I pretty much agree with everyone in this thread. Cherry picked, flawed comparisons, flawed numbers, and flawed facts. Vavle did not have anything to do with the Orange Box port, for example. They let EA handle that.

I can't say I support comparisons like these. Like others have pointed out it's mostly cherry-picking and outside of damage control there's not much use for it.
I mean, should we have to lower the bar so we can pretend that some games did better than they actually did? It doesn't make sense.

It fails to find a good reason to why the games doesn't sell better. Yeah, some games just aren't very good or very appealing to the masses. But the main problem I would say is marketing. There's a lot of new or returning Wii gamers and most people simply doesn't know about games such as Muramasa or Little Kings Story. They can't buy games they don't know exist.

I didn't see ONE bit of hype for dark void nor advertising..

I saw alot of Mad World ads and it was supposed to be the big title (with The Conduit) for 2009..

The Conduit was severly hyped on this site as the big 2009 Wii exclusive.. it sold 390K? thats horrible..

I am not saying the Wii can't sell 3rd party games but 390K for the Conduit? lol? just search up ANY prediction thread and see what the first week estimates were.. often those were higher or even twice the amount of what it has sold so far LTD..


Hyped Wii games you compared:
MadWorld
The Conduit (twice even)
COD:WaW (Maybe not hyped but COD is a well established franchise)
and No More Heroes

I heard of all Wii games mentioned and I barely research Wii games I never heard about
The Demon Blade vs. Odin Sphere
Killer 7
or Timeshift.. 3 out of those 6 titles I had never heard of

WaW is big on HD consoles (it also outsold its Wii counterpart BY FAR)
Bayonetta was hyped on HD consoles (both versions have also outsold the Wii game mentioned)


This comparison is flawed..

Well... almost everything I was gunna say has been covered by the other members. So all I can say is "yeah, what they said" =/

I am not going to debate the numbers, because as Mark Twain said, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. (I will say that comparisons are often made to put a console in a good light or a bad light -- so such selective use of data is done by both sides of any argument).

But I think there are some valid points to consider/remember.

First of all, there are many games that have not sold as well as one would have thought -- given the attention they received. For example, Brutal Legend sold only about 1M combined -- even though it was on the cover of Game Informer 18 months before release. In other words, this phenomenon is not just something that happens on the Wii.

Second, developers/publishers are most (or should be most) interested in sales and profit. They are (or should be) much less concerned with whether or not the game sold to 1% or 5% or 10% of the install base as they are if it sold 100k, 500k, or 1M. This often gets lost when looking at games -- people want to compare how many were sold given the install base, rather than just looking at sales. (Developers and publishers sometimes fall into this trap as well. Of course, they also forget to look after profit and end up losing money).

Those are the points I take away from this discussion.

Mike from Morgantown

You can find "core" games that have sold well on Wii you can also find ones that did not do as well as people thought it would. Well, you can find this on any console ever made actually no matter the user base or style of games. When it comes to comparing games and sells you see what you want to see.

As for myself, I know of many "core" games on many consoles that did under what I thought it would. In the end it only matters that they actually made some money off it, or least it did not make them go bust. I will keep enjoying the games I feel are worthy of purchase and I will not buy a game just to help a "core" game sell well.

OP's egregious cherry-picking is lol-worthy.

I don't agree with the examples picked but the underlining argument is still true. When developers put in the same effort or even approach it they do well on the Wii. The problem here is that there are very few if any 3rd party publishers that do this. Nintendo is the only one that supports their own console. When they put a big push and effort behind their core titles and even casual ones they do insanely well. When Nintendo doesn't put enough push behind certain games they have small or modest success. Compare Super Mario Galaxy, NSMBW, Punch Out, Battalion Wars 2, and Fire Emblem. Nintendo covers a wide range. However Galaxy and NSMBW are the games that got the big push in terms of money and advertising. Punch Out, Battalion Wars 2, and Fire Emblem are all great games. However they did not get the same push. Their sales as a result are smaller. They were aimed at fans of the genres they are in. If Battalion Wars 2 for example had gotten a Galaxy push it would have done similar numbers or at the least a lot better. Nintendo I believe even admits they didn't push it well and it was reflected in the sales. Some games can sell on brand alone while others can not.

Monster Hunter Tri (3) from Capcom had effort and push behind it. It did very well in Japan alone. It's a million seller. Could it have done more, sure but they've found better success for the series on hand helds. So that could be a big factor. However one has to take into account that not even Mario Galaxy did that well in Japan I believe.

Red Steel 2 is a very good game however it didn't not get a strong push. It got the same treatment that Mad World and The Conduit did. Late night advertising where only a little of the actual game is shown. They call it target advertising but I question that when the ads air at midnight on midly popular cable shows (no network advertising here). So no huge sales up front and comparing it to games that did have huge sales up front is wrong. Time will tell but it will more likely do decently based on how much attention it was given.

Most games I believe or only as successful as effort put into it by the publisher. There are few exceptions when it comes to certain brands (Mario platformers, Zelda, Sonic, Halo, Gran Turismo, GTA, and CoD for example).

There is not one example of a Wii games where tons of effort, money, and advertisement resulted in poor sales. Until there is 3rd party publishers need to shut up. In fact there have been successes on the Wii in spit of the poor attention from publishers. Wii version of Call of Duty: World at War only got acknowledge in ads after it was doing well I believe. Activision/IW all but tried to kill and sabotage Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex. A complete media blackout other then early alpha or beta screen shots that not even Treyarch it seems understood why they were okay-ed and nothing else. It did well in spit of their actions (or lack of action) and still no acknowledgment of it. So games do well on the Wii when pushed and even when not pushed at times. Games on the Wii however do not do poorly when given effort and attention it seems. Though that has happen on he PS3 and 360.

If Capcom releases Super Street Fighter 4 on the Wii and goes out acknowledge it and advertise it and it does horrible then they'll have room to talk. If EA releases a Madden game that isn't screwed up by them themselves compared to the other versions and it does poorly then they'll have room to talk.

The comparisons are just fine, but the fact when talking about sales is not if every third party game on wii can sell x amount of copies, but if the companies are getting any profits... The real potential on wii is the fact to be able to make a game with a low budget, any game on wii who actually sells 200 000 is likely to recover what it was the invested on it... I am not saying 200000 is a good number at all, but what I am trying to say is that if this companies are getting his money back with those numbers, why no to try to polish their games a little bit more and even advertise their games a little bit...

I was gonna post something like this. I would like to add, in my opinion, that people seem to notice more when Wii games fail to sell well because of the number of games being released. There's always like 1 or 2 "core" Wii games at most being released each month. You don't really notice this on the HD consoles because a whole plethera of games come out from every angle.

All in all, games sell well/sell bad on every console out there.