Almost went with "She's got legs" but figured that would get the discussion sidetracked just as much as this introduction is going.

Legs.  In Games.

You hear it all the time, especially with disappointing initial day/week sales.  And more often than not, now for the Wii games.  Which, many do seem to have strong legs.  Wii Fit and SMG in Japan as two examples.

My questions are:

What to you defines that a game has legs?

Do Nintendo games really have 'a leg up'  ( ;) ) on the competition, or does it just seem that way because the other systems start out with so strong in that first weeks sales that the LTD seems weak in comparison?

If yes, to the above question, why is it?  If no, is it a bad thing to seem that your game has no legs even though LTD sales are okay to great?

My opinions -

I think that a game has legs if at least 50%, probably higher, is outside of the first week's sales.

Nintendo Wii games tend to show more leg than the PS3 or X360.

Most Nintendo games aren't the type that get so hyped then dropped to go on immediately to the next big game of the same type.  So the 'older' games sell to the new purchaser of a Wii better than to the new purchaser of the PS3 or X360.

Your opinion?

The Wii could be considered to have an advantage for a number of reasons; games are cheaper, more consoles are being sold each week thus youd imagine these new adopters are gonna look for the best game available.

Ive got two legs form my hips to the ground and

when I move them they walk around.

When I lift them they climb upstairs and

 when I shave em they aint got hairs

I lost my legs in a tractor incident. I now call it the Tractor Story.

Atleast for me, a game that has legs, is a game that can do one of 2 things:

#1. Have a great opening, then legs atleast 3x or 4x that of the initial launch week. In Japan, many RPGs, despite having great openings (ie, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy) have abysmal legs.

#2. Have a mediocre start, and then subsequent great sales for a long period of time.

Traditionally, some Nintendo games have great legs - Mario, Zelda, and others are great franchises with strong brand name recognition. So when someone picks up a Nintendo system, any Nintendo system, some games will have great brand name recognition, are of good quality games, and will be purchased late into the buying cycle.

New DS games such as the Brain Training series and Nintendogs are becoming this way, with beastly legs, months and years after the original IP comes out.


However, I would disagree that legs have to do (sometimes) with pricing and/or hardware sales. Generally, the audience the game, or system sells to, control the legs of the games. More "casual" games and lighter-core games tend to attract people that want the game, but aren't willing to pre-order, or go through any hoop to buy the game.

Even some very strange games (ie, M rated), such as Grand Theft Auto games have had brilliant legs - all 3 GTA games on the Playstation 2 had strong sales the first week, but had great legs afterwards. San Adreas opened with 1.5m first month sales in the US, and still sold over 8,000,000 copies, if not more - a multiplier over 5x.

However, hardware and price can come into play as well. For the DS, Wii, and other strong selling systems, when there is an ever-growing userbase with few quality titles, certain good "gems" will invariably make their way through the supply chain, and people will pick them up. Resident Evil 4 is a great example. At a $30 price point, on a fast-selling system, has allowed the game to chart around the #50 position in the NA charts since it's debut. Very, very good.


But legs aren't just Nintendo only, it's for every system provided they have casual and lighter-core titles. Even Rare's Viva Pinata on X360 is seeing a golden age right now in sales - sales this Christmas are almost on-level with last Christmas in the US. The reason? People want the game at $20 as a Platinum title, not a $50 or $60 title....Which is why the game has sold 10,000+ units since November (and failed to chart from April to October, while the price was still sort of high).

 swimmer?

Lumberjack Song?

@Soriku
Terry Gilliam is one of the 6 pythons (Monty Python being the British comedy group who you may know best from the films "The Life of Brian" or "Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Terry Gilliam is the one who did all the drawing/animation, and has gone on to direct films since then, such as "Clockwork Orange"

and I have never heard of a girl called Terry?... must be a US thing.

_________

I say the original Pokemon (red, blue and green) is the game that defined "legs", after all it was in the Japanese top 20 for 3-4 years.

You do know Terry Gilliam dont you, He was a python. He directed such great films as jabberwocky, the holy grail, brazil, Life of brian and 12 monkeys