What Is It With The Wii?

[The_vagabond7]

NJ5 said:

The_vagabond7 said:

NJ5 said:

The_vagabond7 said:
If the conduit doesn't manage to sell as well as Gears or Killzone, then you'll have your answer. I take that back, you don't have to wait that long.

COD WAW is sold on wii with twice the user base of either system and gets a tiny fraction of the sales. On 360 it's almost at 5 mil, PS3 almost 3 mil. Wii, almost 1 mil, with a vastly larger user base. You can speculate all you want as to why that is, but there is your reason. And with WaW it's not a quality issue. It's as faithful a port as a PS360 to wii conversion can be.

I don't understand. How does that explain the Wii not getting many multi-plats? Are you saying 1 million sales is something publishers can ignore? (times $20 or whatever else a publisher gets for a game sold)

 

 

You have to keep in mind the game doesn't just pop out of thin air, and finite resources have to be allocated. It's not a matter of is "1 million sales good", it's a matter of "can this team make something that would sell 2 million instead for less money." And that's what it comes down to. You can make a highbudget blockbuster and sell a million, or half that team making hannah montana and the other half making a party game. And for less time and money those two games will sell over a million. It's a matter of maximizing profits, not just saying "1 million is good".

I'd say that putting your franchises' big titles on the console which sold the most is a smart investment even if sales aren't that high for the first few titles you put out. Publishers (at least ones with a future) don't just try to maximize short-term profits, they want to make their franchises as big as possible.

Surely the fact that COD:WAW is the first decent COD title for the Wii had something to do with its sales not being frontloaded. It's also proving to have legs, showing that decent titles sell well on the Wii (as many already knew, but some still choose to ignore).

 

You can make as many excuses for it as you want, but publishers look at the bottom line. The sales just aren't there. It's not in publisher's interest to see how they can force the sales down the throat of an audience that isn't buying. It's their job to look at what they are buying and publish accordingly. At this point publishers see the PS360 as it's own system with an equal userbase and different audience than the wii. The games that sell big on wii would fall flat on the PS360, and the games that are huge multimillion hits on the PS360 struggle on wii. Again, you can make whatever excuse for this you want. But publisher's aren't interested. They see two systems, two audiences and develop accordingly.