Nintendo is to blame for bad third party games on the Wii

[famousringo]

appolose said:

Pristine20 said:

 

 

[what was added in] the super smash bros and mario kart series aside form graphics? Why are they still selling so many copies? The sales have even increased due to wthe wii's higher userbase. On the other hand, most agree that Ubisoft innovated with the new Prince of Persia and what happened to the sales?

 

 

 Well, Mario Kart had the Wii wheel and motorcycles (and online, though not all together innoative (although it is for the series).  Brawl, while it had a much improved single player (and online (which doesn't work too well, albeit)), probably was less innovative, but the series is much loved, has only had two titles of it before in the past 9 years, and has had a much hjigher install base to work with, so the sales are expected (although, I imagine another SSB game released, at least, soon, probably would not see such great sales unless it change something big).   Comparing these games to the Wii-whatever series, however, shows how far innovation can go.  Also, yes, perhaps an innovative game flopped, but that's just one case you provide.

 

If install base is the only difference between the sales GC and Wii versions of Smash Bros and Mario Kart, why has Mario Kart doubled its sales this gen while Smash Bros is only up 20% or so?

The answer is that Mario Kart Wii did a much better job of differentiating itself from Double Dash than Brawl did from Melee, and did a much better job of adopting Wii values, including tilt control and superior online multiplayer. Nintendo cared so much about online for MK Wii that it compromised local multiplayer and battle mode to do it. The 12 player limit was chosen so that people dropping out of an online match wouldn't kill the race. This choice affected level design, necessitated bots in 4-player local matches and required that free-for-all battle mode get ditched in favour of team battle mode.

Despite these compromises, Mario Kart Wii is destroying Double Dash while Brawl is only edging out Melee. Don't underestimate the importance of successfully taking a classic local multiplayer game online. It's trickier than you think, and very rewarding if you pull it off right.