Ugh, I hate when the press does this. It's almost as if it's a bad thing for the Wii to have exclusives, which it isn't.

I agree, they put too much imphasis on the negative...

Oh. Can you show me an example of the option B?

from IGN:

"MH3 sold 520,000 units in its first week, becoming the only third party Wii game to top the half million mark in first week sales in Japan. It's also the third fastest selling Wii game to date in Japan, behind only Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii.

But there's somewhat of a dark side to the story here. You might recall an announcement from Capcom last week about a million in shipments for MH3. Media Create reports today that the game managed to sell just 54.36% of its stock. The Classic Controller Pro and black Wii bundles performed well, selling, respectively, 70% and upwards of 80% of their stock. But the standalone version of the game didn't even reach the 40% mark in sell-through."

link: http://wii.ign.com/articles/101/1011842p1.html

This was just posted a few days back. As you can see the press always talks about the Wii negatively.

They always find a way...

You rarely come into Wii-related threads and have anything positive to say, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time and answer your question.

No I'm not 'offended', and never did I state I was. / Try reading the Opening Topic of this thread.

Money only goes so far towards "inspiring" people to create great games. The best devs, and the experienced devs, choose what they want to do, and then try to find a publisher for that concept, not vice versa. If they choose a console that doesn't suit their games' needs, they lament the fact that ( a ) the console doesn't have the memory they need, ( b ) the console doesn't have the horsepower they need, and ( c ) the project doesn't have the budget they need. Even the largest games are inevitably too large for their budgets/time/platform, when all is said and done. The Wii's technology is a serious constraint in this day and age.

It's the struggling devs that scramble for whatever job they can find, and the struggling devs are not typically the talented ones. If you were to ask the devs of certain popular Wii franchises which are transitioning to the 360, what they think about that, the response would probably be "waaahoo!", or something very similar.

Summary: Game devs prefer the HDs to the Wii, for the obvious reasons of having more breathing room for developing something without the Wii's technological handcuffs.

The Wii is, basically, 2002-3 console technology. Experienced devs spent years working on similar platforms, the Wii's predecessor included, and thousands of games, game concepts, etc. were published during those years. In striving for the creative, and new, it is incredibly refreshing to have all the more horsepower, memory, etc. at your disposal. Even the publishers understand this -- the PC market has evolved for eons around the concept of "bigger and better", because frankly, if you don't grow bigger and better, the same old software works just fine, and no one wants to get anything new.

Summary: Game devs and publishers both find it "more comfortable" (i.e. they understand the consumer appeal much better) to make/market games on the HD platforms than the Wii.

Much of what publishers produce are "recycled" game concepts. Truly new ones are *really* rare. Recycling loses much of its appeal, if its a recycled concept without any serious makeovers.

Summary: Publishers have historically thrived off a concept which, basically, doesn't really work on the Wii.

Game media professionals tend to be experienced gamers, amongst other things. This slants their opinion, in much the same way as developers. They can't help it. They're human, and appreciate bigger-and-better just as much as the rest of us... perhaps more. The Wii is, basically, old news, from a development standpoint. The new controller is nothing more than a point-and-click device, which some mildly useful gesturing. It is *not* a phenominon, from the traditional gamer, or game creator's point of view, because it does not open the door to zillions of great game concepts -- it ties the loose ends for the casuals, putting a smiley-face on the "crazy" controllers which have intimidated them for so long, by making it look like something they are intimately familiar with... a TV remote.

Summary: The media is biased by nature, much as experienced gamers, and experienced developers are biased by nature. They've been there, they've done that. They want more than the Wii offers.



One of my main points is that publishers aren't developers, and developers aren't publishers (typically). The money side and the creative side of game development do *not* always agree. In the case of the Wii, I would say that even the publishers believe only in proven monetary potential (e.g. rail shooters, rather than FPSes), and that those games are rarely made by anyone other than new studios looking to get a leg up, or factory-esque in-house publisher studios (i.e. not "amateurs", but new studios are a far cry from the experienced ones, except in rare circumstances, and many in-house "factory" teams are largely composed of people who rarely even play games as a hobby).

Publishers get to choose from (a) make a game from a creative, usually experienced, dev team, who is really excited about the concept on their own terms, or (b) make a game by using a factory dev, who could care less about the project, or the design, as long as it meets the publishers requirements, and pays the bills. The Wii's trouble is that it gets the (b) projects, and rare few of the (a) ones, due to the fact that the creators of the (a) projects have been there, and done that, with regards to the Wii, and they want to move on without the Wii tech hurdles standing in their way of expanding upon what they've already done, and proven successful at.

This isn't the publisher's choice. They cannot whip an experienced, creative dev into turning their creative attention toward the Wii as a platform, without artificial means -- namely money. The worst part is, that Wii games are supposed to be "cheap" to make, and the last thing publishers want to do is throw a ton of money at an experienced dev to make a game which is utterly unproven in the wacky Wii demographic.

The Wii "traditional gaming" consumer is, by nature, screwed in this relationship. =(

^ wow.....very insightful

So developers want one thing while the consumers want something else..What was that saying? The customers always right? No wonder many devs are seeing more red than Compton LA.