bigjon said:
mrstickball said:
I think part of the issue is that the Wii has fragmented the gamer base into 2 categories: The HD base, and the Wii base.
Never before has there been such a fragmentation. Last generation, there was a pretty clear choice - You had the PS2 for any project, and it was near-assured to garner huge sales. And then there was the GC and Xbox as 2nd-tier products, multi-plat games, or moneyhatting situations that could give increased profitability.
Not so with the Wii/HD comparison. It's a catch 22: Spend tons of cash on a blockbuster HD game and it either does great, and makes tons of cash...Or does OK and hurts (ala Haze or Lair).
The other option is the Wii, which has seen horrible returns for some games..Works for casual games, but that also fragments your work force - Few games seem broad success between all 3 platforms. Madden would be a great example of this...Despite the huge install base of the Wii, Madden sales have been nothing short of abysmal given the install base.
Part of it is the developers fault, part of it is the HW manufacturers fault - and all of them. No one is without blame. Nintendo put out trashy hardware that fragmented the abilities of developers, while the HD manufacturers put out systems that exponentially increased costs past what may be viable for the average game. |
please name a huge budget wii exclusive game that has failed on the Wii?
If they dev had comitted to the Wii there would not be the fragementation you see. But right now the tradtional gamer would walk into Walmart and be terrified at the Wii library (Nintendo games aside). Once the Wii has a well rounded library you will se more core gamers migrate. If the conduit is AAA quality, it could be one of those game, in Japan, it will be DQX.
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Please name games that would be up for consideration :)
I mean, if you look at games like No More Heroes, Zak & Wiki, Nights: Journey Into Dreams, Opoona - they all did pretty bad compared to similar 'high budget X360 exclusives'.
And here's my problem: Go look at sales for games like The Force Unleashed, Madden, and Call of Duty - all big name Western games. They all did pretty crappy on the Wii while selling very good on the X360/PS3. CoD: WaW would be a MASSIVE example of this. World at War has sold over 4 million copies on X360/PS3 and under 250,000 on the Wii. Wii advocates say "b-b-ut it'll have legs!" - Even if it does, does that help in a situation to where the HD versions have sold 20 times more units than the Wii version? Don't you think that some hesitance from Western developers is justified given some of the multi-plat performances? I'm not saying everything is bad: the Wii does a great job of selling games that are targeted for the 'E for Everyone' crowd. But that's not the entire marketplace. Give me a few T and M rated million sellers on the Wii.
One of the failures, I see, in respect to the West is the slow adoption of potent middleware technologies for the PS3 and X360 that could help out with their budgets. I've been a big advocate of extensive middleware usage ever since games began to have high budgets this generation. Want an interesting note? Gears of War cost the same amount to Epic as Red Steel did to Ubisoft. Both were ~$10 million dollar games. Guess which one made more profit?
@FishyJoe - So you really think Nintendo is justified for charging $200 for a console that has 1/4th the abilities of the X360 (which costs consumers the same price)? I'm not arguing Nintendo should have used multi-core cutting edge technology. But for God sakes, they could of released something that had at least a little bit more muscle that would have cost them a few more bucks....I firmly believe if Nintendo would have beefed up the specs on the Wii, it wouldn't be in the mess it has been in regards to 3rd party support. It's a difficult thing, in my eyes, for developers to go from the insane horsepower of the X360/PS3 to the Wii which weighs in at the weakest console in history relative to the rest of the competition. Even the Dreamcast wasn't as poor to it's generation as the Wii is to this.
But going back to my point: It's everyone's fault. I may be harping on the Wii the most, but I don't understand how you could only condemn Sony or MS for putting out the same kind of console that has been expected (a generational leap in hardware), and Nintendo deciding to put out something that was slightly better than last gen.
Developers/Publishers need better solutions for managing their workforces, and pay better attention to putting out titles that aren't blockbusters, but focus on the fundementals....One argues that the Wii is cheaper to develop for...It's not. The problem is that since the Wii has a lower threshold of what it can do, developers spend less time on the said game...Which equals less money. HD system developers could do the same thing, and put out cheaper games. Look at PSN/XBLA games. They are made for the same price as WiiWare games, and have been MASSIVE successes. The same can be said for big retail titles. I think that these developers scopes' are too big...Thinking that every game has to be a Fallout or Madden AAA blockbuster, when the world needs more Lego Indiana Jones'.
Hardware manufacturers also need to realize that the cost of building games is too high. They need to work with developers on reducing costs, and improving SDK solutions. I've been a big advocate of companies providing more and more middleware technology. Building game engines, and the associated back end is a very costly task...Which costs companies huge sums of money to do. IMO, the big 3 should take a long hard look at building, releasing, or buying up engines to distribute to developers. What if Microsoft could license any developer UE3 for the X360 at a fraction of what Epic is currently charging? Microsoft is going the right route with XNA, but it's a poor solution for retail games.
Likewise, next gen, all companies will need to take a hard look at their actual systems, and what they put into it. I think there needs to be a compromise on what specs go into next gen. Nintendo can't rip off consumers by putting out a system that has atrocious specs, but there can't be a uber arms race, either, that ends up cutting off mainstream consumers from purchasing systems, either....Such as the case that we've seen with the PS3.
