shinyuhadouken said:
How am I supposed to be impressed when the 360 version sells 5 million copies with a much smaller userbase? |
Who cares if you're not impressed? Your feelings have no effects or implications on the reality that a game people were screaming was a flop has hit over a million in sales and could go on to the be the best selling Wii FPS to date. It's not about the 360, it never was, and all desperate attempts to latch onto 360 sales or meaningless attach rates are a blatant form of damage control and ignoring the reality of the situation.
This goes for everyone clinging to those type of arguments. Userbase and attach rate arguments are, quite frankly, bullshit. That may be vulgar but I don't know how else to say it on the forum of a site dedicated to sales. I would think that people knew just a little bit better than that. It's not the numbers but the userbase itself.
The 360 is the successor to a console that was often ridiculed for being a "hardcore shooterbox." The 360 was destined to follow in its footsteps. Microsoft knew this which is why they tried to avert it by dedicating a large part of their E3 05 conference to how the 360's expanded XBL would bring in groups missing from the original's userbase: female gamers, "casual" gamers and maybe even "non-gamers." The fact of the matter is that the 360 is still swamped with shooters, maybe even more than its predecessor, but that's okay because shooters sell on the 360 and that's where that market and userbase is, and has been since the migration to this generation started. The Wii isn't going to change this and the PS3 isn't going to change this.
The Wii has recieved shooters few and far between and the actual few themselves have been of dubious quality. So for someone to actually come in and complain about how this game is selling in comparison to a console oversaturated in that market tells me that they had the absurd belief that the game was going to sell off numbers and numbers alone. And I think it goes without saying that install base numbers don't actually sell games. This is not a new phenomenon in the least.
Last generation saw some similar sales situations. Despite the size of the Gamecube's install base, Mario Sunshine was the best selling platformer on any of the consoles. Taking it a step further, Sonic sold best on Gamecube despite PS2 having over a 100 million unit lead over it. And then there was Halo. If Halo 1 and 2 could sell that much on the Xbox, why couldn't an FPS like Killzone (a "Halo-killer" no less) do it on the PS2? The suggestion that the Wii version of WaW should have outsold all of the other versions based only on install base is ignorant because it implies domination of all genres, and even the PS2 didn't do that. I don't think there's been a console since NES that has dominated all genres. SNES, despite having a lead over Sega's Genesis, still saw some multiplat sports title selling better on its rival console. The N64 was pushing some impressive numbers for FPS games over the PS1 and Saturn.
Quite frankly, Wii won't push some titles like 360 will, but it doesn't have to. The problem here is that a lot of people come in to the discussion, immediately damage controlling the situation with an "all-or-nothing" attitude: that the Wii version needs to destroy its competitors or it shouldn't exist. That line of thinking is flawed and wrong.
Tag - "No trolling on my watch!"
