Data Implies Wii U, Wii, and PS1 Had Worst Launch Games

[TsunamiWombat]

Yes, and the PS1 went on to become a smash success as did the Wii. Thus proving the launch don't mean shit, yo.

 

[Strazdas]

Only proves that beating a dead horse and making mario 25 doesnt actually work.
then again, people still buy it, so what the hell, why not abuse stupidity of userbase?

P.S. capcha: spelling bee. really, capcha is into dark humour today.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Only proves that beating a dead horse and making mario 25 doesnt actually work.

Right, That's why the Gamecube is on the top of that list. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi%27s_Mansion] That's also why the N64 is in 3rd Place... [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_64]

OT: I don't trust this graph, nor do I trust Launch Titles to mean how well a System will and won't do.

 

[Quaxar]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/DataTNG.jpg/250px-DataTNG.jpg
> Data implies

Cannot unsee...

 

[gim73]

Launch games... hmph! Those are pretty much a joke. I owned my PS2 for months, using it as a DVD player before I really started getting games I wanted to play on it. In the end, the PS2 had a longer lifetime and more enjoyable games than any other system. Nintendo tends to put out some solid first party games at every system launch. This would tend to favor them because their third party support is complete trash, or only released in japan. The Wii benefited LARGELY from the lousy economy, being the cheapest system out there (due to releasing a system only marginally better than the gamecube). Easily the best Wii games pretty much required you to buy the game controller to play with any amount of enjoyment. Then we get the Xbox360, which looks worse than the PS3, but is cheaper and doesn't have some of the game breaking glitches that almost all the PS3 games experienced at launch.

Now the SNES had a grand lineup of titles at launch, a successful run and pretty much some of the best games of all time.

 

[grigjd3]

Seems there might be systematic reviewing biases here. If a console was the first of it's generation, the graphics present far more of a wow factor and this could trend it up as compared to other consoles during the same generation. Then again, I imagine the standard deviations of these averages is quite large so maybe it's all just a wash anyhow.

 

[dantoddd]

i would go a step further and normalize the results by dividing the average for each console by the average score for a contemporary game.

 

[babinro]

This thread is funny because I kept reading articles or comments saying how strong the WiiU launch titles are. I think a few times this statement was made by the Escapist as well.

My favorite all-time console is the Gamecube and so it's nice to see it in number one slot for something, lol.

 

[Squilookle]

The Wii could have had the greatest launch lineup in history if they had just sorted out the Virtual Console to have everything available from day one. Unfortunately they messed it up so utterly and extravangantly that the Wii now sits near the bottom, and deservedly so, too.

 

[Tanakh]

Actually, not really. The PS1 was a reasonably priced console that managed to use a technological innovation (three dimensional graphics) to appeal to a demographic who had never had any interest in the SNES or MegaDrive systems, and managed to convert millions of non-gamers into gamers by including easily approachable, non-hardcore titles like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot.

Quote or I find this VERY hard to belive. The PS1 had several advantages, a more varied library compared to the N64 (from which i only remember first party titles tbh) and the easiness of pirating come to mind.

But 3D and casual titles? Those are probably the only 2 things that the N64 did better.

 

[Joriss]

I don't pretty much care about the whole launch business but I have to admit that I got a gamecube when it was released and the games I got with it, were games that I played till the end of it.

 

[Treblaine]

>implying


But seriously, PS1 may have launched with crap, but it launched in 1994! That's 3 years before N64 had a global release.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

How does the Gamecube not make it into a discussion like this.

Honestly, Nintendo's been fucking this up for years, and they were the ones who used to give you blockbusters with their freaking consoles. The Vita has had a pretty miserable launch as well, and it arguably still doesn't have anything whatsoever worth having the console for even now.

 

[PunkRex]

Gamecube is on top.

Thus it was and always shall be.

 

[Tanakh]

The N64 didn't come out until two years after the PS1. The PS1 was the first console to wow people with three dimensional graphics. Before then, gaming was perceived in mainstream culture as being a Nintendohard 2D shoot-em-up/beat-em-up hardcore hobby. There was no casual audience. If you were into gaming, you were pretty much hardcore by default. Sony's PS1 was the console that first stretched beyond gaming's typical hardcore demographic, by offering friendly looking, easy to get into games like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. The reason those games sold the millions they did was because they appealed to people who were put off by difficult-to-master games like Super Mario, and offering them something more forgiving and more colourful instead.

Not just that, but the PS1 specifically targeted non-gamers in the way it used genre titles to appeal to different demographics. If you were a fan of motor racing, all of a sudden you could get a PS1 and play the likes of Gran Turismo and Rally Cross, games that offered some of the real thrill of being a race car driver. My dad was a huge motor racing fan back in the day, and he played the original Gran Turismo for exactly this reason. If you were a fan of fishing, you could pick up a copy of Reel Fishing II and travel the world's seas catching exotic fish. If you were a football fan, you could pick up FIFA and play all those wonderful teams and players you had previously watched on Match Of The Day.

The PS1 was absolutely instrumental in the way it brought in demographics outside of the traditional 'hardcore' gaming one. Sure, hardcore gamers bought the console too, and there were plenty of 'core' games for them. But just as many bought the console for the non-traditional, easy-to-get-into titles it offered. Hell, many people bought it just because it meant they could have a CD player in their living room, and a CD player that played trippy, pretty to look at visuals during songs to boot.

And no, the N64 didn't do casual titles better. The N64 was simultaneously blessed and cursed with having a woefully small library of games that happened to be made up of stone-cold classics. The likes of Ocarina Of Time, Super Mario 64, Goldeneye etc are some of the best games of all time. However, they could not in any way be classed as 'casual'. Very few games on the N64 could be classed as casual at all. It was a 'core' console, blessed with a small but legendary selection of 'core' titles.

Humm yeah... no, seriously no.

1 - The N64 was released year and a half after the PS1. Which is actually a big diference, the ps 1 only had 1 xmas cycle of advantage. It was the first 3d console, yeah, but looking only at launch titles his graphics were way worse than the arcade scene of the time.

2 - You are saying the PS1 was attractive at lauch due Crash, Spyro, GT? Those games came 2-4 years into the console life, and in their first iterations spyro and crash had worse graphics than the casual lineup that the N64 had. Heck, the first crash can't hold a candle against mario64 in level design, and if anything spyro is one of the games that mario64 influenced the most.

I also disagree with your casual/hardcore appreciation, i really don't see how spyro is casual but mario64 isn't, or how GT is casual but Golden Eye or mario kart aren't. But unlike what i posted earlier, that is not a factual mistake, and if you want to call them that then i guess you can say the PS1 is casual friendly and the N64 was not. At any rate i would point out that if you read your argument it is not that "the PS1 was casual" but more like "the PS1 had a wide library that offered good games for ANY kind of person while offering quality innovative graphics", and as that it has very little to do with the Wii.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, I wouldn't put much faith in this because of the simple fact that it was admitted they lacked key data on participants like the Playstation, yet still ranked them. It's also notable that you have to consider the business climate of the time, there was a lot of anti-PSX rhetoric to begin with because it was made by Sony and was competing with more established brands at the time, though it wound up defeating them. I think it's launch lineup probably got slammed in reviews for that reason. While I don't believe it's around anymore right now, I think some games like "Battle Arena Toshinden" and "Tekken" were both around for the PSX launch, had huge followings to begin with, and influanced gaming as a whole (within the fighting game arena especially, which was more popular then). Also you'd have to also obtain lists of Japan-only games for that one, as one of the big problems with Sony's consoles has always been a lot of their best games never getting US releases.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

What no Sega Saturn launch data.. oh wait ahem never mind.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

That's quite surprising seeing so the PS1 and Sega's ineptitude with promoting the Sega Saturn pretty much led to their demise in the console market.

I'm actually surprised the Xbox 360 is so high. I love my 360, but apart from Gears Of War I can't say there were that many games that grabbed me straight away.

 

[dmase]

It seems to me this is biased data tinkering. I wonder if he included the Japanese release titles of which both Nintendo and Sony would have had. Another thing is longevity Gamecube had excellent games come out but did they have enough good games come out over the subsequent years that where good? I'd say no, example two: The Dreamcast it doesn't matter if you make an excellent game centering around your most beloved characters if you can't make it work over the long haul.

If releases where going to be judged I'd take number of consoles sold opening week compare it to the size of the market then measure again in 6 months compare the increase. A good opening week doesn't set the tone for a release it's over the wholes.(unless of course your talking about the ps3 in which case it can take up to 3 years to hit your stride.)

 

[Treblaine]

snip

It's not the most relevant comparison as back then N64 had a HUGE distinction from other consoles that is not distinct between WiiU and other HD console today:

Cartridge games.

It didn't matter how it started, the cartridge was a bet that ENDED IT!

CD media was so much cheaper, for such larger capacity, and even more considering discs could be hot-swapped for extra long games or even the first DLC as with GTA: London.

You'd struggle to get games like Metal Gear Solid onto N64, you just couldn't fit all the audio or music.

Square completely dropped development of any Final Fantasy on any Nintendo console as soon as the PS1 became apparent as an option.

I also remember the price differences between PS1 and N64, THEY WERE HUGE! £50 back in the mid 90's was balls crazy price, that's back when the exchange rate was $2 per £1 so $100 per game and add 15 years of inflation on top of that.

PS1 games were regularly £25, I still have some ancient jewel cases with the stickers still on them.

I think that might explain also why there was more third party support for Playstation while at the same time Sony invested a lot in 1st party games development. Nintendo didn't so much have good first-party development, it DEPENDED on it. And unlike in PS2/Gamecube generation far more publishers seemed to skip Nintendo console and jsut release their game on disc on PS1 (and PC).