Jay520 said: To all the geniuses that feel the need to tell me what 'core' means, The point of this thread is not to argue definitions. The word 'core' isn't defined anywhere pertaining to gaming, so I'm just using the word as it relates to 3rd parties, since this thread is about 3rd parties. If you don't like that word, then ignore it & imagine a new one.

I think its both weird and funny the words "core" and "casual" only came about this generation. No one was saying that last gen when Sony released their PS Eye "toy". Anyway theres no way to sensibly differentiate hardcore and casual games. If anything theres hardcore and casual gamers and certain games probably appeal to either.

Jay520 said: sergiodaly said: @ OP... why would they need to do a call of duty game for the wii if the wii have the real call of duty... we all know how that worked out. People say CoD Wii's lack of features was the main reason for it's low sales. Maybe Nintendo could make a military shooters with all the features it needs. Thus convincing Activision to pack CoD Wii with loads of content. Thus much higher sales.

don't know about that, because i didn't play cod on wii or in other platform this gen... but i did heard some fans saying that cod with wiimote was superior to playing it with DS3 or with 360 controller (MS should come up with a name better than controller), some even say was better than KB+Mouse... so by that feedback from the fans i thought it was a full feat. COD game. even if they did "bold" , wasn't a COD game with all the perks that "Call of Duty" carries just by being printed in the cover. so that would flop harder if you ask me! imo only thing nintendo could do better to get 3rd party support was to develop a better console at the start.

Jay520 said: Aielyn said: Jay520 said: But the point is 3rd parties clearly weren't going to make the first move. So why didn't Nintendo make that Grand Theft Auto type games? Or that Call of Duty? Would this not have proved to 3rd parties that 'core' games sell on Nintendo consoles. Given that third parties complained about not being able to compete with Nintendo's first-party franchises, it seems to me that it wouldn't have made much difference. Basically, third parties weren't willing to come to the table anyway, and they just sought excuses for it. 1. Resident Evil 4 2. Call of Duty 3 3. Goldeneye 007 4. NBA Jam 5. Silent Hill. 6. Blazing Angels So if third-parties wouldn't even pay attention to their own core games released on the system, why would they be more likely to put their games on the Wii when they have to compete with first-party titles, given that first-party strength was their main complaint? No, third-parties had a series of excuses that they used, none of which were really valid. I though the main deterrent for 3rd parties was the simple fact that there had yet to be a realistic, violent game which could sell on the Wii. 1. This is a good example, but I'd say this is the only good one. But you'd be naive to think that one 6th gen remake that sold over 2m is enough to convince the majority of 3rd parties that a platform is viable. Also keep in mind that the game was pretty big on the gamecube so it already had a history with Nintendo fans. Most 3rd parties don't have this privilege so it's understandable why they'd be hesitant about releasing their game on the Wii which is probably unknown to nintendo owners. 2. You should check your numbers. CoD3 sold only 0.3m on the Wii & over 1m on the PS3 & over 2m on the X360. EDIT: Nevermind, I was on the wrong site. Regardless, this is the only title that sold moderately big that wasn't an IP already popularized on past Nintendo systems. 3. You realize that Goldeneye released on the year a year before the other two consoles. And like RE4 on the GC, it has the name of one of the biggest games from the N64, so it's already known to a lot of Nintendo owners. Most 3rd parties don't have this privilege so this game isn't enough to convince 3rd parties that their games will have a chance at success. 4. This game only sold 340k on the Wii. Not enough to convince 3rd parties. 5. Silent Hill again, was a faily low seller as well. Yeah, it outsold the PS360 iteration, but it still only managed a 500k seller. 6. A decent example, still, only 800k. You mentioned a bunch of sub-1mil sellers with the occasional 1m seller & 2m sellers. Do you really believe this enough to convince the major 3rd parties that they should bother with the Wii? I don't think so. That's why I go back to my frst point: Nintendo should have released their own releastic style game and had it be successful. And I don't mean 'just successful' by just making it over the profit point. I mean some big games that could really entice 3rd parties. I know Nintendo has the talent / money to do it & I know Nintendo wants 3rd party. You've proven to me that 3rd parties are stubborn, but they're no where near impossible. A bunch of 300k-800k of course isn't going to prove anything. And if my games where only selling that much, I'd be experimenting with new plans. The 1m sellers you mentioned were Goldeneye & Resident Evil, two IPs with a history on Nintendo consoles. This gives them an advantage that most 3rd parties don't have. The only one that wasn't was Call of Duty, which still only did a bit over 2m. I think if Nintendo had made some 3, 4, maybe even 5 million selling realistic, violent games, the Wii would have seen a lot more 3rd party support.

You missed the point. I wasn't talking about these games proving generally that there was a market for "core" games on the Wii, just that there was as much a market for those particular series on the Wii. As I noted, with CoD3, the Wii version easily outsold the PS3 version, yet Activision had no problem with there being no Wii version of CoD4 from Infinity Ward - and this irrevocably harmed the series on the Wii. With Resident Evil 4, the proof was there that a quality Resident Evil game would sell well on the system, but they used it to justify a quick pair of lightgun titles, while putting the next real RE title on PS3 and 360 and not the Wii. That Goldeneye sold best on Wii should have suggested that they should put the next 007 title on all three, but it's also PS3/360 only. When NBA Jam performed best on the Wii, they made a PS3/360-only special edition. When the Wii/PS2 Silent Hill outperformed the PS3/360 Silent Hill, they started developing a new PS3/360 Silent Hill, and ignored the Wii (and PS2). When Blazing Angels did much better on Wii than PS3, they made the sequel for PS3/360 and not Wii.

In all six cases, when faced with evidence of a real market for games in that franchise, developers and publishers ignored that evidence and supported only the PS3 and 360. And the list includes Activision, EA, Capcom, Ubisoft, and Konami. If all five of these publishers were happy to ignore the evidence of a market on the Wii for their own IPs, why the hell would they pay attention to the success of a Nintendo IP that they would have to compete against?

The reason why I only list a few titles is that, when it came to third-party support, most franchises were never even TESTED on the Wii. They never tried an Assassin's Creed. They never tried a Mass Effect. They never tried a Grand Theft Auto, a Red Dead Redemption, a Fallout, a Left 4 Dead, a Battlefield, a Saints Row, a Bioshock, or a real Final Fantasy. Capcom never tried a Street Fighter. Namco Bandai never tried a Tekken. Konami never tried a Metal Gear. And where they did try major franchises, more often than not they were spinoffs - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, SoulCalibur Legends, Castlevania: Judgment, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Dead Space: Extraction, etc. Often they would use these lower-quality spinoffs as "tests" for the franchises... but where those "tests" were successful, they were used to prove that the Wii audience would buy the spinoffs, and not the main franchises.

The few times that third parties truly took a risk, and developed a proper title for the Wii that they released worldwide, it paid off. Epic Mickey. Monster Hunter. The Sims. Tiger Woods. The LEGO series. Harvest Moon. Treyarch Call of Duty titles (given the weakness created by lack of CoD4).

Of course, when half-arsed ports were done, like Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop, they flopped. Which, to me, was actually proof that the Wii audience were a whole lot more discerning than the industry liked to think. The industry never questioned why Just Dance took off, while Boogie fell flat. They never questioned why Deca Sports sold strongly, yet Big League Sports flopped. They never stopped to wonder why Game Party thrived while MySims Party struggled. It was always "casual games do well on Wii", never bothering to look at why only certain ones did well on Wii. There was absolutely no attempt to understand the "casual" audience, and thus the vast majority of "casual" games flopped, even as certain titles blossomed to such an extent that they're now outselling most other franchises.

Indeed, when it came to the Wii, third parties paid little attention to anything of significance, and made their decisions entirely on superficial things. They didn't comprehend that you have to establish the market for your game, it doesn't just fall into your lap. And they didn't comprehend that treating Wii owners like second-class gamers was going to produce weaker sales for their games. And as the evidence noted above demonstrates, evidence of markets were completely ignored time and again, in order to chase after the "red ocean" on the PS3 and 360.

To finish, consider this - The Conduit was a game that was designed for the Wii. Having said that, it was bland, it was rather generic, and it wasn't rated very highly. For a new IP, this should have been a complete death sentence. The game still managed a respectable 530,000 copies sold. The same can be seen with Red Steel, which sold well over a million copies despite being buggy. Decent niche titles like Zack & Wiki, MadWorld, No More Heroes, Trauma Centre, Muramasa, and Little King's Story all did remarkably well, and where such titles were also released on PS3/360, the Wii version inevitably did best.

The evidence is all there. Third parties just ignored it all.

Oh, by the way - if RE and Goldeneye did well because they had a history on Nintendo systems, then why not release other major games on the Wii, so that those franchises *also* have a history on Nintendo systems when the next system comes around? As I said, you have to establish the market before you can leverage it.

Op, third parties made games for the Wii, but people majorly bought first party.

Nintendo may made core games for Wii so I don't understand the point of your posts. I wouldn't even be surprised if you were banned since you start threads like this.

Are you kidding me?

Try Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn at easy, Brawl at difficult, Xenoblade in general, DKCR in general, Sin and Punishment Successor of the Skies in general and i'll stop. XD

If you don't know the games i'm sorry.

Aielyn said: You missed the point. I wasn't talking about these games proving generally that there was a market for "core" games on the Wii, just that there was as much a market for those particular series on the Wii. As I noted, with CoD3, the Wii version easily outsold the PS3 version, yet Activision had no problem with there being no Wii version of CoD4 from Infinity Ward - and this irrevocably harmed the series on the Wii. With Resident Evil 4, the proof was there that a quality Resident Evil game would sell well on the system, but they used it to justify a quick pair of lightgun titles, while putting the next real RE title on PS3 and 360 and not the Wii. That Goldeneye sold best on Wii should have suggested that they should put the next 007 title on all three, but it's also PS3/360 only. When NBA Jam performed best on the Wii, they made a PS3/360-only special edition. When the Wii/PS2 Silent Hill outperformed the PS3/360 Silent Hill, they started developing a new PS3/360 Silent Hill, and ignored the Wii (and PS2). When Blazing Angels did much better on Wii than PS3, they made the sequel for PS3/360 and not Wii. In all six cases, when faced with evidence of a real market for games in that franchise, developers and publishers ignored that evidence and supported only the PS3 and 360. And the list includes Activision, EA, Capcom, Ubisoft, and Konami. If all five of these publishers were happy to ignore the evidence of a market on the Wii for their own IPs, why the hell would they pay attention to the success of a Nintendo IP that they would have to compete against? The reason why I only list a few titles is that, when it came to third-party support, most franchises were never even TESTED on the Wii. They never tried an Assassin's Creed. They never tried a Mass Effect. They never tried a Grand Theft Auto, a Red Dead Redemption, a Fallout, a Left 4 Dead, a Battlefield, a Saints Row, a Bioshock, or a real Final Fantasy. Capcom never tried a Street Fighter. Namco Bandai never tried a Tekken. Konami never tried a Metal Gear. And where they did try major franchises, more often than not they were spinoffs - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, SoulCalibur Legends, Castlevania: Judgment, Rayman Raving Rabbids, Dead Space: Extraction, etc. Often they would use these lower-quality spinoffs as "tests" for the franchises... but where those "tests" were successful, they were used to prove that the Wii audience would buy the spinoffs, and not the main franchises. The few times that third parties truly took a risk, and developed a proper title for the Wii that they released worldwide, it paid off. Epic Mickey. Monster Hunter. The Sims. Tiger Woods. The LEGO series. Harvest Moon. Treyarch Call of Duty titles (given the weakness created by lack of CoD4). Of course, when half-arsed ports were done, like Dead Rising: Chop Til You Drop, they flopped. Which, to me, was actually proof that the Wii audience were a whole lot more discerning than the industry liked to think. The industry never questioned why Just Dance took off, while Boogie fell flat. They never questioned why Deca Sports sold strongly, yet Big League Sports flopped. They never stopped to wonder why Game Party thrived while MySims Party struggled. It was always "casual games do well on Wii", never bothering to look at why only certain ones did well on Wii. There was absolutely no attempt to understand the "casual" audience, and thus the vast majority of "casual" games flopped, even as certain titles blossomed to such an extent that they're now outselling most other franchises. Indeed, when it came to the Wii, third parties paid little attention to anything of significance, and made their decisions entirely on superficial things. They didn't comprehend that you have to establish the market for your game, it doesn't just fall into your lap. And they didn't comprehend that treating Wii owners like second-class gamers was going to produce weaker sales for their games. And as the evidence noted above demonstrates, evidence of markets were completely ignored time and again, in order to chase after the "red ocean" on the PS3 and 360. To finish, consider this - The Conduit was a game that was designed for the Wii. Having said that, it was bland, it was rather generic, and it wasn't rated very highly. For a new IP, this should have been a complete death sentence. The game still managed a respectable 530,000 copies sold. The same can be seen with Red Steel, which sold well over a million copies despite being buggy. Decent niche titles like Zack & Wiki, MadWorld, No More Heroes, Trauma Centre, Muramasa, and Little King's Story all did remarkably well, and where such titles were also released on PS3/360, the Wii version inevitably did best. The evidence is all there. Third parties just ignored it all. Oh, by the way - if RE and Goldeneye did well because they had a history on Nintendo systems, then why not release other major games on the Wii, so that those franchises *also* have a history on Nintendo systems when the next system comes around? As I said, you have to establish the market before you can leverage it.

Excellent post, and it's going to be hard for any reasonable man to disagree, but watch me do just that.

Seriously though, I get your points. Third parties are stubborn, narrow-minded, incompetent, traditionalistic, afraid of change, etc, etc. I understand that. But are they impossible? I wouldn't quite say that. Some say they're biased or act with emotion. I personally don't think it's that simple.

You've mentioned a lot of games that saw success on the Wii. A low of which were probably healthy success. But the problem with third-parties (and the industry today, for that matter) is that they won't settle for healthy successes. They won't settle for games selling sub-1m per platform. They don't want to settle for the Wii when they *think* the best a realistic, violent game can sell is in the 'niche' realm of appx 800k, and maybe, if they get lucky, they might get a 1mill or 2mill seller.

They're not going to settle for that, they want blockbusters. And they've witness countless realistic, violent, blockbusters sell 3, 4, 5m+ on the HD consoles. They think realistic violent games can only do huge on the HD consoles. So even if the Wii treats them well, they're still going to go for that blockbuster status, and they think the only way there is through the HD consoles. They just needed something to prove them wrong.

They needed to see some realistic, violent, blockbusters on the Wii. Not a few games that just cracked 1mill & less that cracked 2mill. And that's where Nintendo should have stepped in. Third-parties would have handled this task better, but they weren't. Had Nintendo developed or just published a few realistic, violent games and had they become blockbusters, I don't believe 3rd parties would have ignored the system even if they had bias towards it.

Trust me, I get what your saying. There is a lot of evidence that says there could have been a realistic, violent audience for the Wii, but third parties ignored it. But when a group is only chasing after bigger and bigger, it's quite normal that they'd ignore a console which appears to have a drastically low 'limit' for realistic violent games when compared to the PS360.

And I honestly believe that if Nintendo (and it doesn't have to be Nintendo, but no one else is helping right now) developed a few 4-5mill sellers within the market that 3rd parties reach to, the 3rd parties would have flocked to it. 4-5mill is too much to ignore. Sub-1mill? Not so much. Espescially when they see so many violent games sell so big on the HD consoles, they think that's what theyshould be aiming for.

I changed the title since some of you hobgoblins seem to be so fixated on me having the 'correct' definition of such an undefined term.

It's a great question. And clearly it has to do with Nintendo's image. That's one of the main things I don't like with Nintendo (there are lot of things I also like), that it's so "Disney".

Nintendo is obsessed with perfection and with control and they always want to paint the world in a rosy picture. Both in presentation and in content. Everything from marketing and public statements, their console interface and menus to their games is so obviously polished and perfect. What I hate with my 3DS are all these disclaimers and warnings, hints and guides.

For me it feels so pretentious and cynical and very annoying.

I just want to scream "Don't always try to be so freaking perfect! Allow a slip of the tongue once in a while to show you are human. Don't endlessly polish your games, let them be a little rough around the edges sometimes. And give me some blood, misery and death!"

AndrewWK said: You can say whatever you want and deny it however you want, but games like Bioshock Dead Space Bayonetta or The Witcher don´t sell on the Wii.

Resident Evil 4 2.09m

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles 1.48m

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles .97m

Red Steel .64m

Red Steel 2 .53m

The Conduit .53m

World at War 1.85m

Manhunt 2 .51m(best selling version)

Madworld .69m

Black Ops 1.19m

Modern Warfare Reflex 1.45m

No More Heroes .52m(best selling version)

No More Heroes 2 .34m (best selling version)

House of the Dead Overkill .79m(best selling version)

House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return 1.39m

Obsure the Aftermath .11m(best selling version)

Overlord Dark Legend .32m(second best selling in the series)

 

Lets not forget the fact that making a Wii games cost 1/3 what makin ga 360 or PS3 cost yielding much higher pfoit margins. So, game that only sold half as much on the Wii generations more profit than on the 360/PS3.

Good games sold well on the Wii. Only half arsed games bombed in the end.