Mr Khan said:
The weasel language is his label of "true". While the demography that you show certainly indicates that most of them were "new" gamers, it's much harder to declare that these people were "exclusively" interested in expanded-market games, especially given how Nintendo was able to relatively easily upstream them into the more entry-level "core" Nintendo games. If they could be upstreamed to Mario Kart Wii, surely they could be deemed "gamers" as far as marketing staff would be concerned, people interested in playing traditional videogames of some sort.
To dismiss them all as if they were a unique, alien breed is troubling, and quite incorrect in any case.
(not saying you dismissed them, Turkish did. Just as the line from "core" to "casual" is blurry, so is the line between "casual" and "expanded audience". For instance, perhaps some of them moved over to Xbox One this time, swayed by Kinect, or merely that they got a taste for CoD after they bought Wii for Wii Fit, and followed it to a platform with a non-gimped CoD experience)
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Id argue that the likes of Mario Kart which was continually advertised and/or bundled since launch was the very definition of an expanded market videogame. You just have to look at the ads from Nintendo to see that, with the family around the TV having fun together. Family fun - getting mums and daughters playing with dads and sons, was one of the key things that sold Wii to that expanded market. That said about Mario Kart, the franchise itself on consoles will always generally sell to ~30% of the userbase. Its a "me too" title, that people generally pick up with the console because of the good reputation.
Id also argue that Mario Kart is a fairly unique example of Nintendo getting the huge expanded market to go out and buy the "core" Nintendo franchises. When you look at how many Wii consoles have been sold (100m) to how many Gamecube consoles were sold (21 Million), the differences in sales of other franchises arent what youd expect. I know attach ratios arent the perfect example to prove this due to several flaws, but it does give you an idea of the differences in userbase and just how many people in the expanded audience jumped onto other Nintendo IP.
Smash Bros. Melee - 7 Million sold on a userbase of 21 Million (~30% attach ratio)
Smash Bros. Brawl - 12 Million sold on a userbase of 100 Million (~12% attach ratio)
Its also worth noting, that without Melee and Brawl added into the respective libraries for "Fighters", more fighters were sold on Cube than on Wii. ~11 Million on the Cube against ~10 Million on the Wii. This is despite the Wii having more Fighting games.
Zelda: The Wind Waker - 4.6 Million sold on a userbase of 21 Million (~22% attach ratio)
Zelda: Twilight Princess - 6.9 Million sold on a userbase of 100 Million (6.9% attach ratio)
Zelda: Skyward Sword - 3.7 Million sold on a userbase of 100 Million (3.7% attach ratio)
Twilight Princess sold really well, but only 2.3 Million more than Wind Waker? Skyward Sword trashed by Wind Waker? This shows the expanded audience wasnt really on board with the LoZ franchise... Unless were talking Link's Crossbow Training which will end up outselling Skyward Sword.
Metroid Prime - 2.8 Million sold on a userbase of 21 Million (~13% attach ratio)
Metroid Prime 2 - 1.3 Million sold on a userbase of 21 Million (~6% attach ratio)
Metroid Prime 3 - 1.8 Million sold on a userbase of 100 Million (~1.8% attach ratio)
As you can see, the expanded market simply ignored this franchise.
To keep this relatively short, looking at a few more titles - Super Mario Sunshine to the Galaxy games gives a similar conclusion to the Smash Bros comparison. Animal Crossing gives a similar conclusion. Paper Mario gives a similar conclusion.
On the other hand, Mario Party in an example that saw a huge increase with MP8 to the Cube games (though the Cube had a lot of MP).
I think sales prove that that the vast majority of the Wii userbase were expanded market gamers who jumped on board out of the blue. It was a brilliant business strategy and it worked for Nintendo. Kids absolutely loved the thing. Mums wanted to buy it. Dads enjoyed playing it. Grandma and Grandpa could get in on the fun. It was great for parties. The best selling games and genres on the Wii prove this, while other Nintendo IP havent seen brilliant growth from N64 > NGC > Wii. Id also argue that the Wii U can be evidence towards this, with IP that sold extremely well on Wii doing nothing at all for Wii U sales (and in certain cases tanking all together, Wii Fit U)
While Turkish is pulling numbers out of his arse, as I said in my first post, I think the side discussion about the Wii userbase and just what it was (and where its now gone) is quite interesting. Its certainly not a 20:80 ratio in terms of "core" and "casual" gamers, but I myself would estimate it close to 35:65, if not 40:60.