By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales Discussion - On The Verge of A Gaming Crash? Without Nintendo....

bigjon on 18 December 2008
Magnific0 said:
I see Bigjon, the solution is: instead of making a crappy game with a big budget for an HD console, make an even crappier game but with less money for the Wii and you **MAY** reap the benefits, at least won't lose much money.

OK. Now, I can't see which part of that benefits the players. More crappy games with no commitment to quality, I don't want that , don't know about you.

If a company wants to stay competitive they've got to work harder, if the can't then it's time for them to consider developing other kinds of games, there's the PSN/Xbox Live Alternative. Look at the healthy Capcom branch of downloadable games, look at all the fine content of indie games on the PSN. If you can't deliver, you just can't so change your business, if that means going the Wii way to put out your trash there, then do it, if it's for the sake of business, it's all about money anyway. I just don't see how that benefits the industry. Even worse, I see that could very well be the path to destruction (going the casual, generic way) the only "Big Crash" of videogames that ever happened to this industry was provoked exactly by that proliference of crappy casual games.

 

 No you are very wrong.

I am willing to bet that with the budget of a crappy hd game, they could make an awsome Wii game. Example, the Conduit, I am willing to bet the budget on that is less than games like Heavenly Sword, Lair and Haze.



End of 2009 Predictions (Set, January 1st 2009)

Wii- 72 million   3rd Year Peak, better slate of releases

360- 37 million   Should trend down slightly after 3rd year peak

PS3- 29 million  Sales should pick up next year, 3rd year peak and price cut

Around the Network
bigjon on 18 December 2008
Magnific0 said:
I see Bigjon, the solution is: instead of making a crappy game with a big budget for an HD console, make an even crappier game but with less money for the Wii and you **MAY** reap the benefits, at least won't lose much money.

OK. Now, I can't see which part of that benefits the players. More crappy games with no commitment to quality, I don't want that , don't know about you.

If a company wants to stay competitive they've got to work harder, if the can't then it's time for them to consider developing other kinds of games, there's the PSN/Xbox Live Alternative. Look at the healthy Capcom branch of downloadable games, look at all the fine content of indie games on the PSN. If you can't deliver, you just can't so change your business, if that means going the Wii way to put out your trash there, then do it, if it's for the sake of business, it's all about money anyway. I just don't see how that benefits the industry. Even worse, I see that could very well be the path to destruction (going the casual, generic way) the only "Big Crash" of videogames that ever happened to this industry was provoked exactly by that proliference of crappy casual games.

 

 No you are very wrong.

I am willing to bet that with the budget of a crappy hd game, they could make an awsome Wii game. Example, the Conduit, I am willing to bet the budget on that is less than games like Heavenly Sword, Lair and Haze. Now we dont know if the conduit is a good game yet, but I as far as the budget goes, I think I am right (could be wrong, of course)



End of 2009 Predictions (Set, January 1st 2009)

Wii- 72 million   3rd Year Peak, better slate of releases

360- 37 million   Should trend down slightly after 3rd year peak

PS3- 29 million  Sales should pick up next year, 3rd year peak and price cut

mrstickball on 18 December 2008

I think part of the issue is that the Wii has fragmented the gamer base into 2 categories: The HD base, and the Wii base.

Never before has there been such a fragmentation. Last generation, there was a pretty clear choice - You had the PS2 for any project, and it was near-assured to garner huge sales. And then there was the GC and Xbox as 2nd-tier products, multi-plat games, or moneyhatting situations that could give increased profitability.

Not so with the Wii/HD comparison. It's a catch 22: Spend tons of cash on a blockbuster HD game and it either does great, and makes tons of cash...Or does OK and hurts (ala Haze or Lair).

The other option is the Wii, which has seen horrible returns for some games..Works for casual games, but that also fragments your work force - Few games seem broad success between all 3 platforms. Madden would be a great example of this...Despite the huge install base of the Wii, Madden sales have been nothing short of abysmal given the install base.

Part of it is the developers fault, part of it is the HW manufacturers fault - and all of them. No one is without blame. Nintendo put out trashy hardware that fragmented the abilities of developers, while the HD manufacturers put out systems that exponentially increased costs past what may be viable for the average game.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Vil3 on 18 December 2008
thx1139 said:
I would say it is more because of Nintendo.

Without the Wii the industry would have continued down the natural path and more consumers would be investing in HD systems and HD software. Tools and projects were started in 2004/2005 to be ready for HD systems.

well without wii we probably would be in the same situation as PS2/GC/XBOX generation in game sell numbers, but with more than 2 so high develop costs..that aint a good situation..

 



bigjon on 18 December 2008
Vil3 said:
thx1139 said:
I would say it is more because of Nintendo.

Without the Wii the industry would have continued down the natural path and more consumers would be investing in HD systems and HD software. Tools and projects were started in 2004/2005 to be ready for HD systems.

well without wii we probably would be in the same situation as PS2/GC/XBOX generation in game sell numbers, but with more than 2 so high develop costs..that aint a good situation..

 

 

 exactly what I was thinking.

The crash would occur when gamers got sick of FPS games.... Kinda like US car industry crashed when people stopped getting SUVs in droves.



End of 2009 Predictions (Set, January 1st 2009)

Wii- 72 million   3rd Year Peak, better slate of releases

360- 37 million   Should trend down slightly after 3rd year peak

PS3- 29 million  Sales should pick up next year, 3rd year peak and price cut

Around the Network
Shanobi on 18 December 2008

Since before this generation started, I've been saying we're on the brink of a huge gaming crash. I have said all along, again before this all started, that if the Wii failed, the gaming industry would implode.

People look and see "record sales" but don't understand what is really happening with the business end of things.

It's sad.

And yes, 3rd party developers have been reticent to admit their mistake of betting against the Wii. I think it's slowly turning around, but it has been too slow.



 

http://www.shanepeters.com/

http://shanepeters.deviantart.com/

Achievement is its own reward, pride only obscures.

HATING OPHELIA- Coming soon from Markosia Comics!

bigjon on 18 December 2008
mrstickball said:
I think part of the issue is that the Wii has fragmented the gamer base into 2 categories: The HD base, and the Wii base.

Never before has there been such a fragmentation. Last generation, there was a pretty clear choice - You had the PS2 for any project, and it was near-assured to garner huge sales. And then there was the GC and Xbox as 2nd-tier products, multi-plat games, or moneyhatting situations that could give increased profitability.

Not so with the Wii/HD comparison. It's a catch 22: Spend tons of cash on a blockbuster HD game and it either does great, and makes tons of cash...Or does OK and hurts (ala Haze or Lair).

The other option is the Wii, which has seen horrible returns for some games..Works for casual games, but that also fragments your work force - Few games seem broad success between all 3 platforms. Madden would be a great example of this...Despite the huge install base of the Wii, Madden sales have been nothing short of abysmal given the install base.

Part of it is the developers fault, part of it is the HW manufacturers fault - and all of them. No one is without blame. Nintendo put out trashy hardware that fragmented the abilities of developers, while the HD manufacturers put out systems that exponentially increased costs past what may be viable for the average game.

please name a huge budget wii exclusive game that has failed on the Wii?

If they dev had comitted to the Wii there would not be the fragementation you see. But right now the tradtional gamer would walk into Walmart and be terrified at the Wii library (Nintendo games aside). Once the Wii has a well rounded library you will se more core gamers migrate. If the conduit is AAA quality, it could be one of those game, in Japan, it will be DQX.

 



End of 2009 Predictions (Set, January 1st 2009)

Wii- 72 million   3rd Year Peak, better slate of releases

360- 37 million   Should trend down slightly after 3rd year peak

PS3- 29 million  Sales should pick up next year, 3rd year peak and price cut

FishyJoe on 18 December 2008
mrstickball said:
I think part of the issue is that the Wii has fragmented the gamer base into 2 categories: The HD base, and the Wii base.

Never before has there been such a fragmentation. Last generation, there was a pretty clear choice - You had the PS2 for any project, and it was near-assured to garner huge sales. And then there was the GC and Xbox as 2nd-tier products, multi-plat games, or moneyhatting situations that could give increased profitability.

Not so with the Wii/HD comparison. It's a catch 22: Spend tons of cash on a blockbuster HD game and it either does great, and makes tons of cash...Or does OK and hurts (ala Haze or Lair).

The other option is the Wii, which has seen horrible returns for some games..Works for casual games, but that also fragments your work force - Few games seem broad success between all 3 platforms. Madden would be a great example of this...Despite the huge install base of the Wii, Madden sales have been nothing short of abysmal given the install base.

Part of it is the developers fault, part of it is the HW manufacturers fault - and all of them. No one is without blame. Nintendo put out trashy hardware that fragmented the abilities of developers, while the HD manufacturers put out systems that exponentially increased costs past what may be viable for the average game.

 

Nintendo did not put out trashy hardware. They decided not to use expensive cutting edge hardware.



bigjon on 18 December 2008
axumblade said:

OR

We're in a recession and a lot of companies are on the brink of going under. And because there are so many gaming companies out there and a lot of them produce moderately crappy games that sell decently to pay for their amazing games, which aren't doing amazing, they are going under. I see these companies failing even if they release great games on the Wii. It's just the way that this generation is going. Unless it's got Nintendo, Sonic or Casual written on it for the Wii, there are very few games that can even hit a million.

 

 lol, thats it blame the recession while we are seeing record sales. NO it is miss management.

Even the 360 is doing better in the recession than it did last year. Games sales are great too, it just comes down to FPS saturation. Example, I am only gonna buy 1 FPS this holidays season, I like to many genres to spend all of my time on them, I have a PS3, I bought CODWaW. So all other FPS games will not recieve a purchase. The next FPS game I buy might be the conduit for the Wii (if it is good). But right now I am hungry for some RPG, Adventure, and Platform games, and there really are not too many to chose from ( I am playing tos2 right now and loving it)



End of 2009 Predictions (Set, January 1st 2009)

Wii- 72 million   3rd Year Peak, better slate of releases

360- 37 million   Should trend down slightly after 3rd year peak

PS3- 29 million  Sales should pick up next year, 3rd year peak and price cut

Gamerace on 18 December 2008
mrstickball said:
I think part of the issue is that the Wii has fragmented the gamer base into 2 categories: The HD base, and the Wii base.

Never before has there been such a fragmentation. Last generation, there was a pretty clear choice - You had the PS2 for any project, and it was near-assured to garner huge sales. And then there was the GC and Xbox as 2nd-tier products, multi-plat games, or moneyhatting situations that could give increased profitability.

Not so with the Wii/HD comparison. It's a catch 22: Spend tons of cash on a blockbuster HD game and it either does great, and makes tons of cash...Or does OK and hurts (ala Haze or Lair).

The other option is the Wii, which has seen horrible returns for some games..Works for casual games, but that also fragments your work force - Few games seem broad success between all 3 platforms. Madden would be a great example of this...Despite the huge install base of the Wii, Madden sales have been nothing short of abysmal given the install base.

Part of it is the developers fault, part of it is the HW manufacturers fault - and all of them. No one is without blame. Nintendo put out trashy hardware that fragmented the abilities of developers, while the HD manufacturers put out systems that exponentially increased costs past what may be viable for the average game.

I can't fault Nintendo.  They had no 3rd party support prior to Wii and they made a console that suited them best.  Would HD graphics really improve a Mario, Kirby, Mario Kart, or even Brawl?  Zelda maybe if it's not toon Link.  Really all HD would have done is create necessary cost factors for Nintendo.   Wii was a huge risk, if it failed to catch on then the cost of making HD games on their own 3rd place console would have killed them too.

Nintendo, Sega IPs and many other games look great on Wii.  Sure they look a little better in HD but not enough to justify the development cost difference.

The fact that Western devs are fixated on realism to the extend they are willing to bankrupt themselves for them is their own stupid fault, not Nintendo's.