| bdbdbd said: @Picko: I wouldn't be so sure about it. You think that the average Wii owner isn't as interested in graphics as the average owner of any previous console, but the fact is, that outside from the group that usually are early adopters, nobody buys the console for its technical capabilities, they buy it for games. Most of the people upgrade when there is no longer games that intrest them coming for their console and the titles have moved to the next gen systems. Though, i do agree that it's a shame devs rarely try to push the hardware or even try to match the GC graphics. |
Those who tend to care a great deal about graphics are those who spend a lot of time online, looking at pictures, watching videos and discussing games. Since the Wii's release everyone has highlighted how successful it's proven with people who previously didn't play games or people who played very little. These are exactly the demographics that don't care about graphics, they don't spend a great deal of time researching gaming and possibly don't even know that the Wii is "underpowered".
The average Wii fan is extremely casual (I suspect that the average 360 or PS3 owner would be less casual - although still casual) - and therefore they just don't care about graphics. It's a non-issue for them, it rarely factors into buying decisions and developers know this - it is why low cost software can sell really well on the Wii but would sell very poorly on the other systems. Wii owners who care a great deal about graphics (and perhaps to an extent production values) are a huge minority.
Onyxmeth is correct in what he said. Even Nintendo knows that you can shift a lot of software to these demographics without investing a lot of money in them. They bundled a game like Wii Sports, which is technically unimpressive and yet has driven a significant amount of sales. For many Wii owners Wii Sports is their first experience with a game, it's what they expect from gaming and it is graphically unimpressive. All up you have a situation where there is reduced incentives for developers to invest in games that push the Wii graphically.
