mrstickball said:
A few things:
#1. We do have X360 software sales, Microosft has consistently stated and shown that the X360 in Europe has the highest attach rate ever for software, totally destroying your baseless claims of European countries/retailers not stocking X360 software. The X360 attach ratio for software is around 5.7-6.0 in Europe, and has been above 4.5 since last year. So if anything, European software leans in the favor of the X360. Sports games, like in the US, fail to chart for the Wii whereas they've done well in 06 and 07 for the X360 platform in most countries. I really don't understand everybody's fixation with attach rates, it just seems like people want to redirect the argument in a completely pointless direction in what seems to be an attempt to criticise the Wii. As I've said before software sales, plain and simple tell devs all they need to know.
#2. XBLA will kill Wiiware, because it has a 2+ year headstart. There are 100+ games in dev for WiiWare? That's nice, but the X360 has just as many in development. The X360 has cornered the market in such software, and has had the backing of every major developer (sans SE) for the XBLA platform. Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, as well as others already have released titles, and plan many, many more. That's ontop of the 50-odd exclusive, non-remakes out there. That's all very well but unless something hugely dramatic happens to the market there are going to be way more Wii's out there than 360's. Devs will take their games to the platform which offers the best profits, 2 year head start be damned. You also have to remember that Wiiware has the exclusive support of the worlds best developer.
#3. Carlos, if the Wii only has a 4.0 attach ratio, and 150m units sold, it'll be the lowest software-selling #1 console since the SNES. The Playstation 2 has sold OVER 1.3 billion software units. Therefore, it's a trickle-down effect: mediocre 3rd party sales in the West = no/few exclusives, which will continue to hurt the Wiis poor attach ratio. I understand the whole "oh it's moving decent software since there are so many hardware units", but again, the numbers have stagnated for 12 months. No console has done that, ever, except for handhelds. At some point, it's either going to change, or Nintendo might not get alot of happy 3rd party developers. It seems reasonable that mediocre games should recieve mediocre sales, 3rd partys only have themselves to blame. Also the idea that Wii's attach rate will remain the same for it's entire lifespan is ridiculous and is kind of a pointless arguement. Your average Wii owner has probably had their system for roughly 5-6 months, shorter than both the other console's, it is pretty obvious that with an increase in this number an increase in attach ratios will follow.
I'm not trying to be on the anti-Wii train, but I'm trying to be honest. Not everything is beyond perfect in Nintendoland. With the Wii getting alot of ports, and second-rate games, as well as multiports is hardly a sign of a PS2-like console leader. And everyone in the Wiicamp is saying that it's going to blow the PS2 out of the water: exactly how is it going to do that when a supposed uber-unique game that's supposed to be a million-seller, Zack & Wiki, bomb in both the US and Japan, going to send signals to developers to jump on with major efforts?
And having said that, it always makes me tend to believe that the race is going to be alot, alot closer than you 150m+ Wii sellers think. Who said that Z&W would sell a million units? It is very early days for the title and early sales may not be indicative of future performance due to supply issues and the almost complete absense of any marketing. I think if you look at the resources Capcom has put in to it's 2 Wii titles in relation to their returns it'll become apparent that their backing of the Wii has paid off. |
