Heavy Rain prediction fail

[binary solo]

Soleron said:

...focused on graphics over content, and essentially was the exact opposite of why Wii and 'casual' games are doing so well?

 

I think that was your biggest error. Fact is it has plenty of content, just non-traditional content. Anyone who thinks Heavy rain is just eye candy with no substance really doesn't get this game.

But make no mistake, while it is going to perform above the expectations of many it isn't going to come remotely close to the sales levels of [good quality] Wii casuals, or even traditional Nintendo core games (Mario for instance). So your views in relation to it being the exact opposite of the Wii / casual game are right, but you just overplayed that difference, along with the erroneous assumption of lack of content to arrive at a very low sales prediction. In comparison to Wii Fit this game is a sales flop, but then 90% of games are flops in comparison to Wii Fit. But within it's own genre/style it is going to be a success.

Also you do need to consider the demographics of user base with respect to both the Conduit and Heavy Rain.

PS3 now has over 30 million user base. If Heavy Rain sells 1 million it means it will achive an approx 2.5-3% attach rate. 2.5-3% attach rate sits squarely in the "niche" game range I think. It's still a small minority of total PS3 owners (unlike FFXIII in Japan which has, what, a 35% attach rate?). The PS3 user base has a substantial demographic that has an interest in this kind of "mature" content. There are obviously enough PS3 owners who are "ready" for this sort of game to start featuring in the gaming world that the niche interest is large enough to make this sort of game a sustainable proposition.

On the other hand you have the Wii install base, which like it or not, features a substantial Wii Fit demographic, and a substantial pre-teen demographic. Those rather large demographics are possibly less interested in playing games such as the Conduit (well the pre-teens will be interested (at least 50% of them probably), but their parents still exsert some control over what they play, and the shooting games are generally out of contention). In the end this potentially leaves the Wii with a userbase with a demographic suited to The Conduit of something close to that of PS3. So for the success of a game such as The Conduit you have to ask yourself: How well would it sell on PS3 (or 360)? Then you need to figure that FPS jocks exist in much higer proportions on 360 and PS3, so even if you think the Conduit would sell 1 million on PS3 or 360 you need to drop that by some factor (who knows what?) in order to arrive at a prediction for the Wii. And Finally you've got to factor in the lukewarm review scores for the game and we know that while review scores don't always equate to sales success it's a pretty safe bet that a Metascore of <70 is going to translate into fairly low sales.

My own very small sample size of who I know that owns (or wants) a Wii suggests 75% of Wii owners do not fit into the demographic that would have any interest in the Conduit. On the other hand everyone I know who owns a PS3 would fit into a demographic that would have some interest in Heavy Rain (even if it's just pubescent boys who want to see CGI boobs). Naturally both sample sizes are too small to be statistically valid, and many biases exist which makes the data totally unreliable. But I'm going to put it on the internet anyway and that will make it true. Michael Pachter will use it as a basis for one of his predictions within the next 2 weeks.

There is both rhyme and reason for why Heavy Rain will sell more than The Conduit, if you are willing to look at demographic realities.