| aavidbacon said: Well, great post, but violent games are the core of the industry. Just to remember, one of the most loved franchises is based on a plumber that kills animals and consume mushrooms(hummmm), violent and politically incorrect, yet one of my and a lot of people favorite videogame character. Violence is not the problem, but how it is aplied on the game. BTW, the sales profile of the Wii isn´t very promising for the type of titles you value( innovative, non-violent games, meaning NOT brawl, galaxy, MKII, MP3 and Zelda, cause they involve violence), since more than 50% of it´s software sales are concetrated on 10 titles, 8 of them Nintendo and 1 multiplat. The meaning of this is that Wii sells software, but just 20 of the more than 300 titles avaible. The future is: few Nintendo AAA titles, since the old ones sell very well, even less 3rd party AAA titles, cause they praticaly don´t sell( bar GH and RB) and lots of shovelware. The 3rd parties will concentrate on the HD consoles and even good, innovative and non-violent games won´t be made for the wii, cause would be risky, more risky than concentrating on a new shooter on PS360. |
I think to imply that SMG or even the Metroid Series are really similar to Grunts of War XVII is a bit disingenuous but I’ll let it slide.
Your concern for the dismal game sales and selection on the Wii is touching but a bit pessimistic. If you take just our ownVG Chartz game list which is far from current, especially after this incredible Christmas, the picture is somewhat more encouraging. We have had numerous discussions here about what makes a hit on a Wii game and certainly a conservative consensus is 500,000 is a good solid success.
Currently:
83 games are listed as >500k of which 21 are first party Nintendo
37 games have sold >1M of which 16 are first party Nintendo
16 games have sold > 2M of which 11 are first party Nintendo
11 games have sold >3m of which 8 are first party Nintendo
So while it is true that the majority of the very highest selling games are indeed Nintendo, 75% of the Gold and above are in fact third party. And while you may find they are not all games to your personal taste, they are certainly not all mini-games and shovel ware. After Christmas I believed there is going to be some serious surprise at how some of these numbers have gone much higher.
And to reassure you even more. Nintendo is the only consistently profitable console maker. Their market share just keeps climbing. Their stock , even after the recent market downturns is still at 300% what it was on launch day. Their capitalization makes them the 2nd or 3rd most valuable company in Japan. They have enough uncommitted cash on hand to buy Sony, not the games division, the whole corporation out of pocket. This at a time when both Microsoft and Sony are having to cut jobs and Sony financial position is more than a little precarious.
Beleaguered game developers are looking for less risk and more security. I very seriously doubt that there are very many developers out there who are not casting their eyes towards the Wii and damn few who are not returning Iwata’s phone calls.
