HappySqurriel on 08 April 2009
First off "Shovelware" is not outselling "Core" games on the Wii, and arguing that it is demonstrated a misunderstanding of what "Shovelware" is ...
"Shovelware" are games that are made by very small independant developers with a budget so small that the game breaks even off of its initial shipment to retailers, and there is no focus on making a game that is even functional. An example of a "Shovelware" game on the Wii is Ninja-Bread man.
A lot of the games that people are calling "Shovelware" are games made by large publishers that similar games have performed well on previous consoles. There are a few reasons why the sales of these games are suddenly so important:
- These (primarily licenced) games are only being released to one platform which has resulted in far more focused sales. While a lot of similar games (probably) broke a million units sold in the previous generation they were released to multiple platforms and they rarely broke 1 Million units sold on any one platform, by only being released to one platform which has sold better to the "General Public" who buys these games it has resulted in far higher single console sales.
- This is the first generation that many of these games get tracked on any level ... Even people who paid close attention to NPD in the last generation were unlikely to see these games sell because they only got the best selling games on a console in a given month which these titles never are; they make their sales by selling 5,000 units a week for a long time (typically).
- Its just the evolution of the fanboy argument ... In 6 to 9 months, when this argument is no longer valid, it will switch to a different argument. How many people remember when the same people who bitch about this were calling the Wii a fad, and saying that its sales would drop off soon?
