Japanese Analysts Speculate on Nintendo Crash

[Jimmyjames]

Problem is, the jackasses that bought Wii because is was trendy and hip aren't gamers. They don't buy games because Wii Sports is all they need (and to a lesser extent, Rock Band and Guitar Hero).

How did the system get a tie-in ratio of 6 then? (on average 6 games have been sold for every Wii, the same goes for the PS3) As far as I can see Nintendo's traditional titles also sell big even with the "casual" audience. Third parties are failing to capitalize on the market outside of a few flukes and seem to have no clue how to consistently sell millions. Note that not all low-rated games are actual garbage, they're just unsuitable for the kind of gamer who's fanatic enough about gaming to staff a gaming website.

You're absolutely right. I meant third-party, should've made that more clear. I recall reading that something like 70% of the games sold were first-party.

I stand by my opinion that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Nintendo audience, however. For a game like "Boom Blox" to only move 160,000 copies while there are 22 million Wiis out there is criminal. That's not even 1%. What are Wii owners playing then?

 

[Logan Westbrook]

So.. a sequel to the game that GameSpot awarded "Worst Game Everyone Played" didn't sell well and this somehow a death knell for the Wii?

Apparently they liked it in Japan.

 

[mudshovel]

Wow. So much hate for the wii? You know what; I have two daughters, 4 and 6.

The Wii allows them to play games, with me, that are not either ?Purble Place? on Vista. There is plenty of ?bad? titles on the Wii, but there are on every console/PC.

Do I play the Wii much? Not really. I stick to my pc games like Left 4 Dead. Not much on console catches my attention, besides party games like Mario Party and Brawl.

To wish Nintendo to crash and burn just because you don?t like the games they release is just retarded. It seems like people have bruised egos because they are no longer the focus of the market. And the sales are down? Not suprising. The World Economy = Stuffed (because of USA, but thats another argument!)

Most games released these days are tripe, especially on the ?ultra graphics? consoles. They favour graphics over substance and fun. I would much rather play super mario brothers 3 than most of the titles on the PS3 because it?s actually enjoyable. That said, Resident Evil was very pretty.

But I think Valve has the right idea, and I?m not a fan boy! Left 4 Dead graphically is shit compared to a lot of other FPS out there, but they make it up with co-op gameplay.

I?m not even sure what I am ranting about now. But, as far as I can see it, wishing doom on Nintendo is like wishing doom on your favourite stuffed toy as a child. Nintendo is my childhood console company left... if you are in my age group anyway!

That said, I only ever had a NES... then years later got a PS1 just so I could play Alien vs Predator Extension.

PC for the win!

 

[mudshovel]

Problem is, the jackasses that bought Wii because is was trendy and hip aren't gamers. They don't buy games because Wii Sports is all they need (and to a lesser extent, Rock Band and Guitar Hero).

How did the system get a tie-in ratio of 6 then? (on average 6 games have been sold for every Wii, the same goes for the PS3) As far as I can see Nintendo's traditional titles also sell big even with the "casual" audience. Third parties are failing to capitalize on the market outside of a few flukes and seem to have no clue how to consistently sell millions. Note that not all low-rated games are actual garbage, they're just unsuitable for the kind of gamer who's fanatic enough about gaming to staff a gaming website.

You're absolutely right. I meant third-party, should've made that more clear. I recall reading that something like 70% of the games sold were first-party.

I stand by my opinion that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Nintendo audience, however. For a game like "Boom Blox" to only move 160,000 copies while there are 22 million Wiis out there is criminal. That's not even 1%. What are Wii owners playing then?

Wii Sports and Super Mario Brothers 3

 

[antipunt]

Wait WTF. I thought Nintendo was making a killing?!

 

[Nomad]

Hopefully this will kick them in thier wii and they will finally make fun original titles for thier hardcore crowd after they just decided they were to cool for us.

Eh. I've been playing nintendo games since the NES 8-bit, and I've never seen anything I'd call "hardcore" come out of those consoles. Nintendo has always been about casual gaming experiences, in my eyes, and that's why I think the whole debate is going in the wrong direction. They don't need high-profile titles - especially not for the wii. It's a gimmick, and needs gimmicky titles. Things that make the most of the motion sensor. Be it tennis-games or mariokart. If you want a "hardcore" gaming experience, you'd better go for the xbox och playstation - or better yet, a PC.

Nintendo won't fall. On one hand they've pretty much got a monopoly on the casual gamers-market, since the PS and xbox focus on the "hardcore" market, and on the other hand Nintendo has the most stubborn fanbase I've ever seen. I'm not much of a console person myself, but my girlfriend has pretty much everything Nintendo has ever spewed out, and has no plans to stop buying everything they'll spew out in the future. Goes for most other Nintendo gamers I know as well.

Edit: Oh, and I actually like the wii. A lot. The PS2, PS3 and xbox 360 are just more of the bloody same. It's a new box with the same mechanics, really. Hell, I can't even see the difference between the graphics anymore. At least the Wii came with a new concept.

 

[iamnotincompliance]

Nintendo can just do what they did before and release new versions of the Wii that don't do anything particularly different, yet everyone still has to buy the new model.

Like releasing that black one nilcypher's picture shows? Sadly, that might work. I work with a guy who's just waiting for that because all his systems (and apparently furniture and such) are black, and the ordinary white Wii would ruin the theme he's spent so long working on. Just pull a Gamecube, release a veritable rainbow of colors, and everyone's happy again.

I realize there are skins for Wiis that do the same thing, as well as a number of people who have painted theirs, but (not my words, I just agree) it's not the same.

I also realize this completely sidesteps the fact a craptacular third party game failed to sell and somehow this will lead to the downfall of the not just the system, but the company as well, but most everyone else is ignoring that, so why shouldn't I?

That said, if big N ever does release an upgraded model with, say, a fucking DVD player like it should have had in the first place, or the motion controllers that actually work, or games I might be interested in, even I might consider getting one, and my last consoles are 16 bit.

Especially if it's black, since I also seem to have that theme going.

 

[Nomad]

That said, if big N ever does release an upgraded model with, say, a fucking DVD player like it should have had in the first place, or the motion controllers that actually work, or games I might be interested in, even I might consider getting one, and my last consoles are 16 bit.

Especially if it's black, since I also seem to have that theme going.

Hm. I've never had any problems with the motion controllers. They work perfectly fine for me. Have I just been extremely lucky?

I agree it should have a dvd-player, though.

 

[iamnotincompliance]

Hm. I've never had any problems with the motion controllers. They work perfectly fine for me. Have I just been extremely lucky?

I agree it should have a dvd-player, though.

Just what I've heard. Last time I even touched a Nintendo product was a 'Cube controller at a Toys-R-Us just after SSB: Melee came out, so no one take my word on Wii controller effectiveness.

 

[super_smash_jesus]

Solutions for Nintendo:
A. New console
B. New games from franchises they ignored for a while (Kid Icarus, Star fox, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, etc).
C. Try to have some 3rd party games. (Get Rare back!)
D. Get Miyamoto to do something right.
E. Fanboys aren't difficult to please.

Nintendo should hire you!

 

[Tartarga]

serves them right for becoming selling out to the casual crowd, idiots although No More Heroes was indeed awsome

 

[shatnershaman]

It could just be they've already sold to everyone who wants a Wii at that price, I mean they still have sold same number of Wiis in Japan as the PS3/360 combined then doubled and besides do you really need 2 Deca Sports games in your library.

 

[capnjack]

People predicted the Wii would fail when it was called the Revolution. People predicted the Wii would fail when the Wii Remote was announced (although lots of people finally gained a bit of confidence in it at that point). People were certain the Wii would fail when the name was announced. People thought the Wii would fail when key launch titles were pushed back; some were delayed a year. People thought the Wii would fail when Nintendo decided to start expanding the market.

This is just a standard story. People have been predicting Nintendo's crash since Nintendo first came into the video game business, but they've been holding pretty strong, I'd say. Even their questionable choices this generation have resulted in a lot of profit. Nintendo is run by good business men, and they are potentially doing a good thing for the image of gaming.

Let's all be rational for a second. Lower sales are not the end of the world. And to all you gamers out there, minigame compilations are not going to kill the industry.

 

[Sewblon]

Well here are some games that I would buy, A new Kirby game, a new Starfox game(I mean a real Starfox game, not like that gamecube thing,) And Eternal Darkness 2. I still don't understand why stylized games fell from grace and realism became mandatory. The real world is a hideous place with unintuitive controls, leap of faith gameplay and cryptic storytelling.

 

[DRADIS C0ntact]

Well I can say that I've been spending far more time with my PS3 than my Wii. I don't think I've actually played a Wii game in about 6 months. The novelty of motion controls just wore off on me I guess. Plus there are no new Wii games that really draw my attention the way some of the PS3 games do.

Still, I think Nintendo will be fine. Hardware sales may be falling, but they've already sold a crazy amount of hardware since the console was released...the sales had to start falling eventually. What they need to do now is work on quality control and get some great games out there.

 

[MMMowman]

A DSi was the same price as a wii... $300. I'm not shocked at all that the wii isn't going so well

 

[KDR_11k]

Hopefully this means that they won't keep pumping out Wiisports title and try something different.

WiiSports is officially the most sold game in history (okay, it's bundled in two of the three territories but still a massive seller in Japan). Wii Sports Resort has 1 to 1 swordfighting! I recall people asking for that for quite a while already.

Solutions for Nintendo:
A. New console
B. New games from franchises they ignored for a while (Kid Icarus, Star fox, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, etc).
C. Try to have some 3rd party games. (Get Rare back!)
D. Get Miyamoto to do something right.
E. Fanboys aren't difficult to please.

Scratch that, reduce it to one point: Make more games. That's really the only thing they need to do. It doesn't matter whether you're a new gamer or a core gamer, Nintendo hasn't released much recently so the appeal of the system hasn't increased and thus didn't push itself to more customers. I think they expected third parties to get a clue and make some better games after the system had been successful for 2.5 years already but I guess it's dangerous to overestimate the intelligence of third parties.
(Rare wasn't third party, they were second party and Nintendo still has a lot of those, possibly even more than before though you don't hear as much about them as you did about Rare in the N64 gen)

I stand by my opinion that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Nintendo audience, however. For a game like "Boom Blox" to only move 160,000 copies while there are 22 million Wiis out there is criminal. That's not even 1%. What are Wii owners playing then?

It moved ~900,000 copies actually (using VGchartz numbers, no idea how accurate those are but I do recall hearing about the 500k in the US part) which was apparently enough to make EA consider a sequel worth it. Your number makes me wonder if you have maybe only looked at the first few weeks of sales. It sold pretty well for an entire year AFAIK, the obsession with first week sales is wrong as the first week only accounts for a tiny fraction of the total game sales.