mike_intellivision said:
Gamerace said:
mike_intellivision said:
Metallicube said:
I think what Malstrom predicted is largely coming to fruition. 3rd parties are starting to scratch their heads about the lack of sales for their crappy "birdman" games so they will all retreat upmarket to where they feel comfortable; to the PS3 and 360 hardcore markets, until they go bankrupt or lose enormous amounts of money. Which will then open the floodgates to a plethora of indie devs eager to take advantage of the Wii success and the largely untapped expanded audience market.
Capcom is falling prey to this, like most other 3rd parties. Their logic is, well Umbrella Chronicles sold well, so a sequel should too right? But it's not always that simple to sell to the expanded audience. They demand something new, and appealing to them. |
I think we have a winner here. If you look at the sales -- and the points I have made previously in this thread -- show this is exactly what is happening.
That makes the Wii a high risk, high reward proposition -- which most people do not like.
Mike from Morgantown
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Yes. The problem here is to have huge success on Wii you basically have to create a fad. Something new and unique that grabs everyone's interest, looks fun and gets people to try it out. And figure out how to market it.
Nintendo did this with Wii Sports, again with Wii Fit, tried and failed with Wii Music and will try again with Vitality Sensor games. Pokemon, Nintendogs, Brain Age, and some none Nintendo licenses like Monster Hunter (Japan only) and Sims have succeeded because they created their own fads (and often a host of copycats).
But that's not easy to do. And 3rd parties have zero experience. They are good at following existing fads (the new popularity of FPS, Fitness titles and party titles) but not creating them.
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Not a fad -- just a different experience. And third parties have done this. Look at Carnival Games. Look at the rail shooters (when they first came out).
The difference is that with Wii gamers, once they have something that it is good, a much lower proportion than the industry norm are looking for the next iteration of the same concept with marginal improvements.
In other words, Wii gamers want revolutionary games, not evolutionary ones.
Mike from Morgantown
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Carnival Games, Deca Sports, Game Party all rode Wii Sports coat tails to success. Nothing revolutionary there. Carnival was merely the first to follow Wii Sports mini-game compliation format.
Nothing revoluntionary about rail shooters either. Again RE has a long standing history of being on Nintendo systems and the early Nintendo core adapters of Wii bought up RE4 and RE:UC. HoTD 1&2 sold well as did Ghost Squad because people remember the fun of playing them in the arcades.
Innovative gameplay alone has failed on Wii time and again. Opoona, Elebits, Dewy, Zak & Wiki, Let's Tap, NiGHTS, Little King Story, Boogie, De Blob (did okay not great). So has has putting solid motion controls on solid games with great effect from Godfather to Okami to Silent Hill or FF:CC:CB.
To succeed on Wii it's got to engage people's imagination in a way that they can immediately see the fun factor - Let's Dance and Big Game Hunter with it's bright orange rifle fit that bill currently. Sadly they are not the best quality games. Tony Hawk Ride sells decently on Wii for that same reason - despite it's price point.
'Fad' may not be the best word, but it's got to have that 'fad' ability to excite people's imagination and get a lot of word of mouth.
