Messages

451

General Gaming / Re: PSP2 - It's coming and we know it

« on: April 02, 2010, 11:50:55 PM »

If the 3DS is going to be at about a GameCube level of hardware, I don't see how Sony is going to be able to maintain a significant graphical advantage without sacrificing battery life or launching at a far-too-high price point.

It's very early in the game, but I wonder if Sony is going to come in under Nintendo in price this gen.  The tech isn't final but the hands on I read of the 3ds said that background textures were blurry and the 3d didn't pop like the movie theatres.  We can talk specs until we are blue in the face but the gamecube isn't much more powerful than the PSP is now.  The PSP2 could get enough power to double the pixels and that may be enough to show differentiation over the 3ds if the tech isn't quite ready for prime time.  You'd have to think the 3ds would at least come in at $199 with the DSI at $169 and the XL at $190.  That's also got to the high for the PSP2 because they are planning on completing with the iphone which is at $199 and they wouldn't want to go over the 3ds in price unless they offer 3d as well.  Also, remember that Sony is not adverse to launching a console at a loss while Nintendo is adament against it.

452

General Gaming / Re: PSP2 - It's coming and we know it

« on: April 02, 2010, 11:32:23 PM »

Not really because the 3D has potential to be used in ways to push gaming design in unique ways, like the touch screen or the dual screen had.

Not saying it can't but I'm clearly not seeing it so how does 3d have the potiential to open up new game play?  Dual screen were only new in a handheld.  Many older arcade units had screens that were two screens high.

453

General Gaming / Re: PSP2 - It's coming and we know it

« on: April 02, 2010, 11:12:26 PM »

Super duper graphics have never interested me much on handhelds, in fact my favorite games utilized 2D on the DS. If it has GC level capabilities, or even slightly below I'll be fine, though even then I'll worry games will go the way of the PSP where 3D games dominated. The only 3D I'm interested in is to to see the true 3D visuals put out by the 3DS. I'm vastly more excited for a system that is trying something new, then one that is a graphic upgrade with some bells and whistles attached.

I guess we'll see what happens when the 3ds is final, but doesn't that sound like just graphic upgrade with some bells and whistles?  It's "true" 3d so almost all games will be assured of being the 3d games that dominate the PSP, except now the screen should pop out at you as opposed to your eyes looking for the depth of vision in the screen.

Price is also a big factor, you can complain all you want but chances are the 3DS will be vastly cheaper then the new PSP.

I'd wait until a final price is quoted.  Nintendo has dropped features (gba port) and increased the price of the ds (from $150 at launch to $190 with XL).  Seems like plans that Sony and Microsoft has used before.  For whatever reason, it seems like none of the big three can ever put together the complete package. 
 

I wouldn't believe that for a second.  I'm with chozo on this one.  Sony knows very well that the handheld market doesn't revolve around horsepower and display capabilities.  That was the PSP's trump card.  Yet compared to the DS it didn't do too well.  But here Nintendo announce a system with all the things that made the DS a success (presumably), a good amount of power under the bonnet, 3D display and a cheaper price point.  Sony don't really have a footing to compete with it.  People will see the 3D and forget about the PSP2.

The market looks for so many different things that it is hard to pinpoint one specific reason why a product is a market winner and another isn't.  But the PSP did great for an intro console and it's power advantage over the DS certainly helped it compete in the market.  The PSP consistently outsold the DS for it's first year in the American market.  What finally turned the tide in the DS favor was Nintendogs (then Brain Age and unique games like that), release of the DS Lite (which turned the DS sexy, PSP had that title vs. the Phat), and the complete failure of the UMD format with UMD movies being worthless and piracy preventing people from buying UMD discs.  Most of these problems are correctable, will they be?  Who knows, but I believe Sony is a strong brand and compete head to head with Nintendo they've shown it in the console market.

Sure, PSP2 will more than likely be HD, but thats it.  As GP said, it will be nothing more than a portable PS3 and the PSP all over again.  Nintendo's handhelds always differentiated themselves from the consoles.  If the PSP2 is revealed with a 3D screen I will not be surprised at all.

How have Nintendo's handhelds always differentiated themselves?  GB was NES on B&W screen, GBC was NES, GBA was SNES (Half the Nintendo titles were even SNES ports).  DS was the first one that offered a unique experience with the touch screen.   


 

454

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Announces Nintendo 3DS

« on: March 23, 2010, 07:43:52 AM »

I expected this to be an April's fools because of the name and because the w/o glasses note.  But alas, other websites have the story too.  Right now I'm not excited.  DSi and DSXL are too recent to replace and were never used to their abilities.  I'm also skeptical of the 3d w/o glasses.  Is there going to be a filter on the screen?  It just seems to me that 3d is the big push from TV manufacterers and if they could get a 3d image to look good w/o glasses they would have done it because its one of the biggest drawbacks of 3d.

455

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: March 16, 2010, 12:47:57 AM »

I would also like to add that Nintendo did not create that reputation of making consoles that only sell first party games. After most third parties abandoned the N64 in favor of PSX, Nintendo had to basically step up their first party efforts. The lack of quality third party games (I am talking generally, I know both N64 and GameCube had a bunch of good third party games) and the safe bet that almost any game published by Nintendo will be good led to consumers not wanting to risk money on third party games on Nintendo consoles. Some publishers have started to realize thy have to do more than just a half-assed job (at one point Ubisoft actually apologized for all the shovelware they released in the Wii's first year).

I disagree.  Mario/Zelda/Metroid built Nintendo from the NES to SNES to the N64.  Mario 64/Zelda OOT were released while N64 still had some good third party support and were close in the race with the PSX.  Nintendo games have always been great and a good reason to own a Nintendo console.  In fact, I'm not going to count every Nintendo game, but it seemed to me that Nintendo releases (while still great) got farther and farther apart starting with the N64 leading to fewer first party games to support the consoles themselves.  Sony paying moneyhats started leading to the downfall of third party support for Nintendo.  And Nintendo's striking indifference has kept them away.  Third parties keep testing Nintendo consoles (largely with crap as pointed out by Ubi).  But tests don't work because consumers that want the good games sit on the sidelines and wait for the good games that never come.  There are several great games for the 360/PS3 and even PC that can compete with Nintendo's top line, they just choose not to release them for Nintendo consoles for various reasons. 

456

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: March 16, 2010, 12:32:47 AM »

Nintendo acts like they don't care about third party support because they genuinely don't care that much about third party support, and they don't care because they don't have to care.They're making money hand over fist; their hardware is still selling extremely well and the vast majority of their games are as well. Even last generation Nintendo made more profit than Sony despite coming in a distant third. As with every other aspect of the company, Nintendo is perfectly content to do their own thing, and while the third parties are welcome to come along for the ride, it doesn't really bother Nintendo if they don't.

This is I believe the exact truth.  But it still doesn't make sense to me.  It's like you owning a 5 star hotel in a great location that is always packed.  Then President Barack calls (or his aides whatever) and says that he is coming for a speech in a month and wants a room.  Then you say back, sorry President, we're booked 6 months in advance, click.
 
I really believe that if Nintendo tried to work with third parties they'd gain additional monies through licensing fees, advertising, additional product sales, etc.  And the end consumer wouldn't feel like the Wii is an "also" console.  But they don't care.  And they'll be fine this generation, but now that Sony/Microsoft have caught on with the motion control and HD is essentially mandatory, I wonder if it'll hurt them next gen and push them fall back into an Gamecube position.   Sony hasn't thrown around money hats but has gotten great support this gen largely because of the past relationships.  Nintendo doesn't get great support as the #1, if they don't knock it out of the park at the start of the next gen, I just can't see them continuing the money creator that is the Wii.

457

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: March 16, 2010, 12:23:57 AM »

And bribing won't help with any of the points you bring up.  That was my original post.

Say Nintendo funds a 3rd party game. 

Scenario (1)  The game fails to find a market (like you said), Nintendo's out of change with nothing to show for it.

Scenario (2)  The game finds modest success.  Now the 3rd party's going to ask for more money to keep the franchise on Wii, or else they'll move it over to Move/Natal who'll be happy to accomodate them (because that's the game Sony/Microsoft are playing).

It would be much better for Nintendo to lend technical expertise, or to combine marketing efforts.  These would be actual investments, instead of renting a franchise.  This is sort of what you mention near the end, but it wasn't relevant to my original post.

I don't know that either would "fail".  In scenario 1, they have started to work with the developer.  In this case, it should be easier to identify why the project failed(since the project would have happened) and come to them in the future and be able to say, "Hey I know last time didn't work because of xyz, but I've got a project that's sure to work this time."
 
In scenario 2, we aren't seeing that at all for Sony.  As mentioned priorly, PS1/PS2 started the moneyhats.  But with PS3, they have been drastically in the red and I haven't heard of them giving money hats to any project this generation.  Microsoft paid $50M to GTA, to have timed exclusive DLC.  In the past, there is no way that Sony wouldn't have had the complete game be exclusive for that amount.  And Sony got the game anyway.  Is it possible that the relationship allowed it to be on a Sony console and Nintendo didn't have the relationship so they missed out? 
 

458

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: March 15, 2010, 08:35:15 PM »

If the market leader has to bribe developers to support its system then obviously something is very wrong with the industry.

Nintendo's not really the market leader for many types of games.  The tools exist for easy conversion of PS3 to X360 to PC.  And in a way PS3/X360/PC have more gamers than the Wii.  To create a game for the Wii, you generally have to create the engine/game etc, and then you can only keep it on the Wii.  This takes alot of time and money minizing the impact of HD vs. SD. 
 
Also, the bases aren't the same.  About 50% of my co-workers own a Wii (single system owners) and they sure as heck could care less about GTA, RE5, L4D, whatever coming to the Wii.  They are perfectly happy with Wii Fit, Wii sports, Game Party, etc.  I'm not going to make some wild estimate of what percentage of Wii owners would be interested in GTA, RE5, L4D to come to the Wii.  But I know had GTA 4 been exclusive to the Wii, there is no way that it would have trumped the sales it has now.  Even if they somehow managed to make it better in every single way sans graphics which is impossible.

459

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: March 15, 2010, 08:27:06 PM »

Timed exclusives are a result of bribes, if that's the only way third parties will make games for the Wii that are worth a damn then they can get lost for all Nintendo cares. Helping third parties shouldn't mean stuffing money up their arse. If they want to be subsidized by console manufacturers they'll have to stay on the HD consoles, if they want to go out and grab that giant userbase they'll have to do it with their own hands. This is business, not charity!

But business is a two way street.  Having a game on a game on Nintendo gets Nintendo tons of money through licensing, free marketing for the Wii, further third party support when the game succeeds, etc.  I'm not saying Nintendo should have offered $500 million to get GTA exclusive.  What I am saying is had Nintendo gave $2-3 million in value, whether it be in developer tools or whatever, to ensure that GTA 4 would have came to the Wii, they would have recouped that in spades.  You can't honestly suggest that Nintendo should treat Take Two like a budget developer such as Majestco?  GTA has as much brand power as anything Nintendo produces sans maybe the new Wii whatever line of titles or Mario.
 
Big business like Walmart, IBM, etc. require sweethart deals to do business with them.  It's called capitalism, not charity and as long as the other systems are around to raise the value of a GTA, then Nintendo will have to pay or do without.  I was sad they did without until I got a PS3.  Now I don't care so much.

460

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: March 15, 2010, 07:49:55 AM »

You're theory is wrong in that it no longer applied. It applied during the Yamauchi years, but since Iwata took over Nintendo has made significant efforts to make their systems more developer friendly. Reggie himself asked Rockstar to start making M games on Nintendo hardware. That was how we were able to get Bully, GTA: CTWs, and others.  These games haven't sold as well as expected, but it isn't as though Nintendo isn't trying to turn things around.

Reggie typically says the right thing in public, I.E., love for this game or that game to be on the Wii.  There is no way he initiated any contact with Rockstar to get those games on the Wii.  Rockstar was testing the large Wii marketbase out to see if it could support larger scale mature games (GTA) and the trial failed. 
 
I'm not going to spend all day refuting this because it's been beat to a pulp and third party support isn't going to change for the Wii from here on out.  But here is what I grabbed in a search of Reggie and Take Two http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=193809 "And again, from our standpoint, if they build a bottoms-up game that takes advantage of what we do well, I'd love to see it on the platform."  I.E. do it our way, with our controls and we'll be happy.  Not exactly a third party endorsement.  A search for Reggie and third parties yields this, http://wii.ign.com/articles/932/932052p1.html.  I.E. we've done everything we can for third parties, it is all their fault they aren't suceeding. 
 
We can talk whether Nintendo needs to give resources or not to third parties (since they are making so much dough and all) but a true committment to third parties would require some resources whether it be helping them with development, marketing, a break on licensing, use of certain rights ect.  Nintendo does none of this, and PS/Xbox do.  That's why you see GTA 4 have timed exclusives.  It's not because Take Two decided they want the 360 to win the console war, it's because green backs were involved and GTA is a big enough licence that hardware developers pay for it to be on their system.  And Nintendo's response is well if they do it our way, we'll allow GTA to be on the Wii.  That's why the big games don't come.  Not that I care about GTA 4, but I like Resident Evil and a handful of other big games that the Wii missed.

461

TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Cuts Back on Wii Manufacturing Orders

« on: December 04, 2009, 10:37:13 PM »

Nintendo hit the perfect storm this generation.  They went with standard def (when hdtv rates were low) and kept their price very affordable.  They also released a new control scheme and everyone wanted to see what it was all about thus pushing more more sales to them.  Take away those two benefits and you have the Gamecube situation all over. 

Nintendo makes money always, they did during the Gamecube era.  The Wii has poor third party support, and Sony and Microsoft are coming to the plate with their own unique control schemes.  Will they be better?  Who knows, but the benefit that they had for the Wii that is a strong unknown.  HD adoption has also skyrocketted so I don't think the Wii can afford to go super cheap on hardware again. 

However, they have another unique situation.  Both Sony and Microsoft lost a ton of money this gen bleeding each other dry.  As such, I think they are actually just planning on releasing "Natal" and "Wand" instead of releasing a new console.  Neither of their adoption rates are out of this world so it is concievable, that if they can keep the market excited, they could sell for 10 years.  Nintendo, however, is quickly reaching market saturation.  Can they sell more than the PS2?  Bottom line is who cares.  Most PS2s were sold for less than $150.  The Wii isn't at that price point and won't be for a while if it does hit it so Nintendo shouldn't be concerned about reaching the lower end of the market which are less likely to pay full price for games anyway.  Nintendo shouldn't give up on the Wii.  They should give it good gaming support for the next 2 years.  Then they should release a new console and they could dominate the market again.  They will have the "new" console, they can include features that the PS3/Xbox360 didn't include because they weren't cost effective at the time, and they can start from 0 again and sell rediculous amounts of them. 

This also allows Nintendo to keep the premium brand that they have been trying to do.  I've never liked it, but Nintendo doesn't have a player's choice title, they haven't dropped their price on any games, they didn't want to lower the price of Wii because it stops people from becoming early adopters because they are always waiting for the next price drop.  Same reason they shouldn't release a different version of the Wii with new features.  It leaves the consumer always on the fence wondering if a better deal is coming.  They want you to think this is the best deal now, so don't wait, buy it. 

462

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: December 04, 2009, 10:06:52 PM »

The stupid thing about the PSPgo is it could have been successful.  They could have made it a relaunched PSP and launched it at $169 to go head to head with the DSi.  It wouldn't have beat the DSi but it wouldn't have been the joke it is now.  They could have increased it's power and made it a true PSP2 which would have given people reason to buy it as opposed to the 3000.  Or they could have gave it a touch screen to go head to head with the ipod touch and more app friendly.  Any one of them would have at least prevented the insta-death that this was.  I own 2 DSs and was looking to get a PSP.  I heard there was a hardware revision so I was waiting, and then I heard the price and immediately bought a 3000 bundle.  No point for the go unless it kills you to have the 3000 and it's what 10% bigger size.   

463

Nintendo Gaming / Re: New Wii Zelda

« on: November 21, 2009, 07:10:05 AM »

I guess I grew up with Zelda so I've always enjoyed the Zelda games.  To me I was Link and Zelda was my princess.  In my head I wrote the story and Link had my personality, and Zelda had the personality of my dream girl.  It was me growing in strength and completing those tasks.  Sometimes when a personality/story is so defined it's hard to get into because I don't see myself as that kind of hero or don't find the story believable. 

I don't think a good story is bad, I just think it goes back to the books vs. movie debate.  If I've read a book first I often dislike the movie.  You know, they picked who to be the star?  How can he act cocky like that?  She's the person he's going to save?  In my head I already played out the movie and I thought it was perfect, the movie is a remake that just isn't as good.

464

General Gaming / Re: Oh, GameStop. You do make me laugh.

« on: November 21, 2009, 06:57:11 AM »

That Guy.  The best conclusion is this is an ad campaign.  Sure, their revenue/per will be lower, but they are hoping they make it up with the increased sales of those that aren't as informed as the average gamer that visits websites.  Accessibility often = more sales. 

It also makes me think they are using this to get people into DLC.  Then once you have people downloading, they hope that you take advantage of the fact that I can say, boot up my Wii and just buy $10 on the Wii channel versus going to GameSpot and paying $10 for a game.  This is more of a trial period than the way things will always be distributed going forward. 

465

TalkBack / Re: Super Mario Kart Hitting Virtual Console This Monday

« on: November 21, 2009, 06:36:27 AM »

Yay?  Is there any reason we couldn't get Pilotwings 64 rather than the original SNES game?

Yeah the SNES one is pretty ****ty, crap like Password save and crap. The N64 one is where it's at.

VC automatically saves at any spot.  Not sure why password saves matter on VC.  Or are their other reasons for the 64 version?  I really haven't played either. 

Back to topic, I own the SNES Mario Kart, but I am still planning on picking this up.  I know it will look like crap on my TV, but I'm still not sure if that's my favorite Mario Kart game released. 

466

TalkBack / Re: Marvelous Loses Money on Wii Projects

« on: November 21, 2009, 06:04:45 AM »

AFAIK the rule of thumb is that you must sell 100k units for every million dollars you invested into the development.

Last I heard an average Wii game cost $10M.  It's tough to say what these games cost, but I think it's safe to say that nobody comes to market with a game (that's not Wiiware) and expects to sell only 100,000 especially with the Wii usesrbase at 50+ million and expanding at least 1+million a month.  This is a problem.  I know these are niche games, but unfortunately these are some of the better games to hit the Wii.

There's a reason Iwata told people not to do pricedrops. I preordered NSMBWii from Amazon while all 360 games I bought were significantly below MSRP (most expensive was Brütal Legend at 55€, MSRP 70€, second was Prototype at 40€ and it goes down from there). That's in part because Nintendo also starts out with a saner price (40-50€ instead of 70) but also because you can be sure the price won't drop much.

I think first it's a general problem in our economy right now.  Look at other retail items.  It's I won't buy this until Thanksgiving sales, or after Christmas sales, or until the government makes a program incentivizing me to purchase something.  And I think in general consumers are still scared to purchase, job cuts are still coming in the areas I live.  I think my job is secure but the more businesses our area loses even I wonder when my business won't make enough to support itself.  So their is a problem in the environment right now.

However, having said that, I think your argument is more for digital distribution than companies not to decrease prices.  Nintendo has clought in retail.  While Excite Trucks is nary to be found at retail, most stores with have a few copies of Galaxy or Twilight Princess at $50, because they know when people buy a Wii these two titles have a good chance of being picked up as well.  Most developers don't have that luxury.  Retail in general wants to see turnover if they are holding your products.  So if a developer like Marlvelous takes this stand they can expect fewer sales to retail because retail doesn't want to gamble on sales. 

It also doesn't mean a sale won't occur.  Retailers often hold unofficial sales to get gamers in.  And it's sure with the games mentioned at some point the retailer is just going to decide to dump their product at whatever price they can get for the copies because they see 20+ new releases a week, they like the cycle of games sell for 6 months and then dump.   

Digital games don't have this issue.  It cost a fee to run a server, but to add one game to a server to hold available for download costs almost nothing.  So if 5 years after release someone downloads LKS or whatever, it's almost all profit.  A retail wouldn't hold a game for 5 years (without it continually turning I.E. Galaxy) because it takes up space for them to be selling something else to their customer that will turn.

467

TalkBack / Re: Marvelous Loses Money on Wii Projects

« on: November 20, 2009, 07:33:30 PM »

What would you have had them do?  I may be wrong but marketing isn't effective as it used to be.  I don't listen to the radio, and I use a DVR to record all my shows, so I don't watch commercials.  I haven't seen a 360, PS3, or Wii ad in ages.  The only reason I know games exist is because I look for them on the internet.  It's easy to cherry pick and say they weren't advertised, but have niche games like this ever been advertised?  While they didn't sell great their high end probably wasn't much higher and you want them to throw $10M dollars into an ad campaign? 

It makes me sad actually.  Everytime a third company says this, I come on here and see everyone ripping on that company.  It didn't sell because a. advertising, b. port of PS3/360 game, c. niche game d. released too close to Nintendo game.  There's some truth to each one, but I rarely hear third parties complain about 360/PS3 games and this just means less support for the Wii going forward.  There are also two big problems plauging the Wii.  a.  There is a large portion of people that bought it only for Wii Sports and Wii Fit, and b. There is a large portion that also own a PS3/360 and would rather buy games for that.  Hope this doesn't mean Wii 2 (or whatever they call it) will have this dismal of support because Sony and Microsoft will have gimmicks ready for the next round.

468

TalkBack / Re: EA CEO Frustrated by Low Wii Sales

« on: November 17, 2009, 08:58:31 PM »

Did the RE ports fail?  They were ports.  There was no incentive for anyone involved to buy them, really, unless you just wanted to play a port of a very old game on a new system.  Wait, didn't one port succeed?  Oh, right, the most recent one, RE4:Wii.  The other ports offered nothing new, and no matter what, could be found cheaper on the PS1.

So if people don't don't buy the Nintendo version because they have the Sony version..... then people wouldn't buy RE5 Wii because they have the Sony version?  This was more to counter a point that all REs had been released on Nintendo so should have RE5.  Only 3 RE gamecube titles are worth talking about saleswise.  REmake was great, I own it.  However, it was outsold by RE1 on the PS1.  RE0, another I liked and own, was by all accounts the worst selling of the main RE series.  RE4 Cube was outsold by the PS2 version.   Oh yeah and RE4 Wii was outsold by the PS2 version.

And I've never heard your conspiracy theory about licensing before, but it makes no sense.  If the games were to be priced at $20 considering a preferred license, but then Nintendo required the standard license, wouldn't the game have been priced at $30?  I don't know how licensing works, but I wouldn't imagine there'd be more than a $10 difference IF your unsourced fantasy licensing numbers are true.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/384/384167p1.html
I thought I read the "licence speculation" from a Matt Cassimassina blog but couldn't find it.  So I won't speculate further on this point except to point out from this review that.

"Both Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis would ship to the Nintendo home console at a somewhat attractive price point: $19.99 U.S.", "Unfortunately, plans change, and Capcom has since dropped the lowball MSRP for a near-standard tag of $39.99. Why? We've heard no official reasoning for this price hike."

So the price did double from the initial announcement.  $30/$40 probably dead at either price point since it was a straight PS1 port.   

Isn't it possible that Capcom was already developing Resident Evil 5 back when they received the full information on Resident Evil 4's sales?  I haven't looked to see when it began development, but I'd imagine Capcom might have been looking at creating RE5 back right around when Dead Rising was a success on the 360!  Could this be the case?

Not sure I understand your point.  I'm sure Capcom knew how much RE4 sold and Dead Rising.  I thought we had determined PS3/360 versions were good business decisions.  The question was should a Wii RE5 should have been developed as well.

469

TalkBack / Re: EA CEO Frustrated by Low Wii Sales

« on: November 13, 2009, 07:22:59 AM »

The iphone is technically superior to the Gamecube and even gives the Wii a run for it's money.  It was also Capcom's first major support for the device, they didn't have a failed attempt for the series to fall back on. 

I can't believe we are having an argument from 2004 again.

GC RE4 was technically superior, but 1 month before the release of the highly anticipated game, a game that many PS2 owners were thinking of picking up a $99 Gamecube for, the HYPE was neutered by the announcement of the PS2 version with extra level with Ada Wong. Why would all those PS2 owners that were oh so close to finally pulling the trigger on a GC buy one now that they know the same game with an extra level is coming a little bit later.

Meantime, the GC with it's 25million install base happens to still sell 1.6 mill vs PS2 with their 70 million install base sell 2mill.

That actually sounds more like a victory for the GC to me with a higher percentage of console owners buying the game. Then 1.3 million more rebuy the game with it comes to Wii with improved controls.

But I was never saying that RE5 shouldn't have existed on PS360, I'm just saying that it should have also come to Wii since that is where they were steering the franchises fan base. They left the Nintendo RE fans hanging and to keep us happy, they give us the consolation prize.


I'm glad Pro said it already, but you can't seriously compare the RE games from PS1/2/Dreamcast to the ones that showed up on GC 3 years later at an almost full price.

Tomatoes/tomatoes.  Maybe the GC did a good job with RE4, it wasn't the most "fair" expiriment.  But nothing in life is fair and it didn't do good enough in Capcom's mind.  The Wii version is a port, but you guys want to play the #'s game?  It has a base well on it's way to 3x the size of the GC, it is the superior version in every way, it was a budget price so even people that had already bought the game could upgrade easily and it was still outsold by the GC version.  Fair?  Maybe not, but sales weren't strong enough to forgo the PS3/360 and make RE5 a Wii exclusive.  We want to compare the Wii to the PS2 because of how many units they each sold.  But the truth is the PS2 versions routinely kicked the teeth of other consoles sales in multi console titles and made third parties take notice of their population.  It was never, PS2 needs a special version to take advantage of it's strengths.  The Wii or GC have never done that with any multi console release (unless you count that they did port a late Rabbids game to the HD systems).

I also think it's interesting that you say the entire RE fanbase is on Wii, because alot of RE games (that we can't use to compare sales) were on the GC.  The interesting thing is this goes back to the original point.  Did the RE ports fail because of Capcom or Nintendo?  Rumor was Capcom thought they had a preferred licence fee for these ports to release these games at $19.99.  There were no budget GC games at the time and Nintendo balked wanting to keep their licence fee at an outrageous $12 (for a $20 game).  Capcom was then forced to make the games $40 to make any money thus killing their chance to make sales and any real money on the games.  Thus they stop producing them and the few copies made sat at retail at $40 until the stores decided to dump them.  Is this confirmed?  Obviously no way to confirm it unless you work at Capcom or Nintendo Japan.  But third parties tend to avoid working with Nintendo for a reason.  Could Nintendo done something small to ensure that a RE5 was made beside the HD versions?  Maybe. 

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TalkBack / Re: EA CEO Frustrated by Low Wii Sales

« on: November 12, 2009, 11:12:06 PM »

I didn't say RE4 on the PS2 selling 400,000 more than the GC was a sound defeat.  But it is noteworthy becuase the PS2 was released 10 months after the GC, was inferior to the GC version (except the Wong levels) and supposedly the GC version had the advantage of the RE fanbase due to Capcom making all RE games to this date available for GC.  And despite the deck being stacked towards the GC, it still lost by 25%.

Not sure why the spin offs would be a better comparison?  Because they sold more appropriately due to the fact they are spin offs that weren't at all like the main series?

471

TalkBack / Re: EA CEO Frustrated by Low Wii Sales

« on: November 12, 2009, 10:58:10 PM »

I wasn't actually trying to show that the PS2 games outsold the GC games.  I was trying to show that the GC sales were poor compared to the prior sales of RE games on other systems (PS1 +PS2).  I edited my post to convey that.  If you have better #'s you can add them to the post.  As noted these may not be the most updated numbers but they are from reputable sources.

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TalkBack / Re: EA CEO Frustrated by Low Wii Sales

« on: November 12, 2009, 10:42:06 PM »

Thanks for reposting my whole post and giving no new information.  Some of the #'s may be outdated, but it's no surprise that the PS2 versions of RE have sold much better than the GC versions.

*psst*  Resident Evils 2 and 3 were on the Playstation 1, not Playstation 2.

So there's a typo in my typed (not linked) information.  Does that mean they sold on a Nintendo System but not on a Sony System?  According to this CV on the PS2 almost sold as much as RE1, RE2, RE3, CV, and RE0 on the Wii.   If you add RE4 and CV on the PS2 together they do outsell all GC sales.  The point was that their was an untapped Wii RE fanbase that was ignored.  I don't see that.  From PS1 to PS2, most RE titles have sold very well with CV being the only one under a million sold.  RE4 was the only GC title to go over 1 million.  RE2,3,CV on the GC shouldn't even count because they sold so poorly. 

473

TalkBack / Re: EA CEO Frustrated by Low Wii Sales

« on: November 12, 2009, 10:33:55 PM »

Thanks for reposting my whole post and giving no new information.  Some of the #'s may be outdated, but it's no surprise that the PS2 versions of RE have sold much better than the GC versions. 

474

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Official Wii Sales Thread

« on: November 12, 2009, 10:09:58 PM »

Looks like those extra 100s of thousands of Wiis listed on NPD make up for the tiny 20K grap that Wii misses out on in Japan each week.

5 weeks at Japan (one extended NPD month) is 100 thousand.  The Wii is also high on the price drop in the US.  Unfortunately they don't cancel out.  Western developers basically ignore Japans #'s but Japanese developers largely focus on what is going on in Japan. 

475

TalkBack / Re: EA CEO Frustrated by Low Wii Sales

« on: November 12, 2009, 09:36:51 PM »

That's not biased. Capcom released every mainline RE title on the Nintendo Console(RE0 - RE4) and didn't follow up with RE5. The fanbase for RE likely already had a Wii in wait for RE5 and it never came. That is the gap.

The same can be said for Sony except RE 0.  RE5 sold more than RE4 on the Cube and Wii combined and will shortly become the best selling RE of all time.  I think it did okay without being on a Nintendo console.  Most people also avoided RE2,3 and CV on the GC.  They were dreaded ports and were quickly dropped from retail.  On PS2 they sold at least decently.  This article isn't the newest and doesn't include RE4 sales.  However, it doesn't paint the picture of the Wii being the best RE fans.  http://uk.cube.ign.com/articles/463/463614p1.html 

Summary for US
 RE1 on PS1 almost 2 million units.  GC almost 500,000
 RE2 on PS1 about 1.7 million units.  GC almost 33,000
 RE3 on PS1 about 1 million units.  GC almost 42,000
 CV on PS2/DC about 1.2 million units.  GC Unknown.

Sure it was a bad idea to not move this to the Wii?  You could have had those 33,000 (at most) that grabbed the entire series.

According to Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_evil_4
The GC RE4 sold 1.6m to the PS2 2.0m.  Didn't help that they announced the PS2 version before releasing the GC version, but you would have hoped that the GC version being superior would have pushed sales.

They probably figured releasing MvC on the Wii would mean people would buy the $10 MvC and forgo the $50 TvC altogether.  They probably also figured Wii owners are less likely to buy a download only title rather than a full retail title.