| Esa-Petteri said: @donathos And yeah, no-one should be making excuses. Yet there are some people on these forums who make excuses like "it is a niche title, it is a new ip, it is a watered down version,it was not marketed properly, retailers underestimated the demand" and so on. |
Your question there -- "What kind of game is the right game for wii" -- is the exact question third parties should be asking themselves, and doing their damndest to answer.
Is that a cop-out? I mean, my personal answer if I'm completely honest would have to be "I don't know," and that's why I wouldn't recommend a company like Activision to give me a salary as a consultant. But Activision should be putting their crack staff on it -- they should find a consultant who does have some clue. I'd guess that CoD isn't their best possible answer to the question. They're releasing it because it's the more-or-less easy-ish thing to do and they're being rewarded with sales appropriate to their diligence.
If you, yourself, want to answer the question about what game is right for Wii, then I'd say start by really looking at the things that have had success, and trying to figure out what the root causes of those successes have been. Why have games like Sports, Play and Fit had success? Just because they're packed in with things? I doubt it -- part of the reason why Wii itself has sold as it has is word of mouth with Wii Sports; Wii has sold a lot of times because it is packed in with Sports, not vice-versa! Why have the music games had success? Why did RE4 have success? Etc. Also, I think it's important to look at some of the relative failures, like (so far) the most recent Madden, and try to figure that out, too.
I'd guess that any genre of game could succeed on the Wii, but probably not in the exact same ways they've done on other consoles traditionally, or currently do on other consoles. If I was going to make, say, a Wii FPS, I'd want to try to incorporate elements that I think have contributed to the successes of other games, like: personalization (and possibly Mii incorporation), an easy learning curve for new players (with options to allow for greater sophistication for older/more-advanced players), modes to allow for face-paced action at a party-like setting/lots of local-multiplayer madness; a way to appeal to other members of the family, old and young alike. Are you saying to yourself, "but that isn't the kind of FPS the core would be interested in"? If I did it right, everyone would be interested in it (just like a Guitar Hero II, or a Mario Kart Wii). Imagine if Nintendo were to create their "next great franchise," and make it an FPS -- how would they do it? Allowing that we couldn't put a machine-gun in Mario's hands (though that would be awesome), if I were a third party, I think I might try to beat Nintendo to that punch.
Or, maybe the better answer would be something that isn't even a traditional FPS, but something new that can still answer the FPS player's craving for face-paced, skill-driven competition. Something in an unexplored setting, etc.
Anyways, I'm getting far away from the point -- if I could create the Next Big Thing in videogames, I'd have a lot more money than I do. :) It's just not my place, whatever fun I can get from speculation.
But it is the place of video game designers to do it -- that is what they live or die by -- and so far, despite the incredible success of the Wii and its unprecedented market penetration, they don't seem to be making any large efforts to do their jobs. Fear and straight-out apathy seem to keep them making the same old things, in the same old ways, and just hoping it'll work out well enough.
Which is incredible, especially given the deteriorating world economy, the rising costs of HD game development, and the easier access of small competition to platforms like XBox Live, WiiWare, etc. In business -- in life -- it's adapt or die, and currently, many of these third parties seem content to be stagnant. It'll work out as well for them as it did for the dinosaurs.
