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Gamerace on 11 May 2010
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Alby_da_Wolf said:
mike_intellivision said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Gamerace said:
Wii___ titles sell a lot more than Mario___. Unless they're Mario ____ Wii.

Regardless, success for 3rd parties is about developing quality brands on Wii with mass market appeal. Problem is they keep sullying their efforts with mediocre titles. Sonic is notorious for it, EA is trying to establish MySims but has been wildly inconsistent with the quality.
Capcom's done a good job with the Resident Evil franchise but it's not mass market enough.

Probably the most established brands on Wii outside of Nintendo is Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Lego which all have broad appeal and had consistent efforts (well, RB started poorly but gradually improved and yes, I'm ignoring Lego Rock Band just like everyone else did). Call of Duty has done well with consistently good titles. Etc.

Hype won't sell on Wii. Brands that equate to quality and family fun do. Problem is outside of those mentioned, no one has or is, developing such brands (besides Nintendo).

Original Nintendo Wii ___ games slaughter a lot of crappy 3rd party "Wii Too" games, this is good, not bad.

But Mario is a cannibal also for good 3rd party games, when he's around it's as if nothing else existed.

Well, we don't know what (if, admittedly anything) Nintendo communicated to third parties.

What I do know if that without first party games, the sales of the unit would slow. Then third parties would use that excuse not to develop for it.

Basically, Nintendo zagged while the rest of the industry zigged. It has split things into two almost equal parts. And most third parties are so heavily invested on the HD side (Xbox 360 and PS3) that they cannot change if they wanted to do so.

Mike from Morgantown

And also @Puffy and @Games4Fun:

No, no!  Not 2 years without 1st party games, just without Mario! IMHO Nintendo is perfectly right when it slaughters bad Wii-Something-like games, my wacky theory is that it's only Mario that kills good games too. Mario caters too much for early Nintendo die-hard adopters, then the addiction is passed to new users too, they can't build a new Mario-free majority, as they didn't buy Wii all at once, but they did and are doing it gradually (although at a spectacular rate), so they never got a chance to overwhelme the old Mario order, but as soon as they join they get brainwashed by older Mario priests and evil Mario himself and they become marioholics, then 3rd parties are domed even if they release good games. It's a plumber conspiracy!

 

You're giving Mario far too much credit.   Wii has already brought on many non-Mario fans who buy primarily Wii ___ titles.   Mario titles don't sell as well as Wii____ titles.   SMG sold about 9m, Mario Party 8 about 8m, Mario Super Sluggers and Strikers Charged (and NPC Tennis) about 1m each.   The exceptions being the two Mario Wii titles - Mario Kart Wii at 21m and NSMB Wii which will pass 20m too.     Meanwhile Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, Wii Fit are all 20m+ (or soon will be) and even the 'epic fail' Wii Music sold about 4m which is a major hit for any other franchise and far more than most 'Mario' titles.

Instead of releasing Mario Party 9 which would likely sell another 5-8m, Nintendo is making Wii Party which will likely sell 10-20m.   Mario isn't a problem, in fact he's a necessary touchstone to connect the new 'Wii' audience to the more core 'Mario/Nintendo' audience.

Mike is right.  The problem isn't Mario.   It's that Nintendo Zagged while the industry zigged and the industry is too set to follow Nintendo's lead.