January 2007 NPD Predictions

[Erik Aston]

Stromprophet said: The Wii will do fine in Japan, just like DS. It will probably stay really popular. A little less in Europe due to Sony having a strong Playstation brand there. But in the US, where HD certainly matters more and more to consumers, I see the wii being a novelty.

All I can say is "wait and see." Wait and see how important HD is compared to having the biggest selection and variety of games.

I just don't see the juggernaut support of games like Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, Unreal Tournament, or any other graphically intense game. That's a big big pie to miss out on. Sure, arcade games are great, but they have to expand beyond Zelda, Mario, Smash Brothers, Metroid.

They **are** expanding beyond those games. Animal Crossing, Brain games and Wii-branded titles are each several times more important that Metroid, and yet folks always mention Metroid as one of the biggest upcoming titles. And Metroid is still far bigger than Unreal Tournament...!

I have seen many, many articles on people programming really sloppy on the Wii when they could make good looking games. Remember how good Resident Evil looked on the Gamecube? It was THE best looking graphical game last generation.

Nintendo's "gameplay over graphics" PR has stalled the graphical arms race on Wii. But it will come. The poor graphics have been a total non-issue so far, obviously.

I just don't see the staying power. Both the 360 and PS3 will last longer as systems. They are just built to live longer, the Wii doesn't have much processing power in a video game world where advanced realistic physics are becoming very important to gameplay.

The longest lasting systems of all time (Atari 2600, NES and PS1--all stayed in production longer than 10 years), were less powerful than their competitors. And so far "advanced realistic physics" have not proven to have any importance...