Crystal Bearers developer: Selling on Wii will not be easy.

[68soul]

ckmlb said:

Gnizmo said:

ckmlb said:

 

I asked why you kept choose these random and arbitrary points that are virtually meaningless with no context. I have seen you respond several times since then and that includes a post directed at me. If you cannot justify your argument then why on earth is it worth paying attention to? If it is so weak that it cannot be backed up, then it is worthless.

A game's success is based on its sales. What is a good selling game to you? 100,000 or 500,00 or what? These are the top selling Wii games, in this list the number of third party core games is overshadowed by Casual and first party games, especially the further up you go in the list.

That is why I used 1.5 million or 1 million as benchmarks for best selling games on the system. You want me to count every game that sold more than 100,000 that will take a long time and I think my point is already made: 3rd party core games are not selling as well as casual or 1st party games which is why EA will release more Carnival Games and Sports Active and not going to bring Left 4 Dead or Burnout Paradise (unless it's some spinoff farmed to a minor developer) or Mirror's Edge or Dead Space (cause they tried that and it failed in their opinion).

Wii owners have been asking for more 3rd party support since the generation started, but the major publishers (Except maybe Sega and even they are financin big budget games on PS360 rather than just sticking to Wii) focus more on the HD consoles than the Wii, there is a reason behind that, companies aren't against making profits!

About development costs for 360/PS3/PC, after one version is fully made the cost of the other versions are much smaller.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/09/japanese-developer-microsoft-making-ps3-development-easier/

People go on and on about how Wii games cost half or a quarter to make compared to an HD game,but after one version is made at full cost then it is ported to PS3 and PC at fairly low costs so making a multifplatform game on HD consoles is logical for 3rd parties and combined profit across PS3,360 and PC (in the eyes of most major 3rd party publishers) makes up for not having released it on Wii and makes a profit or we would not be seeing the flood of high quality 3rd party games to 360/PS3.

 

 

What is a good sellin game, on Wii, or on PS360? As you said yourself, dev costs are more affordable on Wii, but that doesn't tell us anything...

The 1st party games like Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess are expensive AAA games in the same way as most higher-end PS360 games, and so will need two millions sales to get in the profit zone, just as the "average" PS3-X360-PC release... while the most expensive games on HD consoles, like GTA4, CoD MW or FFXIII, will need even more to make profits, and would be a flop with only three million sales...

Now, with the 3rd parties on Wii: i think that success may begin as low as 100k-200k for some cool but low-budget releases... the scale here is very different from one game to another, and devs don't give us any numbers when it comes to dev costs... but as i've played many Wii games, all i may tell you is that most 3rd parties efforts didn't need 1 million sales, and even less 1.5 million...

Companies aren't against making profits, as you've said: but they sometimes are against risky business, and you may view most 3rd parties efforts on Wii as "cheap" efforts with very limited risks, to test the market... i think the most expensive 3rd party game after three years is STILL Red Steel (the first)... with maybe Monster Hunter 3, Rabbids Go Home and Crystal Bearers in the same league... those needed or will need between 500k and 1 million sales...

The next "really expensive efforts" will be... Epic Mickey, and Red Steel (the second)... those are REAL expensive games, and will maybe even need 1.5 million or 2 million sales... just like the best AAA Nintendo games... but they are the ONLY examples so far... after three years...

No More Heroes, the Conduit, Mad World, HotD Overkill? I'd say 250k-500k needed... Boom Blox, De Blob, Little King Story, Muramasa, Zack and Wiki, Tales of Symphonia: same league, maybe in the lower end... and last gen ports like RE4, Okami, Klonoa: even less...

Now, it's true that this "risk-averse" strategy is due to the fact that it ain't easy to port the PC-PS3-X360 games on Wii... Capcom just announced that their top engine will now run on Wii, and that their multiplatform games will cost from 20% to 30% less... but it's three years after launch, and Wii had to be the market leader, especially in Japan, to be taken seriously... finally, i could add...

But that's on the japanese scene: in the West, most devs won't take the time, won't take the risks, because they have put Wii in a "casual niche" of its own: puzzles, sports and physical activities, music games, kids and family games...

For all the rest, for all the other "genres", the userbase found on PS360 and on PC is indeed larger than the "Wii userbase only"... so unless they go the "multiplatform route", including Wii as well, they won't do any real AAA EXCLUSIVE effort on Wii, with a game really designed to use the console at its best... which is a shame, as that's what we expected when Wii was released: originality and creativity...

It's sad, and you have to think that all of us, "core Wii gamers", are the first to know the situation, and to have to deal with it...

Now, in 2010, things seem finally a little bit brighter: as i've already posted before in this thread, our "want list" for 2010 is finally a REALLY good looking one... but for three years, yes, it hasn't been a permanently HUGE line-up, especially for such a successful console...

Once again, it's a shame, but in the same time, it's EVERYONE'S FAULT...

Nintendo didn't take any risk with the costs of the hardware, as they weren't sure that the Wii would be a success... 3rd parties didn't take any risks, because of the same thing, and have invested all their money on PS360 projects... and "core Nintendo gamers" as well as new "mass market gamers" didn't take any risks with the games they've purchased: the Nintendo games offer a kind of "guaranteed quality", and are quite a logical priority for most of the Wii owners... especially when you sometimes purchase poor efforts, and don't want to waste your money ever again...

"You can fool some people some time, but you can't fool all the people all the time": remember that song? I wish all the people who've released shovelware or poor efforts or "just average" efforts on Wii could remember this as well... and could stop blaming Wii owners, for once...