original take and a prequel.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Crimm on November 02, 2009, 12:08:55 PM
I'm going to say this now: 500 copies is the worst thing I've ever seen, but its hardly surprising. There are tons of Wii games on store shelves that don't stand out. Spyborg's, for better or worse, is among that group. It's boxart is fairly generic, and blends right in.
Considering I didn't even realize it was out, and I'm a member of the NINTENDO SPECIFIC MEDIA, this is not good.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 02, 2009, 12:15:09 PM
That's what I was saying. No one even knows what these games are or when they come out because they haven't marketed them anywhere outside of the gaming sites on the internet. Not to mention that Spyborgs look like something that should have been all over the DisneyXD/TeenNick channels but there probably wasn't a single commercial.
These publisher have no one to blame but themselves for such horrible sales. You gotta spend money to make money, and they are doing all they can to spend as little on Wii as possible.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BeautifulShy on November 02, 2009, 12:20:09 PM
I want to ask everybody this. Did any staff and members buy Spyborgs and Dead Space Extraction?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_pap64 on November 02, 2009, 12:43:49 PM
I have to agree with people when they say that Spyborgs was marketed towards a niche market. All the ads and promotion I've seen has been geared towards the online gaming community, which is only a small fraction of the entire gaming community.
Yes, I may be playing "Wii Make Excuses", but let's look at the numbers and facts. Muramasa is an equally niche game featuring a very Japanese concept, surreal graphics and gameplay that people might or might not enjoy. On top on that, it was published by a small company, and made by an obscure developer. Meanwhile, Spyborgs was published by CAPCOM, and made by well known developers. The concept was far more familiar than Muramasa's. Yet, Muramasa sold far better than Spyborgs. Why is that?
I may be mistaken, but Ignition did a lot to get the game noticed. They convinced Nintendo to hold a special Muramasa event at their store. They worked with many publications to create exclusive artwork. They went beyond the online community, even if little to no ads were shown on TV.
The marketing of Spyborgs, however, focused mainly on the online community. Yeah, there was an ad on the Nintendo Channel, and it was demoed at E3. But it looks as if Capcom depended on the online community to see if word of mouth would work best in a nearly non-existent marketing campaign. And I hate to say this, but in this economy you can't trust on word on mouth UNLESS you have an amazing product.
That's another thing. Muramasa received great reviews, while Spyborgs only received mediocre reviews. If you are dependent on reviewers and the gaming community to give support to your game you BETTER give them something special.
Smash_Brother: Here's the thing about Dead Space on Wii. The original Dead Space on the 360 and PS3 didn't sell as well as they had hoped, and the game DID receive a big marketing push, including graphic novels, demos, and even an animated movie released on DVD and shown on Sci-Fi.
It seems to me that Dead Space isn't a successful franchise for EA since it didn't do well on all the consoles. And there should have been a degree of success for both titles. The original Dead Space was on the high end consoles KNOWN for catering to HD fans, older fans, and shooting fans. That didn't help. Now, Dead Space Extraction was on Wii, and didn't sell either!
And I'm sorry, but "ads on the net" barely count as full marketing campaign. Sure, it's part of it, but isn't a MAJOR push. Online ads are as effective as the weight loss solutions they offer: a lot of flash, little substance. An online ad barely tells me what the game is all about, and I am likely to ignore them. At the very least, a TV ads shows me gameplay, a clear premise, and if its presented well, it might convince me to look into it.
Maxi: Both games are on my "to buy" list. But since I am unemployed my budget for gaming at the moment is non-existent.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: that Baby guy on November 02, 2009, 12:43:58 PM
I've seen about 50 Dead Space Wii commercials on Hulu.
I never knew if it was a different story than the original. It must not have sunk in.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BeautifulShy on November 02, 2009, 12:52:41 PM
Fair enough Pap.
As far as Muramasa and Spyborgs sales comparisons go maybe it has to do with the genre. Spyborgs is a co-op beat em' up and Muramasa is an action game. Maybe it has to do with popularity of genre.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Smash_Brother on November 02, 2009, 12:56:32 PM
I think I need to see some games released on other consoles that sold just as poorly as Spyborgs did with the same level of advertising and visibility before I'll believe that this isn't a problem unique to the Wii.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_pap64 on November 02, 2009, 01:09:56 PM
I think I need to see some games released on other consoles that sold just as poorly as Spyborgs did with the same level of advertising and visibility before I'll believe that this isn't a problem unique to the Wii.
Trust me, there are flops on the 360 and PS3. For example, Bionic Commando Re-Armed flopped hard, even though the game receive a lot of support from Capcom. The game was heavily advertised, the original game was re-made and released on the 360 and PS3, and it still sold like crap cakes.
Little Big Planet is another example. The game was HEAVILY marketed as a truly special game on the PS3. It gained a lot of support before release, it was highly praised, and the game was everywhere. And yet, it under-performed. Sure, it eventually made some money, and it was successful enough that Sony kept supporting it after released. But at the time, the game sold less than expected, even if it was a heavily hyped FIRST PARTY title on the PS3.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Killer_Man_Jaro on November 02, 2009, 01:13:27 PM
"But Nintendo does bear the brunt of the blame in creating a console that doesn't...let's say..."serve the interests" of most third-party developers."
I cannot fathom how you could have come to that conclusion. The Wii has the cheapest development costs (as well as being easiest to develop for, I might add), so the developer is more likely to make a net gain on a Nintendo system than any of the competition.
The obvious answer to low sales numbers is the lack of marketing - always has been. This isn't just singling out mature games, it applies to any software whatsoever. When all the information about any given game is fed directly into the internet publications, only forum users know, which as KDR said is such a minute proportion of the potential audience for the game. All the evidence you need is right there... the million sellers had TV adverts slotted in during prime viewing time; the examples given in the feature had no exposure outside of web outlets. It's nothing to do with Nintendo making it difficult. They just seem to be one of the few companies out there smart enough to know how to create awareness. There's nothing stopping publishers from promoting their titles through television, but they don't. It's their own fault. Simple as.
Yes, I'm aware I am treading similar ground to what's already been mentioned. I just found some of the comments in this particular Round-Table odd, to say the least.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: that Baby guy on November 02, 2009, 01:17:01 PM
Not to mention, best as I can tell, VGCharts doesn't cover sales of games when they're under 10,000 copies.
Overall, I think Spyborgs sold no copies because there's literally nothing interesting about it. If you want something like this game, virtually any other game in the genre on any platform allowed for more characters, and had more compelling aesthetics among other things. Take a look at it and ask if you'd ever even play the game, if it were added to your gaming catalog, at no charge. For me, honestly, the answer is no, I'd never even touch it.
Capcom could take this in the piracy direction, though. That would be hilarious.
"Oh yeah, we hopped online and saw about 70,000 people pirating our game. It's just too easy to pirate on the Wii, we're done with the machine now."
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Crimm on November 02, 2009, 01:19:30 PM
The retail failure of Spyborgs is not the result of a single factor, the fail level is just too high.
Note: Muramasa came out in the first week on September, Spyborgs came out near the last. It remains to be seen what happened since those numbers were compiled
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Halbred on November 02, 2009, 01:28:44 PM
I went out and bought SpyBorgs as soon as I heard the price had dropped. I'm now reviewing it, and from a reviewing perspective...it ain't all that great.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_pap64 on November 02, 2009, 01:32:58 PM
The retail failure of Spyborgs is not the result of a single factor, the fail level is just too high.
This I agree with.
I think people are trying to pin point someone to blame for a game's failure. You really can't blame the consumer since they have their own issues for buying or not buying something. It can be hard to blame YOURSELF, since you don't really want to admit that you made a mistake. So in a way, its easier to blame the console's company for their failure.
I also agree that Nintendo shouldn't be blamed for a game's performance. Sure, they may have the best selling console worldwide, but just because that's a fact it doesn't guarantee the game will sell. It's almost as if developers are banking on world of mouth and blind buyers to make the game a hit, when the reality is that doing this is just as effective as launching a dart while blindfolded; you either hit your target or miss completely.
If this was the case, then the 360 and PS3 should be blamed when random shooters fail to make a dent in sales, because they are supposed to be the consoles for high end gaming and shooting games.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 02, 2009, 01:55:56 PM
This game looks like it might be a lot of fun, comparable to other games in the genre, nice graphics, high production values. On a console with 50,000,000 sold, this game should've sold 50,000 copies by ACCIDENT. I'm serious: 50,000 people (.001% of the Wii userbase) should've picked this game up because they thought it was a different game or maybe just because they thought it would shut their kids up.
If you are a 'clueless-casual-parent' what are you going to buy for your Wii owning child?
A generic beat-em-up? Or something with Mario, Hannah Montana, Mickey Mouse or some other prominent character attached to it. As others have said, the Wii is flooded with tons of games and when a parent has to choose a gift for their child, they will go with something familiar. Plus, if the said generic beat-em-up is not catching their child's attention on television like every other toy/product marketed to children, how will said child know to whine to their 'clueless-casual-parent' for the game?
What do my parents get for my 11-year-old sister when they don't get a chance to ask me first? Mario games. Why? Because half of the non-Mario/Nintendo made games cause her to lose interest after a short while. Mario & Sonic? She still goes back and plays it. Same with Pokemon, Wii Sports, Zelda, Mario Galaxy and Animal Crossing. What non-Nintendo made games have this same effect? Boom Blox and Jungle Speed are pretty much it, though I might be missing one. When parents get burned with crappy shovelware, they withdraw to what they know is safe.
Besides, Spyborgs is a game with an identity complex. Remember it was supposed to be geared towards Adult Swim fans before it had an about-face.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_pap64 on November 02, 2009, 01:59:57 PM
No, the game was supposed to have a Saturday Morning Cartoon vibe to it. But then fans whined about it, and Capcom went back to change its image.
I honestly believe that had the game retained its more universal, silly image it would have done better business than the sci-fi anime version.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Smash_Brother on November 02, 2009, 02:00:56 PM
I'm talking about games with little to no publisher support. How hard to those bomb? 500 copies bomb or what?
And on the subject, how do we explain the sales of the "Carnival Games" series if clueless parents are supposedly prone to only go with what they know is good?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_pap64 on November 02, 2009, 02:11:32 PM
I'm talking about games with little to no publisher support. How hard to those bomb? 500 copies bomb or what?
And on the subject, how do we explain the sales of the "Carnival Games" series if clueless parents are supposedly prone to only go with what they know is good?
Universal appeal also plays a lot in the purchase decision.
People know carnivals, and they know carnival games. They see the cover and rapidly see the potential, and if its budget priced they will pick it up right away.
And even then, it doesn't always equal success. For example, I have yet to hear sales date from Majesco's Go Play series, which follow the same concepts found in the Wii games, and in other games like Carnival Games. There are many games like Carnival Games and very few is said about THEIR sales, so there's a good chance that Carnival Games got lucky.
See, this is why predicting game sales is hard, because just when you thought something is a guaranteed success it flops, and what you think its a failure ends up becoming a surprise hit.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 02, 2009, 02:19:27 PM
And on the subject, how do we explain the sales of the "Carnival Games" series if clueless parents are supposedly prone to only go with what they know is good?
That game has an actual positive buzz floating by word-of-mouth. I've talked with casual gamers and parents of children and this game gets mentioned a lot. People had fun with it. Plus I had multiple store clerks recommend it to me when I was shopping for my sister saying it was a popular title and people reported enjoying it. I asked one GameStop employee about how I hear the game had some broken mechanics and he replied with something to the effect of "most customers don't seem to notice any issues and are enjoying it, if someone likes the game, don't knock it if you haven't tried it".
Remember the title sold slowly and built up to a level that surprised everyone. This is how the 'slow-burn' works. A game has a quiet and fairly mediocre or middle-of-the-road release but as casuals get it, they talk to their friends about it just like the Wii and WiiSports spread among the casuals and it takes off from there. Moms share their thoughts on products for children. So if one Mom found her child likes Carnival Games she will tell her friends who might buy it for their kids.
I've seen it happen with Wii games, I've also watched DDR and Rock Band spread in similar ways. I actually started the DDR revolution with some friends and a lot of parents bought it for my friends after I brought it over for a party night. Before you know it I've traced the games word-of-mouth from me to my friends to my friends' friends until it came back around. My DDR playing spread to over two dozen families and at least half of them were not from me directly showing it to them but from my friends their parents spreading the word -and this was just the ones I found out about, imagine how many I possibly never heard of trying the game.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: King of Twitch on November 02, 2009, 03:09:56 PM
Why won't video game companies take a cue from Rainbow Studios and tell you what the game is about in the title? No one can mistake what Deadly Creatures is about! Or Final Fantasy: Crystal Bearers for that matter. You just know before you buy it that it's going to be a great, and probably very hot game starring Crystal. It makes things so much simpler.
Also mentioned in this thread: Carnival Games Dance Dance Revolution Rock Band
There's no doubt as to what these games are about.
"Spyborgs" too sounds a bit generic so can you blame people for not picking games that sound like pop-alternate-goth band names?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: UltimatePartyBear on November 02, 2009, 03:36:07 PM
Wait, wait, wait. Spyborgs is out?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 02, 2009, 03:39:12 PM
Apparently the new thing for companies to do is secretly release games and pretend they haven't come out yet.
Spyborgs, Dead Space Extraction and ExciteBots...SURPRISE! :moonface:
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Halbred on November 02, 2009, 03:42:50 PM
1) Spyborgs is out. 2) Spyborgs is $20. 3) I'd wait for my review to buy it. 4) One of the attacks just doesn't work.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BeautifulShy on November 02, 2009, 03:48:27 PM
I think we should bring back that Weekly release feature if people on here are so unaware that a game is out.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 02, 2009, 03:55:06 PM
If you bring back the weekly release feature, it should be done on a Monday with all the games that are releasing that week, not all the games that released last week.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BeautifulShy on November 02, 2009, 03:57:18 PM
If you bring back the weekly release feature, it should be done on a Monday with all the games that are releasing that week, not all the games that released last week.
Agreed. Nice signature.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Peachylala on November 02, 2009, 04:43:31 PM
I'm talking about games with little to no publisher support. How hard to those bomb? 500 copies bomb or what?
Yes, yes they do. There were games released on the PS2 last gen that sold less then a thousand copies as well. I remember reading a topic about it either back in 2004 or 2005. Somebody with NPD data access posted sales numbers for some of the lowest selling games and you had several PS2 games that sold in the hundreds. I don't remember the names to any of them because they were no name games I never heard of before, but then again, in a year from now Spyborgs is going to be a no name game nobodies ever heard of and forget about as well.
This is why once again, the criticism people do on the Wii is beyond stupid when the same damn things happened with the PS2 last gen. Spyborgs was a no name game that nobody knew anything about that bombed, just like many no name PS2 games did last gen. It's failure is comparable to quite a few PS2 games that put up numbers just as bad.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_pap64 on November 02, 2009, 05:07:46 PM
Luigi Dude is right. Games flop all the time across all systems. The reason people are making a big fuss over this is because the games in question are titles aimed at the core. If Spyborgs was a 360 or PS3 title and it bombed would there be so much discussion?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 02, 2009, 05:10:08 PM
Exec 1: We don't see this game selling very much since no one even knows that it exist.
Exec 2: That's why we are gonna make commercials and advertise it.
Exec 1: But we don't see the game selling very well, so we don't think we should spend money on advertising.
Exec 2: But if we don't advertise, no one will know about the game and then no on will buy it.
Exec 1: Exactly! .....We don't see it selling very well.
Exec 2: facepalm.jpg
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Mop it up on November 02, 2009, 05:33:55 PM
What I want to know is, who asked for Dead Space Extraction? Did anyone really want it? Or did they want the original game, or a sequel of the same type, instead of some watered-down spin-off?
I still don't even know what Spyborgs is, but for some reason the title reminds me of that one game with the spinning tops that do battle of which I can't recall the name.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Killer_Man_Jaro on November 02, 2009, 05:37:51 PM
Luigi Dude is right. Games flop all the time across all systems. The reason people are making a big fuss over this is because the games in question are titles aimed at the core. If Spyborgs was a 360 or PS3 title and it bombed would there be so much discussion?
Exactly. Precisely the point. Issues that are consistent across all consoles always get more vocal coverage when discussing the Nintendo platforms rather than others. Shovelware, for example. That exists quite extensively on Xbox 360 and PS3 as well, but you don't hear about it ever. Why? People ignore those portions of the software libraries because there's no point in speaking about them. In relation to the Wii, it is brought up regularly when there is no need. Same goes with this low sales talk.
We have to bear in mind, with the costs of game development being lower, devs can be profitable with significantly lower sales on Wii and DS. On face value, some of these common five-digit sales numbers may appear to be relatively unimpressive, but there's a good chance the dev made all the expended money back and then some. Whereas on the HD systems, the same amount of sales would usually indicate a monetary loss. What I'm saying is that sometimes, these 'low' sales figures might not be as bad as it initially seems because the makers still frequently do well financially from it.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Neal on November 02, 2009, 05:46:31 PM
If you bring back the weekly release feature, it should be done on a Monday with all the games that are releasing that week, not all the games that released last week.
As the creator of the weekly release article and a proponent of it, it's pretty damn near impossible to do it on a consistent basis and make it look as nice and pretty as it was. I'd love to see it come back, but especially during the fall, it's too much of a chore to work on when there's a bajillion games coming out.
I had a reason for doing the release article how I did it. Last fall, I would listen to podcasts going over game releases and look at other site's articles about game releases, and I remember that Tecmo Bowl Kickoff was talked about for three weeks in a row. These people went over releases before a game was officially out. So, to make sure that our weekly release article was accurate, I planned to have it release mid-week.
On that note, if someone has any game-winning ideas of how to do a weekly release article where it isn't such a drain on the staff, PM me. Hell, if you guys want to help out in any way, shape, or form, I'd be all for that.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 02, 2009, 05:56:02 PM
What I want to know is, who asked for Dead Space Extraction? Did anyone really want it? Or did they want the original game, or a sequel of the same type, instead of some watered-down spin-off?
Remember the huge debacle in the Dead Space thread about this game? No one appeared to be terribly happy with it being 'yet another on rails shooter' when we were hopping for much more.
On that note, if someone has any game-winning ideas of how to do a weekly release article where it isn't such a drain on the staff, PM me. Hell, if you guys want to help out in any way, shape, or form, I'd be all for that.
We could start a thread that is updated with new releases every week, similar to TJ Spyke's VC/WW release thread.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Mop it up on November 02, 2009, 05:58:11 PM
On that note, if someone has any game-winning ideas of how to do a weekly release article where it isn't such a drain on the staff, PM me. Hell, if you guys want to help out in any way, shape, or form, I'd be all for that.
Couldn't this be mostly automated based on the site's release date list and art archives? All the relevant links and box art could be formatted by a script. You shouldn't have to do anything more than write up a blurb about each game, and even that could be pulled from the game info page if you wanted. It would require someone making sure the release dates and archives are correct, but that should already be a goal.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: that Baby guy on November 02, 2009, 07:16:53 PM
So Dead Space Extraction is actually a prequel? Can someone re-confirm this for EA for me?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Ian Sane on November 02, 2009, 07:58:32 PM
I felt that this was the best point made in the round table:
Quote
If I own a Wii and a 360/PS3 and can buy Dead Space, why on earth would I even bother with Dead Space Extraction (unless I'm a raging Dead Space fanboy who must have every game in the franchise)? If I can buy CoD4: Modern Warfare, why would I even bother with The Conduit? I could go on and on. Nobody is going to buy a mature title on Wii if they can get a better-looking version - with the addition of kick-ass online play, in most cases - of a similar game on 360/PS3. It's just not gonna happen.
Imagine there was just one console and every console game was available for it. How would Dead Space Extraction be received if this one universal console already had Dead Space? Extraction would come across as a recycled content scam. Well that's what it is and the target market for that is smart enough to realize it. I don't buy any of these Wii spin-offs, not because of reviews or popular opinion, but entirely because I know what they really are. I know they're just a half-assed attempt to get some product on Wii shelves that has a known brand name on it. They probably wouldn't even be made if there was one universal console.
So these low sales make sense. And they don't prove that the Wii userbase doesn't buy this or that. These are games that would be considered a laughable release if their was only one console so they deserve to sell poorly.
When someone releases a game that would be a huge runaway hit on the other consoles and has a marketing push and gets great reviews and it BOMBS on the Wii, okay, now we've got something to look at. But this? This is like pitting a high school football team against an NFL team, getting creamed, and then firing the highschool team's coach because he lost. It's not a fair comparison.
Spyborgs has an average review score of 65.12%. It's crap. Who cares if it only sold 500 copies?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Lindy on November 02, 2009, 09:40:50 PM
Are you certain that the graphics are the only difference between Dead Space and Dead Space Extraction or The Conduit and CoD4? I distinctly remember Dead Space being an entirely different genre from DSE and The Conduit being a fairly ****ty game while CoD4 was crowned GOTY by many publications. That sounds like a much bigger difference than just the graphical fidelity.
It's not just the graphics. It's the whole package. Many Wii games are simply gimped by comparison to their 360/PS3 brethren in every other area as well. Ironically, while you write off The Conduit as a "shitty game", it actually has one of the best online implementations on the console, as sad as that is. As for Dead Space, I suppose it would depend on what type of game somebody is looking for, but I'd wager that most people just look at the graphics for each and say, "I'll take the 360 version, thanks", without even knowing they're different types of games. CoD4 is likely in the same boat.
"Eternally" apparently meaning "when it fits the argument" because I've never seen any believable claim that the PS2 is more powerful than either of its competitors. Last gen the argument went that Square Enix will eternally only support the market leader.
PS2 vs. Xbox/GameCube is not the same as Wii vs. 360/PS3. The technological disparity in the former is minor, while the same disparity in the latter is major. It's simply not the same comparison.
I'll have to call citation needed on that because I got the impression that the graphics were just icing on the vastly improved gameplay compared to previous Resident Evil games. Just making the assumption that people demand better graphics doesn't make it so, without proper data we cannot say if RE5 wouldn't have sold just as much with less advanced graphics (and better aiming controls).
It certainly would have sold well on Wii (million-plus easily), but I think the ceiling there is lower than on 360/PS3. I don't think that gamers demanding better graphics is "an assumption", either, especially among the gamers looking for titles like RE5. Graphics generally matter to gamers, but they generally don't matter to non-gamers. That's why the Wii has done so well with effectively last-gen graphics, because of its large non-gamer audience that simply doesn't care.
Anyone giving a **** about what developers want is also a new argument just for this generation. I distinctly remember developers wanting to get the **** away from the PS2 (because it was EXTREMELY clunky and had tons of hidden pitfalls) but PS2 game development kept happening while XBox and Gamecube development stagnated. Developers are salaried employees whose job it is to develop the product management deems necessary, they don't get a say in the platform choice unless they're massive celebrities who have a reputation of knowing how to make a profitable game (and even then they tend to get ignored on that aspect). I'm pretty damn certain management would rather not see their employees challenged because that means more man-hours necessary to deliver the product (and possibly a need for more skilled labour, i.e. higher salaries).
Yes, developers are employees. But at higher levels they must also make the choice between making a WiiCube game with 2001 tech, or making a PS3/360 game with current tech. If what the TEAM wants to do is push graphical boundaries, they're going to choose 360/PS3 since that's their only choice.
Jun Takeuchi: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/24/joystiq-interview-jun-takeuchi-page-2/
'The Wii has taken such a large lead in sales, and Resident Evil 4 did so well on the Wii. It's also cheaper to develop games for the Wii. With that in mind, why is this a PS3 and Xbox 360 exclusive title? Was that a creative decision?
Yes. It certainly was a decision from myself and from the development team that we really wanted to push the next part of the series as far as it could be pushed. That included the graphical aspect of the game. So that was the reason that we went with the 360 and the PS3."
Wow, developers are creative, and care about the tools they use? And there's more to a platform choice than simply development costs? Who would have thunk it?
I really suggest you read up on the Blue Ocean Strategy and Disruptive Innovation, the lower graphics investment was a necessary part of the Wii's success and they would have failed had they spent much more on that (overspending on graphics beyond what the customer cares about was the weakness Nintendo exploited to beat the incumbents). If you want to conjecture on Nintendo's intentions at LEAST read up on what their plan is.
How would they have failed? They only would have made less money on hardware. They could have spent more on the graphical hardware and still made money, but they saw the opportunity to make even more money by keeping it 2001-style and took it. Very smart on their part; they saw exactly what they could get away with, and capitalized on it by combining it with some controller gimmickry.
What interests? Making a quick buck with bull****? Resident Evil and Call of Duty aren't the only core market franchises that have a legacy to call upon, I'm pretty damn sure if they made for the Wii what sold on the PS2 they'd have success, just noone really tries that (mot PS2 ports are of games that DIDN'T sell on the PS2) and that's just the laziest possible approach.
Why would they when they can make improved versions of those games on PS3/360. If you've already done a game in a franchise on the PS2, why would you want to make effectively the same game again? The public has already been there, done that...do you think that the same thing all over again would sell better (outside of Madden)? I don't.
They could have made Wii Fit but they had to wait for Nintendo to come around and show them how it's done (and leaving only table scraps for them).
Nintendo creates hardware to serve their own design needs first, everybody else second (this goes all the way back to the creation of N64 controller, which was basically made for Super Mario 64). If devs can do something with Nintendo hardware that's cool, but Nintendo isn't concerned if they can't. There's always that little, I dunno, I guess you could say "conflict of interest" there with Nintendo from way back. Nobody but Nintendo could absorb the risk of Wii Fit and its asinine peripheral, aside from maybe Activison. And they have their own cash-cow peripheral-based franchise.
Couldn't this be mostly automated based on the site's release date list and art archives? All the relevant links and box art could be formatted by a script. You shouldn't have to do anything more than write up a blurb about each game, and even that could be pulled from the game info page if you wanted. It would require someone making sure the release dates and archives are correct, but that should already be a goal.
This is coming. I can't tell you exactly when, but it is coming.
So these low sales make sense. And they don't prove that the Wii userbase doesn't buy this or that. These are games that would be considered a laughable release if their was only one console so they deserve to sell poorly.
But was MadWorld so terrible? Was The Conduit? Was Dead Space Extraction? Sure, those games aren't setting the world on fire, but they aren't Superman 64 either. It's like if a mature game comes out on Wii and doesn't sell, the game is automatically garbage because, well, good games sell right? And it's always the third-party developer's fault right? I don't buy that, at least not entirely.
To me, the only third-party games that will really do big numbers on Wii are the mega-franchises like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter. I think the bar is set incredibly high for third-parties to get good sales on Wii; no wonder third-parties give half-assed efforts, since people would probably only buy Mario Whatever and Wii Whatsit anyways. Nintendo is your biggest competitor, and since they designed the system to suit their needs, the deck is stacked in their favor.
No wonder developers like WiiWare so much; it's the only part of the Wii platform that isn't dominated by Nintendo's own titles.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_insanolord on November 02, 2009, 11:21:37 PM
One small gripe with Lindy's post: It's not a choice between 8-year old hardware and current hardware; it's a choice between 8-year old hardware and 4-year old hardware. If they really wanted to push the limit they'd be making PC games.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 02, 2009, 11:43:06 PM
Quote from: Lindy
Why would they when they can make improved versions of those games on PS3/360. If you've already done a game in a franchise on the PS2, why would you want to make effectively the same game again? The public has already been there, done that...do you think that the same thing all over again would sell better (outside of Madden)? I don't.
What is being done on the PS360 that can't be done on Wii besides Hi-res textures? What about the games being made on PS360 are impossible to accomplish on Wii except for Hi-rez textures? What is being done on PS360 this generation that wasn't being done on PS2/Xbox/GC last gen? Why does the Wii have to only get a spin-off version of the game instead of the exact same game without the Hi-rez textures? Why does Hi-rez textures all of a sudden make a game so much better? How is it not the exact same thing just because it has hi-rez textures now?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Lindy on November 03, 2009, 12:29:43 AM
What is being done on the PS360 that can't be done on Wii besides Hi-res textures?
If you want to follow that logic, you could do PS3/360 games on the N64, but they wouldn't have the same impact, would they? Gameplay is great, but gameplay and an amazing visual presentation is even better. Why compromise? That's my point...the Wii forces developers to compromise to a certain degree. Not all developers want to do that, especially the ones with the best graphics engine programmers in the world. If the creators of RE5, a franchise that has sold millions worldwide, says to you "We think our vision for this game is best realized on PS3/360", I think you'd tend to believe them.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 12:39:00 AM
Artistic vision aside, developers are treating the Wii like the games they are making for PS360 are not possible on a SD machine, yet bring games like GTA to the PSP. If they can do RE4 on GC and Halo on Xbox, then they can bring the same games over to the Wii and not some on-rails spin off that no one really wanted and call it a "test" just to get us to buy it anyway.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: that Baby guy on November 03, 2009, 01:07:44 AM
What is being done on the PS360 that can't be done on Wii besides Hi-res textures?
If you want to follow that logic, you could do PS3/360 games on the N64, but they wouldn't have the same impact, would they? Gameplay is great, but gameplay and an amazing visual presentation is even better. Why compromise? That's my point...the Wii forces developers to compromise to a certain degree. Not all developers want to do that, especially the ones with the best graphics engine programmers in the world. If the creators of RE5, a franchise that has sold millions worldwide, says to you "We think our vision for this game is best realized on PS3/360", I think you'd tend to believe them.
And the Xbox 360 and PS3 controllers don't make developers compromise? Sure, the Wii Remote isn't freedom from control issues, but there's a lot that can be done with it, a lot more than before, specifically in the FPS realm.
The upsetting thing here, Lindy, is exactly the point BNM was making a little above: If developers are having to compromise on the Wii, what exactly is being compromised? Why didn't they mind compromising with the PS2? If the Wii is so terribly under-powered, why are games like Halo, Ico, and all the hits from last generation even considered anything above "decent." When you look at it, in most cases, developers are doing nothing different than before, which is why I think having to "compromise" using the Wii is a poor reason to neglect it.
I also see the typical controller as a big barrier between people and "realistic" games, though. Maybe that's why I do appreciate a lot with the Wii.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Killer_Man_Jaro on November 03, 2009, 02:32:54 AM
Agreed 100 per cent, BnM2k1. Developers who claim they cannot produce their artistic vision (read: realistic visuals) on the Wii are rotten liars. After seeing Monster Hunter Tri, all complaints about "restrictive hardware" and "limited capabilities" are out the window. There's no way to shift the blame any more, no way. This is why I don't get arguments that Nintendo force developers to compromise. That clearly isn't true - it is a matter of laziness on the part of third parties, pure and simple. If a dev wanted to create these nice graphics, they could. When any company starts making excuses, from now on I can throw Monster Hunter 3 in their face. That's what the Wii is capable of, so don't spout rubbish and tell me it's not possible.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: KDR_11k on November 03, 2009, 04:07:26 AM
Quote
Ironically, while you write off The Conduit as a "shitty game", it actually has one of the best online implementations on the console, as sad as that is.
Really? I got better online play out of an 800 point WiiWare game (Water Warfare). Sure, it didn't have Wii Speak but it also didn't lag like **** as The Conduit does.
Quote
As for Dead Space, I suppose it would depend on what type of game somebody is looking for, but I'd wager that most people just look at the graphics for each and say, "I'll take the 360 version, thanks", without even knowing they're different types of games. CoD4 is likely in the same boat.
You're assuming an absolutely uninformed customer who only knows what's on the back of the box (if you take the front of the box into account DSE loses BIG and at that level of ignorance I'd expect the front of the box to have more impact) and has never heard an opinion from anybody else (such as the raving for CoD4) or of the actual content inside the games (you'd have to be really uninformed to not know DSE is a different genre from DS). Now without data we cannot make claims about how many people are THIS uninformed but word of mouth propagation is STRONG on the Wii (as evidenced by the concentrated sales, the more people buy and like it, the more people they recruit to buy it too) and I don't think many people would be looking at games they have never heard an opinion about. Think about it: Person A buys CoD4, loves it and recommends it to all his friends. Person B buys The Conduit and is underwhelmed by it, if he even talks about it it's probably about the disappointment. If you want a fair comparison try finding similarily crappy or niche games on the PS360. E.g. how much did Infernal: Hell's Vengeance or Legendary sell?
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PS2 vs. Xbox/GameCube is not the same as Wii vs. 360/PS3. The technological disparity in the former is minor, while the same disparity in the latter is major. It's simply not the same comparison.
And? They didn't care about the graphics hardware last gen and everybody said they'd always be loyal to the market leader. Now it's suddenly a "rule" that graphics matter more than marketshare.
Quote
It certainly would have sold well on Wii (million-plus easily), but I think the ceiling there is lower than on 360/PS3. I don't think that gamers demanding better graphics is "an assumption", either, especially among the gamers looking for titles like RE5. Graphics generally matter to gamers, but they generally don't matter to non-gamers. That's why the Wii has done so well with effectively last-gen graphics, because of its large non-gamer audience that simply doesn't care.
That's a ton of assumptions. What I mean with "demand" is that they'll say "I won't buy this because it lacks X". Of course graphics are nice to have, I'm not going to refuse to buy a game because it's pretty but would RE5 on the Wii make many people think "it's not pretty enough, I will not buy it"? Non-gamers are impressed by awesome graphics just as much as anybody else but they weren't gamers before because it wasn't the ugly graphics that turned them away, it was the game underneath. On average HD games cost 2.5 times as much to develop so the same return on investment would require selling 2.5 times as many copies as it would on the Wii. You say RE5 would sell less on the Wii but would it sell 60% less? Also how many people would decide to buy it because it has better controls on the Wii? If the number of sales lost to weaker graphics minus the number of sales gained through better controls is less than 60% of the sales of RE5 on the HD systems then making it a Wii exclusive would have made it more profitable.
Quote
Yes, developers are employees. But at higher levels they must also make the choice between making a WiiCube game with 2001 tech, or making a PS3/360 game with current tech. If what the TEAM wants to do is push graphical boundaries, they're going to choose 360/PS3 since that's their only choice.
The team is just a bunch of grunts assigned to one unit for easier management. It's still the "suits" that make the calls of where money gets invested and where not. If you give financial decisions to people with no business sense (like developers) you're going bankrupt. Last gen it was commonplace that developers complained about being forced to develop games for platforms they didn't want to work on and the "suits" messing with their "artistic vision" and suddenly everyone talks about how important it is that those grunts approve of a platform? Noone ever gave a **** about what the grunts want, they do what they're told to do or they're unemployed. It's the managers who decided to make HD games, if the grunts happen to agree that's just a coincidence.
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How would they have failed? They only would have made less money on hardware. They could have spent more on the graphical hardware and still made money, but they saw the opportunity to make even more money by keeping it 2001-style and took it. Very smart on their part; they saw exactly what they could get away with, and capitalized on it by combining it with some controller gimmickry.
They'd also incur an additional 150% cost increase on every game they develop and need a higher price on the hardware and a loss of GC backwards compatibility. Even if they had boosted the graphics a bit, they would still have been far behind the 360 (because the 360 was built to be sold at a loss even at its 400€ launch price, no way Nintendo could get close to that with the increased controller expenses and whatnot) and developers would still call it impossible to port and still throw PSP ports on it (the PSP is MUCH weaker than the Wii yet it is considered acceptable to port that way!). Additionally Nintendo would not have gained additional sales to make up for the reduced profit per sale (in part because the Wii sold at an unprecedented rate until Nintendo fucked up with the whole user generated content mess and whatnot that led to a massive software drought). The Wii's sales limiter is still not the hardware but the software.
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Why would they when they can make improved versions of those games on PS3/360. If you've already done a game in a franchise on the PS2, why would you want to make effectively the same game again? The public has already been there, done that...do you think that the same thing all over again would sell better (outside of Madden)? I don't.
Almost every franchise out there had multiple iterations last gen so that's clearly not stopping them. Think about it, 3 GTAs, 3 Prince of Persias, 2 God of Wars, 2 Halos, 2 Devil May Crys and many more that I can't even remember. Sequels differ from the previous game in way more than just the graphics.
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Nintendo creates hardware to serve their own design needs first, everybody else second (this goes all the way back to the creation of N64 controller, which was basically made for Super Mario 64). If devs can do something with Nintendo hardware that's cool, but Nintendo isn't concerned if they can't. There's always that little, I dunno, I guess you could say "conflict of interest" there with Nintendo from way back. Nobody but Nintendo could absorb the risk of Wii Fit and its asinine peripheral, aside from maybe Activison. And they have their own cash-cow peripheral-based franchise.
Didn't stop the DDR pads and all the other fitness peripherals. Also the "conflict of interest" and absorbing the risk is a non-sequitur, what exactly makes Nintendo more capable of absorbing that risk that's part of the Wii's design (instead of their company structure/strategy which any smart company could replicate)?
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To me, the only third-party games that will really do big numbers on Wii are the mega-franchises like Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter.
How does that compare to other systems? What about, say, Mirror's Edge?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 03, 2009, 08:23:25 AM
Assassin's Creed, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Little Big Planet, Uncharted...
I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 10:59:26 AM
Assassin's Creed, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Gears of War, Little Big Planet, Uncharted...
I'm not saying, I'm just saying.
What are you saying? That if I load these games up on my PS360 which happens to be hooked up to a 20" CRTV all of sudden it will be unplayable because I don't have rich crisp HD graphics!?
thats an excellent point :rolleyes:
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 03, 2009, 11:09:30 AM
I'm saying that there have been games which have succeeded on other platforms which are not tied to an established franchise.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_insanolord on November 03, 2009, 11:18:10 AM
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, I don't see the situation on the Wii getting much better without significant effort from Nintendo, not necessarily with moneyhats but some kind of strong involvement in the process. For that to happen, though, Nintendo has to want it to happen, and there's no good reason for them to want it to happen (from Nintendo's perspective).
I generally try to avoid agreeing with Ian, but a while back he made the point that it may not be a good thing that Nintendo was able to return to dominance completely on their own; as impressive as that feat was, they never had to change the way they dealt with third parties, which may prevent them from holding on to the top spot.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 11:32:12 AM
Why should Nintendo have to hold 3rd parties hands? They already gave them a platform that has reached 50+million homes and is the cheapest to develop for. Now Nintendo has to do some of the developing for the 3rd parties to? Are they also gonna publish it and market it for them too? Why would you need them at all if you are gonna go that far?
It's not Nintendo's fault that 3rd parties continueto hold a grudge for no apparent reason. Reggie has reached out, Iwata has reached out yet 3rd parties continue to show up to Nintendo's costume party in plain clothes and try to find excuses to leave early so they can put their elaborate and expensive costumes on to goto the PS2/Xbox PS360 party instead. How far must Nintendo "compromise" & "sympathize" with a bunch of 3rd parties that refuse to try because they would rather be somewhere else at the moment?
Nintendo has proved this generation, last generation and the generation before that they will do it with or without them, so why beg for their support now?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 03, 2009, 11:37:30 AM
I remain unconvinced that a significant portion of that 50 million userbase is actually interested in purchasing video games that are developed with video gamers in mind.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 11:44:33 AM
even if it's only half, that's still comparable to PS3 or 360 individually with less invested cost from conception to market.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 03, 2009, 11:47:58 AM
A fair point, but personally I think it's less than half. There's no way to know, but that's my opinion based on the people I know that own a Wii.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: KDR_11k on November 03, 2009, 01:16:11 PM
I remain unconvinced that a significant portion of that 50 million userbase is actually interested in purchasing video games that are developed with video gamers in mind.
Provided you don't consider those 50 million videogame system owners and users videogamers, eh?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 03, 2009, 01:20:22 PM
My parents own a Wii. They are not gamers. They will probably play nothing on the system besides Wii Sports. I know two people from work who bought a Wii simply for Wii Fit, and have bought no other titles besides Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics. I don't consider them gamers. I remain unconvinced that even 50% of the Wii Install Base are traditional gamers who are interested in traditional video games.
I think it's probably likely that the number of traditional gamers playing traditional games on Wii might even be smaller than the number who played on Gamecube. Part of the reason for this is that a lot of gamers DO find high resolution visuals and online play compelling, and they wanted a system where that was a sure bet. I think there are probably fewer Nintendo-only console gamers this generation than the previous.
This is all conjecture, as I've never seen any real data to go one way or the other. The only numbers we have are how many Wiis are in homes, and given how hard Nintendo has pushed their marketing AWAY from gamers, I find this number to be fairly unrelated to the number of GAMERS who are willing to purchase traditional games on Wii.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Neal on November 03, 2009, 01:24:41 PM
My parents own a Wii. They are not gamers. They will probably play nothing on the system besides Wii Sports. I know two people from work who bought a Wii simply for Wii Fit, and have bought no other titles besides Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics. I don't consider them gamers. I think that more than 50% of the Wii Install Base are traditional gamers who are interested in traditional video games.
I've got to agree with this.
This is the first video game system ever that my parents have actually played often. It's also the first system I've ever considered getting for them at some point.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Halbred on November 03, 2009, 01:45:00 PM
Me too, Neal.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Ian Sane on November 03, 2009, 01:51:54 PM
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But was MadWorld so terrible? Was The Conduit? Was Dead Space Extraction? Sure, those games aren't setting the world on fire, but they aren't Superman 64 either. It's like if a mature game comes out on Wii and doesn't sell, the game is automatically garbage because, well, good games sell right? And it's always the third-party developer's fault right? I don't buy that, at least not entirely.
Dead Space Extraction I consider a superflous scam game that no one wanted so it's a different scenario. I wouldn't say the other two are crap but on the PS360 they wouldn't stand out at all. MadWorld would still be this weird niche game and Conduit would still be a generic FPS. They wouldn't sell there so why are they expected to sell on the Wii? They're middle-of-the-road games that aren't must-own titles but are decent enough that you can have fun with them. On the PS2 those games were everywhere but they were never expected to carry the system. They weren't the big releases and maybe they sold okay, maybe they didn't. No one expected them to sell millions of copies and no one would make any assumptions about the userbase based on those sales.
I think we have a case when a game is released on all three consoles at the same time and is virtually identical between all three and is the sort of big game that gets very favourable reviews and is expected to sell millions of copies and then it succeeds on the PS360 but bombs on the Wii. Guitar Hero and now Rock Band are pretty much the only games I can think of where they're more or less equal across all three and the Wii versions sell well. Due to the HUGE hardware difference though I doubt this really even CAN happen.
But another decent test would be an exclusive Wii game that gets the same comparable hype as the major Wii first party games and is hyped up with owners of the other consoles ("I wish I had a Wii so I could play this game") and gets good reviews. How does that game do? Dragon Quest X would be a good test, at least in Japan.
Though now that I have a PS3 I cannot imagine EVER buying a Wii game that isn't an exclusive based on the controller alone. I hate fighting with the stupid remote. On the PS3 I don't have to do that. I push the button and the thing works. I wonder if other people who own the Wii and at least one of the other consoles would feel the same way. The Wii has inferior graphics, irresponsive controls and a restrictive online gaming model. Why would any core gamer prefer it? The exclusives are pretty much it and Nintendo is the only company that's providing the really must own exclusives.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 02:47:23 PM
Quote from: Ian
But another decent test would be an exclusive Wii game that gets the same comparable hype as the major Wii first party games and is hyped up with owners of the other consoles ("I wish I had a Wii so I could play this game") and gets good reviews. How does that game do? Dragon Quest X would be a good test, at least in Japan.
Ever heard of Monster Hunter Tri? aka the Best selling 3rd party console game this generation in Japan? Wii Exclusive? ringing any bells?
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Though now that I have a PS3 I cannot imagine EVER buying a Wii game that isn't an exclusive based on the controller alone. I hate fighting with the stupid remote. On the PS3 I don't have to do that. I push the button and the thing works. I wonder if other people who own the Wii and at least one of the other consoles would feel the same way. The Wii has inferior graphics, irresponsive controls and a restrictive online gaming model. Why would any core gamer prefer it? The exclusives are pretty much it and Nintendo is the only company that's providing the really must own exclusives.
non-responsive controls? really? more like lazy programming on certain games, because for the most part the controls seem fine to me. Not to mention you have the option of a CC or GC pad on quite a few games that don't require waggle or IR pointing.
We all know you don't actually own or play any Wii games, so your drop the charade of being an disgruntled Wii gamer.
Quote from: Drew MG
My parents own a Wii. They are not gamers. They will probably play nothing on the system besides Wii Sports. I know two people from work who bought a Wii simply for Wii Fit, and have bought no other titles besides Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympics. I don't consider them gamers. I remain unconvinced that even 50% of the Wii Install Base are traditional gamers who are interested in traditional video games.
Just because they won't go out and buy Zelda or Halo or Uncharted doesn't mean they won't go out and buy games that interest them. My mom is a new "gamer" too. At first the only thing she was interested in was WiiSports and WiiPlay because those are games that she understands, is interested in and doesn't have to study a manual to play. "Traditional" gamers have been gaming for probably decades in some of our cases, so "traditional" 12 button games with intricate story lines and complex puzzle solving is almost second nature to us.
I buy my mom games that cater to her audience and she plays the hell out of them. Check the "Most played games" thread. WiiSports resort, Equilibrium, WiiFit, EA Sports Active. They may not be traditional games, but they are still games. Before the Wii I've never seen my mom play a game. Now she will sit at the computer and play Scrabble or some other familiar style or simple to play puzzler. 3 years ago I wouldn't have considered my mom a "gamer" but just last year alone, she logged probably 100x more hours into gaming than I have.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 03, 2009, 03:04:26 PM
We're not bemoaning the sales of Wii Fit, Wii Sports, or EA Sports Active. These are games marketed at new customers, not traditional gamers. They're marketing to what I consider to be the majority of Wii owners.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 03:23:03 PM
But they don't market the majority of "traditional" games on Wii. They expect the internet to do that for them. It's not working. (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=29772.msg561304#msg561304)
I almost ready to argue that traditional games are barely even being made for Wii.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 03, 2009, 03:27:45 PM
If that's the case, then how can developers expect there to be a market for their games on Wii? And likewise, put enough effort into these games and expect to have enough sales to make the development worth it?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 03:52:16 PM
See that is where we are right now.
Generation started, few core games were made as 3rd parties scrambled to copy Nintendos "non-gamer" initiative. Lots of the "core" games that were made were of poor quality or late ports of games we already played. Lots of "traditional", "Lapsed" & "New" gamers felt a little burned to have spent hard earned money on a 3rd rate effort. So we turn to the games we know. Now they want to put effort into some of their games, but we have already felt burned & don't exactly trust them. One of the main problems though is that they are not marketing their games to change our minds about past deceptions. So the game ends up not selling, and they blame us for not buying their games on blind faith.
"Wii owners don't like traditional core gaming" "we are gonna focus on the HD machines from now on"
it's a bunch of BS and we all know it.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_insanolord on November 03, 2009, 04:09:47 PM
No, we don't all know it; that's the whole reason for the argument. It may be true or it may not be, we haven't seen enough quality games to be able to judge whether there's a market for them or not. As I pointed out recently, though, the third party Wii games that are over 90 on Metacritic (and Tiger Woods 10 at 89) have all sold well.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Luigi Dude on November 03, 2009, 04:29:55 PM
I think it's probably likely that the number of traditional gamers playing traditional games on Wii might even be smaller than the number who played on Gamecube.
Wow, this statement is so false my headhurts. You do realise that pretty much all of Nintendo's major traditional game series have done better on the Wii then on the Gamecube.
Smash Bros Brawl has sold close to 9 million copies which is already over 2 million more then Melee's 7 million lifetime total.
Mario Galaxy has sold close to 8.5 million copies which is 3 million more then Mario Sunshines 5.5 million.
Mario Kart Wii has been a monster, selling close to 18 million copies which is 11 million more then Double Dash 7 million on the Gamecube.
The Wii version of Twilight Princess has sold close to 5.5 million copies which is 1 million more then Wind Wakers total of 4.5 million. Of course it also be noted that the Gamecube version of Twilight Princess sold 1.5 million copies. This means if there wasn't a Gamecube version of the game, the Wii version would have put up even higher numbers.
Super Paper Mario has sold over a million more copies then the Gamecubes Paper Mario, Mario Strikers Wii sold over 500,000 more then the Gamecube version, Fire Emblem Wii also did better then it's Gamecube version. The only Wii game that has sold less then one of it's Gamecube counterparts is Metroid Prime 3 which is 1 million less then the first Metroid Prime. But it needs to be noted that Prime 3 has sold somewhere between 200-300K more then Prime 2, which makes Prime 3 more successful then one of it's Gamecube counterparts.
Hell, even lower profile Nintendo games have done quite a bit better. According to the NPD, Wario Land Shake came out at the end of September last year, and managed to sell 150,000 copies by the end of December. In comparision, Wario World on the Gamecube came out at the end of June 2003 and never even broke the 100,000 mark by the end of that year.
So yeah, people have to cut the crap that less traditional gamers own a Wii then a Gamecube when the actual data shows the complete opposite.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Neal on November 03, 2009, 05:34:01 PM
LuigiDude - Nintendo games still sell to everyone!
Throw in some third party numbers and then you'll be joining what we're talking about.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Mop it up on November 03, 2009, 05:37:06 PM
Isn't Nintendo trying to turn these "non-gamers" into "real gamers"? They draw them in with the likes of Wii Sports and Wii Fit, then try to turn them on to their more "traditional" games like the Mario ones, Zelda, etc. Perhaps the strategy isn't working as well or more slowly than they hoped, but I'm pretty sure that's their goal.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 03, 2009, 05:38:08 PM
LuigiDude - Nintendo games still sell to everyone!
Throw in some third party numbers and then you'll be joining what we're talking about.
Yeah, it's pretty much confirmed that Mario Kart Wii is selling to casuals in droves.
Also, not all the people who buy Nintendo/Mario games are going to be traditional/core Nintendo gamers.
For Mario that's true, but Twilight Princess and Brawl aren't selling to these new people, at least not in any higher proportion than they did on the Cube.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Luigi Dude on November 03, 2009, 06:08:31 PM
LuigiDude - Nintendo games still sell to everyone!
Throw in some third party numbers and then you'll be joining what we're talking about.
It doesn't matter if the games are from Nintendo, the point is they're traditional games that traditional gamers play and they're selling very well on the Wii. This is the same BS that people said about the Gamecube when third parties neglected it so of course the Nintendo games sold the best. Of course when a high profile third party game, Resident Evil 4, finally came out, it ended up being the best selling Gamecube game the year it came out. Outselling all of Nintendo's own first party software that year.
The only high profile third party traditional game to be released on the Wii so far that's not a low budget spinoff or port is Monster Hunter 3, and last time I checked, it's sold over 900,000 copies in Japan, which makes it the highest selling 3rd party title released on a home console in the Japanese market this gen.
Oh and I got another nice example for the "blame the Wii" crowd. You guys love to point to Madworld as an example of Wii gamers neglecting certion games, but you all fail to remember that Madworld is the spirital sequel to God Hand on the PS2. God Hand on the PS2 came out when the PS2 had a much larger userbase then the Wii does now, and yet the game only sold between 40-50K copies total. Madworld on the Wii managed to sell over 60K it's first month.
Once again, if third parties would actually take the time to release high profile games that have actual appeal, then they'd do well. Monster Hunter 3 has already proven this, even Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition proves it as well considering it's a several year old port that's already sold around the same amount of copies as the original Gamecube version. Imagine if Capcom would have released a Wii Edition of Resident Evil 5 as well, it would have been guarenteed to be a million seller.
Hell, even the niche games like Madworld that are considered failures by the gaming media still end up doing better then they did on the PS2 last gen.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_insanolord on November 03, 2009, 06:21:21 PM
None of the games we're talking about would have sold any better on the 360 than they did on the Wii; they're all either very niche or not that good. Give me an example of a game that sold poorly on the Wii that would have done significantly better on the 360 or PS3.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 06:26:21 PM
Isn't Nintendo trying to turn these "non-gamers" into "real gamers"? They draw them in with the likes of Wii Sports and Wii Fit, then try to turn them on to their more "traditional" games like the Mario ones, Zelda, etc. Perhaps the strategy isn't working as well or more slowly than they hoped, but I'm pretty sure that's their goal.
That is true, and something that I pointed out earlier. Lots of us started out with a NES, 2 buttons and a D-pad. We we had atleast 5 years to learn that before we moved up to SNES/Genesis, 6 buttons and a d-pad. We had a long time to adjust to the complexities of traditional gaming today. New gamers are just starting out, and you got to break them in slowly.
Nintendo is grooming a generation of Motion gamers, and it's something you gotta do one step at a time.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Ian Sane on November 03, 2009, 07:56:04 PM
This is just my personal experience but of the non-gamers I know from work, they're not morphing into "real gamers". We had a client schmoozing event recently and used some Wii's as part of the entertainment (I myself loaned my Wii for the cause). So naturally this involved all the Wii owners talking about what games they have and such. The people at my office own Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit and that's IT. And none of them have given it much attention for about a year. The exception is if they have young kids in which case the Wii is more or less their kids' videogame system but they the parents don't use it much anymore. Myself and this other guy would be the only two "core gamers" in the office that own Wii's and both of us own PS3's because the Wii wasn't cutting it alone. I still use my Wii, his has become his son's.
In other words these people bought the Wii when it was the hip thing to own, played Wii Sports, bought a couple other entries in the Wii series but lost interest once the novelty wore off. They have not bought any games in at least a year and didn't buy Wii Music or Wii Sports Resort and certainly didn't "graduate" to anything like Metroid or Mario. For them the Wii was a fad and the fad is over. It seemed to end for them around the time that Wii's became readily available in stores.
Now this is just my own personal experience and we're looking at a sample of like five Wii owners here. Not enough to make any relevent statistics obviously. Though it makes me wonder what the buying habits of the blue ocean market truly is. How many games to they have? Do they still play their Wii? Would they buy a Wii 2? Are any of them moving to more complicated core games or do they just play the Wii series and nothing else?
What if the non-gamers are more or less a non-factor? Like they bought the system but they don't make any meaningful contribution to sales? What if Wii game sales is driven almost entirely by core gamers and kids? Well then the sales we're getting here make a whole lot of sense. If you view it from an entirely core gamer point of view the Wii third party lineup is by far the weakest of all the consoles so it would naturally have inferior sales.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Dasmos on November 03, 2009, 08:29:11 PM
After New Super Bros. Mario Wii releases watch as these "casuals" instantly become "hardcores".
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Lindy on November 03, 2009, 09:10:11 PM
Isn't that most of the Wii's fanbase? And that isn't sarcasm either.
Think about it: Person A buys CoD4, loves it and recommends it to all his friends. Person B buys The Conduit and is underwhelmed by it, if he even talks about it it's probably about the disappointment. If you want a fair comparison try finding similarily crappy or niche games on the PS360. E.g. how much did Infernal: Hell's Vengeance or Legendary sell?
What games sell by word of mouth? Nintendo's, because they're the best on the system. "Hey, have you played Wii Fit?" Yet somehow I doubt these words have ever been uttered by anyone, anywhere outside these forums: "Hey, have you played Zack & Wiki?"
And? They didn't care about the graphics hardware last gen and everybody said they'd always be loyal to the market leader. Now it's suddenly a "rule" that graphics matter more than marketshare.
Last generation they didn't have to make any sort of graphical choice. The PS2, Xbox, and GameCube were all in the same graphical ballpark. If you chose to make a PS2 game it wouldn't have all the visual bells and whistles that it would on Xbox and GameCube, but it would look comparable. The best-looking game on Wii is Super Mario Galaxy, and if you take a game in a similar genre on, say, PS3 - Ratchet & Clank, for instance - the difference is noticeable and obvious.
That's a ton of assumptions. What I mean with "demand" is that they'll say "I won't buy this because it lacks X". Of course graphics are nice to have, I'm not going to refuse to buy a game because it's pretty but would RE5 on the Wii make many people think "it's not pretty enough, I will not buy it"? Non-gamers are impressed by awesome graphics just as much as anybody else but they weren't gamers before because it wasn't the ugly graphics that turned them away, it was the game underneath.
I think you would definitely have a lot of people not buying it because it's "identical to RE4". From a visual, perspective that is. RE5 is the same as RE4 gameplay wise, so what other hook is gonna be there? IR control?
On average HD games cost 2.5 times as much to develop so the same return on investment would require selling 2.5 times as many copies as it would on the Wii. You say RE5 would sell less on the Wii but would it sell 60% less? Also how many people would decide to buy it because it has better controls on the Wii? If the number of sales lost to weaker graphics minus the number of sales gained through better controls is less than 60% of the sales of RE5 on the HD systems then making it a Wii exclusive would have made it more profitable.
I dunno, across PS3/360 RE5 pushed 4.4 million last I read, while RE4: Wii Edition pushed 1.5 million (Capcom figures from May 2009). That's what, 65% higher sales? I realize that RE4 is an old game, but you gotta think that a majority of people on Wii that likes that type of title picked it up. RE5 is one game, but I think in this case Capcom made the right move. I also think that RE5 got more buzz because of its graphics prowess, due to the fact that game media are graphics whores for the most part.
Noone ever gave a **** about what the grunts want, they do what they're told to do or they're unemployed. It's the managers who decided to make HD games, if the grunts happen to agree that's just a coincidence.
Wow, I hope you never manage any human beings, ever. Yes, decisions are made by the suits, but if they team doesn't want to make Wii games they'll go elsewhere. Besides, if you're paying a badass graphics programmer a ton of money, are you going to waste their talents making an engine for Wii? Hell no. You're going to put them where their talents are best put to use. You'll put the second-tier guys on the Wii title, or the junior guys there so they can figure out what they're doing. You want your best people doing the most difficult stuff. This assumes that the project they're working on will make money, of course, but that's a separate issue.
I think development costs are a key part of the puzzle, but if your game won't sell, your investment only determines how much money you lose. You can spend $1000 making something that sells for $100, and if you only sell 2 of them you've lost $800. On the other hand, you can spend $3000 making something that sells for $100, sell 50 of them and make $2000. Like I've always said, companies like GRIN going under isn't because they developed an HD game in particular; its because they developed a game that didn't sell. The high development cost only ensured that they got castrated, instead of punched in the face.
They'd also incur an additional 150% cost increase on every game they develop and need a higher price on the hardware and a loss of GC backwards compatibility. Even if they had boosted the graphics a bit, they would still have been far behind the 360 (because the 360 was built to be sold at a loss even at its 400€ launch price, no way Nintendo could get close to that with the increased controller expenses and whatnot) and developers would still call it impossible to port and still throw PSP ports on it (the PSP is MUCH weaker than the Wii yet it is considered acceptable to port that way!). Additionally Nintendo would not have gained additional sales to make up for the reduced profit per sale (in part because the Wii sold at an unprecedented rate until Nintendo ****ed up with the whole user generated content mess and whatnot that led to a massive software drought). The Wii's sales limiter is still not the hardware but the software.
Nintendo was backed into a corner after the GameCube, that's for sure. Their appeal amongst the gaming core was gone, so they had to go for a different audience entirely. I'll concede you this point, since they had nothing to lose really. Nobody really cared about Nintendo no matter what their games looked like, so more of the same was not the answer.
Almost every franchise out there had multiple iterations last gen so that's clearly not stopping them. Think about it, 3 GTAs, 3 Prince of Persias, 2 God of Wars, 2 Halos, 2 Devil May Crys and many more that I can't even remember. Sequels differ from the previous game in way more than just the graphics.
Yeah, but years after the fact? All of those games were released within the same hardware generation and time window. I refuse to believe that there's a pent-up demand for a Prince of Persia game on Wii that looks like a Prince of Persia game on Xbox. In 2009 it would be completely written off and marginalized.
Didn't stop the DDR pads and all the other fitness peripherals. Also the "conflict of interest" and absorbing the risk is a non-sequitur, what exactly makes Nintendo more capable of absorbing that risk that's part of the Wii's design (instead of their company structure/strategy which any smart company could replicate)?
They can take that risk because they get money from both the hardware and the software. They have money rolling in hand over fist from both ends of the platform, so they can survive if a risky game underperforms. See Wii Music (not that it was an utter failure, but rather not a spectacular success). Third-parties don't have that same luxury.
How does that compare to other systems? What about, say, Mirror's Edge?
Do you mean the underperformance of Mirror's Edge? Not every Hardmaturecore game on PS3/360 is going to sell...such as Mirror's Edge, Bionic Commando, etc. But I honestly think it's less risky, although hindsight is also 20/20.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 10:30:25 PM
Quote from: Lindy
I dunno, across PS3/360 RE5 pushed 4.4 million last I read, while RE4: Wii Edition pushed 1.5 million (Capcom figures from May 2009). That's what, 65% higher sales? I realize that RE4 is an old game, but you gotta think that a majority of people on Wii that likes that type of title picked it up. RE5 is one game, but I think in this case Capcom made the right move. I also think that RE5 got more buzz because of its graphics prowess, due to the fact that game media are graphics whores for the most part.
You gotta figure that the majority of people with a Wii around launch that like that type of game already bought it for GC and weren't willing to double dip for a few extra features and a new control style. I'm sure they were waiting for the next installment in the series just like all the people that double dipped for RE4 Wii.
I'm sure that they, much like myself (a double dipper), are very disappointed that RE5, after having the entire series ported over to the GC (and therefore playable on the Wii), never made it's expected debut on the Wii.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Lindy on November 03, 2009, 11:34:53 PM
What sucks is that even if they did, it'd likely be done by the B-Team...the A-Team is surely already working on Resident Evil 6 (or is that 666?).
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Stratos on November 03, 2009, 11:40:47 PM
I still don't see why they can't just update the RE4 Wii engine a bit and insert content from RE5. It shouldn't be that much of an effort to downsize models and such, right?
What is more sad is that Dead Rising got a Wii port and RE5 didn't. I'm sure RE5 would have turned out better than Dead Rising did.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 03, 2009, 11:45:29 PM
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, I don't see the situation on the Wii getting much better without significant effort from Nintendo, not necessarily with moneyhats but some kind of strong involvement in the process. For that to happen, though, Nintendo has to want it to happen, and there's no good reason for them to want it to happen (from Nintendo's perspective).
I generally try to avoid agreeing with Ian, but a while back he made the point that it may not be a good thing that Nintendo was able to return to dominance completely on their own; as impressive as that feat was, they never had to change the way they dealt with third parties, which may prevent them from holding on to the top spot.
Are you happy now? (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/11/dragon-quest-ix-us/)
Quote
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata first announced this initiative last year, at a press event announcing the release date for Dragon Quest IX in Japan. There, he said that Nintendo and Square Enix would “tag team” to increase the visibility and success of the series in the U.S.
Hatano said that helping to sell Dragon Quest IX outside Japan is part of a larger effort on the part of Nintendo to partner with software makers to sell their games for Nintendo hardware. He mentioned Professor Layton and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games as two other examples.
Now Nintendo is marketing the games for the 3rd parties. Select ones with effort put into their games atleast.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: KDR_11k on November 04, 2009, 04:30:59 AM
I think this thread could be ended with just these words: Attach rate seven point something. If these claims of less than 50% gamers are true and the rest buys only 2-3 games, where does that attach rate come from? The attach rate for the DS is about half that, does that mean core games are not profitable on it?
Quote
I think you would definitely have a lot of people not buying it because it's "identical to RE4". From a visual, perspective that is. RE5 is the same as RE4 gameplay wise, so what other hook is gonna be there? IR control?
New content. It's the only real difference between most franchise iterations so why not for RE5 too? Content is what people buy games for, not graphics or control gimmicks. Graphics and controls influence the content but ultimately it is the content that matters (and content here is what the user perceives, his interaction with the game, not just the amount of data on the disc).
Quote
I dunno, across PS3/360 RE5 pushed 4.4 million last I read, while RE4: Wii Edition pushed 1.5 million (Capcom figures from May 2009). That's what, 65% higher sales? I realize that RE4 is an old game, but you gotta think that a majority of people on Wii that likes that type of title picked it up.
Well, I for one didn't buy RE4Wii because I had the game for the GC already. We should consider the GC and PS2 version first and foremost because those were the first release.
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Wow, I hope you never manage any human beings, ever. Yes, decisions are made by the suits, but if they team doesn't want to make Wii games they'll go elsewhere.
If they're that militant on the jobs they get to work on they should better leave. If they want to make projects for the fun of it they should make it a hobby, if they want more fun at the workplace the company can improve the work environment, they should not demand that the company starts a 25 million dollar project that would be a waste of money. What's the point of having employees that won't work on profitable projects?
Also game programmers demanding challenge like that are fucking spoiled brats. You won't see a Microsoft GUI coder quit his job because he isn't allowed to use advanced 3D graphics. It's a job, it needs doing in a certain way and developers are hired to do it. If they refuse to do it why would they be worth their money?
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Besides, if you're paying a badass graphics programmer a ton of money, are you going to waste their talents making an engine for Wii?
**** yeah I would, the experienced coder would be experienced with the kind of constrained environment that the Wii contains while an inexperienced coder would waste resources left and right. On the HD systems you can afford to waste power and still have something good looking, on the Wii you have nothing to waste and if you do you'll take a massive hit for it. The Wii's specs are at "good enough for almost everybody" level, that also means if you fail to utilize it you are NOT good enough.
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Yeah, but years after the fact? All of those games were released within the same hardware generation and time window. I refuse to believe that there's a pent-up demand for a Prince of Persia game on Wii that looks like a Prince of Persia game on Xbox. In 2009 it would be completely written off and marginalized.
Argumentum ad incredulum does not make a fact. There's demand for a Prince of Persia game that's as good or better than Sands of Time, something that has never been delivered since and prettier graphics don't hide that.
Quote
They can take that risk because they get money from both the hardware and the software. They have money rolling in hand over fist from both ends of the platform, so they can survive if a risky game underperforms. See Wii Music (not that it was an utter failure, but rather not a spectacular success). Third-parties don't have that same luxury.
Oh so they're the only company who can take the risk to make a cheaply developed game without known market (well, if you don't do research and only check NPD as your "analysis") when everybody can dump 25+ million dollars on a game easily that risks falling flat if the quality doesn't stand up to the extremely powerful competition? Financially HD games are a significantly larger risk than Wii Fit, if WF failed that may have hurt the Wii's performance but the actual development would have made very little loss and a third party wouldn't be concerned about system performance so all they'd take is a small loss while success... Well, you've seen how insanely profitable it is.
Wii Music failed because Nintendo's goal was not just making money on the game, it failed because Nintendo wanted to push the platform's sales. For a third party those 2.5 million sales would be a massive success especially considering the development expense is fairly low (did you know that Wii Music sold more than Little Big Planet according to VGChartz? It's extremely unlikely that Wii Music cost more to make than LBP. It apparently significantly outperformed Guitar Hero 5 which had massive licensing costs for all the music when Wii Music was running on free stuff instead!). Nintendo simply has different standards there because they have to drive the whole system, not just a game.
Yes, Nintendo has a strong brand compared to some third parties but that didn't just magically appear, they spent decades cultivating it. Throwing **** out for a quick buck is damaging for a brand and it seems some third parties aren't very concerned about that.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Lindy on November 04, 2009, 10:47:07 AM
All I'll say is that Nintendo has long had a chilly relationship with third-parties. This isn't something that just happened. It goes all the way back to the NES when Nintendo was bullying third-parties so that they would play by their rules. They've been pushing around third-parties for more than 20 years, so they aren't going to stop any time soon. This has to be part of the reason for third-parties are not "playing ball"...Nintendo has never played ball with them, ever, really. Nintendo always done their own thing, and if third-parties like it, fine. If not, that's fine too.
Nintendo has never been an innocent victim here. They've chosen to put themselves on a very profitable island.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 04, 2009, 10:52:14 AM
While we're on the topic of old ports and non-marketed games, CoD4:Modern Warfare [REFLEX] Wii Alternate Edition.
Not only were they claiming that the game wasn't possible on Wii 2.5 years ago (good thing the WiiHD came out and changed that) but the game is already in the stores (it shipped) and all we have are the pre-alpha screen shots (from months ago)that look like a PS2 game. This may sadly be the best FPS on Wii and all we get is a boxart and pre-alpha screenshot? Not to mention that the game that couldn't wouldn't be done is 2 years late and releases on the same day as MW2. Are they really banking on the fact that Wii owners will pick up the Wii version in hopes that it was like the commercials for MW2 by accident?
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Neal on November 04, 2009, 10:59:15 AM
I don't think they're claiming that. I think Infinity Ward just doesn't like developing for Wii.
I see Modern Warfare Wii as more of a "we don't have a Wii CoD game this year. Hey Treyarch, wanna port CoD4?" "Sure, boss! I'll port all of your crap to Wii."
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Lindy on November 04, 2009, 11:04:25 AM
None of those big PC developers (Infinity Ward, Bethesda, BioWare, etc.) care about developing on Wii. The platform doesn't really allow them to do what they want to do with 3D, and the whole waggle deal wouldn't be their forte anyways. Bethesda has mentioned it, but nothing serious ever came of it. Heck, they even dumped the PSP Elder Scrolls game, so that shows you how much they care about developing on older hardware.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_DrewMG on November 04, 2009, 11:11:01 AM
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, I don't see the situation on the Wii getting much better without significant effort from Nintendo, not necessarily with moneyhats but some kind of strong involvement in the process. For that to happen, though, Nintendo has to want it to happen, and there's no good reason for them to want it to happen (from Nintendo's perspective).
I generally try to avoid agreeing with Ian, but a while back he made the point that it may not be a good thing that Nintendo was able to return to dominance completely on their own; as impressive as that feat was, they never had to change the way they dealt with third parties, which may prevent them from holding on to the top spot.
Are you happy now? (http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/11/dragon-quest-ix-us/)
Quote
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata first announced this initiative last year, at a press event announcing the release date for Dragon Quest IX in Japan. There, he said that Nintendo and Square Enix would “tag team” to increase the visibility and success of the series in the U.S.
Hatano said that helping to sell Dragon Quest IX outside Japan is part of a larger effort on the part of Nintendo to partner with software makers to sell their games for Nintendo hardware. He mentioned Professor Layton and Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games as two other examples.
Now Nintendo is marketing the games for the 3rd parties. Select ones with effort put into their games atleast.
This is from that Investor Relations interview with Nintendo: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/091030qa/02.html
Quote
Shinji Hatano (General Manager, Marketing Division): It has become challenging for one software to pay off the development cost with the Japan sales alone. The presence of the Japanese software companies is not what it used to be. The Japanese domestic sales are, of course, important. But the third parties have better grip on the Japanese market, so it may make sense for Nintendo to cooperate in their overseas marketing, for example, by us cooperating in both promotional and marketing activities. We have been thinking in this manner, and we have already cooperated with some third parties. We did it last year and will do so this year on Mario & Sonic Olympic Games with Sega. The original Nintendo DS and Wii versions of Mario & Sonic Beijing Olympic Games together sold more than 11 million units last year. This year, the new Mario & Sonic Winter Olympic Games will be marketed by Nintendo in Japan and by Sega in the overseas markets. Nintendo is also doing some supportive activities for their overseas promotions too. So, at a certain time in their development phase, when we can learn the substance of the software from the third parties, we try to think what we can do and how in order to maximize the sales. In the days when it is difficult for a software to pay off in Japan alone, we need to tackle the challenges with the software publishers. As I explained by comparing the memory sizes of a NES game and Blue-ray as an example, the development costs are increasing for the third parties. Recognizing the circumstance, our position is to cooperate wherever appropriate in order to realize the most desirable results.
Iwata: In that regard, I anticipate the relationship between software makers and Nintendo as a hardware manufacturer to change from now. In regard to the relationship, I often discuss with Mr. Hatano lately that we cannot foresee the future by saying, "It must be like this because it used to be that way in the past." It is time we have to invent new ways.
Seems like Nintendo is really pushing to help 3rd parties on the marketing and publishing side of things since it's hard to make the money back on on the games from Japan alone.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: NWR_Lindy on November 06, 2009, 10:59:49 AM
Seems like Nintendo is really pushing to help 3rd parties on the marketing and publishing side of things since it's hard to make the money back on on the games from Japan alone.
If by "3rd parties" you mean "Square Enix, and Sega when they make a big-selling sequel featuring Mario in which Nintendo has a vested interest".
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: KDR_11k on November 06, 2009, 02:18:06 PM
Isn't Mario & Sonic Sega's biggest cash cow ATM?
Also speaking of third party relations, why the hell does the Wii version of PES 10 get released way after the other versions? I've already seen several people in stores who were looking for the Wii version already.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 06, 2009, 04:33:05 PM
Sabotage. [/Beastie Boys]
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: KDR_11k on November 07, 2009, 11:44:46 AM
I mean, PES is pretty damn major, the Wii versions tend to score 10 points higher on Metacritic than the 360 versions (haven't checked the other platforms but I think they're the same as the 360). I don't have sales numbers but it wouldn't surprise me if the Wii version sold more too. So why does it come later?
EDIT: Just checked, if VGChartz is to be believed on this (questionable since the vast majority of sales is in the "other" region and data on that is spotty at best) PES 2009 sold 2 million copies on the PS3 and only 290 thousand on the Wii (previous year was 1.7M to 1M, did they **** up tracking it or did the 2009 edition really see such a severe drop in sales compared to 2008? If so, WHY?). Serious WTF there, definitely can't blame that on the quality. You'd think traditional PES would suffer much more from FIFA's rise in quality than the RTS-y Wii version.
EDIT2: Checked the release dates, PES 2008 had the Wii version only 6 days later than the others, PES 2009 had the Wii version 5 MONTHS later. Didn't know the delay was THIS huge, no surprise it's fucking the sales. The PS2 version sold the best BTW so HD is not the deciding factor.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 07, 2009, 12:30:09 PM
sabotage!!! [/Beastie Boys]
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: Mop it up on November 07, 2009, 02:29:52 PM
Forgive me, but I have no idea what "PES" is.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: KDR_11k on November 07, 2009, 02:47:55 PM
Pro Evolution Soccer.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: vudu on November 10, 2009, 05:19:02 PM
This game looks like it might be a lot of fun, comparable to other games in the genre, nice graphics, high production values. On a console with 50,000,000 sold, this game should've sold 50,000 copies by ACCIDENT. I'm serious: 50,000 people (.001% of the Wii userbase) should've picked this game up because they thought it was a different game or maybe just because they thought it would shut their kids up.
I know I'm a week late but I feel like I have to correct this bit of "fuzzy math".
First, 50,000 people is 0.1% of the Wii user base. 500 people is 0.001% of the Wii user base, which is the number of people who actually bought the game. You had a mistake with your decimal place.
Second, the game has only been released in America. So the actual Wii user back is closer to 25 million, tops. So 50,000 people would be 0.2% of the Wii user base.
Your point is still valid but this was driving me crazy.
Title: Re: TALKBACK: NWR Round-Table 3: 500 Copies Sold
Post by: BlackNMild2k1 on November 10, 2009, 06:39:32 PM
Whats funnier is that he said .001% should have picked up the game on accident, and that's exactly what happened.
