Ail said:
Thanks for your answer but here are my comments. First thanks for your charts they help make my point. If you look at the PS2/GC/Xbox chart you notice that after week 70 from launch both Xbox and GC weekly sales started to go down compared to the previous year. Now look at the week 70+ PS3 and Xbox360 sales, they are up ( a lot in case of the PS3, still more than 30% up for the Xbox360) so this actually validates my point, the Wii is taking an even bigger lead than the PS2 was last gen and yet, the others consoles sales are not tanking but actually going up very nicely. So either the Wii has expanded the market like crazy, or it has expanded the market nicely AND more people are going for the dual console option than last gen. I believe the second is the answer. Secondly I don't know where you live but I live in the US, anyway whereever you live put your tv on and tell me how many non Nintendo commercial you saw for a Wii game in the last 6 month. The answer is probably 0. Then tell me how many commercial you saw for cross platform games not on the Wii, the answer is definitly not 0 ( not counting exclusives games like DMC4,. Burnout, GTA4, AC have been all over the TV).... Cross platforms games are booming and they are not getting ported to the most selling console. And yes I agree with you Wii has been dominating software sales but nowhere like it has been dominating the hardware sales. Wii may have sold close to 50% of the console since the beginning of the year but it's nowhere doing as good on software. Last gen the PS2 crushed hardware AND software... Despite being 2nd and third the 360 and the PS3 have managed to keep the hype and still generate a lot of buzz around the software coming for their platform and the companies developing games mostly for those 2 platforms are doing extremely well ( look at Activision 2007 or Ubisoft 2007 results). |
I see your point about the PS3 and 360 doing well. I'd actually misunderstood what you meant in your original post, as what concerned me was the gap between the front-runner and the other two consoles. I still wouldn't call the X-Box and Gamecube's performances "tanking" by any means at that point in their lifespans, seeing as how even after the PS2 began to pull ahead both platforms continued to see an average of over 60,000 new sales, but I concede that that's lower than the 70,000 or so the 360 saw and much lower than what the PS3 is doing right now. And I'd like to go on the record now as saying that I'll be stunned if the 360 and PS3 don't, in fact, do better than the X-Box and Gamecube.
I do, however, disagree with the rest of your points. To answer your second question literally, I too live in the U.S., and I've seen commercials for Raving Rabbids 2, Carnival Games (although that's dying down), and one for Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Which is published by Sega). To answer the point you're trying to make with that question, that "
ross platforms games are booming and they are not getting ported to the most selling console", I'd like to point out a few things. First of all, we're only eighteen months into the Wii's lifetime. The success of the Wii was not foreseen by many, many third parties (remember all the Pachters of the world proclaiming that it would do worse than the Gamecube?) It was arguably not until the last eight or nine months that it truly began to dawn on most third parties that the Wii is not only viable, but that it will take this generation by storm.
What this means is simple: those big third-party games you mentioned as not coming to the Wii were in development long before it even occurred to third parties that it would be worthwhile to make a Wii version. By this point, it's far too late to make a port of those games. This is not mere speculation on my part: look at how many months it took EA to make a port of Rockband, despite the fact that they already had a PS2 version of the game and that the Wii version is literally just a port of that game. Furthermore, recall Civilization Revolution.
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3165952
From the mouth of the developers: "CivRev was originally a 360/PS3 project and was in development for over a year before the Wii/DS platforms were added, largely because we saw the success of those platforms...All of our assets were originally created with the 360/PS3 in mind," Lewis said. "In order to bring them to the Wii, a great deal of work would have to go into making those assets look appropriate on Nintendo's system. If we had started the project with all four platforms in mind, it is far more likely that we would not have put the Wii version of CivRev on hold."
Simply put, developers haven't ported their big-budget games to the Wii yet because by the time it dawned on them that the Wii is where the money will be, it was too late to port their current projects. But they're certainly porting them over now. Again, I direct your attention to the fact that LucasArts is making a Wii version of The Force Unleashed (one with extra levels and an additional feature that the PS3 and 360 lack.) I direct your attention to the fact that Sonic Unleashed will have a Wii version, which is being developed by the same team that made Sonic Rush, i.e. the one that doesn't suck. I direct your attention to the fact that Alone in the Dark is getting a Wii version, one which N'Gai Croal, Geoff Keighly, and the entire 1up Yours team are saying is the best version of them all. I direct your attention to the fact that Call of Duty 5 will be on the Wii, just as Guitar Hero Aerosmith is, which contradicts your assertion that Activision is not supporting the platform. And again, I direct your attention to the fact that we're starting to see some multi-platform games that have the Wii as their lead platforms, something which in my mind implies that third parties are really throwing their support behind the system.
I would like to ask you to clarify one point for me, however. You said the "Wii may have sold close to 50% of the console since the beginning of the year but it's nowhere doing as good on software." I've been browsing through this site's weekly totals for the past few months, and I continue to see that the Wii's software sales are, in fact, greater than the sum of the 360 and PS3's combined. Feel free to browse the numbers yourself. This leads me to believe that the Wii is, in fact, moving just as much software as it is hardware. Granted, it's not at the 70% level the PS2 achieved at the end of the last generation. But then the Wii hasn't had enough time yet to create as great of a gap between it and the other two consoles: remember, the 360 was released a year before the Wii, so it's taken a while for the Wii to overcome that initial advantage.
I'd also like to add this in response to your comment about the hype and buzz the 360 and PS3 games enjoy. It is true that a lot of the hype we've been hearing about games recently is focusing on the 360 and PS3 rather than the Wii, (if you exclude the massive mainstream coverage of Wii Fit). However, this is because we already know many, if not most, of the big-name games those two systems are releasing this year and early next year. We do not have the same information about Nintendo. This is deliberate on their part.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/080425qa/02.html]
Asked about why we know almost nothing about the Wii's releases for the second half of the year, Iwata responded "(W)e are now feeling that the speed at which new information is consumed and made obsolete has become quicker than ever... This is one of the reasons why we would like to keep news at bay until we really have to disclose them.
Rest assured that we are preparing for a variety of products for the latter half of this year and early next year. Also, you will begin to see the many results of our third party partners, who have since recognized that Wii will be a platform for their success"
Combine this with Reggie's hinting about this year's E3, and I'm sure you'll agree that many of your fears and doubts about the Wii's software in the future will be assauged come July. The games are coming, first and third party. And I think all Wii owners will be quite pleased with what the future holds.
Edit: I love your analogy with the Sci-Fi network. Obviously I disagree with it, partly for the reasons I've posted, mainly for others. But that was still hilarious.
