Wii is now least for million sellers

[ClaudeLv250]

Ail said:

ClaudeLv250 said:

They didn't show PS360 gameplay to demo the console. They showed it to announce upcoming games. They used original tech demos on the show floor to demo the console. I seriously doubt 2, 3 years from now when we're in the next gen, people are really going to care that Darksiders II footage wasn't running from a Wii U upon announcement.

No, the Wii U doesn't only provide internal flash memory (the amount of which no one is even sure of), it has USB storage as well. I have a 200GB portable HD, I'm sure it's not going to be that hard for anyone filling up the internal space to get a portable HD too.

And no, EA and Activision absolutely do not want to phase out their relationships with retailers considering the vast majority of their sales are there. Digital distrubtion of retail games is no where near a maturity and dominance to even offset the millions of sales Activision gets from CoD.

They won't stop selling at retailers but they clearly rather sell digital copies. You can read the writing on the wall when in every quarterly report the focus is on digital sales and how much they have grown compared to previous years. Go check the latest EA and Activision press releases...( and every new retailer program to cash on used game sales is only speeding up that process).

Music has gone digital, books are going digital, games are doing the same. Yet all those medium still have physical copies too but you can see the impact on physical retailers when only 10% of sales move from physical to digital...( been to your local Borders lately or checked the PC shelf at your local Best Buy ?).

 

As for your CoD example, it's not really convincing me. CoD is one game where Activision clearly has the edge over retailers because retailers can not afford not to have those games on sales.  No matter what CoD fans will get their copies( there's a reason it's was the most preordered game this gen). If retailers can put some pressure, it's on the small publishers, not on companies like EA or Activision...

It's a silly argument. Digital won't become anywhere near dominant around the world for another 10, maybe 20 years for this to even matter. On top of that, EA's digital movements are more concerned with getting a foothold against the competition (Origin vs. Steam) than phasing out retail.  If Activision's current strategy is anything to go by, they're more focused on squeezing more money after the initial purchase, hence CoD Elite and the Skylanders figurines.

Packaged games going digital aren't comparable to books and music because games are HUGE. We've got PS3/4 using blu-ray, Wii U using the blu-ray equivalent, and there's no way 720 won't be there too. That's games that are potentially 25+ GB in size, when there are still major areas that don't have decent internet. Nobody's going to suicide their business if they don't have to.

But this discussion is moot because it doesn't even apply to Wii U. Its internal storage won't be any more of a "problem" than it was for 360 or PS3, so even if digital sales took over 50% of packaged retail next gen, it wouldn't stop these games from being available on Wii U's eshop.