Has the Wii become one of the biggest disappointments in gaming?

[Ail]

RolStoppable said:

Sal.Paradise said:

I'm sorry but I really think from the numbers that the market for shooters on platforms other than the Wii was just guaranteed movement to those systems, and as I said before you cannot say a third party screwed the Wii over in that area unless you blame them for trying to make money. I'd like to hear an argument against that rather long-winded post I made if you have one, but I can't see much that could be said. 

For genres other than racing/fps/tps I really cannot say, I just thought that whenever I hear about Wii games on gaming sites, apart from Nintendo games or JRPGs, they will be some sort of action adventure, platformer or 'other' genre game, off the top of my head Zack and Wiki, Epic Mickey, de Blob..well that's it.  

I will say the number of quality platformers on ALL systems has decreased this gen I believe (or at least their presence has) aside from indie games. Unfortunately, these indie games have not found their way to Wii for the most part (although World of Goo is on the Wii right?) probably due to download and internal storage limits on the Wii, something I would've liked to see Nintendo address this generation. 

"Download-only games can be a nice diversion, but they should be an addition to the retail software."

If you mean that in terms of grabbing sales and creating a market on the system, sure I agree, but if you're talking about quality, download-only games are right up there with boxed retail games by anyone's standards. There really isn't a distinction between the two anymore, other than in 90% of cases budget, and budget is no guarantee of quality. 

 

Actually I was just talking to someone about Silent Hill, and I'd like to mention that this is a franchise where a third party publisher (Konami) did bring their game to the Wii, and by all reports Shattered Memories was great (I'm super jealous you guys got it); the best since 2 and 3, I've heard most fans say. The game sold better on the PS2 (released in 2010) than it did on the Wii. Not saying this is indicative of a trend as it's just one game, but it is food for thought. In comparison, Konami found an almost 2.5 million seller on the WIi in 2008, in 'Deca Sports', whatever the fuck that is. 

Too much of the same will inevitably lead to failure for some. That is my argument for the shooter situation or any "let's make this kind of game for this console, because one such game was very successful" situation. At some point the market simply can't support it anymore. Since I've just mentioned Red Faction in a previous post, I'll use it as an example here. It wasn't a big IP last gen, but it did fairly well. Now THQ could throw it to the wolves (which they did) or become the big fish on the Wii, because nobody else tried to satisfy the demand for shooters on the Wii. The shooter market on the HD consoles had become incredibly competitive which required companies to spend not only a lot of money on development to keep up with the production values, but also big bucks on advertisement.

On top of this, like I said before, this generation generated record revenues, but not record profits. A sign that the decisions that were made were not necessarily the best ones. It's like everyone in the industry had a tunnel vision which is why even some RPGs have been turned into shooters.

As for the downloadable games, I was refering to the amount of content you get. A downloadable platformer is often over in three to five hours while a boxed game gives you 10-20 hours of playtime for the initial playtrough. It's basically a snack vs. a full meal. The Wii could have gotten all the indie games in the world, but there would still have been something missing. You don't buy a dedicated gaming machine to only consume snacks, if you know what I mean.

Next point, the reception for Silent Hill: SM is all over the place. Some say it's awesome, others criticize its predictability. The game makes a clear distinction between puzzle and action sections (although action in this case just refers to running away from enemies). I haven't bought the game for this reason, because I consider the element of suspense a pretty important part in a survival horror title. As for its sales, a SH fanbase was never established on a Nintendo system before and the PS2 had a long tail. The VGC database cannot be fully trusted at this point. While I don't object to the PS2 version having sold more copies, I need to point out that the game was released day and date on the Wii, PS2 and PSP. VGC for some reason lists the Wii version as a 2009 release, but Gamefaqs (who I trust more; no offense, VGC) says otherwise. Here is a link to the SH:SM page, it just takes a few clicks to confirm what I am saying here.

Lastly, Deca Sports was riding on the popularity of Wii Sports, obviously. I don't need to tell you that such games have a far higher sales ceiling than survival horror. Don't forget though what I said at the beginning of this post: Too much of the same will inevitably lead to failure for some. Third parties rushing to make Wii Sports (and Wii Play) clones led to dozens of games that quickly ended up in the bargain bin. If nothing else, one thing is certain: Third parties could have been (much) more successful this generation, if they spreaded their games more evenly across all platforms instead of blindly chasing popular trends.

I think that is actually up for debate.

The profits were more concentrated this gen but I don't think they were any less...

For first party Nintendo + Sony + Microsoft together did better in term of profits than last gen...( Nintendo did a lot better, Microsoft did a lot better, Sony did a lot worse).

Activision broke every record for profits and operating margin this gen for third parties ( which means they stole a lot of profits from other companies). That includes a 1 billion$ profit in 2011...

When all is said and done Take Two will probably do better this gen than last gen ( if GTA5 releases this fiscal year as they are planning).

EA did a lot worse..

Ubisoft did a little worse but in the same ballpark than last gen.

THQ did a lot worse.

Bethesda probably did a lot better ( hard to say by how much  as we don't get detailed numbers as they are owned by ZeniMax).

One would think Epic Games did a lot better ( between unreal royalties and Gear I think it's a given).

Bungie did a tonn better.

Valve did better ( they had few releases last gen on HD consoles but some good hits this gen with the orange box, portal and  portal 2).

Most smaller studios did worse.

Most Japanese studios did a lot worse ( exception might be Konami, hard to say as their video games results are merged with slot machines results and the slot machine business has been steadilly failing). Capcom I believe did decent. Square Enix was a lot worse...

 

I haven't computed the exact number but I think in 2011 Activision did more profit than all the others 3rd parties combined. That is the reality right now. Last gen those profits were more shared. And Activision might have been more involved in the Wii at the start of the gen with guitar hero but they aren't anymore now........