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Why Wii sucks for third-party games
- January 21, 2009 07:09 AM PST
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OMG Nintendo examines why some third-party game makers struggle on Wii. Hint: Because Nintendo games dominate the top 10 sellers, while driving the majority of sales.
Wii still little on third-party
You've heard this before:?third parties claim they can't invest in Wii because Nintendo's first-party titles sell too well, Nintendo claims third parties just aren't trying hard enough. Sounds a bit like the third parties are whining, doesn't it??Start crunching numbers for Wii software sales, though, and it looks like the third parties have a serious point.
Usually game sales work consistently with the business law called Pareto's Principle, which states that 80% of all effects come from 20%?of all causes. To put this in game industry terms, generally 80%?of all software sales for a given system are generated by 20% of all games released.
This principle holds for the 360 and PS3 market, but not for the Wii. The result is a market where Nintendo's high-selling, high-performing games really do leave very little potential profit left for anyone else.? HIt the jump to see the cold hard numbers behind this nasty situation.
If you do the math for sales of 360 and PS3 games, Pareto's Principle holds:?the top 20 games released for a given platform usually account for about 80%?of that platform's software sales. With Wii, profits aren't guaranteed because it only takes the top 13 Wii titles to account for 80% of all Wii software sales
"When you're looking at the Wii, what's really interesting is, when you look at 2008, the top ten SKUs accounted for 44 percent of the sales. There were 432 titles available in the market for the Wii... strictly retail.
"You're looking at 422 titles that are competing for the remaining 56 percent of the sales," [Michael] Klotz tells Gamasutra.
Suddenly the fact that most third-party Wii efforts are cheap and lousy comes into painful focus. Third parties aren't trying hard because they have little reason to believe consumers are going to spend serious money on more software once they're done buying Wii Play, Wii Fit, and Mario Kart Wii.
This isn't a situation with any sort of clear resolution, though. What do you do, tell Nintendo to make fewer or crappier games??Tell third parties to invest big bucks in titles they're not sure they can turn a profit on? I've no idea.
Read more: OMG Nintendo
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- Jan 21 2009 at 07:13:25:AM PST
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It might be a matter that companies aren't pushing their games as far as advertising the same way they do for the games on the PS3 and 360. There have been a lot of excellent 3rd party games, but I am not sure how many people were/are aware of them, especially since the Wii's target audience are the non-gaming nerds who do more than play games. Advertising in non-game magazines, and on non-game sites might help their titles garner attention. That, and I have not seen a 3rd party Wii TV ad in forever. The 3rd party publishers have to make their games high profile, not just to the gaming nerds, but to the regular Wii owners.
But the problem may be that a good chunk of the Wii's audience isn't concerned about certain games coming out, or that concerned about games at all because they only play now and then, unlike the game nerds who play all the time and do little else. The game nerds care more about Game X coming out in two months than Joe Lunchbox who plays the Wii now and then with friends and family. It's a case of having a lot of non-gamers owning a Wii, and not as many gaming nerds owning a Wii compared to the nerds who own a 360 or PS3.
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I'll tell you why Wii mostly sucks for 3rd party games... for cross-platform games, they'll usually make the same game for Wii and PS2, so they never use the Wii to its full potential. As far as exclusives go, well crap games sell really well on Wii... so they're better off not putting any effort to keep the cost down and get a return. There are a few exceptions to the rules... I find that EA for the most part puts a lot of effort on Wii titles (ex: Medal of Honor Heroes 2, Godfather Blackhand Edition).
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I think the 3rd paries should just step up their efforts. Also they should take into consideration the Nintendo faithfuls such as myself, who bought the Wii because we are Nintendo's traditional fans. With 46 million Wiis in homes, I think it's safe to say that at least 18-19 million of those are previous GC owners. The GC got quality 3rd party efforts even though they were limited in number and the GC only sold around 21 million consoles in it's lifetime. I think if the traditional gamers see more effort from 3rd parties, we will support the games. Glad I got a 360 to go with mine though.
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this article is kinda misleading, there were so many ps2 ports with wii controls tacked on, should they really count as titles?-(and they are still coming see rygar) 3rd party companies should make an honest attempt to make games for the system.
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Leave it to good ol SOny pro to try to present something bad about the Wii without bothering to include all the facts.. Who really comes to a gaming site for real journalism anyway right?
Nintendo profits most from its console because it was the ONLY company designing Wii games years before it came out..However as time goes on this is changing. GHWT sold better on Wii than any other console. Same for RockBand. Okami sold better on Wii than PS2, RE4 sold better on Wii than PS2, actually many games sold better on Wii than PS2 when you compare the install base. NMH is Suda best selling game. Beating the sales of all their previous games and the ONLY 1 to warrant a sequel.
As usual haters and fanboys try to take a fact and change it around to try to say something else... I got a question for you fanboys at Sonypro. Name 1 Wii 3rd party game that recieved the same level of production as SMG fro ma 3rd party on Wii that flopped? Cant name one because they do not exist.. Funny how Sony pro wants to cry that the Wii doesnt sale games, but then they also fail to look at the types of games that are not selling. Core franchises sale jsut fine on Wii and NPD proves that.. Should Wii owners skip good Nintendo games for poor 3rd party ports? Of course not that would be stupid. However thats exactly how you are acting now..
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I think that Nintendo's strategy backfired on them somewhat. They focused so much on people who only play casually that even though Console sales are strong, most games but Nintendo ones don't sell that well. Nintendo titles always sell very well due to the fact that you have the loyal fan base who will buy them anyway plus the casual crowd who would just end up buying games from the same brand of the console they just purchased.
The problem is that casual gaming doesn't require too many games. Casual gamers buy 2 or 3 titles and that can very well last them for a year or two if not the entire cycle of the console and that rules third party companies out.
That makes Third party companies lose interest and just release mediocre games that won't sell well anyway and the problem just becomes bigger. It doesn't matter if the console has 25+ million users if most of them only buy a handful of games.
I think that Nintendo should put on an bigger effort to attract more regular gamers (the ones who actually buy constantly) in order to give Third Party developers an incentive to create games for the console but what do I know?
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I don't think 3rd parties shouldn't even bother with the Wii. In fact Nintendo should just make the Wii (and/or future consoles) into an Add-on for real consoles like the Next playstation & X-box
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I have a PS3, 360, and a Wii. The 360 gets used far more than the rest by myself and the kids. The PS3 collects dust, and the Wii only gets used when friends are over and want to play Wii Fit or Sports. I am a casual gamer who doesn't play very often but has lots of disposable money to drop on games whenever I want for myself or the kids! People like me are the future of the companies.....not you little nerd, hardcore gamers that play all the time but don't have the money to actually purchase many games!
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