Biggerboat said: Louie said: There is one point everybody seems to forget: The 360 was out in 2005, without any competition, but it didn´t sell well. The PS3 was out in 2006 and as we can see with the recent price drops: It doesn´t affect the Wii that much and the Wii doesn´t affect the PS3 that much. Plus, all those games which were successful last gen are flopping right now. You can believe it or not, but without the Wii we´d ask ourselves where the big videogame crisis of 2007 came from and what we could do against it. There is not that giant market for HD consoles everyone wanted to see, because the prices are just too high (and yes, 300$ for a PS2 and 500$ for a PS3 IS a difference), so the market all in all would probably be smaller now without the Wii. and don´t tell me all those casual gamers would buy a PS3 instead. They wouldn´t. I kind of agree but not completely. I think it's hard to say if the PS3 price cut affected Wii because it remains sold out. For all we know demand decreased for Wii after PS3 was cut but not enough to fall below supply. I'm also not sure about the Wii not impacting PS3. It's definately not going for the exact same audience but there's definately some overlap. I'm sure there would have also been a lot more buzz around PS3 since launch had the Wii not completely hogged the limelight. I actually think the console which has suffered the most sales wise from Wii's release is the PS2. It may still be doing great for a system of it's age but nothing compared to what it would be if Wii was removed from the equation. I absolutely agree that the industry was headed for a crash as there wasn't anything significantly different enough about the PS3/360 to convince people to upgrade console. SNES to PS - massive strides into 3D gaming. PS to PS2 - allowed far more complex 3D gaming which resulted in games like GTA3 which just couldn't be done previously. PS2 to 360 - nothing comparable to jump in earlier gens, just more of everything with extra polys.

The question is did the price cut affect the core gamers or the casual gamers? As I see it, the Wii is mostly buyed by casual gamers, gamers who want something new and Nintendo fans.

 

Casual gamers would never buy a PS3 at 500$, no matter if there are a thousend Sing Star and Buzz games on it.

Gamers who want something new wouldn´t buy the PS3 either because they are not so interested in it.

And the Nintendo fans...well, they are Nintendo fans.

 

Probably the price cut just had an effect on the dicisions of some core gamer. That´s why we think the interest in Wii decreased since then. In reality it may affect the Wii sales by 1-5%, nothing Nintendo should care about. So in fact, the effect of the PS3´s price cut was much smaller than we think it was because we usually don´t get responses of people outside the hardest core here.

 

hmmm....about the Wii starting to get "the big games" and no more spin-offs,I guess we´ll find out at TGS and at most E3 2008...but personally,I expect the "big games" to remain on PS3/360 while the Wii gets its own "big titles".

Surveys and other information online state that there is a 90% purchase rate of the Wii by people who owned at least one console from the last generation. I'm not saying that casual gamers aren't buying it (hell my Mom bought one) but I think they are the minority.
I've been a hardcore gamer since the NES days and owned all three systems last gen. Unfortunetely I can't afford to drop $500 on a video game console. I bought the Wii because I could afford $250. I think that may be a shared setiment among hardcore gamers as well.

Like it or not, Nintendo is going to have a huge audience this generation and third parties are already starting to take notice. Several developers have stated in interviews that the Wii is not only cheaper to produce for, but also that the installed base is much larger than they originally thought. They may be getting spin-offs now because (as someone else state) they were caught of gaurd by the success of the Wii.

Whether or not third parties want Wii to win shouldn't be the question because I don't think they really care. What we should be asking is:

Will they make more games for it and thus cause the system to win?

I think the answer is yes, because they can sell more units to the system with the most consoles being played.

Louie said: Biggerboat said: Louie said: The question is did the price cut affect the core gamers or the casual gamers? As I see it, the Wii is mostly buyed by casual gamers, gamers who want something new and Nintendo fans. Casual gamers would never buy a PS3 at 500$, no matter if there are a thousend Sing Star and Buzz games on it. Gamers who want something new wouldn´t buy the PS3 either because they are not so interested in it. And the Nintendo fans...well, they are Nintendo fans.

I disagree with a few of your points.

First is the, imo, misconception that Wii is predominantly bought by casuals. I simply see no evidence to suggest this.  

	Wii Sports	Nintendo	1.87	3.72	2.42	8.01
	Wii Play	Nintendo	1.47	1.51	0.95	3.93
	The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess	Nintendo	0.56	1.77	1.09	3.42
	Wario Ware: Smooth Moves	Nintendo	0.47	0.60	0.60	1.67
	Super Paper Mario	Nintendo	0.48	0.63	0.00	1.11
	Rayman Raving Rabbids	Ubisoft	0.02	0.58	0.42	1.02
	Red Steel	Ubisoft	0.04	0.45	0.52	1.01

These are the million+ sellers so far. As you can see there are as many traditional games as casual & taking into account that Wii Sports is a pack-in in most of the world and Wii Play is effectively 5-10 bucks, the sales of Zelda/Paer Mario/Red Steel are significant. We also have DQ:Swords all but gauranteed to be at least Japan's best selling 3rd party game and could potentially join the above list. I would also question whether Wii Sports is a 'casual game'. It is intuitve and easy to pick up but it also offers plenty of depth and demands a lot of skill to unlock all of the medals. Excitetruck, Tiger, Madden & RE:4 have also racked up respecatble sales numbers. Numbers don't support your argument.

Also there is the fact that people are still having to queue up for these systems, sometimes for hours at a time. Would you associate this behaviour with die hard gamers or casuals who think it looks a fun way to pass a few hours a week?

As for casuals not buying PS3, I also disagree. The guy sitting next to me at work while I type this is about to buy one. On asking what games he played he answered Pro Evolution Soccer. On telling him that the 360 was also getting this game and that at this time it had a better variety of other games he replied that he had just always bought PS and that was that. I also know another person who purchased a PS3 without knowing anything about the games that were on it. I realise this is anecdotal but I'm sure there are plenty of PS owners who coughed up the money just beacause of the brand. I'd say this is more symptomatic of casual behaviour than somebody trying out Wii Sports, liking it and buying a Wii.

Casuals who don't have spare cash wont buy PS3 but those that do and worship the PS brand(even though the games they like are probably made by 3rd parties) will.

 

JouninGarret said: hmmm....about the Wii starting to get "the big games" and no more spin-offs,I guess we´ll find out at TGS and at most E3 2008...but personally,I expect the "big games" to remain on PS3/360 while the Wii gets its own "big titles".

I think it will depend on whether devs can think of an effective way to adapt the 'big games' to Wii. Some will and some won't. For the ones that won't they'll bring out something completely new that does.

The 3rd parties don't care who wins, they just want to make money.

I'm not sure third party devs really want the Wii to win. While costs may be cheaper, their sales on Nintendo platforms have generally been much lower than Nintendo's own games. They also usually sell much more on the other consoles but there are a few exceptions (Soul Calibur). In many ways I think this is the 3p's own fault. There has been an increase in support but the problem is that too many are games that are just being ported from the PS2. And many of those are subpar PS2 games to begin with. The 3rd party devs don't seem to care about pushing the Wii to its limits so games end up looking like ass. Due to Nintendo, we know it's capable of much more which is why the Nintendo games end up selling much better. Even with the simplistic graphic games like Wii Sports/Play, they have used the wiimote far superior to the 3p devs. We were discussing buying The Bigs but hearing there is a delay in the swing and the odd fielding controls has made up unlikely to get it. On the other hand, Mario Baseball will certainly be an awesome game to get and there's little worry about delays and as the fielding is minimal, there won't be any complication there.

twesterm said: The 3rd parties don't care who wins, they just want to make money.

Surely it's easier to make money from a console that caters to a user base you're familiar with, have experience making particular types of games for and uses an interface that you now inside out.

For instance do you think a developer like Epic who prides itself on exceptional visuals and caters for young males who want mainly violence wants Wii to dominate or the dev of Trauma Centre(cant remember dev, Tecmo maybe?) wants a HD powerhouse whos users want mainly GTA clones, FPSs and racers to win?

There are definately developers which are suited to a specfic console more than others and as a result will care about the 'victor'.

We also have to consider that third party developers starved the Wii in its early days so its no surprise that Few games other than luanch titles such as Raving Rabbids and Red Steel broke 1million.

It will always be a struggle to get third party developers to embrace a Nintendo system willingly. Hopefully Nintendo raising the bar graphically on its own games will force third party developers to follow suit.

The third parties do not want a winner. They want a competitive field. They want to have to make games for multiple consoles to sell their product.

That said, I would not be surprised if there was a mild bias toward the Wii. Not because of brand-name favoritism. But because if the Wii performs well enough, it will open up a new way to make and play games for this and all following generations.