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Developers push to meet demand on popular box
Ryan Kim, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, May 18, 2007
Since its release six months ago, the surprisingly popular Nintendo Wii has touched off a scramble in the video-game software industry as developers and publishers have rushed to cash in on the lucrative opportunities generated by the innovative console.
Electronic Arts of Redwood City has at least 10 games on tap for the Wii during the next year, including four titles exclusively developed for the console. The world's largest video-game manufacturer also bought a studio in Salt Lake City late last year to work on games just for the Wii.
Ubisoft, the top independent publisher of games for the Wii, has already released nine titles on the console and plans at least four more. THQ has plans to release 11 games for the Wii during the next year. And Disney Interactive Studios, formerly Buena Vista Games, is opening a studio in Salt Lake City to develop games for the Wii.
"We expected the Wii to be a success, but we were still a little surprised," said Yves Guillemot, chief executive of Ubisoft. "We saw what Nintendo was creating was new accessibility. With this machine, you can really open up the market to a lot more gamers."
Since its release, Nintendo has sold 2.5 million Wiis in North America, nowhere near enough to keep up with demand. The console, which retails for $250, uses motion-sensing technology to enable gamers to manipulate a controller with gestures and movements. By comparison, 1.3 million Sony PlayStation 3 units have been sold in North America, according to NPD Group, a market research firm.
Research firm IDC is forecasting that by the end of the 2008, the Wii will be the best-selling console, besting the PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, which got a one-year head start.
With momentum behind the Wii, many publishers are working to keep up, trying to cash in on the excitement surrounding the Nintendo system. The stakes are high for software publishers, which generated almost $5 billion in sales of console games last year in North America.
"The expectation was Nintendo would be a distant third in this generation. People were really doubting Nintendo because the GameCube didn't perform well," said Brian O'Rourke, an analyst with the industry research firm In-Stat. "But Nintendo has created a fairly inexpensive console with new technology and everyone seems to be responding."
Publishers usually hedge their bets during each console cycle by determining how many games they will release for each of the various platforms. The last time around, PlayStation 2 was the hands-down winner, with more than 100 million units sold worldwide. Taking note of that, publishers poured resources into games for the system.
This time around, the conventional wisdom in the industry was that the Xbox 360 would vie for supremacy with PlayStation 3. But about a year ago, the video-game industry began to rethink that scenario after Nintendo unveiled the Wii at the E3 video-game show in Los Angeles to wild applause.
The shift began in earnest at the start of the holiday shopping season in November, when the Wii came out and kept on selling out, becoming one of the hottest holiday gifts. Today, it is still in short supply.
Gaming publishers have responded to the increase in sales by diverting resources to Wii titles and buying up studios to produce games for the platform. It's been a learning experience for developers because the Wii is a radically different platform that feeds off body movements instead of the buttons and joysticks on a traditional controller.
Electronic Arts released just two titles when the Wii was released, including its latest installments of Madden football and Need for Speed, but followed up with an additional four games in the following months. But the company realized it wasn't enough to create Nintendo versions of popular games; it wanted to produce unique titles to exploit the Wii's strengths.
With ambitious plans to be the No. 1 game developer for the Wii, EA is throwing more money and staffing behind new Wii games, including three exclusive titles for the platform. The company also bought Headgate Studios in Salt Lake City in December to develop Wii games.
"I think it has surprised people, but we saw this as a great opportunity for the industry," said John Schappert, chief operating officer of EA. "We quickly saw that the Wii would be successful. We had those two initial titles in the can, but we realized we had to gear up for more."
Schappert said the Wii's design opens up the possibility for games that don't operate off traditional controllers. Playground, one of the latest games, allows gamers to play tetherball and dodgeball using swinging and throwing motions. This is a game that most developers wouldn't have considered trying using conventional controllers, Schappert said.
He said the Wii is especially attractive to publishers because it offers the chance to develop games for yet another platform. He said that while gamers often stuck to one console in the last cycle, he expects many gamers to buy the Wii in addition to either the Xbox 360 or the PS3.
That means a publisher could conceivably sell two versions of the same game to one gamer -- one on the Wii and one on another platform -- if the game play is unique enough for the Wii version. "That's something we've never had before," he said. "The Wii is a unique machine. It's just a very different machine."
Developers figure it will cost them a lot less to develop games for the Wii, which uses a little more processing power than the original Xbox console but less than the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. A typical Wii game, which is often graphically less intensive, can cost about $5 million to make, compared with $20 million or more for a top game for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
Ubisoft's Guillemot said his company quickly realized the Wii's potential when its developers worked on Red Steel, a Wii launch title that utilized sword play and first-person shooting.
Ubisoft then moved quickly to release Rayman Raving Rabbids exclusively on the Wii last year, helping it secure the top spot among third-party developers for the Wii. It's a position Guillemot said the company will fight hard to maintain.
"We know there's lot of competitors now, but we're going to try to do it," he said.
Beth Llewellyn, senior director of corporate communications at Nintendo, said the development momentum behind the Wii will only pick up as designers spend more time with the Wii and imagine new game-play scenarios.
"As with any console, the more opportunity you have to play with it, the ideas come after that," Llewellyn said. "It's the same with the DS (a handheld gaming device) and the Wii. They both have unique interfaces and it has opened up new ideas. The more they play with it, the more they realize the potential here."
Hitching to the Wii's success
-- To date the Nintendo Wii has sold 2.5 million units in North America and captured a 27 percent market share of next-generation consoles.
-- The Wii last month was the top-selling console in North America with sales of 360,000 units.
-- Electronic Arts is planning several exclusive titles for the Wii, including MySims, EA Playground, Boogie and an unnamed game developed by Steven Spielberg.
-- Disney Interactive Studios opened a studio in Salt Lake City that will work only on Wii titles.
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