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Forums - Sales - Has the Wii become one of the biggest disappointments in gaming?

Ail on 09 April 2012
RolStoppable said:
Ail said:
RolStoppable said:

Call of Duty 2 on the 360 was identical (in terms of content) to the PC version. The sixth generation consoles got a different Call of Duty 2. Just to let you know, not that it matters much.

But since you are bringing the performance of first party published games into this argument (Gears of War, Halo 3, Resistance), it opens another door. If I accept your argument that third parties decided to put their shooter games on other systems solely based on software sales numbers with no existence of an anti-Wii agenda, then why are there no quality third party games that tried to capitalize on the success of games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy?

I guess you could argue that the video game industry simply isn't interested in developing anything besides shooters, generally M-rated content, racing and sports games anymore. Then again, this might be the result of the anti-Wii agenda and nothing else selling well on the HD consoles.

The same reason there's no third party game that tries to compete with Grand Turismo ( Forza is first party) or Grand Theft Auto ( I guess you could say Saints Row does that but it's a poor immitation)  on HD consoles.

Those games are so good and so polished that it is very hard to put anything on the market that stands a chance in the same categorie...

So in other words, every (sub)genre that is dominated by a big IP will lead third party developers to refrain from making a similar game.

Since Halo was and is big, it explains why we didn't see many, if any, FPS games this generation. Since Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are big JRPGs since two decades, no other JRPGs are being made. Right, I am beginning to see the point you are trying to make.

I asked you twice to provide proof for your initial claim that THQ and Ubisoft are in bad shape because of the Wii. You keep posting in this thread, so it isn't a lack of time that prevents you from providing proof. So either there is no such proof or you simply prefer to make yourself look like an idiot by writing posts such as the above. Which is it?

Halo is big but cheap to make...

Same with CoD ( expensive part about CoD is the 150 million$ + marketing campaign)

Most JRPG are cheap to make ( Nipon Ichi doesn't develop 100 million $ games).

Only exception is FF and it's only expensive because of the cut scenes...

 

Now look at Zelda, Mario, Grand Turismo and GTA. Those are all games that took many years of development, and received a huge polish ( if it's not ready it doesn't ship). Quite frankly those are the exceptions in the current console development...

Heck third parties have not even tried to publish Zelda or Mario clones on HD consoles so it has nothing to do with the console itself..

 

I provided all the facts you ask, keep ignoring. THQ and Ubisoft are the two publishers with the biggest share of their sales in the Wii and as the Wii falls so are they.........



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

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Ail on 09 April 2012
RolStoppable said:
Ail said:

Halo is big but cheap to make...

Same with CoD ( expensive part about CoD is the 150 million$ + marketing campaign)

Most JRPG are cheap to make ( Nipon Ichi doesn't develop 100 million $ games).

Only exception is FF and it's only expensive because of the cut scenes...

 

Now look at Zelda, Mario, Grand Turismo and GTA. Those are all games that took many years of development, and received a huge polish ( if it's not ready it doesn't ship). Quite frankly those are the exceptions in the current console development...

I provided all the facts you ask, keep ignoring. THQ and Ubisoft are the two publishers with the biggest share of their sales in the Wii and as the Wii falls so are they.........

The estimated development costs I have seen for Super Mario Galaxy didn't exceed $10m, even in a worst case $12m tops. If you claim that Zelda and Mario costed $50m or more to develop like Gran Turismo and GTA, you better provide sources. Because any reasonable assumptions put Zelda and Mario below Halo and CoD.

As for the other issue, I asked you to post statements of THQ and Ubisoft that prove that the Wii is the culprit for their problems. This was your initial statement:

"PS : Funny thing is those publishers that gave the Wii the most support are those that will end the gen in the worth shape ( THQ, Ubisoft"

If I misunderstood this post of yours, then please post something along the lines of: "THQ and Ubisoft made a good chunk of their revenue from the Wii, but Nintendo's home console isn't to blame for their financial problems."


Both companies averaged around 25% of their revenue coming from the Wii the last 3  years.( it was their best platform).

Both companies are suffering heavilly as the Wii market is falling off a cliff ( software sales are down 30-35% so far in 2012 compared to 2011 for the Wii and 2011 wasn't a great year) and both companies have very little to fall back to on the HD consoles as they failied to develop their own franchises on the HD market ( Ubisoft did with AC but they had more heavy franchises last gen than this gen).

 

Both companies have stated in their latest reports that they are going away from the Wii or the Wii market ( Ubisoft says it clearly, THQ says they suffered from franchises aimed at kids which is a traditional Wii market).

What else do you want ?

A paper signed from the CEOs of both companies and adressed to you saying the Wii hurt them ?



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

phenom08 on 09 April 2012

Rol your arguing with someone that obviously hates the Wii so why even try. He doesn't have any proof and probably just likes to troll the Wii.

@Mummel
Why do you hate the Wii so much? The Wii is a sprinter but does it matter if that one sprint got you far enough in the race that the long distance runners have no chance of catching you?



Scoobes on 09 April 2012
RolStoppable said:
Sal.Paradise said:

I don't mind doing the work for Kowenicki :)

Again, the very same argument applies: the market on the Wii was there, but a significantly better market was available on the HD twins + PC.

You say: "But that wasn't the case one year after the Wii had launched "

Yes it's very reasonable to assume that third parties chose not to develop shoooters for the Wii based on the Gamecube's performance last generation. And after games like Red Steel and RE4 Wii Edition sold around 1-1.5 million in a year, you're very right to ask, aren't these good numbers? Aren't these indicators to companies that these games sell on the Wii?

Yes, they are, but now compare these numbers to the HD twins + PC. From games released in 2005-2007

 

1. Exclusive launch title for the 360 and a new IP, Gears of War: By January 19, 2007, just ten weeks after its debut, over three million units of the game had been sold

2. Exclusive launch title for the PS3 and a new IP: (remember, a console with a $599 barrier to entry and significantly bad press pre and post launch), Resistance 1: by June 15 2007, after only 8 months on the market in Japan and US and only 2-3 months in Europe, sales reached 2 million 

3. Call of Duty 2, a port of a game already available on PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, launch title for 360: As of July 2006, 1.4 million copies of the game had been sold on the Xbox 360.[45] By January 2008, the game had sold 2 million copies.[46]

4. Halo 3. While it is no surprise this game sold massively, the potential market for this franchise ALONE is a convincing reason for a developer to release shooters on the HD consoles, especially the 360. 

 

I am not surprised in the least that companies, seeing these figures and having initially planned to develop for the HD twins (before seeing the Wii explode in hardware sales), continued to develop for platforms other than the Wii. The market for those games largely moved to the HD twins, especially the 360. 

Another factor to take into account is that the advances in processing power were just expected to happen in next-gen consoles; developers, especially PC-centric ones like Epic or id, simply stuck to the path they knew best, and that's is an unfortunate (for Wii owners) by-product of the shift in strategy on Nintendo's part. 

Of course, a massive shift in focus was also due to the seminal Call of Duty 4 not launching on the Wii. And can you blame Activision? The game-changing extensive multiplayer component and the 'blockbuster' nature of the game; high production values, for the time impressive graphic effects and smooth 60fps, i.e. the reasons this franchise exploded,  were just something that people did not see in Wii games at the time. 

 

The market was always stronger on the HD twins, there is no argument.

Any company that wanted to make money with these types of games would have orignially developed them for 360/PS3 based on the pervious gen's performance, and then at the beginning of the 7th gen, there is no metric that shows the Wii was a better market for their games than its competitors.

It's a closed and shut deal.

You cannot blame developers and publishers for simply 'not trying' to take advantage of the market on the Wii, unless you want to blame companies for trying to make money. 

Call of Duty 2 on the 360 was identical (in terms of content) to the PC version. The sixth generation consoles got a different Call of Duty 2. Just to let you know, not that it matters much.

But since you are bringing the performance of first party published games into this argument (Gears of War, Halo 3, Resistance), it opens another door. If I accept your argument that third parties decided to put their shooter games on other systems solely based on software sales numbers with no existence of an anti-Wii agenda, then why are there no quality third party games that tried to capitalize on the success of games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy?

I guess you could argue that the video game industry simply isn't interested in developing anything besides shooters, generally M-rated content, racing and sports games anymore. Then again, this might be the result of the anti-Wii agenda and nothing else selling well on the HD consoles.

Shouldn't the question be "why haven't any third-party games been released that are even close to these on any platform?"




Get your Portable ID!

Sal.Paradise on 09 April 2012
RolStoppable said:
Sal.Paradise said:

I don't mind doing the work for Kowenicki :)

Again, the very same argument applies: the market on the Wii was there, but a significantly better market was available on the HD twins + PC.

You say: "But that wasn't the case one year after the Wii had launched "

Yes it's very reasonable to assume that third parties chose not to develop shoooters for the Wii based on the Gamecube's performance last generation. And after games like Red Steel and RE4 Wii Edition sold around 1-1.5 million in a year, you're very right to ask, aren't these good numbers? Aren't these indicators to companies that these games sell on the Wii?

Yes, they are, but now compare these numbers to the HD twins + PC. From games released in 2005-2007

 

1. Exclusive launch title for the 360 and a new IP, Gears of War: By January 19, 2007, just ten weeks after its debut, over three million units of the game had been sold

2. Exclusive launch title for the PS3 and a new IP: (remember, a console with a $599 barrier to entry and significantly bad press pre and post launch), Resistance 1: by June 15 2007, after only 8 months on the market in Japan and US and only 2-3 months in Europe, sales reached 2 million 

3. Call of Duty 2, a port of a game already available on PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, launch title for 360: As of July 2006, 1.4 million copies of the game had been sold on the Xbox 360.[45] By January 2008, the game had sold 2 million copies.[46]

4. Halo 3. While it is no surprise this game sold massively, the potential market for this franchise ALONE is a convincing reason for a developer to release shooters on the HD consoles, especially the 360. 

 

I am not surprised in the least that companies, seeing these figures and having initially planned to develop for the HD twins (before seeing the Wii explode in hardware sales), continued to develop for platforms other than the Wii. The market for those games largely moved to the HD twins, especially the 360. 

Another factor to take into account is that the advances in processing power were just expected to happen in next-gen consoles; developers, especially PC-centric ones like Epic or id, simply stuck to the path they knew best, and that's is an unfortunate (for Wii owners) by-product of the shift in strategy on Nintendo's part. 

Of course, a massive shift in focus was also due to the seminal Call of Duty 4 not launching on the Wii. And can you blame Activision? The game-changing extensive multiplayer component and the 'blockbuster' nature of the game; high production values, for the time impressive graphic effects and smooth 60fps, i.e. the reasons this franchise exploded,  were just something that people did not see in Wii games at the time. 

 

The market was always stronger on the HD twins, there is no argument.

Any company that wanted to make money with these types of games would have orignially developed them for 360/PS3 based on the pervious gen's performance, and then at the beginning of the 7th gen, there is no metric that shows the Wii was a better market for their games than its competitors.

It's a closed and shut deal.

You cannot blame developers and publishers for simply 'not trying' to take advantage of the market on the Wii, unless you want to blame companies for trying to make money. 

Call of Duty 2 on the 360 was identical (in terms of content) to the PC version. The sixth generation consoles got a different Call of Duty 2. Just to let you know, not that it matters much.

But since you are bringing the performance of first party published games into this argument (Gears of War, Halo 3, Resistance), it opens another door. If I accept your argument that third parties decided to put their shooter games on other systems solely based on software sales numbers with no existence of an anti-Wii agenda, then why are there no quality third party games that tried to capitalize on the success of games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy?

I guess you could argue that the video game industry simply isn't interested in developing anything besides shooters, generally M-rated content, racing and sports games anymore. Then again, this might be the result of the anti-Wii agenda and nothing else selling well on the HD consoles.

I thought there were quite a few platformers/adventure games on the Wii? I'm surprised if that's not true, as you said it seems there's a market for that genre of game. Quite honestly platformers have been under-represented this gen on the HD consoles also, it's quite sad. I don't think it has any bearing on the shooter market for the Wii though, the numbers take care of that. 

You're right that for larger companies there has been a shift away from platformers/adventure games and more alternative genres, with a significant chunk of the money going to racing/fps/tps, but I would point out that the indie scene is booming right now, and some of the most interesting developments in alternative games, platformers and less traditional RPG experiences is coming from that sector; a sector largely represented by the PC, and on a smaller scale XBLA and PSN. 



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Train wreck on 09 April 2012
RolStoppable said:
Ail said:

Halo is big but cheap to make...

Same with CoD ( expensive part about CoD is the 150 million$ + marketing campaign)

Most JRPG are cheap to make ( Nipon Ichi doesn't develop 100 million $ games).

Only exception is FF and it's only expensive because of the cut scenes...

 

Now look at Zelda, Mario, Grand Turismo and GTA. Those are all games that took many years of development, and received a huge polish ( if it's not ready it doesn't ship). Quite frankly those are the exceptions in the current console development...

I provided all the facts you ask, keep ignoring. THQ and Ubisoft are the two publishers with the biggest share of their sales in the Wii and as the Wii falls so are they.........

The estimated development costs I have seen for Super Mario Galaxy didn't exceed $10m, even in a worst case $12m tops. If you claim that Zelda and Mario costed $50m or more to develop like Gran Turismo and GTA, you better provide sources. Because any reasonable assumptions put Zelda and Mario below Halo and CoD.

As for the other issue, I asked you to post statements of THQ and Ubisoft that prove that the Wii is the culprit for their problems. This was your initial statement:

"PS : Funny thing is those publishers that gave the Wii the most support are those that will end the gen in the worth shape ( THQ, Ubisoft"

If I misunderstood this post of yours, then please post something along the lines of: "THQ and Ubisoft made a good chunk of their revenue from the Wii, but Nintendo's home console isn't to blame for their financial problems."

I dont see how THQ can lose 136 million dollars in calendar year 2011, with Nintendo accounting for 48%  of their revenue (Wii 33.1, DS 14.7) and them not contributing to any losses.  I find that funny.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/video-games/controller-freak/thq-tumbles-hard-in-wake-of-failed-udraw-tablet/article2325483/

Different websites are giving different information.  There was a second version of the UDraw tablet that came out the same time as the HD ones for the Wii also entitled UDraw Studio Instant artist.  There were 1.2 million on the shelf of this product, which includes the Wii version, so no its not a HD only problem. UDraw was not able to maintain its "success" on the Wii and you can easily see that by the year over year revenue number from THQ.  Wii revenue in the quarter Oct-Dec 2010, which includes the Udraw for Wii, went from $141m to $63m in Oct-Dec 2011.  Both X360 and PS3 revenue went up (tripled in fact) in the same year on year period despite the UDraw flap.  (Which the source outlined here http://www.vgchartz.com/article/88779/thq-loses-559m-in-the-dec-2011-quarter/) 

The 100 million dollars that the sources cite is what THQ forcasted tablets would do once they were released for HD consoles and that never materialized.  And the fact they discontinued the entire line tells me that they had no faith in the original Wii concept anyway. 



Sal.Paradise on 09 April 2012
RolStoppable said:
Sal.Paradise said:

I thought there were quite a few platformers/adventure games on the Wii? I'm surprised if that's not true, as you said it seems there's a market for that genre of game. Quite honestly platformers have been under-represented this gen on the HD consoles also, it's quite sad. I don't think it has any bearing on the shooter market for the Wii though, the numbers take care of that. 

You're right that for larger companies there has been a shift away from platformers/adventure games and more alternative genres, with a significant chunk of the money going to racing/fps/tps, but I would point out that the indie scene is booming right now, and some of the most interesting developments in alternative games, platformers and less traditional RPG experiences is coming from that sector; a sector largely represented by the PC, and on a smaller scale XBLA and PSN. 

Action-Adventure titles are completey underrepresented on the Wii. I am not just talking about games that are very much Zelda-like (Okami would be the only pick and that's a port), but everything else that you could put into the broad A-A genre. Quality games that serve the purpose of escapism are almost non-existent on the Wii. Tomb Raider Anniversary was a port where effort was put into, but Tomb Raider Underworld was a butchered game. If we stretch the definition of the genre, we can add Muramasa: The Demon Blade and Monster Hunter Tri (both i would call Action-RPGs though).

When it comes to platformers you have Epic Mickey (it's mediocre, but it's undeniable that a lot of money was pumped into it) and right after that mid- to low-budget productions follow. The two De Blob games, a Klonoa remake of the first PS1 game and... I really have a hard time to think of much else. Rayman Origins is another one. But still, that's only five games in five years.

Download-only games can be a nice diversion, but they should be an addition to the retail software. Quality titles in the boxed games market are sorely missing on the Wii. There's a reason why people say that the Wii isn't worth it, if you don't like Nintendo games. All third party games combined don't really add up to justify a purchase of the console. And it has only gotten worse over the years, not better.

So what were we talking about again? Right, the Wii got screwed over by third parties.

I'm sorry but I really think from the numbers that the market for shooters on platforms other than the Wii was just guaranteed movement to those systems, and as I said before you cannot say a third party screwed the Wii over in that area unless you blame them for trying to make money. I'd like to hear an argument against that rather long-winded post I made if you have one, but I can't see much that could be said. 

For genres other than racing/fps/tps I really cannot say, I just thought that whenever I hear about Wii games on gaming sites, apart from Nintendo games or JRPGs, they will be some sort of action adventure, platformer or 'other' genre game, off the top of my head Zack and Wiki, Epic Mickey, de Blob..well that's it.  

I will say the number of quality platformers on ALL systems has decreased this gen I believe (or at least their presence has) aside from indie games. Unfortunately, these indie games have not found their way to Wii for the most part (although World of Goo is on the Wii right?) probably due to download and internal storage limits on the Wii, something I would've liked to see Nintendo address this generation. 

"Download-only games can be a nice diversion, but they should be an addition to the retail software."

If you mean that in terms of grabbing sales and creating a market on the system, sure I agree, but if you're talking about quality, download-only games are right up there with boxed retail games by anyone's standards. There really isn't a distinction between the two anymore, other than in 90% of cases budget, and budget is no guarantee of quality. 

 

Actually I was just talking to someone about Silent Hill, and I'd like to mention that this is a franchise where a third party publisher (Konami) did bring their game to the Wii, and by all reports Shattered Memories was great (I'm super jealous you guys got it); the best since 2 and 3, I've heard most fans say. The game sold better on the PS2 (released in 2010) than it did on the Wii. Not saying this is indicative of a trend as it's just one game, but it is food for thought. In comparison, Konami found an almost 2.5 million seller on the WIi in 2008, in 'Deca Sports', whatever the fuck that is. 



Kasz216 on 09 April 2012

I don't think the Wii even qualifies as the biggest disappointment in it's generation.

When the we came out everyone thought it would do awful, and somehow ended up leading the race by quite a bit.

It's lack of a support and sales falling off isn't so much a fault of the Wii as it was a lost oppurunity by game developers.  Much bank was lost by having the wrong focus on the wrong platforms, as can be seen by just how badly your average developer has done this generation.


I mean, when was the last time a generation of developers did so poorly?  The Atari era?

This is despite the fact that the audience had expanded... and the numbers of developers decreased if anything.



Kasz216 on 09 April 2012

Oh and for what it's worth. All 3 consoles have been a disappointment to me this generation. I haven't played a game on any of them for months, migrating instead over to PC.

My PSP was a huge overachiever though, too bad it broke. Wish sony had better manufacturing. There products are such glass canons.



PSwii60 on 09 April 2012

Success/Failure is, in all respect, overly subjective.

Based on Nintendo's current business model (and probably their expectations), Wii is a complete success. In terms of gaming, Wii attracted the audience they intended to attract which generated large returns financially, expanded the gaming by attracting far more casuals than before, and disrupted the gaming industry from its monotony of all-powerful multimedia consoles.

What Nintendo failed to do, on the other hand, is respond to Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect; Regardless of their reasoning, may it be saturation or capitalizing on the motion market, they at least tried to cater to a market outside their scope. Nintendo instead tried to convince the gaming industry that Wii owners don't need HD (which in itself is arguable); and to top it all off, it seemed to me that this last year and a half, they practically abandoned Wii and focused on 3DS and Wii U instead (which could be a good thing).

In my honest observation, overall, Wii is a success for all of its intents and purposes.