ckmlb said:
Not next year, over the coming years. Hand held is very different from console too, everyone is much more forgiving of hand held graphics by logic because it is a hand held. There won't be a seismic shift but there might be a slow shift it's not impossible. Also the hardcore crowd (except for the all 3 console adopters and Nintendo fans) are big buyers of software and they are going to stay away from the Wii this generation it is looking like more and more (unless things change). The kind of people who buy Wii for the novelty (Casual non gamer types) are going to buy like 2-3 games a year or maybe 5 tops (holidays and b-days and such). But if there are such a huge amount of casual gamers that get interested in the Wii then that won't matter that is still an unknown in the long run if the innovation of the Wii will still attract non gamers in 2 years or whatnot. |
I'm sorry, but you never answered my actual point: Wii graphics are already badly outdated, yet it (and PS2, for that matter) continues to outsell both 360 and PS3. If poor graphics aren't stopping people from buying it now, why will that suddenly change next year, or two years from now? There are several points in the above paragraphs that touch on this issue:
1) Wii graphics won't be an issue next year, but in "the coming years." That puts us at 2009 at the earliest, by which time this generation will be half over. Are you suggeting that the Wii will dominate the sales charts for two years, then suddenly fall behind after that? Because that would buck the trend of every single previous generation in history. Possible, but incredibly unlikely.
2) The handheld market is different from the console one; graphics matter more for consoles. There's a kernel of truth here, but the current sales trends do not support this argument. The Wii is not the same as the DS, but they're more similar than different, right?
3) Hardcore gamers drive software sales, and they will pass on the Wii. There's two major assumptions here, neither of which I think is true. There's no way to prove who exactly is buying those Wiis, but it strains credibility to think that the "hardcore" crowd has totally rejected the Wii. Many of them will probably purchase multiple consoles, which hardly hurts Nintendo. As far as software sales, the success of games like Mario Party, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, and Wii Play cast doubt on the notion that hardcore gamers drive software sales at all, much less that the Wii will suffer from poor sales of games. At the least, we should wait and see what happens this holiday season before making this kind of projection (the recent sales data certainly does not back it up).
4) Casual gamers won't purchase games, or will quickly lose interest in the Wii. This is the tired old "the Wii is a fad!" argument and nothing else. This is zero evidence to support this assertion, and much to disprove it.
So I ask you again: if the 360 and PS3 can't even outsell the PS2, how are they somehow going to rise up and overtake the Wii? Consumers are voting with their wallets, and overwhelmingly delivering the verdict that they don't much care about graphics. Why anyone thinks this will suddenly change a year from now is beyond me.
