They do, DQS which was a poor DQ spin-off went on to selling 500k. RE5, Yakuza 3, MGS4, MHP2G, all the FF spin-offs are selling great. What doesn't sell good are the smaller new IP's released for the Wii recently because there's not an audience that's willing to buy those games. Wii needs a big core game to gather such audience. Check what MH and the FF games did to PSP. Now almost any decent game sells great on the PSP because an audience that buys those games was built.

Wii was sold mostly to new gamers with Wii Fit, Sports, Play in mind and to the more traditional Nintendo fan looking for Nintendo IP's. People who bought the PS3 initially were the core gamers migrating from the PS2 mostly and knew about all these games beforehand that's why you see great SW sales. No one bought the Wii in Japan under the premise of huge core games, in fact not even devs thought the Wii was going to be that big, outselling the PS2 for the first 2 years. Even Nintendo underestimated, but they recently got too much confident and let the comfortable lead turn into a tough battle. Big games need to start rolling in order that a big core fanbase can be built.

I'm tired of repeating this but I believe that's what's happening to the Wii in Japan at the moment and Nintendo doesnt have too much time left to bring up sales to the levels at which they were for the last 2 years.

Whoa, why are you getting so defensive about the sales?

After further research, it seems like it's normal that Nintendo IPs don't get American or EU numbers in Japan. I guess we learn something new every day. o_O

So... mechas, RPGs and hack 'n slashes are the big thing there?

Hehe, dunno. I just noticed a bit of sarcasm in your first sentence...so I thought, ya know...!

I dont know why you guys keep arguing core games are big/relevant when you've seen that Wii outsold every machine with a traditional lineup in the history of gaming. The problem isn't that Wii doesn't have enough core games, its that it doesn't have enough "casual" games for Japan. In the west, the entire market is now based on casual games. Can any of you name a big, consistently relevant series in the west without a pick up and go nature to it that adds a compelling social element? Wii had that for a while - and Wii gamers in Japan want more of that. But Nintendo isn't used to churning out Wii Fits and Wii Plays quickly. Wii Music was a "bad" casual game which is why Wii sales are down. I don't buy the core-games will save Wii in Japan argument. Monster Hunter is big because it is casual. Not because its core. Look at PSP - if it had a hardcore following it wouldn't have changed the entire dynamic of the system all by itself, it would have had an RE5 effect - a big spike which quickly dropped off in a few weeks.

All of the biggest hits in the industry over the last ten years have some kind of social element to them that makes them "casual" at least compared to where the industry was in the 1990s.

You can count on one hand the games without some kind of intentional social element that have sold over 10 million copies in this industry. Most of the recent hits and biggest recent franchises in gaming - whether GTA, Guitar Hero, Rockband, DDR, Wii Sports, Nintendogs, Pokemon, Sports games, Racers, Wii Fit, Mario games, Brain Age, Call of Duty, Halo, have massive social elements even if they aren't "two player" or online".

TresTres there is effectively no information on the games in the PDF, I picked Cosmic Walker out of the bunch because Nintendo had it, along with the others listed under "launch of primary Nintendo products". If you go back through earlier PDFs, games like Animal Crossing and Pikmin were in the same position earlier in the decade. You seem to have the impression that the only relevant games Nintendo can announce are from existing series like Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Zelda, F Zero, Star Fox, Pikmin or offshoots of the Wii ____ line up. What is going to sell the Wii in Japan are games which offer compelling social elements to either the traditional audience or to the new audience.  In the west tites like the music games and Mario Kart and Wii Fit have bridged the two, but in Japan it hasn't happened yet.

The entire first two years of Wii stuff was to draw in the old Nintendo audience - thats why Mario, Zelda, Fire Emblem, Batallion Wars, Metroid, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Mario Party, GC remakes, Big Brain Academy, have all launched already while supplementing it with more social games to keep evangelizing motion controls. Nintendo tends to come up with several new IPs or new ways to used established characters every generation to try to further gaming as a medium all people can appreciate. SNES had Star Fox, Pilotwings, F Zero as completely new series alongside Mario Kart. N64 had Animal Crossing, Wave Race, 1080 Snowboarding, NBA Courtside, Sin & Punishment, Tetrisphere alongside the Mario sports games, Mario Party, and Smash Brothers. GC had Pikmin, Chibi Robo, Geist as well stuff like Luigi's Mansion and Metroid Prime. Wii already has the Wii ___ series and Mario & Sonic.

The DS has seen the vast majority of Nintendo's efforts now that its almost five years old, and third party hits keep coming. DSiware probably takes fewer teams. Some advanced teams are probably making DS2 stuff, but the rest will be free to make Wii games now - and some of the games on that PDF are going to have strong social elements to draw in new people.

COSMIC WALKER




that is all

I agree with a majority of what you said source but I do see the hardcore market as being relevant. Look at the many rpgs on the Nintendo DS that have sold extremely well. On par or ahead of many social like games there.

We did have different definitions for core games it seems. What you say its true about MH, but I consider it core because it's building an audience that will be the first to buy new iterations whnever they launch. Think about Pokemon, it was really casual at the beginning, because it was new. But it was able to build up a huge audience that whenever a main Pokemon game launches is there day one and you see the huge dropoffs that come the subsequent weeks. DQ and FF are the same, huge openings and huge drop-offs.

Why I highly doubg Cosmic Walker is going to be the next big thing, it's because Nintendo hasn't even spoken about that game, well hasn't spoken about any game. Their strategy is failing if you believe those games should be selling well. Most of their lastly released smaller games have bombed. They don't know how to promote newer core centric games. Take into account Disaster, Captain Rainbow, Trace Memory. With small games like Takt of Magic, Cosmic Walker and all the other games coming up, if they don't make people aware of those games, who is going to buy them?

Unless there's a huge campaign before the games releases, which doesnt happen under they current strategy because they think core games sell by themselves, they will all fail comercially. Nintendo can make almost any game out there a hit, but they dont know how.
Their best sellers this gen are either recognized franchises or the Wii Series. Everything else has sold below these games.

Lastly, Japan does need more core games. It has had enough casual games as is, besides WSR is coming up. Neglecting a huge part of the potential buyers would be idiotic and could cost them a high price if by any chance there's another casual console being released that takes interest of the Wii away. Build up a huge core and casual fanbase and by next gen they will have a huge following and an assured lead.

A Nintendo developed JRPG.

The Wii needs dating sims games in Japan.

If anything, this thread actually shows how bad the Wii's lineup is for the rest of the year. Rock Band: Beatles isn't exactly what I'd call a console pusher or even a big game, and it's multiplatform anyways. And most of the games are speculative at best.