Conegamer said:
I would enjoy that However, your point does seem to have some relevance...however, if that's the case, why does Just Dance keep on selling? That hasn't got a price cut? You could say that's a bugdet game, so how about Mario and Sonic? You could say that's brand recognition, so how about de Blob?
Basically, for every game there's a reason for a slight bump in sales (price cut, brand recognition etc.) but since it occurs so regularly and so often on the Wii then there has to be more to the Wii audience which I don't understand... Nintendo games are the largest anomolies here, but they have both |
Righty, I'll try keep this in English :P. In my view there are 3 different trends observable for console software this gen, for 3 different 'groups' - Nintendo Software, Third Party Wii software and HD software.
1)First up is the Nintendo stuff, and nothing needs to be said about how mental some of it's sales are. NSMBW, MKWii, Wii Fit, Wii Sports etc all sell over huge time periods at full price with constantly high sales. I think the wii audience isn't one to rush out and buy a game on launch, and when they do wonder into a Game store they're instantly going to be drawn to the new Mario or Wii ___, the brand assures quality and consumers are drawn to it at risk of being stung by another third party bug fest.
Nintendo also marketing this software on a year schedule, pushing more consumers into the shop to pick these games up and hold up their legs, but ultimately i think it's simply that the Wii___ and Mario brands are such massive draws. This is further enforced imo when you look at alot of Nintendo's other brands - Metroid, Animal Crossing, Kirby, all successful games but nowhere near the staying power of Mario and Wii___, even with similiar marketing campaigns.
2) Next up is Third party Wii stuff, the most infamous software this gen. With regards to that showing legs, the stuff that likes to stick around nearly exclusively falls into strong branding or budget priced games. A quick look at this weeks chart (For games which have been there 10 weeks) throws out Hasbro, Star Wars, Toy Story, Harry Potter, Just Dance, Club Penguin, Cabela Hunts etc. Interestingly when I just looked at the games pricing on Amazon, all of them could be bought for under $40 (alot of them under $30), and that was just from shopping around on one retailer.
Obviously using Black Friday week isn't the best time to judge, but when I've looked at this stuff in the past it's a similiar trend, the top Wii third party stuff (Showing legs) isn't full price and the biggest hits - Just Dance, Cabela, Toy Story Mania, Club Penguin etc weren't full price to begin with.
3) HD software - going a bit off topic so won't touch on these much, but the emphasis for these is much more on marketing the hell out of a game for a big 2-3 week launch and then letting it die. The legs die accordingly, but seemingly price cuts don't 'boost' software like Wii stuff due to what I guess is a consumer base more inclined to buy used software, and a consumer base who will move onto the next big marketed gam as oppose to buying last months news.
The figures are rough and tough to quantify, but I find it hard to deny that nearly all Wii games that stick around (Other then Ninty's 'big names') do so at reduced price. I view this as the typical Wii consumer being someone who goes into a shop unaware of what they intend to buy - and then deciding that off of which games brand they recognise and opting for what cheaper. A trend we're seeing more now is that companies like Ubisoft, Activision and THQ are successfully positioning this cheaper software in stores with a targeted marketing campaign.
I'm in no way trying to say this is a bad thing or that Wii legs are 'worse' cause of the price tag, it's just something I've noticed and people often neglect.
Also, with regards to De Blob, it is a bit of an oddity but it's worth remembering it's biggest 'jump' in legs all fall in the 3-4 weeks in December leading up to Christmas, which fall just outside it's '10 week launch' period thing. I believe that was also when THQ began some TV adverts for the game.
Will try to reply to anyones posts but got alot to do today :). This is just my musings and what I've seen, I'm sure it's not flawless but it is quite interesting.
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