Metallicube said:
Could not disagree more, with all three of your statements made here, lol.. Why do people buy consoles? To play games. That should be obvious. With the Wii, I suppose you can make an argument that there was that "new factor" of the wiimote that helped draw some attention to it, but still, what good is the Wiimote without the games to play it with? Wii sold because of the motion controls IN CONJUNCTION with the games. Nintendo and Sony targeted very different markets with their consoles, so whatever Sony did would not have affected Nintendo in this case. Now, the PS2/Gamecube generation, you could make that argument, since the consoles were similar. Calling the Wii a success because of Sony's blunders is giving Sony WAY WAY too much credit.You contradict yourself by the way. Was the Wii a success because of the motion controls, or because Sony screwed up? Funny how when it comes to the Wii everybody seems to point to everything under the sun except for the REAL reason for its success; the games.. The last statement is just opinion, so can't really argue with this I guess lol. But I always saw the GameCube as the home to Nintendo's worst efforts with their biggest franchises. They had the weakest Mario games (Double Dash, Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion), and weakest Zelda games (Wind Waker, Four Swords). The only franchises they really got right were Metroid and Smash, which were by no coincidence two of the best selling GameCube games. Now with that said, GameCube is still home to some of my favorite games, like Eternal Darkness and Tales, but those games have a very niche appeal. |
You have an uncommon opinion. At least among gamers that go on forums the GameCube is almost always seen as having better games than the Wii.
Also I'm not contradicting myself, the Wii was a success for MULTIPLE reasons. Traditional Nintendo games weren't one of them. Mario Kart on GC sold to roughly 35% of the instal base. On Wii it sold to roughly 33%. However, I'm going to point out that the game greatly relied on the Wiimote's gimmick. SSB on GC sold to also roughly 35% of the instal base. On Wii it only sold to around 12%. This game did not "mesh" with motion controls like Mario Kart. 3D Mario on GC (Sunshine) sold to 32% of the instal base. On Wii Galaxy only sold to 11%. It didn't really use motion controls. Zelda on GC (windwaker) sold to 23%. TW sold to 8%. For this number I added the GameCube version's sales to Wii since it was a "Wii" game. As you can see GC had much higher percentages, but this of course is aided by the smaller install base. Let's look at things a different way.
14 of the top 20 selling Wii games heavily relied on motion controls. Does that not show people bought it for motion controls?
Now let's look at actual game sales.
| Game | GameCube | Wii | Motion |
| SSB | 7.07 | 11.62 | No |
| Mario Kart | 6.95 | 33.64 | Major selling point |
| 3D Mario | 6.31 | 10.79 | Slightly |
| Zelda | 4.60 | 6.77+1.59 on GC | Slightly |
| Animal Crossing | 3.15 | 4.44 | No |
| Metroid | 2.82 | 1.65 | Slightly |
| Mario Party | 2.47 | 7.91 | Major, it's a gimmick game |
So what does this show? The average change in sales from GameCube to Wii was 235%. To compare the change in console sales was 500%
However, let's break it down to motion verse non motion games. Non motion games (No or slightly in the list) changed by only 154%. Games that really benefited by motion changed by 441%!
All this data pretty conclusively shows that motion controls were a major factor in Wii software sales. Logically that shows that motion control was a major factor with most purchasers.
PS. This would be an incredible misleading post if I didn't at least mention New Super Mario Bros. That game is only very slightly about motion controls and yet it sold a freaking lot! However it is the only case of this I noticed so it's safe to call it an outlier. Probably has to do with GC not having 2D Mario.
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