Mifely said: The Wii will have some decent 3rd party engines after a while, but they'll never be truly spectacular in the graphics sense.  They won't suck as bad as most of the shovelware does though.  Nintendo has consistantly set the high bar for their games with their 1st party titles.  There really aren't engines that ever outdo them on their platforms, ever.  Some come close now and then (RE4 on the GC, for example), but Nintendo will always be king.  You can't ever expect more out of the Wii than Nintendo provides.  Their games are fun to look at, but not astonishing in the graphics department.  I would argue that "fun to look at" is what really matters to the typical Wii user, and Nintendo knows that. Some of the shovelware... heck a lot of it, appeals just fine to kids.  Thus, it sells, and the older gamer sees it as shovelware. The % of shovelware will always be much higher though, due to the nature of the beast.  People *do* buy the shovelware... and that's exactly what keeps it goin.  The Wii will never see the likes of games like MGS4, GTA4, etc... FF XIII, and so on will just never go back after hitting the high end on the PS3/360.  If the Wii has any breakout awesome titles, they pretty much have to be new IPs, where there's no "step backward" to be taken. Even then, the Wii is limited -- much smaller memory than its competitors, weaker CPU/GPU... it just doesn't compare.  Compare it to a PC of even greater potential... say a 1.4 GHz P3, or even a superior Athlon, with 128 MB of memory and a 32 MB graphics card... all supposedly faster/bigger than the Wii, even after considering the superior architecture of the Wii's components/bus/memory/etc.  How long has it been since you owned a PC of those (superior to Wii) specs?

 Wait what? You do realize that a pc with 128mb of main ram and 32mb of vram wouldn't pull anything off better than the ps2? Especially since at the time the ram was alot slower than the wii's. You also are forgetting all of the backround processes running in the memory.

ALso could you give me an example of a tech demo of an original xbox game that is  impressive?

Mifely said: The Wii will have some decent 3rd party engines after a while, but they'll never be truly spectacular in the graphics sense.  They won't suck as bad as most of the shovelware does though.  Nintendo has consistantly set the high bar for their games with their 1st party titles.  There really aren't engines that ever outdo them on their platforms, ever.  Some come close now and then (RE4 on the GC, for example), but Nintendo will always be king.  You can't ever expect more out of the Wii than Nintendo provides.  Their games are fun to look at, but not astonishing in the graphics department.  I would argue that "fun to look at" is what really matters to the typical Wii user, and Nintendo knows that. Some of the shovelware... heck a lot of it, appeals just fine to kids.  Thus, it sells, and the older gamer sees it as shovelware. The % of shovelware will always be much higher though, due to the nature of the beast.  People *do* buy the shovelware... and that's exactly what keeps it goin.  The Wii will never see the likes of games like MGS4, GTA4, etc... FF XIII, and so on will just never go back after hitting the high end on the PS3/360.  If the Wii has any breakout awesome titles, they pretty much have to be new IPs, where there's no "step backward" to be taken. Even then, the Wii is limited -- much smaller memory than its competitors, weaker CPU/GPU... it just doesn't compare.  Compare it to a PC of even greater potential... say a 1.4 GHz P3, or even a superior Athlon, with 128 MB of memory and a 32 MB graphics card... all supposedly faster/bigger than the Wii, even after considering the superior architecture of the Wii's components/bus/memory/etc.  How long has it been since you owned a PC of those (superior to Wii) specs?

 

The shovelware is actually not really selling.  It's rare for that crap to sell higher than 50,000 or 100,000 in some cases.  The single best selling shovelware title is Carnival Games because it was heavily advertised.

Soul Calibur Legends was shovelware, and it only managed about 110,000 since it's launch last year.
Pet Horsez 2, only 90,000.
My Horse and Me: 60,000.
Jenga: 30,000.
Ninjabread Man: 30,000 (this is about the best selling game from Conspiracy).
Bug Island:  30,000.
Alvin and the Chipmunks:  30,000.
Counter Force, Billy the Wizard, Diego:  20,000 each.
Balloon Pop, Ultimate Board Game Collection, Pimp My Ride, Pool Party, Jumper--all around only 10,000.

Don't assume that just because there is shovelware that people are buying it.  That's barely true.  Both Resident Evil titles passed the million mark, after all--and these had no televised ad campaigns.  Metroid Prime 3 also cracked a million.  Very few people are buying the shovelware crap, and the companies are going to start realizing this.  None of Ubi-Soft's Petz shovelware titles have sold as much as Red Steel, Rayman Rabbids 1 or 2, or No More Heroes.  And these Petz titles get televised advertisements--and they still haven't outsold (individually) No More Heroes which Ubisoft barely promoted at all.  Hell, the Prince of Persia port they dropped onto the Wii has sold about as much as Petz Dogs and Petz Cats--and those are the only two of those titles with about 200,000 in sales each.

High School Musical and Midway's Game Party are two other exceptions of shovelware that managed to sell well.  But then, those Disney fans will buy any piece of crap with Diz-Nee slathered across it.  For the most part, though, shovelware performs dismally on the Wii.  Just as they should.

sc94597 said: Mifely said: sc94597 said: @Mifely, There are some good engines coming to the wii like this one made by high voltage. http://wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/hightechwii.html Game running with the engine http://wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/conduit_trailer_051608.html Eh. That game looks about the same as 5-year old PC games... maybe a little better than some late-era XBox games, which is exactly what I would expect on the high-end from the Wii. Nothing spectacular, but certainly better than the shovelware that currently dominates the Wii market. Well the game is in alpha stages, and they think they could get it to run at 60fps. So it should look better when it's done. I say it looks like half life 2. They might even beable to get it to look as good as hl2 episode 1.

Joke, right?

 

Shovelware doesn't have to sell big #s to make money. That's what I was getting at. All it has to do is sell. 90K copies of some horse game that cost < 1 million to make makes the publisher money... especially if you consider that shovelware, sans the media hype, doesn't have the spike in sales when its first released that big titles do. 90K is actually quite a lot for an unadvertised title, and not advertising it makes it even more profitable in the end.

Shovelware for the win. Many of those shovelware titles cost *signifigantly* less than $1M to make, and at 50%/$20 gross (for the publisher, who usually screws inexperienced devs out of any decent royalties, and certainly takes *all* gross income until the dev costs are recovered) per copy, you only need 50K units sold, to turn a profit for a title that actually cost $1M to develop. Some of the titles you have listed probably cost less than $0.5M to make, because they are turned out, en masse, via 3rd-party shovelware engines (much like Shockwave games for the PC, which dominate the kids market). The publisher can make plenty by putting these titles on the shelf for $30 or $40, and raking in about half of that (the rest goes to the retailer and packaging/producing/distributing the item) per unit.

 

If you don't spend a lot of money, you don't risk alot, and you don't have to make a huge return on your small investment to make a profit overall. Shovelware is about playing it safe... and that's exactly the route that looks the most profitable on the Wii at this time. Numbers *make* it safe. Merely by appearing as the dominant console in the market, and by having a "general" audience (whose demographic is more difficult to characterize) the Wii is much more prone to shovelware than the other consoles, and because publishers are trying to make money -- not happy Wii gamers -- they will continue to produce it.

 

To salt the wound, throw in the fact that the Wii is, by far, the easiest/simplest console to develop for (even easier than the 360, by all accounts). Thus, the newbie/cheap/mass-production dev houses are drawn to it... like flies. All helping to bring on the shovelware tsunami.

I should add that, because the nominal price for a Wii game is $10 lower than for a 360 or PS3 game, there's a natural implication that the money made from selling the game will be less per unit. Combined with the wider demographics of the Wii audience, its a huge risk for a publisher to put down a lot of money for a good game on the Wii. A good game... "for what demographic?" is really the main issue. You can't sell a bazillion copies of GTA4 on the Wii, because the Wii audience isn't nearly as prone to buying it, due to demographics.

Nintendo can get away with it (they spend $10s of millions on their titles -- heck, Super Maro 64 cost $30M to make, and that was in the N64 era), because not only do they make money indirectly by selling consoles (by making the console cooler via great titles), but they also make more money per unit, because they don't need to pay themselves any licensing fees per unit to publish software for their own console.

Mifely said: The Wii will have some decent 3rd party engines after a while, but they'll never be truly spectacular in the graphics sense.  They won't suck as bad as most of the shovelware does though.  Nintendo has consistantly set the high bar for their games with their 1st party titles.  There really aren't engines that ever outdo them on their platforms, ever.  Some come close now and then (RE4 on the GC, for example), but Nintendo will always be king.  You can't ever expect more out of the Wii than Nintendo provides.  Their games are fun to look at, but not astonishing in the graphics department.  I would argue that "fun to look at" is what really matters to the typical Wii user, and Nintendo knows that.

You've been pretty spot on until here.   Many 3rd parties outclassed Nintendo graphically on the SNES and N64.  Squaresoft, RAREWare, Factor 5 and others.   On GC, Factor 5 continued that trend right out fo the gate.  Rare also held up their talents again for a game.  In fact, Nintendo at one point during hte N64 days admitted that Rare had better tools than they did.

While these are certainly exceptions and not the rules, they are THE bar for which other 3rd parties should strive for.  

 

Viper1 said: Mifely said: The Wii will have some decent 3rd party engines after a while, but they'll never be truly spectacular in the graphics sense. They won't suck as bad as most of the shovelware does though. Nintendo has consistantly set the high bar for their games with their 1st party titles. There really aren't engines that ever outdo them on their platforms, ever. Some come close now and then (RE4 on the GC, for example), but Nintendo will always be king. You can't ever expect more out of the Wii than Nintendo provides. Their games are fun to look at, but not astonishing in the graphics department. I would argue that "fun to look at" is what really matters to the typical Wii user, and Nintendo knows that. You've been pretty spot on until here. Many 3rd parties outclassed Nintendo graphically on the SNES and N64. Squaresoft, RAREWare, Factor 5 and others. On GC, Factor 5 continued that trend right out fo the gate. Rare also held up their talents again for a game. In fact, Nintendo at one point during hte N64 days admitted that Rare had better tools than they did. While these are certainly exceptions and not the rules, they are THE bar for which other 3rd parties should strive for.

I would disagree that Starfox: Adventures (Rare's only GC game that I recall) was better, graphically, than Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda: The Wind Waker, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 1/2 (2nd party) etc. On par, or pretty close, but not really better. I think I'd have to say the same about Rogue Squadron/Rebel Strike -- good stuff, but not really better than Nintendo's 1st/2nd party titles.

On the N64 and SNES... sure I suppose, but the relative differences weren't really spectacular. Nintendo is always a contender for #1 on their own consoles (just like Sony and MS are on theirs... go figure), so if you take a look at Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, etc., you have a pretty accurate picture of what the Wii can do, and will ever be capable of. Those games are good... but they aren't on par with the X360/PS3... they are, however, pretty close to the what the Xbox was capable of (like it or not). Sure, a little better -- I'm not argueing that.

What I'm getting at, is that if graphics is what you're looking for, the Wii will just never compare, due to a huge number of reasons, technical (hardware comparison with 360/PS3), financial (publishers don't want to sink money into a game which may not appeal to a large portion of the Wii's audience... pool/poker/tennis/kiddie title is a better bet for them), and otherwise. The focused demographics of the X360 and the PS3 make them much more viable platforms for risking a large project on... at least you have some guarantee of appeal to many of the console owners. With the Wii, you have to appeal to everyone from Grandma, to Uncle Bob to little Johnny, and have no guarantees whatsoever of a target audience.

Solitaire/Billiards/GemTetrisWhatever/Sudoku/Sims/BassFishingSuperPro have always reigned supreme on the PC -- financially those kinds of games are without peer. If you're a "real" gamer looking for good stuff out of your Wii... well... welcome to "mass appeal". Nintendo will always be your hero, in that regard.

Shameless said: sc94597 said: Mifely said: sc94597 said: @Mifely, There are some good engines coming to the wii like this one made by high voltage. http://wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/hightechwii.html Game running with the engine http://wii.ign.com/dor/objects/14248157/the-conduit/videos/conduit_trailer_051608.html Eh. That game looks about the same as 5-year old PC games... maybe a little better than some late-era XBox games, which is exactly what I would expect on the high-end from the Wii. Nothing spectacular, but certainly better than the shovelware that currently dominates the Wii market. Well the game is in alpha stages, and they think they could get it to run at 60fps. So it should look better when it's done. I say it looks like half life 2. They might even beable to get it to look as good as hl2 episode 1. Joke, right?

 I was talking about the xbox version.

See More The Conduit Screenshot at IGN.com

Mifely said: Viper1 said: Mifely said: The Wii will have some decent 3rd party engines after a while, but they'll never be truly spectacular in the graphics sense. They won't suck as bad as most of the shovelware does though. Nintendo has consistantly set the high bar for their games with their 1st party titles. There really aren't engines that ever outdo them on their platforms, ever. Some come close now and then (RE4 on the GC, for example), but Nintendo will always be king. You can't ever expect more out of the Wii than Nintendo provides. Their games are fun to look at, but not astonishing in the graphics department. I would argue that "fun to look at" is what really matters to the typical Wii user, and Nintendo knows that. You've been pretty spot on until here. Many 3rd parties outclassed Nintendo graphically on the SNES and N64. Squaresoft, RAREWare, Factor 5 and others. On GC, Factor 5 continued that trend right out fo the gate. Rare also held up their talents again for a game. In fact, Nintendo at one point during hte N64 days admitted that Rare had better tools than they did. While these are certainly exceptions and not the rules, they are THE bar for which other 3rd parties should strive for.   I would disagree that Starfox: Adventures (Rare's only GC game that I recall) was better, graphically, than Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda: The Wind Waker, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 1/2 (2nd party) etc. On par, or pretty close, but not really better. I think I'd have to say the same about Rogue Squadron/Rebel Strike -- good stuff, but not really better than Nintendo's 1st/2nd party titles. If had had mentioned Rare on the GC, that would be valid. He didn't, so that is not a valid counter. He mentioned Factor 5 on the GC. On the N64 and SNES... sure I suppose, but the relative differences weren't really spectacular. Nintendo is always a contender for #1 on their own consoles (just like Sony and MS are on theirs... go figure), so if you take a look at Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, etc., you have a pretty accurate picture of what the Wii can do, and will ever be capable of. Those games are good... but they aren't on par with the X360/PS3... they are, however, pretty close to the what the Xbox was capable of (like it or not). Sure, a little better -- I'm not argueing that. What I'm getting at, is that if graphics is what you're looking for, the Wii will just never compare, due to a huge number of reasons, technical (hardware comparison with 360/PS3), financial (publishers don't want to sink money into a game which may not appeal to a large portion of the Wii's audience... pool/poker/tennis/kiddie title is a better bet for them), and otherwise. The focused demographics of the X360 and the PS3 make them much more viable platforms for risking a large project on... at least you have some guarantee of appeal to many of the console owners. With the Wii, you have to appeal to everyone from Grandma, to Uncle Bob to little Johnny, and have no guarantees whatsoever of a target audience. Solitaire/Billiards/GemTetrisWhatever/Sudoku/Sims/BassFishingSuperPro have always reigned supreme on the PC -- financially those kinds of games are without peer. If you're a "real" gamer looking for good stuff out of your Wii... well... welcome to "mass appeal". Nintendo will always be your hero, in that regard.

The rest is just belief with no proof. There is not guarantee of a hit on HD consoles. Publishers has just wanted it to be so for a while.