Wii at 35 million worldwide XBOX 360 at 29 million Jan 1st 2009

[Dodece]

@RolStoppable

Your adopting the stance that Atari allowed to happen with their console in the early eighties. A more is better philosophy. When in reality the market must be controlled to some extent. First obviously in maintaining a certain level of quality. Second in a effort to keep the industry healthy. Bare with me math is coming.

Let us say a console such as the Wii can sustain three hundred titles a year. Beyond that point the profit margins for developers begin to drop dramatically. This is not unprecedented this happened with Atari in the early eighties. The amount of games exceeded the market of the time. Eventually the market collapsed under the weight.

Now your arguing that the developers will continue to make the same volume of games that appealed to the traditional market before, and they are going to do a little more to appeal to the newer demographics. You saying in your analogy that the market cap must be increased in order to meet the demands of the new demographic. Yes I am ignoring physical limitations I will get to that in the end I promise.

Your saying effectively that originally the developer for the Wii would make ten games during a year. However due to new demographics they will instead make fifteen titles. Ten to serve the traditional demographic, and five to serve the new demographics. However when you look at it like that you have a situation where the market cap is closer to four hundred and fifty games every year.

Needless to say the conclusion is unacceptable. Not only will the traditional market be over saturated too many games for the demand, but the entire market will be over saturated. The only healthy area will be the new demographic, because the titles in that demographic match the demand. The net result however will be a financial disaster. The developers will have increased production fifty percent while losing money for their efforts. A giant money sink where too many games do not recover expenses let alone generate any meaningful profit.

The market is finite as in my analogy not one of exponential expansion as in yours. You cannot just add software development for new demographics instead resources must be shifted. You cannot produce one hundred percent for the traditional demographic and then produce a hundred percent for the new demographics. Instead you must produce a hundred percent combined for all demographics.

Further more there are real world physical limitations developers cannot just arbitrarily increase their staff simply, because the market has diversified. Even if the new demographic comprises twenty percent can we seriously expect all the developers to increase their staff by twenty percent even though the profits have not had a net increase.

Let us assume that the new demographics comprise thirty percent of the Wii user base, and the traditional comprises the other seventy percent. Now which is the preferable conclusion for a software developers. Producing ten games for the console seven traditional, and three games for the new demographics. Producing thirteen games for the console ten for the traditional, and three for the new demographic. Keep in mind the financial outcome is the same either way. Except that for the later the developer has to fund the development of three additional games.

The answer is patently obvious. They are going to make the sound financial decision. Not only to generate more profit, but to protect the continued existence of their company. They will make the ten games they initially intended to, and they will direct three of those games to the emerging demographic.

You mustn't confuse abandonment with representative development. Where as the old market dictated one hundred percent traditional development. The new market demands that only seventy percent of the development is traditional. I am sorry the logic is sound if the new demographics buy games, and they demand games that cater to their desires then developers are going to answer the call. That means that the traditionalists are not going to get the volume of games they are used to.

I am sorry if this upsets Wii owners, but its something your going to have to square yourselves with. You might be a core player, but your console might be popular with other segments of the population. That means room has to be made at the table. You cannot just knock out walls, and lengthen the table. I am sure if you go look at any other console in the past, or even the present. You will see that there is a certain volume of software that the console does not exceed annually despite the rate of sale or sheer volume of consoles in homes.

I suppose I am going to need to dig up the relevant data, but I hope I do not have to the rate of software development is not exponential to hardware sales. Most consoles get to the ceiling relatively fast, and they stay there through their lives. Perhaps I am wrong please prove it to me. Go find the information that says that as hardware sales double so does annual game development.