"The Wii audience isn't sophisticated enough ... because they probably don't own an Xbox 360 or a PS3," Pachter explains.

Yeah, right. Thanks Mike.

Now, what would we expect to see if the Wii audience was 'sophisticated' in a sensible use of the term?

Well, we'd expect good games to sell well. We'd expect games to sell relatively slowly to start with as word gets round. We'd expect shovelware to crash and burn. And we'd expect the odd game that actually is fun but badly reviewed to surprisingly succeed. And we'd expect people not to follow hype and advertising like sheep.

And that's what we get.

It isn't the audience that is unsophisticated. It is the developers and analysts.

I agree with Pachter. Case in point, Uncharted, Little Big Planet, all new high quality core ip's that have all sold 2 million plus copies.  Plus, look at the number of games the Yakuza series has sold in Japan. Now, look at Wii and its best new ips Zach and Wiki, No More Heroes, Red Steel, Okami all failed to make 2 million and in many cases 1 million while games like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Carnival Games have all sold many more times what the better Wii games I listed have sold.

 Good point - bad examples.  Z&W and NHM were Niche titles that wouldn't have sold well on any system.  NMHs while uber-cool was not that technically great a game really.  Okami didn't sell well even on PS2.

What I'm trying to say is, even before we step into the store we know what titles are well reviewed, who made them and what they are all about - mainly because we use sites like IGN and Metacritic.   For many Wii owners, you've likely seen them in Walmart browsing, they don't have that info beforehand, all they have is what they played at a friends or that their friend recommended,  what the store clerk recommends and what's on the box.

As for 'run and gun' - the problem with FPS on HD consoles is 1) The controls.  How do you move and shoot?  We know, personally I suck ass on dual analog controls, but explain it to a non-gamer.   It's so not intuitive.  On Wii it's point and shoot - like a gun, and press the stick the direction you want to move.  Easy as pie for anyone at all to pick up and play.   2) Seasoned gamers generally want more complexity - like a cover system or squad commands or advanced AI that make it too much of a learning curve for most new gamers.      The Conduit looks to be a nice pick up and play title for seasoned and new gamers alike.

Well, you know Pachter.
Here's a clue Mike, name recognition/word of mouth works well on not just the Wii, but on any console. I wonder if he ever stpped to think about the fact that some people just like playing minigame collections. Is that a sin? "Low quality compared to Gears..."? Shut the fuck up, Mike. Shut the fuck up.

Offtopic: Whenever I'm in a thread and someone mentions Okami having not sold well, a part of me dies inside. Why, man? That game deserved the world of sales...

I think House of the Dead is well-known in the mainstream. They show the movies quite often on the Sci-fi Channel, and the ad for the new game aired quite frequently the past few weeks during Monday Night Raw commercial breaks.

It was a good ad btw that was like an homage to the Grindhouse movies and it seemed to be trying to promote a new image for the Wii. I hope it works.

You can point to some good Wii games (usually made by Nintendo) but seriously, does anyone not look at the Wii wall and cringe at least a little bit? I mean the stimulus money is going to the wrong place, if congress is looking at shovel ready projects they should send people to the Wii wall at Gamestop.

Not EVERY game is bad, but the proportion of good to bad games on the Wii is way out of wack, which I think the point he's making. Outside of about 20 games the quality just isn't there at all in the other 300 or so.  Its not there because the good games don't sell to most of the Wii audience.  Compare the sales of the well recieved BoomBlox with the panned carnivale games to get an idea of why the shovelware multiplies at an alarming rate.  Which do you think costs more to develop?  A high quality Rockstar GTA 4:Wii Edition that won't sell well or Carnivale Games 2?  The fact that shovelware is so much cheaper to make just compounds the problem.

This is a stupid analysis. Why?

Wii has bloody fitness games, action oriented games(obviously gamers will just flick their wrists), but most those kind of people will play Wii Sports like they would a sport.



Anyway, if the Wii is designed to get you ass of the chair and play games, how does that correlate to McDonald's, the place that makes you plant your ass on the couch and makes you fat.

I get where he is coming from, but overall could of used a better example.

How couldn't you be mad at Nintendo when they made you look like a stupid fool?
Nintendo constantly proves Patcher wrong, no wonder he's so bitter.
I can feel the hatred and jealousy too. I enjoy these bitter tears actually.

It must be even harder when even he says that Nintendo is the one that made gaming mainstream, like McDonald's made with fast-food. By this he admits all his previous analysis of Sony winner and Nintendo doomed were wrong.
So he's one of the worst analysts around.

The food analogy fails, because EVERYONE knows that McDonalds sucks, and proper restaurants have quality. But they are forced to go to McDonalds, due to their location, lack of time, money, etc.
It is just another version of the Ferrari vs. Suzuki analogy.


On the other hand, there are quite a few Wii owners who would say that its games are the best, while the hardcore games with epic settings, and 100million budget, are "too complicated, too long, too gray,too boring, disgusting of blood and gore, so basically, CRAP.