sinha said:
naznatips said:
I suppose I really don't care if that's what Ubisoft thinks, because we have already seen what happens to the random shit casual games thrown at the Wii (Boogie). If it takes developers another year to figure out that this crap doesn't sell, that's their loss. |
That's possible. Or the lesson they may learn if these Boogie-type games fail is that third party games don't sell all that well on the Wii, period. The question is: will they go from making cheap casual games to higher quality casual games, or will they go from making cheap casual games to even cheaper casual games... or even no games? |
I'd say there are 3 options:
1.) Go from cheap casual games to decent/high budget core games. I think that there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that a large portion of the Wii's userbase is core, and this would likely result in good profit returns.
2.) Go from cheap casual games to expensive casual games (which probably won't sell either, but surely have a better shot than the cheap games do).
3.) Stop developing on the Wii and only make games on the 360 and PS3. This option could have three results:
a) If 3rd parties do this, the PS3 will not get any non-multiplatform games, and the system will die. As it stands, the PS3 completely depends on 3rd party Wii games selling if it wants any 3rd party exclusives. Otherwise companies can not survive making exclusive games on it. It's too much of a business risk. The PS3 will not survive with no exclusive games. If it leeches everything off of the 360, people will simply buy the 360 instead because it's cheaper.
b) The games could simply not sell enough to support the company, and it will go bankrupt. I expect this to happen with many companies this generation, starting with Midway. Of course EA may simply buy these dying companies as well. However, I think it's logical that with the development costs required to make games this generation, if companies can not figure out how to make Wii games that sell, they will not survive it.
c) They manage to scrape by, but I can't remember any companies last generation that survived on nothing but Xbox and Gamecube titles, and those cost 1/4 as much to develop as PS3 and 360 games.
Conclusion: Ubisoft is setting themselves up for trouble. It's an especially odd conclusion for them to come to, because neither Red Steel nor Rayman Raving Rabbids were low budget cheap casual cash-ins. It will be interesting to see if other 3rd parties react in the same way. Ubisoft is just one of pretty much every 3rd party developer to claim the Wii is their primary focus. I can't imagine Square, Konami, and Capcom meaning that they were making minigames when they said it, though EA certainly could have. Very few of Namco-Bandai's 13 Wii games are cheap cash-ins, so they are not really a concern. None of Activisions 10 Wii games are (though some are movie cash-ins). There aren't actually very many companies that even MAKE casual games, and although it's possible that they will all add casual game only divisions for Wii development, it's doubtful.
Truthfully, the only game Ubisoft made that I ever cared about is Beyond Good and Evil, and since they have made it very clear they are not going to make a sequel, their development trends don't affect me. However, I'll be watching Ubisoft's future Wii titles with interest to see if they follow through with this statement, or if it means about as much as their statement that the Wii is their focus this generation.
