Video game sales thread November: done here, go to the next thread

cloudeagle

Hi! Welcome to the sales thread. Here we talk about how games have sold, marketing, PR comments, analysis of analysts and all kinds of other business-related stuff. Occasionally we make poop jokes.

Here's the kind of things we expect around here:





And now, the current month's info.
NDS 1.70M (+272% MoM)
Wii 1.26M (+146%)
360 819.5K (+228%)
PS3 710.4K (+122%)
PSP 293.9K (+68%)
PS2 203.1K (+72%)


CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2* 360 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD Nov-09 4.20M
CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 2* PS3 ACTIVISION BLIZZARD Nov-09 1.87M
NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Nov-09 1.39M
ASSASSIN'S CREED II 360 UBISOFT Nov-09 794.7K
LEFT 4 DEAD 2 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS Nov-09 744.0K
WII SPORTS RESORT* WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Jul-09 720.2K
WII FIT PLUS* WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Oct-09 679.0K
ASSASSIN'S CREED II PS3 UBISOFT Nov-09 448.4K
DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS* 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS Nov-09 362.1K
MARIO KART W/ WHEEL WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Apr-08 315.0K

Non-Top 10:
Tony Hawk: Ride (360+PS3+Wii) - 114k

Software sales: $1.40 billion (-3% YoY)
Hardware sales: $1.05 billion (-13%)
Total: $2.70 billon (-8%)

By simple math accessories were $250m (-12%)


US YTD

DS: 7,875,400
Wii: 5,784,000
360: 3,460,700
PS3: 2,974,500
PS2: 1,466,700
PSP: 1,841,200

US LTD

PS2: 44,981,318
DS: 35,416,758
Wii: 23,324,381
360: 17,320,986
PSP: 16,182,836
PS3: 9,768,696

cloudeagle

The big releases this month were:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
New Super Mario Brothers Wii
Assassin's Creed II
Left 4 Dead 2
Dragon Age: Origins
Band Hero (snicker)

Safe money's on the first two.

an_alt

I think NSMB will outsell at least one version of COD:MW2 by the end of the year.

Sheep

Sorenson wrote: »

'scuse me for waltzin' in through this fine discussion, but seeing as the date has come and gone, has anything been said about that Hellgate relaunch? Anything at all? 'cause Google gives me nothing but stuff about the announcement about the revival, and even Hanbitsoft's page only has a brief generic-as-all-get blurb about the game.

I would imagine they're more interested in Mythos.

Couscous

Wait, I thought sales were coming Thursday?

Darian

Couscous wrote: »

Wait, I thought sales were coming Thursday?

As far as I can tell, they will be.

Sales data for November will be reported late Thursday by the NPD Group. Most analysts are expecting growth to be in the low- to mid-single-digit range.
...
"As 2009 draws to an end, it is clear that it will end as a horrible year for video game publishers," Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan wrote in a note to clients Monday. "We think that year-over-year declines for the music genre have contributed to the decline in sales growth in recent months, and believe that console price fatigue drove negative industry trends throughout the middle part of the year."

cloudeagle

My brain is bad at juggling things some days. For some reason I thought it was Thursday. Then again I just wrote a big check to refinance my mortgage, so I'm a little traumatized at the moment.

Sheep

Runic Games and Flagship are basically the same developers, correct?

Sorenson

Sheep wrote: »

I would imagine they're more interested in Mythos.

Perhaps, but considering that H:R was supposedly launching as of yesterday I would think there'd have been something going on: a press release, a web site, a new trailer, something. There's not-a-thing as far as I can scry with my Google eye.

EDIT: In which case why didn't I pull stuff from the asian market up? Or did a seperate asian internet just happen to pop up on December 7th that nobody decided to inform me about?

cloudeagle

Sorenson wrote: »

Sheep wrote: »

I would imagine they're more interested in Mythos.

Perhaps, but considering that H:R was supposedly launching as of yesterday I would think there'd have been something going on: a press release, a web site, a new trailer, something. There's not-a-thing as far as I can scry with my Google eye.

If I had to guess, I'd say the new publishers/developers are more focused on the Asian market for the relaunch.

Couscous

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-betting-on-ps3-put-us-in-a-position-of-weakness/

EA's arguably had a very challenging year, but that's not how EA CEO John Riccitiello sees it. Despite weak Wii sales on certain titles, the closure of Pandemic and a plan to axe 1,500 employees, Riccitiello views EA's first half as a success, and he's extremely confident in his vision to transform EA into a direct-to-consumer business. This transition could be very painful for the company in the near-term, and in our recent conversation with Riccitiello, we made the comparison to a baseball team looking to the future – how do you rebuild for the next season and win at the same time? EA's investors seem to be losing their patience and might be losing confidence in the publisher.

“Well I'm not sure I buy into the baseball metaphor; I'm not sure it captures what we're doing,” Riccitiello began. “... I think there are a lot of measures of success – one would be market share, one would be revenue, one would be profit, one would be share price, one would be quality. There are lots of things to look at. Some facts worth revisiting is that the company gained four market share points in the first half of the fiscal year, we were the #1 publisher overall (just the packaged good business), and the #1 publisher on PS3 and Xbox 360. We are bigger than Microsoft on Microsoft's platform and bigger than Sony on Sony's platform. And we have a 19% share on Wii, which is second to Nintendo. Nobody ever thought we'd see a third-party publisher with a share in the teens, let alone a 19. We are also the #1 publisher on iPhone and on mobile. We were profitable over the first half of the year, although some people get confused over revenue recognition issues related to GAAP.”

He continued, "Our leading competitor shipped 3 or 4 titles rated 80 or better, and we shipped 18 or 17 depending on when you cut it off. I do believe quality and innovation is ultimately what matters for long-term profitability. Yes, we've been investing for a transition towards a future that we see that we're very clear about. When I look at the bums and heroes of American business, I see companies that were faced with pretty significant industry transformation. I look at the music industry and I think they dropped the ball and the auto industry dropped the ball. I look at Apple, and they successfully transformed their company into something very different than a pure PC company. I look at Amazon when they were criticized for selling anything other than books. ... So I don't really have a hard time coming up with what the right answer is for EA, which is by and large, we have a low to mid single digit share of digital, and digital is growing at 20% a year and in the next couple years will be larger than all the packaged goods industry. And we have a leading share in the best packaged goods business out there, and we want to maintain that. What we've said is that it's possible to create better revenue and greater profitability on the packaged goods side with fewer titles and more investment in those titles, hence the reduction of resources and personnel in that arena. It's a painful call, but the right one. And we're now funneling these resources pretty aggressively into our digital consumer services. ... Our digital revenues are up 30% year-to-date, and as a standalone business this would be nearly a $600 million highly profitable digital direct-to-consumer business. It would be sort of like everything a Netflix is combined with everything a Zynga is. It's growing rapidly and is increasingly more important, and utterly important from a strategic perspective.”



When we pressed Riccitiello on the skepticism around the company, he noted that the transition EA is now facing was made even more challenging by the fact that they initially bet on the wrong horse coming into this current console generation. That said, he completely understands why investors would be skeptical.

“I don't know how long it's going to be for everyone to sort of buy into our vision. At a bare minimum, they'll do it a year after the results have been recorded and it all comes back the right way. And some might do it earlier. I hate blowhard CEOs who don't recognize that these transitions aren't easy; they don't come easily or quickly. If they did, the newspaper industry would have done it as opposed to ignoring it, the music industry would have done it, the auto industry would have done it... And it was hard for the record industry to imagine how they would sell songs versus vinyl or CDs, and they ultimately lost their business model to intermediaries like Apple. ... The economic hiccups we've had this year with double-digit unemployment and the rest of it makes investment in transition all the more difficult to swallow for an investor. We have a history of great success at EA, but there's no question that 3,4,5 years ago as we went through the last [console cycle] transition, we lost some of what made us successful," he explained. "So following on from that, you can look at it in one of two ways: you can dig deeper into the hole you're in or you should break out and go after tomorrow. It would have been easier to go after tomorrow if we were bounding from great success through the last transition – unfortunately that's not where we were. We made the call that PS3 was going to be bigger than the Wii, and we allocated resources accordingly. We got that wrong, and that put us in a position where we probably underinvested in our intellectual property and some of it went into a kind of wane period. What makes this all the harder, and harder on investors, is that we have to come, if you will, from a bit of weakness to rebuild our core and drive transition. So I get the skepticism."

Ultimately, Riccitiello is not surprised by investor reaction. He noted that other big companies like Apple faced similar challenges during their transitions. And he added that just because EA is steering towards digital does not mean it intends to yield any leadership position in traditional packaged goods.

“When I go back to those winner and losers relative to dynamic industry transition, it's not uncommon for the long-term winners to have had 1-3 years where the investor had a little hard time buying into the story because of the narrow or short-term nature of their focus. How long was Apple's stock down or Amazon's stock down? One of the interesting parts about that is their profits were down while they were investing in the future but for the most part they managed to grow revenue. And EA's revenue for the first half was up 13% while most of our competitors were down. Why did we grow 13%? Because we're doing dynamic, interesting new things that yielded growth in a flat to down market (in packaged goods). ...The digital growth is enough to offset that and then some, so we've got a growth industry still. And I expect it to be even stronger next year, so I look at that and I feel like I'm in a great industry, but the clear and right strategy for a company like EA, the market leader in the space from a packaged goods perspective, is to become the market leader in digital given the respective growth rates and margin opportunity," he said. "Digital reaches probably a billion or more consumers whereas packaged goods reaches a little fewer than 200 million people. So there are all sorts of reasons to suggest that digital approach is the right one, but NOT forsaking packaged goods. We're going to put out, just in the next quarter alone, Army of Two, Dante's Inferno, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, which I think is a healthy rival to Modern Warfare (Activision's biggest franchise), and Mass Effect 2 coming from BioWare, which promises to be a big hit. So we're still doing these things; we're just doing fewer of them and putting more resources behind them.”

Well, that was a big fuckup.

Spoit

Couscous wrote: »

Wait, I thought sales were coming Thursday?

I thought unless we were already at 100 pages, we usually waited until the results came out before making a new thread?

toxk_02

Spoit wrote: »

Couscous wrote: »

Wait, I thought sales were coming Thursday?

I thought unless we were already at 100 pages, we usually waited until the results came out before making a new thread?

cloudeagle wrote: »

My brain is bad at juggling things some days. For some reason I thought it was Thursday.

ArcSyn

Couscous wrote: »

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-betting-on-ps3-put-us-in-a-position-of-weakness/

PS3 will trump Wii - Oops

Well, that was a big fuckup.

This was just about everyone though, wasn't it? There were very few third parties who expected the current and past 3 years worth of sales where the Wii would dominate the marketshare as it has.

toxk_02

ArcSyn wrote: »

Couscous wrote: »

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-betting-on-ps3-put-us-in-a-position-of-weakness/

PS3 will trump Wii - Oops

Well, that was a big fuckup.

This was just about everyone though, wasn't it? There were very few third parties who expected the current and past 3 years worth of sales where the Wii would dominate the marketshare as it has.

Yeah even with hindsight it's tough to blame them for putting their eggs in Sony's basket, the only real indicator was the launch price and maybe that the success of the DS, in terms of philosophy, would translate to home consoles (I wonder if behind the scenes 3rd parties made a big enough stink about '$599' or not).

On the other hand, while it's one thing to be caught off guard by which console wins the market, there's gotta be some blame for the inflexibility of many of these developers to adjust. Their first instinct was to release something for the system regardless of quality, and well, here they and Nintendo are.

toxk_02

Famitsu Top 10

1. [WII] New Super Mario Bros Wii (Nintendo) 937k
2. [PSP] Phantasy Star Portable 2 (Sega) 285k
3. [PSP] Gundam Vs Gundam NEXT PLUS (Namco Bandai) 238k
4. [WII] Samurai Warriors 3 (Koei) 126k
5. [NDS] Professor Layton and the Flute of Malevolent Destiny (Level 5) ???
6. [NDS] Friend Collection (Nintendo) ???
7. [WII] Pikachu Adventure Pokepark (Pokemon ) 57k
8. [PS3] Assassin's Creed 2 (Ubisoft) 56k
9. [WII] Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo) ???
10. [PSP] Tokimeki Memorial 4 (Konami) ???

xx [360] Assassin's Creed 2 (Ubisoft) 28k


Wii hardware is 'over 100k', so at minimum a 138% bump over last week's Famitsu (42k)

Darth_Mogs

Woah, Samurai Warriors 3 is out over there already? Man. I have not been paying attention to that at -all-.

Lawndart

toxk_02 wrote: »

ArcSyn wrote: »

Couscous wrote: »

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-betting-on-ps3-put-us-in-a-position-of-weakness/

PS3 will trump Wii - Oops

Well, that was a big fuckup.

This was just about everyone though, wasn't it? There were very few third parties who expected the current and past 3 years worth of sales where the Wii would dominate the marketshare as it has.

Yeah even with hindsight it's tough to blame them for putting their eggs in Sony's basket, the only real indicator was the launch price and maybe that the success of the DS, in terms of philosophy, would translate to home consoles (I wonder if behind the scenes 3rd parties made a big enough stink about '$599' or not).

On the other hand, while it's one thing to be caught off guard by which console wins the market, there's gotta be some blame for the inflexibility of many of these developers to adjust. Their first instinct was to release something for the system regardless of quality, and well, here they and Nintendo are.

On the other other hand, it's not like there's a big shiny example of how exactly third party developers are supposed to adjust their development strategies in order to succeed on the Wii.

In completely unrelated news, I am now referring to my penis as The Flute Of Malevolent Destiny.

Barcardi

Couscous wrote: »

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-betting-on-ps3-put-us-in-a-position-of-weakness/

snip

Well, that was a big fuckup.

well, at least hes honist

Suriko

If there is a god, Dragon Age PC will outsell MW2 PC.

It won't outsell MW2 PC.

UncleSporky

Lawndart wrote: »

On the other other hand, it's not like there's a big shiny example of how exactly third party developers are supposed to adjust their development strategies in order to succeed on the Wii.

It doesn't take any adjustment from last gen, and that's the problem. Everyone seems to think it does.

You know the kind of great games you used to make on GC/XBox/PS2? Keep making those. Heck, even use the same engines. What was wrong with Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Ninja Gaiden? Why haven't we seen new versions of these for Wii? The Wii is only considered kiddy because devs haven't put bothered to put mature games on it.

Last gen the Cube got plenty of great games, the same sort of games the PS2 and XBox got. Everyone seemed to think the situation changed here, but it hasn't - put some effort into making decent games, advertise them, and reap the rewards.

Rakai

UncleSporky wrote: »

Lawndart wrote: »

On the other other hand, it's not like there's a big shiny example of how exactly third party developers are supposed to adjust their development strategies in order to succeed on the Wii.

It doesn't take any adjustment from last gen, and that's the problem. Everyone seems to think it does.

You know the kind of great games you used to make on GC/XBox/PS2? Keep making those. Heck, even use the same engines. What was wrong with Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Ninja Gaiden? Why haven't we seen new versions of these for Wii? The Wii is only considered kiddy because devs haven't put bothered to put mature games on it.

Last gen the Cube got plenty of great games, the same sort of games the PS2 and XBox got. Everyone seemed to think the situation changed here, but it hasn't - put some effort into making decent games, advertise them, and reap the rewards.

The problem is exactly what the article stated. Everyone prepared for the PS3 to dominate while the Wii would be picking up the scraps. This meant dramatically expanded development teams. The reason we haven't seen those games on the Wii is because the teams that make those games took on a lot more people to make games for the PS3(and 360). To go back on this would require restructuring/firings etc. which wouldn't be good so they've been struggling to make it work ever since.

Lawndart

UncleSporky wrote: »

Lawndart wrote: »

On the other other hand, it's not like there's a big shiny example of how exactly third party developers are supposed to adjust their development strategies in order to succeed on the Wii.

It doesn't take any adjustment from last gen, and that's the problem. Everyone seems to think it does.

You know the kind of great games you used to make on GC/XBox/PS2? Keep making those. Heck, even use the same engines. What was wrong with Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Tomb Raider, Ninja Gaiden? Why haven't we seen new versions of these for Wii? The Wii is only considered kiddy because devs haven't put bothered to put mature games on it.

Last gen the Cube got plenty of great games, the same sort of games the PS2 and XBox got. Everyone seemed to think the situation changed here, but it hasn't - put some effort into making decent games, advertise them, and reap the rewards.

Where to begin?

First, the Wii is vastly different hardware than either the 360 or the PS3. Developers last gen could somewhat easily make a GC version of a multiconsole title, but now they have to develop the Wii version pretty much from the ground up, or make massive changes to the games they've developed for HD consoles and PCs.

Also, there are plenty of "mature" games for the Wii. For the most part, they either sell like absolute dogshit compared to the massive userbase the Wii has, or they sell okay but are still dramatically outshone by Nintendo's decidedly not M-rated first party titles, and also by third party titles that aim for the same wider demographic. Meanwhile the other two consoles, especially the 360, have userbases that can and will buy the living shit out of "mature" games. Name me a "mature" game for the Wii that's sold more than Gears Of War, or Modern Warfare. How did The Conduit sell? How did Madworld sell?

Which leaves putting a metric fuckton of faith in marketing, which has already shown to be a crapshoot when it comes to actually moving units on any console. Sega flogged the crap out of Madworld, for example. I'm wondering how well the Wii port of COD4 will sell, since it launched at the same time as the massive advertising push for MW2 and is by most accounts as good as a game like COD4 could have been ported to the Wii.

And it's disingenuous to blame developers for the "kiddie" image that the Wii has, when Nintendo from day one has been actively and aggressively marketing the Wii to a demographic that's everyone but traditional gamers. The Wii was and still is marketed as a console the entire family could enjoy, yet somehow that's the fault of third party developers?

Rakai

Actually consider the early the success of Red Steel(despite poor reviews) and RE4:Wii edition that developers failed to follow up on in general. Quite frankly, the games weren't there.

Also, NSMB:Wii is sold out at both Amazon and Gamestop at the moment.

RainbowDespair

Does anyone think the Wii has a kiddy image anymore? I thought the more commonly held complaint was that it has a shovelware image. Whether or not that is true is up for debate - I'd be interested to see what the ratio of quality games to shovelware is on the Wii and how it compares to the ratio on the PS2 and other popular consoles.

Rent

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Does anyone think the Wii has a kiddy image anymore? I thought the more commonly held complaint was that it has a shovelware image. Whether or not that is true is up for debate - I'd be interested to see what the ratio of quality games to shovelware is on the Wii and how it compares to the ratio on the PS2 and other popular consoles.

It doesn't have a kiddy image, it has a "not for hardcore gamers" image, which is entirely Nintendo's fault for 1) not making hardcore games 2) not marketing hardcore games 3) Not emphasizing third party hardcore games

I think Madworld is the biggest, and most upsetting, example of this, a completely excellent game that got fucked over solely due to Nintendo's effort- or more precisely lack of it

Lawndart

Rakai wrote: »

Actually consider the early the success of Red Steel(despite poor reviews) and RE4:Wii edition that developers failed to follow up on in general. Quite frankly, the games weren't there.

Didn't Raving Rabbids outsell Red Steel quite considerably?

And why exactly would a paucity of "mature" games during the first year of the Wii's lifespan hurt sales of similar games now?

RainbowDespair wrote: »

Does anyone think the Wii has a kiddy image anymore? I thought the more commonly held complaint was that it has a shovelware image. Whether or not that is true is up for debate - I'd be interested to see what the ratio of quality games to shovelware is on the Wii and how it compares to the ratio on the PS2 and other popular consoles.

The success of the Wii comes from Nintendo's ability to design and market a console that appeals to people who weren't part of the last few generations of console owners, and then deliver a string of software that appeals to that userbase. That's hardly "kiddie" but it's undoubtedly vastly different than the userbase the other consoles have, and it's 100% the result of Nintendo, not something to blame third party developers for.

That's great news for Nintendo, but a dilemma for third party developers. If those developers create games that appeal to the traditional gaming demographic, they're writing off a big chunk of the Wii's userbase and hoping that what's left will consider their Wii offering superior to similar games already available on the 360/PS3/PC. If those developers try and aim for the broader Wii demographic, they run face-first into the behemoth that is Nintendo's first party development.

It's a lot more complex of a situation than "they should make good games".

Rent

Lawndart wrote: »

That's great news for Nintendo, but a dilemma for third party developers. If those developers create games that appeal to the traditional gaming demographic, they're writing off a big chunk of the Wii's userbase and hoping that what's left will consider their Wii offering superior to similar games already available on the 360/PS3/PC. If those developers try and aim for the broader Wii demographic, they run face-first into the behemoth that is Nintendo's first party development.

It's a lot more complex of a situation than "they should make good games".

It's really quite a fascinating situation for Nintendo; they've built a platform that, from the ground up, was suited solely for first-party development and not suited for third-party development

If I were a conspiratorial sort I would point out the unnecessary difficulty of Friend Codes, etc as further proof of the trend

Which leads to a question, of the top ten games sold for each console thus far, how many for the Wii are not first-party developed? I'll guess one, two, maybe three

Contrast to the PS3/360 and I'm willing to bet the majority on those consoles are third-party

RainbowDespair

Rent wrote: »

I think Madworld is the biggest, and most upsetting, example of this, a completely excellent game that got fucked over solely due to Nintendo's effort- or more precisely lack of it

I would think the fact that Madworld is an ultra violent black & white brawler had a lot more to do with its lack of success.

Spoit

Would this be an inappropriate thread to talk about the VGAs and whatever other goty lists which are starting to come out?

slash000

Hah.

People always harp on MadWorld.

A black and white brawler.

Yeah, like that would have sold truckloads on any system.


For games to sell said truckloads they need major mainstream appeal. MadWorld didn't have a chance for that, at all.

Rakai

Lawndart wrote: »

Rakai wrote: »

Actually consider the early the success of Red Steel(despite poor reviews) and RE4:Wii edition that developers failed to follow up on in general. Quite frankly, the games weren't there.

Didn't Raving Rabbids outsell Red Steel quite considerably?

And why exactly would a paucity of "mature" games during the first year of the Wii's lifespan hurt sales of similar games now?

1.2million to 1 million as of March 2008. And you're ignoring the "failed to follow up" part of my statement. If you don't have the AAA games to hold the casual "core" fan, they're going to look elsewhere(PS3/360) and stop looking for such games on the Wii. Thus you're going to have to convince people that a game isn't B-tier low budget material (which is most often is) which means more marketing (something they don't want to risk on lower budget games). Basically, by not delivering AAA titles the consumer is going to lose confidence in anything you put out. In other words, what happened to EA as a whole at the end of last generation happened to the Wii in some respects and all EA managed to do was to dig a deeper hole. The solution is risky investments and again, such investments, if they don't pan out, can backfire tremendously as they did with EA. Understandably, publishers don't want to take that risk.
And yeah, the black and white probably really hurt Madworld.

Spoit

I don't recall this being mentioned yet, Activision is counter-suing No Doubt

Activision countersues No Doubt in 'Band Hero' flap

By Eriq Gardner
Activision Publishing, maker of the hit videogame "Band Hero," is standing up to the band No Doubt with a new countersuit alleging breach of contract.

In an answer and counterclaim filed last week, Activision accuses the band of failing to do its due diligence on the videogame before signing away its digital likeness, breaching a contract to provide marketing and promotion to the game, and being unjustly enriched by their inclusion in the game.

Last month, No Doubt set the stage for a very interesting court fight with Activision.

The band was unhappy that "Band Hero" allowed game-players to manipulate avatars to engage in unapproved acts, from having a Gwen Stefani virtual character perform the Rolling Stone's "Honky Tonk Woman" in a male voice to making band members do unrealistic dance moves. In a claim in federal court, the band asserted that its agreement with Activision granting publicity rights didn't cover these unanticipated features.

The game publisher admits that "Band Hero" allows players to "unlock" in-game characters in a variety of ways, but it says these features have been "publicly known" since the "Guitar Hero" franchise first appeared in 2005. The band participated in the motion-capture production process for the game, says Activision.

So who is breaching the contract?

Activision says it's No Doubt, by failing to live up to contractual obligations to promote the game. Since the band is allegedly failing in that regard, Activision believes that No Doubt has "obtained benefits from its inclusion" in the game and wants the band to disgorge all payments and pay damages.

They were contractually obligated to promote the game? Other than the huge deal they made over taylor swift, I don't remember any mention about other bands promoting it. Or really that much about other bands doing anything other than suing Activision over it.

Sheep

Actually consider the early the success of Red Steel(despite poor reviews) and RE4:Wii edition that developers failed to follow up on in general. Quite frankly, the games weren't there.

One was a launch game and one was an updated and "complete" version of what some consider one of the best games ever, that already sold gang busters once.

Now, if they both kinda bomb respective to their situations, it would really mean something. Companies can make a profit on the Wii with games of all types, "mature" included. They just have to be managed correctly and advertised through the appropriate channels and not expect sales like the other systems.

That shit's reserved for Nintendo. :P

slash000

I think it's a joke to see how COD4 does on the Wii. Everyone's over that game. That's not the new hotness. CODMW2 is. MW2's hype ain't gonna help a game for which all the fans have already invested in some other platform to play it.


Fact is, the third parties that make at least somewhat decent games for the Wii with halfway decent marketing and aren't relying heavily on games that are extremely niche are the ones coming out making big bucks on the Wii.

The problem is that third parties think they can make some absurdly unique, totally anti-mainstream niche game and release it on the Wii and expect to sell gangbusters. Ain't happening. 2D platformer or platformer-RPG-hybrid? Nope. Stark black and white overly violent brawler? Nope. Rail shooter that doesn't have a major mainstream franchise associated with it? Sorry. RTS RPG Pikmin hybrid thing? Not happenin.

DeathPrawn

Rakai wrote: »

Actually consider the early the success of Red Steel(despite poor reviews) and RE4:Wii edition that developers failed to follow up on in general. Quite frankly, the games weren't there.

Also, NSMB:Wii is sold out at both Amazon and Gamestop at the moment.

Wait, Amazon is sold out of NSMB Wii?

Shit, son.

RainbowDespair

Yeah, what Slash said. I went over the list of 3rd party Wii games that have a score of 80% or more on gamerankings (excluding multiplatform stuff & WiiWare/VC). Here's what I found:

Boom Blox Bash Party
Boom Blox
Zac & Wiki
No More Heroes
Little King's Story
Pro Evolution Soccer
Dead Space Extraction
Mad World
Dawn of Discovery
Muramasa
A Boy and his Blob
Rune Factory Frontier
EA Sports Active
de Blob
Tiger Woods PGA
Klonoa remake
Madden NFL 07
Geo Wars Galaxies
HotD : Overkill
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Rabbids Go Home

So what you've got are a few sports games, a few non-core gamer games like EA Sports Active & Boom Blox, and a whole lot of niche. And I'm talking really niche stuff - stuff that defies classification or that is only going to appeal to a very small audience, not pseudo-niche stuff like a good Japanese RPG that actually have a decent amount of support from gamers. Seriously, most of these games would be lucky to hit 100k in sales; expecting million sellers out of any of them on any system is ludicrous.

Contrast that with the 360 & PS3 where the top rated games are filled with 3rd party FPS, Action/Adventures, RPGs, and other long standing genres with wide core gamer appeal, and it's easy to see why a lot of gamers have been writing the Wii off.

Darian

DeathPrawn wrote: »

Rakai wrote: »

Actually consider the early the success of Red Steel(despite poor reviews) and RE4:Wii edition that developers failed to follow up on in general. Quite frankly, the games weren't there.

Also, NSMB:Wii is sold out at both Amazon and Gamestop at the moment.

Wait, Amazon is sold out of NSMB Wii?

Shit, son.

Fortunately, the Amazon Exclusive Limited-Edition bundle is still in stock.

Amazon Exclusive Limited-Edition Bundle
This gift set includes the New Super Mario Bros. Wii game, a set of four Wii Remote Static Clings, and a 100% cotton t-shirt (men's size large) packaged in a collectible plastic lunch box. Wii Remotes sold separately.

Sheep

platformer-RPG-hybrid

?

RainbowDespair

Sheep wrote: »

platformer-RPG-hybrid

?

I'm guessing he means Muramasa.

Lawndart

slash000 wrote: »

I think it's a joke to see how COD4 does on the Wii. Everyone's over that game. That's not the new hotness. CODMW2 is. MW2's hype ain't gonna help a game for which all the fans have already invested in some other platform to play it.

So wait, Capcom can port old Resident Evil games to the Wii and do well, but Activision can't port one of the top-selling videogames of all time to the Wii?

Do you think a Wii version of MW2 released at the same time as the PS3/360/PC versions would sell well enough to make it worth the development costs? If so, why?

slash000 wrote: »

Fact is, the third parties that make at least somewhat decent games for the Wii with halfway decent marketing and aren't relying heavily on games that are extremely niche are the ones coming out making big bucks on the Wii.

It's a bit more complex than that. The top-selling third party Wii games still hit the Wii demographic right on the nose: Mario & Sonic, EA Active, Tiger Woods (maybe Madden?) and Guitar Hero 3. Am I missing any?

slash000 wrote: »

The problem is that third parties think they can make some absurdly unique, totally anti-mainstream niche game and release it on the Wii and expect to sell gangbusters. Ain't happening. 2D platformer or platformer-RPG-hybrid? Nope. Stark black and white overly violent brawler? Nope. Rail shooter that doesn't have a major mainstream franchise associated with it? Sorry. RTS RPG Pikmin hybrid thing? Not happenin.

But I thought the Wii, with it's low development costs and all, were the savior of the niche developers who should en masse abandon the evil HD consoles. :P