Wii Starwars... less WW sales than either HD console? Why?

[tuoyo]

Groucho said:

It would seem that Star Wars is a license that, somehow, appeals more to the average X360 or PS3 consumer, than it does to the Wii consumer, at this early juncture.

1. Despite a substantial installbase lead, the Wii has fallen behind the PS3, and significantly behind the X360 in sales for this AAA title thusfar.

Much like Pro Sports titles (although to a lesser degree), it seems that WII-HD crossplatform games might actually do better on the HD consoles than the Wii -- especially since both HD console titles can presumably be developed together, whereas the Wii version needs the extra expense for a down-port, or in this case, a completely different game.

 

I realize this is an early evaluation (that's not the point of this thread -- I'm looking for interesting ideas other than "Wii has legs, pretend all those sports crossplat titles did well after a year, relative to their HD counterparts")... but it strikes me as odd, since I would think that the demographics for this game would fit the Wii perfectly.  I suppose that the general Wii audience is slower to pick up a title than the HD audience is -- explaining the legs of many Wii titles, compared to their HD counterparts, 2. but at this point, the Wii is looking a bit unattractive as a primary development platform for cross-current-gen titles.  Even with long-term sales on the Wii, the cross-platform similarity of the HD consoles seems to make HD cross-platform titles mostly worthwhile even without a Wii port.

If this turns out to be a common occurance with Wii-X360-PS3 crossplat titles, what effects will it have, long-term, on the Wii?

 

3. EDIT: I'm more interested in discussing titles which are not "kiddie" games, and thus aren't naturally more targetted toward the Wii userbase.  Obviously any kid-themed sports title, etc. will do better on the Wii due to pure demographics, IMO.

1.  It is not that far behind the PS3 version.  I think it is quite clear that it is going to sell more than the PS3 version.  The game has only been out for like 2, 3 or 4 weeks .  I think there is enough evidence that Wii games have longer legs.  For some reason in your post you said you don't want that explanation but how can you choose to ignore something that there is such clear evidence of.  Yes the sales of Wii sports games are not going to catch up with the PS3 sports games but in that case the PS3 has such a huge opening week compared to the Wii that there is just no catching up especially since the very same game is going to be released in a year's time so these things have a limited period to sell anyway.  Plus people that buy these games every single year despite the fact that they are the same game each time but with updated team roasters have been buying these games for years and are not willing to switch to a new control method, plus want to see flashy graphics over flashy game play.  In the case of star wars PS3 does not have a huge opening week advantage.  No doubt the Wii version will catch up.  360 is another matter.  Seems 360 owners buy big games in huge huge numbers and I think Wii will always struggle to match 360 software sales for big games apart from in a few years time when the userbase advantage is just so huge.

2.  I agree. With the way 360 owners eat up games it definitely makes sense to develop PS360 as opposed to Wii exclusive.  That is why unlike many other Wii owners I'm not holding much hope that 3rd parties will suddenly switch focus to Wii.  It will happen (and is already happening) for Japanesecentric games since the gap between Wii and PS360 is so huge.  But for western games I don't see it happening simply because I don't see Nintendo ever increasing production to the level where Wii sales are so far in excess of combined PS360 sales.

3. So Wii's target audience is kids?  That's news to me.  Do you happen to work for Sony?