naznatips said: eugene said: Actually, the longer is a system is out, the attach rates usually go down. Its easier to have high attach rates with the less systems you sell. If you only sell 2 systems, you only have to sell 12 games, but with 14 million systems, you have to sell 84 million games. You're mistaken. Attach rate grows with the system's life, not shrinks. This has been the case on every system in memorable history up to the last year or 2 of the consoles life. At that point used game sales can hurt attach rate a lot (See: PS2).

Yeah, honestly I think he's confused just because the least successful console almost always has the higher attach rate. However... that is only one factor. Attach rates grow because more software people want to buy come out. It grows slower on more popular systems because there are plenty of casuals vs hardcore, however the attach rates still grow because of more software, and the fact that software becomes cheaper, even in traditional stores so people buy the games when discounted. That and the emergence of "Greatest hits" helps.

12 for me for what it's worth. Should be getting 2-3 more around X-mas, then unless I spend all my time playing Power Pro on the PS2 i'll likely pick up 4-6 more in the next couple months.

Kasz216 said: 12 for me for what it's worth. Should be getting 2-3 more around X-mas, then unless I spend all my time playing Power Pro on the PS2 i'll likely pick up 4-6 more in the next couple months.

I really want to pick up Power Pro.  Why didn't you get it on the Wii though?  By all accounts that's the best version. 

I did. Heh and I meant "Fire Pro Wrestling Returns" for the PS2.

Actually MLB Power Pros is the reason I didn't buy any wii games and am relying on christmas presents. Otherwise i'd of bought another 3 with the Toys R Us sale instead of just Umbrella Chronicles.

I JUST opened up Metroid Prime 3 yesterday... and I'm already feeling the pull back to MLB Power Pros. My US Presidents team won't finish itself you know.

Those Japanese games that are just now getting ported to America always seem amazing. I think it's because the average Japanese developer isn't such a graphics snob and instead they focus on perfecting the gameplay and adding more on to it.

I mean the "special skills" in sports games are genius and way better then a bland "Clutch" skill.

Western sports games would be more accurate if they had the skill system Power Pros had.

I'm still waiting for more sports games that let you play as only 1 character too. A basketball game with a career mode where you only play one character, and you go from team to team, signing paychecks trying to make a bunch of money that you use to buy houses and deck out your place like you were on MTV cribs? That would be awesome... and I usually hate MTV Cribs.

Maybe throw in a "public perception" meter where depending on how often you switch teams, how much money you take etc... that tells you how your looked on after you retire and if you make it into the hall of fame? Ah man that'd be an awesome game.

The problem with attach rate, when counting/not counting Wii Sports, is, that if Wii Sports wouldn't be bundled, people would buy some game anyway, and now when it's bundled, it inflates numbers, since when people buy some other game to go with the system, Wii Sports is still in the numbers. Japan has what, 75% attach rate for Wii Sports? So when we don't have any better indicator, we could use Japan as a reference.
But, it's the same thing with all the bundles, they should not be counted. Maybe they don't have as much effect, but they still do have some. I believe it's safe to assume, that at least 50% of 360:s sold, have had a bundle. I don't recall when was the last time i saw 360 sold without a bundle. And the same thing with PS3, it has had a lot of games bundled with it. The starter pack even had 2 (and is the Forza/Marvel 360 bundle 360+Forza+Marvel?).
Now the numbers in OP have all the other bundles except Wii Sports, which is even more flawed than numbers with Wii Sports.

@eugene: The attach rate grows while system ages, until a certain point where it becomes popular enough to "everyone" having it and people can easilly borrow a game from his/her neigbour/friend and the used games market comes big enough to have "any" game available used. Some people don't even buy a single game new, they wait a while for the game to be available used and buy it cheap.

Xyrax said: I don't think its important how many extra sales PS3 and 360 got from their bundles really. The Wii isn't going to have the best attach ratio ever. Its just not going to happen, but it does sell alot of software just based on the fact that it has a massive userbase that grows at an alarming rate. I expected it to be worse really. I didn't think any of these people that are buying the Wii for Wiisports would buy other games. I expected grandma at the nursing home and Soccer Mom thats 40 years old but still, somehow mysteriously hot, to play Wii sports for a year then shelve the console and contribute nothing to the system. But we are being proven wrong by MP8 selling millions, freaking carnival games selling 300+k in 2 months and stuff like Warioware which has sold over 600k in the US alone, Rayman Raving rabbids has passed 500k and even cooking mama, a freaking straight ds to wii port is cresting 200k on the Wii version. Those casuals are buying games, it could DEFINITELY be worse. In any case, so long as the Wii keeps selling, its all good. After all, Capcom sold 1m copies of RE:4 and 1.3m of Dead Rising. They don't get extra money just because DR had a better 360 attach rate. Whether you sell 500k on a system with a userbase of 1 million, or 500k on a system with a userbase of 2 million, the money you make looks and spends the same. However if the casuals stop buying games, and they stop BEFORE the real games like Fragile, MH3 and Spore arrive for the actual GAMERS to buy, theres gonna be trouble in Nintenland.

I agree that Wii isn't going to get the best attach ratio, it's something that tend to happen with all the most popular systems. I believe that 360 is going to the get best attach ratio, it's not going to be the most popular and is more game orientated than PS3. What makes you think that the "hardcore" doesn't play Wii? Just look at the people on this site. The "hardcore" crowd usually looks more carefully what games they play, and by looking at the most 3rd party games quality on Wii, it's no wonder if the "hardcore" doesn't buy them. But on the other hand, there is the "real", 1st party, games. Such as Twilight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy, Paper Mario, Excite Truck, Strikers, Mario Party 8. That Mario Party propably gets some comments, but before commenting, explain why "hardcore gamer" would be anti-social? The anti-social group is the PC nerds, who stay 24/7 indoors, with only friends they have are the online friends. Mario Party is a quality multiplayer game, which really is fun. The time, when i really could consider myself as "hardcore gamer", i had some games just because of their fun multiplayer aspect and they really were the most fun games for me at the time.

bdbdbd said: Now the numbers in OP have all the other bundles except Wii Sports, which is even more flawed than numbers with Wii Sports.

WTF?  Once again, NO, the numbers do not include bundles.

naznatips said: eugene said: Actually, the longer is a system is out, the attach rates usually go down. Its easier to have high attach rates with the less systems you sell. If you only sell 2 systems, you only have to sell 12 games, but with 14 million systems, you have to sell 84 million games. You're mistaken. Attach rate grows with the system's life, not shrinks. This has been the case on every system in memorable history up to the last year or 2 of the consoles life. At that point used game sales can hurt attach rate a lot (See: PS2).

While total attach rate grows as the userbase does, year-per-year attach rate usually drops as prices drop and the systems themselves get more mainstream; this will hurt Xbox360/PS3 and help Wii in the future.

sinha said: bdbdbd said: Now the numbers in OP have all the other bundles except Wii Sports, which is even more flawed than numbers with Wii Sports. WTF? Once again, NO, the numbers do not include bundles.

How do you know? Please give a reference to your statement. Until you prove it, you are just full of BS. As mentioned above, WiiSports is the only game EXPLICITLY excluded. 

What i can't figure out is that... compared to this.

"In terms of software tie ratio, as I touched on earlier, if you focus in simply on the month of November, while we sold almost a million units of hardware, we sold over 6 million units of software. So, just for the month that's over a 6 to 1 attach rate. Up to the month of November, life to date, we are at about a 6.4 attach rate. So certainly what this suggests is with a greater range of software titles, and with strong franchises coming out for the Wii, the consumer is buying more and more software and we expect that our attach rate will continue to increase over the life of the system."

Are they talking about shipped software? It can't be can it? If it was that would be a pretty crappy way to judge "attach rate" plus they use the 6 million units referenced in NPD this week. Is he counting Wii Sports as 5 games here? Or maybe including virtual console numbers? (Seems unlikely) Even if he was counting wii sports that would only increase the attach ratio by 1.