Why Wii is Winning: Dominant Software Sales

[Erik Aston]

ZenfoldorVGI said:

First, I had Wii games in mind, and I wasn't trying to apply every one of these to every first party game. This was just a list of reasons why Nintendo first party games sell, and it's accurate in that sense.

To resond to number 10, "choice of genres."

I mean that Nintendo's sucessful first party games(most first party Nintendo games) fall into genres that Nintendo fans traditionally like. Like casual games, platformers, and adventure games. Not all companies do that. Sony, for instance, has began focusing heavily on FPS games, not necessarily a traditional genre for Sony fans.

Of course Nintendo does this as well, with games like Captain Rainbow...however like Sony, they have yet to meet with much success with non-traditional 1st party genres on their console. You've got to slowly develop these genres on your console. Like, for instance, if Sony keeps piling FPS games on the PS3, eventually, FPS gamers will start to buy PS3s to play them on.

The perfect example of this is the "casual game genre." Nintendo sees that Wii fans love casual games, so they have now started making more casual games, and they sell a lot. Games that don't follow this trend, don't sell as much.

10. So, sticking with traditional proven seller genres on your console helps your software sell.

Easy, peasy.

 

Are you serious?

You can pretend that Nintendogs, Brain Training, New Super Mario Bros, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit are all in the same genre if you like, but they are clearly all over the map in terms of gameplay, and by-and-large they aren't being followed up with a torrent of similar games from Nintendo.

"[Nintendo] have yet to meet with much success with non-traditional 1st party genres on their console." That statement is just too much.