fastyxx said: For some reason I find it harder to believe that Rock Band on Wii is going to seelthrough the roof considering the expense versus the cost of the console. If you consider price as a reason why Wii is eeling well, and I think many of us do believe that's a factor, isn't a $170 game or whatever it costs going to look a bit high to those same consumers? I don't know. Maybe that's not true. We thought the price of Rock Band would hurt its sales on 360/PS3 originally too and it doesn't seem to be hurting too bad.

Funny thing is people said the same about GHIII... that is why rockband was not put on Wii last Cmas. I think it will sell at least 500k over a few months, but Rockband II will sell better on Wii than 360.

bdbdbd said: @Sinha: So, let's see: 1. How many gamers are "educated gamers"? Especially in the casual group, where Rockband is targeted at. Besides, if you're an "educated gamer", you're propably not going to get 360 anyway. What about the Playstation 2's casual userbase? They got the same gimped Wii version, and look how it did. How is the Wii's userbase, for as good as it is, any different than the 40 million+ owners of PS2s? 2. Why would DLC for Wii have 30MB size per song? Because the content takes that much space? Your not downloading HD Resolutions with the songs, your downloading multiple audio files of the song, to take the various instruments and notations into account. Because of this, size wouldn't be much smaller/larger, since your rendering is taking place on-disk, and not on-DLC. 4. I was talking about the existing userbase, who doesn't have a reason to get another console to play a "not gimped" game. Not the group that doesn't own any console, to who getting 360 just to play Rockband is a no-brainer, since 360 is 20% cheaper than Wii. Since every major Wii proponent of RB on Wii without online argue that the game is only for offline, party play, why not goto a friend's house and play the real version of Rock Band on 360/PS3? After all, people that buy Rock Band have probably played it on a 360/PS3, and know what that version includes. 5. Look at Guitar Hero, how did the gimped Wii version do? Did Guitar Hero stop selling because it's gimped Rockband? Look at the PS2 version of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and the like, and compare it to the 360, PS3, and others. There's a huge shift in sales because the PS2 version was inferior. Not only this, the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3 wasn't nearly as gimped as rock band. 6. The topic was about revenue, not "will Wii Rockband outsell 360 Rockband". And if the $170 version of Rockband, on the 360/PS3 are slaughtering the $160 Wii version, who will be making more venue? 7. Is charging same for a gimped version that the not-gimped version is charged a ripoff? Yes, it is. Will it matter to sales? No, it won't. Tell that to Harmonix making Rock Band on PS2.

 

Erik Aston said: Wow. I personally don't care about revenue. I think its a dumb stat because it just reflects price. But I think its funny to watch the evolution of defenses of the XBox business. As a business, it has failed, and revenue numbers are just spin. Going to the "why do you care defense?" is lame. As a gamer, I don't care. I'll play what I like. As an industry observer, its fun to debunk spin, and funner to predict when spin will change in the future. Talking about "casual victories" or game quality or condescendingly repeating my first name or saying that anyone who buys RB Wii is a "fanboy" or "stupid" is all garbage. It has nothing to do with anything. Now, if you want to make the argument that RB Wii won't sell well, go ahead. I personally think the core of the experience is partying with friends, and that experience will sell on Wii, and contribute greatly to revenue.

 Indeed.

 The idea that it's 'smarter' for a Wii owner to pay $500 to get Rock Band with online play and the option to spend more money on DLC is laughable. 

X360 will probably remain the biggest platform for Rock Band sales, but I don't think Harmonix will regret bringing the title to Wii at all. 

bdbdbd said: @Sinha: So, let's see: 1. How many gamers are "educated gamers"? Especially in the casual group, where Rockband is targeted at. Besides, if you're an "educated gamer", you're propably not going to get 360 anyway.

What?  Why wouldn't an educated gamer get a 360?  I don't follow you. 

mrstickball said: bdbdbd said: @Sinha: So, let's see: 1. How many gamers are "educated gamers"? Especially in the casual group, where Rockband is targeted at. Besides, if you're an "educated gamer", you're propably not going to get 360 anyway. What about the Playstation 2's casual userbase? They got the same gimped Wii version, and look how it did. How is the Wii's userbase, for as good as it is, any different than the 40 million+ owners of PS2s? 2. Why would DLC for Wii have 30MB size per song? Because the content takes that much space? Your not downloading HD Resolutions with the songs, your downloading multiple audio files of the song, to take the various instruments and notations into account. Because of this, size wouldn't be much smaller/larger, since your rendering is taking place on-disk, and not on-DLC. 4. I was talking about the existing userbase, who doesn't have a reason to get another console to play a "not gimped" game. Not the group that doesn't own any console, to who getting 360 just to play Rockband is a no-brainer, since 360 is 20% cheaper than Wii. Since every major Wii proponent of RB on Wii without online argue that the game is only for offline, party play, why not goto a friend's house and play the real version of Rock Band on 360/PS3? After all, people that buy Rock Band have probably played it on a 360/PS3, and know what that version includes. 5. Look at Guitar Hero, how did the gimped Wii version do? Did Guitar Hero stop selling because it's gimped Rockband? Look at the PS2 version of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and the like, and compare it to the 360, PS3, and others. There's a huge shift in sales because the PS2 version was inferior. Not only this, the Wii version of Guitar Hero 3 wasn't nearly as gimped as rock band. 6. The topic was about revenue, not "will Wii Rockband outsell 360 Rockband". And if the $170 version of Rockband, on the 360/PS3 are slaughtering the $160 Wii version, who will be making more venue? 7. Is charging same for a gimped version that the not-gimped version is charged a ripoff? Yes, it is. Will it matter to sales? No, it won't. Tell that to Harmonix making Rock Band on PS2.

Great response. Better than i expected to get.

1&7. PS2, a dying console, the one that gets bought because it's cheap and it's got cheap games. There's actually two reasons why i see PS2 Rockband fail; the people who are going to invest a lot of money for games, are saving to upgrade their console and competing with another expensive game in the same category, which is established franchise, GH3, RB had too close launch.

2. Yes, i'm downloading audio, but as far as i know, i'm downloading stereophonic audio for Wii and multichannel audio for PS360.

4. You may be right, but not everyones neighbour or friend have 360 or PS3 and Rockband.

5. I was meaning that GH is gimped RB...

6. I wasn't saying that the Wii version would outsell PS360 version, i was saying that the Wii version will sell good numbers too, which is the idea in this topic. Rockband is in the title because of its price. One Rockband sold equals 3 regular-priced Wii games, meaning 2 additional games. So along with Mario Kart, which is guaranteed to sell, is going to create high revenue, when M$ needs to find another argument to show how they are doing better than the competition.

fastyxx said: bdbdbd said: @Sinha: So, let's see: 1. How many gamers are "educated gamers"? Especially in the casual group, where Rockband is targeted at. Besides, if you're an "educated gamer", you're propably not going to get 360 anyway. What?  Why wouldn't an educated gamer get a 360?  I don't follow you.

RRoD, 360 losing it's momentum and therefore quite a few games. Future lineup is going less diverse. Of course, if you like the type of games that 360 lineup mostly consists of, then there's no reason, gameswise, for an "educated gamer" not to get 360 (educated as informed).

I still don't understand the point of this thread. Rock Band is probably a bad example, Wii Fit is a better one, but the public can be fickle and might not embrace the title as much as people are estimating. Wii Fit probably will do well though, breaking 5 million easy, maybe 10 million if Nintendo gets lucky.

mrstickball said: bdbdbd said: @Sinha: So, let's see: 1. How many gamers are "educated gamers"? Especially in the casual group, where Rockband is targeted at. Besides, if you're an "educated gamer", you're propably not going to get 360 anyway. What about the Playstation 2's casual userbase? They got the same gimped Wii version, and look how it did. How is the Wii's userbase, for as good as it is, any different than the 40 million+ owners of PS2s?

Because Wii owners have reason to believe future versions of Rock Band will be on Wii, and be compatible with the hundreds of dollars of peripherals they just bought.

PS2 owners have reason to believe future versions of Rock Band will NOT be on PS2, and NOT be compatible with their peripherals.

 

Note: in February, 360 did $332M in sales. Wii did $283M. A difference of $49M.

So if, for argument's sake, 100K copies of Rock Band Wii (or the equivalent, accounting for people buying different peripheral combos) were sold in June, that would be $16M in revenue. Maybe those sales detract from other sales, but its still a highly significant contribution to revenue, versus the difference between the consoles, from a single game.

Erik Aston said: Wow. I personally don't care about revenue. I think its a dumb stat because it just reflects price. But I think its funny to watch the evolution of defenses of the XBox business. As a business, it has failed, and revenue numbers are just spin. Going to the "why do you care defense?" is lame. As a gamer, I don't care. I'll play what I like. As an industry observer, its fun to debunk spin, and funner to predict when spin will change in the future. Talking about "casual victories" or game quality or condescendingly repeating my first name or saying that anyone who buys RB Wii is a "fanboy" or "stupid" is all garbage. It has nothing to do with anything. Now, if you want to make the argument that RB Wii won't sell well, go ahead. I personally think the core of the experience is partying with friends, and that experience will sell on Wii, and contribute greatly to revenue.

What's really funny is that he shows he really does care with the over agressive response relating to nothing. I don't think he gets it's nothing about fanboyism but about observing sales and the industry and he sees it as an "attack" on 360.

When it's really just observing a comapny getting beat by the own rules and goalposts it set up.

Legend himself is setting different goalposts because he isn't saying "Best games" but "Best third party games." Which in of itself is amusing. What's the difference between a good third party game and first party game?

A "real" gamer would just want the best games period and not worry about whether they were first or third party I'd think.

It's also silly to tie a consoles success to such a metric as you are really just deciding which console you liked best and declaring it the winner. It's the goal any gamer should have, but really it's not which console is best... it's what console is best for you.

To attribute this success globally let alone to said company or console is just outright stupid.

Besides... that's not even the way most gamers see it.  Ask most people which was better PS1 or N64 and the vast majority will say PS1 despite N64 having the 4 or 5 best games of the generation.

WiiFit was sheer Nintendo genius, has already made them a bucket of money and will undoubtably make them even more.

The brilliance of Nintendo here is that they continue to innovate, to the best of my knowledge the concept behind WiiFit could easily have been attempted on the 360 / PS3 but they just dont have that Nintendo genius to risk it and, more importantly, pull it off.

I think Mario Kart is going to sell a lot but, as a lot of people have already mentioned, WiiFit will be the system seller.

I cant see Rock Band selling that many copies on the Wii as it is very expensive compared to the cost of the console. The killer thing with WiiFit is that it appeals massively to the female audience, I have never known soo many of my female friends into a console in the same way that they are into the Wii.

 

 

 

kingofwale said: ItsaMii said: kingofwale said: I don't understand.. why does matter if Wii makes more revenue in the casual user market? 360 will STILL make money in their own demographics. How will Wiifit hurt 360? The answer is.. no, it won't, so I don't see why it's a huge deal. It's only a huge deal if you are a true hardcore fanboy who might get his/her pride hurt I think your post is the best definition of irony in whole internet. Just after the OP wrote: Watch out for insultingly stupid standards like "revenue attach rate" or even "average sale price." you come and say: ZOMG! hardcoar revenue FTW!   And like that was not enough you deal the overkilling blow: "It's only a huge deal if you are a true hardcore fanboy who might get his/her pride hurt".    my post had nothing to do with "revenue attach rate" or even "average sales price". It's just targeting different demographics with increase of one does not imply decrease of another. (or have very little to do with it) In fact, Wiifit will do absolutely nothing to PS3 or 360's revenue whatsoever.

Wrong. Consumers only have a finite amount of money. Indirect competition still takes a piece of the pie, that could have gone to another company. The Wii, PS3, and 360 install bases are not mutually exclusive. If I decide I'm going to spend 90 dollars on WiiFit, that might mean that I decide to pick up GTAIV, Haze or Ninja Gaiden 2 as used or maybe not at all. Casual gamers don't neccesarily buy ONLY casual games, and hardcore gamers definitely buy some casual games.