Activision and the Wii

[mike_intellivision]

http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=7239&mp=1

As has been noted in the news section -- Activision's upcoming releases on Wii are going to be few for the foreseeable future. 

But that got me thinking about what had Activision done so far this generation. I was amazed to see 85 titles listed: 

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?page=1&results=50&name=&console=Wii&keyword=&publisher=14&genre=&order=Hits&boxart=Both&showdeleted=&region=All&alphasort=

What is more amazing is that almost all the sales have come from three mulitplatform series. If you remove Guitar Hero (III, World Tour, Aerosmith), Star Wars (Force Unleashed, Lego), and Call of Duty (3, WoW) -- Activision has not had a game sell 1M copies on the Wii.

Most of its releases where the Wii is the only platform from this generation (or only platform) have not fared well at sales. Barbie as the Island Princess with 430k and Dancing with the Stars: We Dance with 310k appear to be the only games that exceeded a quarter of a million units sold.

As an example of its futility, Activision has only moved 130k copies of iCarly.  (For those who don't know, iCarly is a widely watched TV show on Nickelodeon cable in the US about a girl who creates her own webshow and had a special draw 11.16M viewers in January -- making it the most watched show of the night as it beat all competition on cable and broadcast). 

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118014323.html?categoryid=1275&cs=1  

If you can't sell a game based on something as popular, you have problems.  And Activision has problems as it does not understand the Wii. See Pirates Booty and Big League Sports and Birthday Bash Science Papa and Block Party and Cruise Ship Vacation Games -- and you have to come away with that assessment.  

So many this is a good thing. No more generic mini-game collections passing for "exclusives."  Maybe Activision will give gamers what they want. But then again, Activision has not been Activision since it changed its name to Mediagenic. 

 

Mike from Morgantown