Picko said:
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. |
I would just like to throw in a thought, or theory, that I've come across with the Wii--relating to the bolded (it reminded me that I haven't mentioned it here).
Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Fire Emblem Wii, Battalion Wars 2, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Kart, Zelda: WW, Call of Duty (both), No More Heroes have all outsold Super Mario Sunshine, SSB Melee, Fire Emblem GC, Battalion Wars 1, Metroid Prime 2, Mario Kart: DD, Zelda: TP, Call of Duty (both), and Killer7, respectively.
Considering that pretty much the only people who bought GameCubes were Nintendo fans, it's easy to see that one or both of the following two things have happened:
1. Many of the Wii's "casual" Blue Ocean gamers are in fact moving on to more hardcore pursuits.
2. More hardcore gamers have adopted the Wii than the GameCube.
In short, I believe--and would argue--that the Wii has a larger hardcore userbase than the GameCube. Hardcore-Casual "bridge" games like Mario Kart Wii, de Blob, Zak & Wiki, Raving Rabbids, and Boom Blox have all garnered impressive sales. The only fluke from the above mentioned titles is Metroid Prime 1 being the best-selling of the Prime series, though 3 did outsell 2. Is the average Wii fan casual? That's a really tough call seeing as pretty much every hardcore-leaning title has in 2 years bested the lifetime sales of pretty much all their GameCube counterparts. Okami sold better on the Wii than the PS2, and Resident Evil 4 has already matched it's GameCube sales. No More Heroes is Suda51's best selling game to date. Manhunt 2 sold far better on the Wii than the PSP and almost the same as on the PS2--despite the PS2 userbase being larger by nearly a hundred million. Sure, Call of Duty: WaW's sales on the Wii aren't exactly phenomenal, but they are quite a bit better than the GameCube Call of Duty titles. Bully sold respectably on the Wii at roughly 370,000. Compare to 790,000 or 780,000 for the Xbox360 or PS2, and we see that, while it didn't do as well on the Wii, it certainly didn't do terribly--the game only becomes a million seller when you add 'em all up. The Wii also has 41 million sellers already as opposed to the 39 for the lifetime of the GC.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed sold best on X360 (1.55 million) and second on the Wii and PS3 (1.04 each), meaning that the Wii version of TFU essentially sold in-line with it's console counterparts (and much better compared to the PS2, PSP, and DS). Sonic Unleashed has actually sold ever so slightly better on the Wii than the Xbox360 and PS3--combined.
These aren't all the same people as before buying up these games, ie, it's not just the Nintendo fans pushing these sales. There are a ton of new Wii users adopting these games. Granted, some are actual, regular hardcore gamers warming up to the new Nintendo system, but it can't be denied that a good number of the Blue Ocean crowd has begun to move to a more hardcore flavor. Gradually, they'll become more informed, they'll understand more, and they'll want more than just Wii Sports and Carnival Games.
It could be argued, however, that the reason pretty much everything has sold better on the Wii is simply because the GameCube incarnations of many of these games were sub-par compared to what they should have been (aside from Metroid Prime 1). Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine were easily two of the worst titles in their respective series (yes, I believe this--WW was too easy, too simple, had too many dull fetch-quests, was too predictable, had too many hearts, and so forth).
Anyway, I believe that there is clearly a substantial hardcore crowd on the Wii. So there's no reason at all to be gimping the graphics on these games. And since the Wii is essentially a much more effecient machine roughly on par with the original Xbox, there's no excuse for any game that looks grossly inferior to Doom 3, Halo 2, God of War, Metal Gear Solid 3, Resident Evil 4, or Rogue Leader. And when gamers really start seeing how good things can look on the Wii--perceived Blue Ocean crowd, hardcore, or transitional gamers--they'll want better looking software.
