Did the new Pokemon do gangbusters this year? I know it made money, but top 10 or 20 money?
I keep forgetting Nintendo games don't count.
It ranked in the top 10 for 4 months starting in March, with a drop to 14th in June. From those records, it looks to have sold ~1.7 million in the US. It also sold at least 1.5 million in Japan. If the new Pokemon sells similarly to that, it will outsell Modern Warfare 2 in 2010. Probably outsell Mass Effect 2 as well.
Siqi Chen, Founder and CEO, Serious Business (SC): We are one of the oldest developers of social games. Our largest game is Friends For Sale, which we launched around six months after Facebook platform was opened, which has about one million daily active users. Over the past two years, we’ve grown from a two-person operation in my apartment to a 30+ person team working on Friends For Sale and two new games.
...
AB: Can you share some of the metrics of your business—ARPU, conversion rate between paying versus non-paying user?
SC: In the case of Friends For Sale, conversion rate is about 1%, which is really low. And out of the people who pay for the game, we extract most of our revenue from users who pay us thousands of dollars and in some cases tens of thousands of dollars at a time. Our blended ARPU works out to about $0.45 per DAU per month.
AB: Can you give us some sense of how big this market could be?
SC: It is probably around a billion dollar-plus today. If you look at the trends, more people are spending more of their time on social networks. If you believe that this is how people are going to spend a large percentage of their entertainment time over the next four to five years, then you could argue that the market is just getting started on a path of explosive growth.
They gotta advertise on all the women oriented TV channels and the family channels. Sports Networks.
Don't they have to stop calling it the XBOX 360 then?
I mean, if I decided that my viewers were interested in all kinds of extreme physical achievements and thus was about to add ballet, gymnastics and figure skating to my competition, I think I'd have to stop calling it the X games.
Wouldn't they just call it Natal?
Already a feminist bend to the name.
Also, lifetime sales for Zack and Wiki - 126,000 units in 26 months. "Abysmal", as they put it.
126K for an adventure title that came out well before they started getting "popular" again, and well after they were dead isn't bad.
Wow, this is pretty heavy stuff. According to Square Enix president Yoichi Wada, Final Fantasy XIII might be the swan song of the traditional RPG at Square Enix. Although Wada expects XIII to do great things for his company, he believes that Square's internal studios should be put to work on creating "next generation" gameplay.
Outside of XII, we've gotten games not far from the original NES and SNES in terms of gameplay.
Wonder what they have planned.
I've been keeping light tabs on XIII, and if you didn't like FFX or X-2, particularly because they were linear, then you're probably going to despise XIII. I liked those two a fair bit so I'll likely grab XIII at some point down the road, but Caveat Emptor and all.
I thought X and X2 were turrible.
I'll still be buying XIII because I'm retarded.
And I also heard that the very linear dungeon maps that were making their way around the net a while back are not representative of the other dungeons. So we'll see.
I guess we don't get the top ten games of 2009 until the Dec. NPDs come out.
Just adjust this chart for whatever you think Dec. sales will be.
#10 and #8 are moving farther up, maybe one game can jump over Madden into the top 10. Likely candidates are WF+ (~1.13m), ACII (~800k) or L4D2 (~744k).
There was a reason the original Guitar Hero only launched on the Playstation 2, and that reason was Mad Catz.
"Guitar Hero was a game that we were actually involved with early on and pulled out because of a lawsuit with Konami," Mad Catz president and CEO Darren Richardson tells Kotaku. "We were doing the Xbox SKU and that's why there was only a Playstation 2 launch. That's why. We were in there and we pulled out as a result of (the lawsuit) and (Red Octane and Harmonix) went forward and it turned out to be a success, a huge success."
Richardson says they paid $300,000 to get out of their deal and cut themselves out of the Guitar Hero franchise.
"Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it," Richardson said. "It was brilliant. I come up with these strokes of genius from time to time. That was my best."
I guess we don't get the top ten games of 2009 until the Dec. NPDs come out.
Just adjust this chart for whatever you think Dec. sales will be.
#10 and #8 are moving farther up, maybe one game can jump over Madden into the top 10. Likely candidates are WF+ (~1.13m), ACII (~800k) or L4D2 (~744k).
Argh - I just entered in all the numbers from the year's NPDs into a spreadsheet to come up with something similar. Oh well. Anyway, Wii Fit Plus will hop over Madden, and that'll probably be the only new title after the December NPDs. While ACII and L4D2 will have good sales numbers in December, I can't imagine either overtaking Wii Fit Plus.
There was a reason the original Guitar Hero only launched on the Playstation 2, and that reason was Mad Catz.
"Guitar Hero was a game that we were actually involved with early on and pulled out because of a lawsuit with Konami," Mad Catz president and CEO Darren Richardson tells Kotaku. "We were doing the Xbox SKU and that's why there was only a Playstation 2 launch. That's why. We were in there and we pulled out as a result of (the lawsuit) and (Red Octane and Harmonix) went forward and it turned out to be a success, a huge success."
Richardson says they paid $300,000 to get out of their deal and cut themselves out of the Guitar Hero franchise.
"Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it," Richardson said. "It was brilliant. I come up with these strokes of genius from time to time. That was my best."
I love the honesty.
Warren Buffet once told his share holders that they would have been better off if he had just slipped out to the movies every afternoon instead of managing their investments that year. This sort of reminds me of that.
lowlylowlycook on
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
There was a reason the original Guitar Hero only launched on the Playstation 2, and that reason was Mad Catz.
"Guitar Hero was a game that we were actually involved with early on and pulled out because of a lawsuit with Konami," Mad Catz president and CEO Darren Richardson tells Kotaku. "We were doing the Xbox SKU and that's why there was only a Playstation 2 launch. That's why. We were in there and we pulled out as a result of (the lawsuit) and (Red Octane and Harmonix) went forward and it turned out to be a success, a huge success."
Richardson says they paid $300,000 to get out of their deal and cut themselves out of the Guitar Hero franchise.
"Everyone else made hundreds of millions and we paid money to not be a part of it," Richardson said. "It was brilliant. I come up with these strokes of genius from time to time. That was my best."
I love the honesty.
Yep, and to be fair, it was probably the right call, too.
A small, mostly unknown developer facing a lawsuit from a much bigger company? And the game they're planning involves a mandatory expensive peripheral? Hell, I'd have bailed too.
Life as the Mad Catz guy has to be fucking hard. You're the president of a company whose majority of research is probably dedicated solely to reading the fine print on patents. I mean, things have improved for them -- DDR got a little more popular, and their pads seemed to make life easier for them, for a while. They got that joystick deal from Capcom, that was pretty good. But I mean, back near the turn of the decade, in the dark ages? He was the CEO of a company that got by making offbrand styluses and Game Boy Color link cables.
I bet he wakes up every morning in a fucking sweat.
Seems like a nice guy though! You gotta be, I figure, to head that company. I certainly could never.
Mad Catz has the satisfaction of being a godsend when it comes to peripherals I want that first parties won't fucking make. Like a memory card that isn't small as shit.
Mad Catz buying Saitek and deciding that Mad Catz stuff should get better rather than Saitek stuff getting crappy seems like a good idea. I'm actually thinking about spending $100 and getting that new mouse they debuted at CES.
I want to buy one of those mice just to play with it and take pictures of it and accompany me on a journey to stop Decepticons. I can't fathom actually using it.
Similarly, Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment focused heavily on Wii and PSP releases in 2009, but the company found a considerable difference in its success on the two platforms. Four out of its five PSP games in its first fiscal half were profitable while three of its four Wii games during the same period lost money.
But Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz says that it is the casual gamers who are behind the deflating of the Wii bubble. Revealing the results of a broad fall-holiday survey, he reports that Wii owners are buying fewer games now than they did a year ago while Xbox 360 and PS3 owners plan to buy more.
This, he says, is partially a function of the economy since core gamers are the group least likely to trim entertainment spending when budgets get tight. Consumers who own only a Wii are least-likely to increase their software purchases, he says.
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As a result, Capcom is injecting a healthy dose of hardcore into its offerings with games like the M-rated Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and Monster Hunter Tri, an online action RPG. And even though there is no fighting game market on the Wii, it is Capcom's intent to establish one with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.
"Just because the majority of Wii consoles are bought by casual gamers doesn't mean all they want to play is Diner Dash or party games," notes Kramer. "It just means they want to be on a more affordable platform with a unique controller interface. They are looking for different experiences and we intend to give it to them."
Electronic Arts, on the other hand -- which is the number two Wii publisher after Nintendo itself -- says that declining Wii console sales and a softening third-party software market won't have much impact on the video game giant.
"The Wii is clearly not going to sell as many units this year as it did last year," says CEO John Riccitiello, but because EA has a low-20 percent share on the Xbox 360, a high 20 percent share on the PS3, and a 19-20 percent share on the Wii, he is indifferent to what platform performs well. "I'd like them all to [do well]... but if one goes up and the other goes down, we make money."
Michael Pachter is more optimistic, viewing the current situation as "a resetting of expectations about the Wii consumer" more so than a "Wii bubble deflation." Pachter, an industry analyst, is managing director of equity research for Wedbush Securities.
"The Wii console sold so many more units than anybody expected in 2007 and 2008 because it was cheap and because of its novel gameplay," he explains, "which set expectations much, much greater than perhaps were warranted. Since then, the Wii has come back down to earth and is now merely outselling the other two consoles by 30 or 40 percent, not 300 percent. I hardly see that as a bubble deflation."
Pachter says that half of the people who bought the Wii -- "the housewives who thought Wii Fit looked like fun, the grandmas who thought that Wii Sports would be a fun thing to play with their grandkids, and the 20-somethings who only wanted to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band... none of them people who you'd call 'gamers'."
"They are not buying much more software. They bought what they wanted and don't feel the need to buy more," he says. "Nor are they aware of what other Wii games are out there. They're oblivious."
It's the other half of the Wii console owners who third-party developers need to address, Pachter says, and Capcom is doing it just right by coming out with a title like Resident Evil whose brand everyone recognizes through movies and simple brand history. Unfortunately, it seems that even that approach may not be working.
"Wii publishers need to concentrate on fewer games but games of higher quality," he says. "There is just too much shovelware around -- like the $15 games in the end-cap bargain bins at Target. Companies like Majesco just spin them out non-stop and there are tons of them. They aren't helping anybody keep their lights on."
Similarly, the current ESRB ratings list shows 696 titles for the PS3, 957 for the Xbox 360 -- and 1,415 for the Wii.
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"The sheer number of games being thrown at the Wii is tremendous," according to Matt Matthews, Gamasutra's internal game analyst, who points out that the ESRB lists just 1,392 titles for the Nintendo DS, which has been out since late 2004, and 1,943 titles for the PS2... which has been out for a decade.
"How many of those [Wii games] do you think cost more than $5 million to develop? Probably five," asked Pachter. "And how many cost over $3 million? Probably 100. The problem is that they're so easy to make. I think there are three Wii cheerleader games on the market. There's a lot of that crap around."
Even if a Wii game becomes a bestseller, says Pachter, it is unlikely to create the sort of franchises that make PS3 and Xbox 360 games so profitable.
"Sure, Game Party spawned Game Party 2 and Game Party 3, but is there any question why the sequels didn't do as well?" asks Pachter rhetorically. "Who needs more mini games? It's the same phenomenon as Guitar Hero. Once you have two or three of those games, you have a couple of hundred songs. How many more do you need? The nature of the games that succeed on the Wii don't lend themselves to sequelization and this business is all about creating franchises. Like Madden. Like Halo."
Pachter's best advice to third-party publishers is to either spend less money on their Wii games and have low expectations of game success or spend enough money to make a quality experience that appeals to everybody, like Nintendo's Big Brain Academy or Electronic Arts' EA Sports Active.
Capcom's Kramer agrees with the "fewer but better" philosophy: "In 2010, you won't see as many Wii games from Capcom, but the ones we release will be much larger, event-size games. I also expect to see the market dominated more and more by Nintendo releases with fewer games from the major third parties, like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft."
In Kramer's opinion, no one should perceive the reduction in Wii titles as an abandoning of the platform. "Instead," he said, "it's a case of the third-party publishers trying to figure out how they can make a return on their investment and maintain profitability. Maybe," he said jokingly, "the secret is for all of us just to adopt a Sega model -- and just stick Mario into every game we make."
But, says Pachter, "the real question is what is Nintendo going to do about the fact that their third-party software isn't moving since theirs is a royalty model and less content isn't good for them. They need to do something to encourage the third parties to create more, not less, content. Otherwise, Nintendo is going to lose all its third-party royalties and, well, they can't afford that."
Indeed, a recent GameFly "new release" listing included 62 new titles for the PS3, 72 for the Xbox 360 -- and 145 for the Wii.
Similarly, the current ESRB ratings list shows 696 titles for the PS3, 957 for the Xbox 360 -- and 1,415 for the Wii.
"The sheer number of games being thrown at the Wii is tremendous," according to Matt Matthews, Gamasutra's internal game analyst, who points out that the ESRB lists just 1,392 titles for the Nintendo DS, which has been out since late 2004, and 1,943 titles for the PS2... which has been out for a decade.
Nice to have some context for what most have suspected is a major problem: anything good is hiding under a mountain of crap, a mountain which is growing at a phenomenal rate.
Similarly, Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment focused heavily on Wii and PSP releases in 2009, but the company found a considerable difference in its success on the two platforms. Four out of its five PSP games in its first fiscal half were profitable while three of its four Wii games during the same period lost money.
But Cowen Group analyst Doug Creutz says that it is the casual gamers who are behind the deflating of the Wii bubble. Revealing the results of a broad fall-holiday survey, he reports that Wii owners are buying fewer games now than they did a year ago while Xbox 360 and PS3 owners plan to buy more.
This, he says, is partially a function of the economy since core gamers are the group least likely to trim entertainment spending when budgets get tight. Consumers who own only a Wii are least-likely to increase their software purchases, he says.
Advertisement
As a result, Capcom is injecting a healthy dose of hardcore into its offerings with games like the M-rated Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles and Monster Hunter Tri, an online action RPG. And even though there is no fighting game market on the Wii, it is Capcom's intent to establish one with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.
"Just because the majority of Wii consoles are bought by casual gamers doesn't mean all they want to play is Diner Dash or party games," notes Kramer. "It just means they want to be on a more affordable platform with a unique controller interface. They are looking for different experiences and we intend to give it to them."
Electronic Arts, on the other hand -- which is the number two Wii publisher after Nintendo itself -- says that declining Wii console sales and a softening third-party software market won't have much impact on the video game giant.
"The Wii is clearly not going to sell as many units this year as it did last year," says CEO John Riccitiello, but because EA has a low-20 percent share on the Xbox 360, a high 20 percent share on the PS3, and a 19-20 percent share on the Wii, he is indifferent to what platform performs well. "I'd like them all to [do well]... but if one goes up and the other goes down, we make money."
Michael Pachter is more optimistic, viewing the current situation as "a resetting of expectations about the Wii consumer" more so than a "Wii bubble deflation." Pachter, an industry analyst, is managing director of equity research for Wedbush Securities.
"The Wii console sold so many more units than anybody expected in 2007 and 2008 because it was cheap and because of its novel gameplay," he explains, "which set expectations much, much greater than perhaps were warranted. Since then, the Wii has come back down to earth and is now merely outselling the other two consoles by 30 or 40 percent, not 300 percent. I hardly see that as a bubble deflation."
Pachter says that half of the people who bought the Wii -- "the housewives who thought Wii Fit looked like fun, the grandmas who thought that Wii Sports would be a fun thing to play with their grandkids, and the 20-somethings who only wanted to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band... none of them people who you'd call 'gamers'."
"They are not buying much more software. They bought what they wanted and don't feel the need to buy more," he says. "Nor are they aware of what other Wii games are out there. They're oblivious."
It's the other half of the Wii console owners who third-party developers need to address, Pachter says, and Capcom is doing it just right by coming out with a title like Resident Evil whose brand everyone recognizes through movies and simple brand history. Unfortunately, it seems that even that approach may not be working.
"Wii publishers need to concentrate on fewer games but games of higher quality," he says. "There is just too much shovelware around -- like the $15 games in the end-cap bargain bins at Target. Companies like Majesco just spin them out non-stop and there are tons of them. They aren't helping anybody keep their lights on."
Similarly, the current ESRB ratings list shows 696 titles for the PS3, 957 for the Xbox 360 -- and 1,415 for the Wii.
Advertisement
"The sheer number of games being thrown at the Wii is tremendous," according to Matt Matthews, Gamasutra's internal game analyst, who points out that the ESRB lists just 1,392 titles for the Nintendo DS, which has been out since late 2004, and 1,943 titles for the PS2... which has been out for a decade.
"How many of those [Wii games] do you think cost more than $5 million to develop? Probably five," asked Pachter. "And how many cost over $3 million? Probably 100. The problem is that they're so easy to make. I think there are three Wii cheerleader games on the market. There's a lot of that crap around."
Even if a Wii game becomes a bestseller, says Pachter, it is unlikely to create the sort of franchises that make PS3 and Xbox 360 games so profitable.
"Sure, Game Party spawned Game Party 2 and Game Party 3, but is there any question why the sequels didn't do as well?" asks Pachter rhetorically. "Who needs more mini games? It's the same phenomenon as Guitar Hero. Once you have two or three of those games, you have a couple of hundred songs. How many more do you need? The nature of the games that succeed on the Wii don't lend themselves to sequelization and this business is all about creating franchises. Like Madden. Like Halo."
Pachter's best advice to third-party publishers is to either spend less money on their Wii games and have low expectations of game success or spend enough money to make a quality experience that appeals to everybody, like Nintendo's Big Brain Academy or Electronic Arts' EA Sports Active.
Capcom's Kramer agrees with the "fewer but better" philosophy: "In 2010, you won't see as many Wii games from Capcom, but the ones we release will be much larger, event-size games. I also expect to see the market dominated more and more by Nintendo releases with fewer games from the major third parties, like EA, Activision, and Ubisoft."
In Kramer's opinion, no one should perceive the reduction in Wii titles as an abandoning of the platform. "Instead," he said, "it's a case of the third-party publishers trying to figure out how they can make a return on their investment and maintain profitability. Maybe," he said jokingly, "the secret is for all of us just to adopt a Sega model -- and just stick Mario into every game we make."
But, says Pachter, "the real question is what is Nintendo going to do about the fact that their third-party software isn't moving since theirs is a royalty model and less content isn't good for them. They need to do something to encourage the third parties to create more, not less, content. Otherwise, Nintendo is going to lose all its third-party royalties and, well, they can't afford that."
My God, I agree with Pachter.
Don't forget the marketing. I tire of developers just throwing games onto the Wii and expecting it to be successful without even telling anyone about it.
Similarly, the current ESRB ratings list shows 696 titles for the PS3, 957 for the Xbox 360 -- and 1,415 for the Wii.
"The sheer number of games being thrown at the Wii is tremendous," according to Matt Matthews, Gamasutra's internal game analyst, who points out that the ESRB lists just 1,392 titles for the Nintendo DS, which has been out since late 2004, and 1,943 titles for the PS2... which has been out for a decade.
Nice to have some context for what most have suspected is a major problem: anything good is hiding under a mountain of crap, a mountain which is growing at a phenomenal rate.
Those numbers arent concerning at all. That just looks like basic marketshare discrepancy, with a dash of small developers running where costs are low and maybe a little inflation due to having the ESRB rate a ton of VC games.
Did Zack and Wiki have a market anywhere even with advertising?
I think I may have seen one commercial.
But I can't recall. It's been quite a period of time since it's release. Still bought it on day one though. Fantastic game. Save for it's obvious re-playability flaws.
Sigtyr on
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
Did Zack and Wiki have a market anywhere even with advertising?
The only real advertising Zack & Wiki got was a campaign started by IGN which made some pretty large rounds around the net..but it obviously didn't do much for the games sales.
Did Zack and Wiki have a market anywhere even with advertising?
The only real advertising Zack & Wiki got was a campaign started by IGN which made some pretty large rounds around the net..but it obviously didn't do much for the games sales.
Yes, but would it have a chance of selling anywhere even witha big advertising campaign? If Capcom thought it would sell that much, they are nuts. It had no demographic target that it could remotely appeal to without turning them off in some major way.
The Wii isn't so much DOOOOOOOMMMMMMED as "will sell less than it has." That HD gamers buy more games isn't shocking. For all that anecdotal evidence counts, I've seen a good number of Wiis go completely unused, only a few PS3s get used exclusively for BR, and very few 360s not to have a big stack of games next to them. Even the PS3s not used for games were only among the early adopters.
As for all the crap Wii games, I know people who have been turned off by that. They'll pick up a couple of games, not find anything that really catches their attention for long, and decide that the Will sucks and maybe that they don't liking gaming in general. It takes a lot of effort to overcome that mindset.
I think that the internet has been for years on the path to creating what is essentially an electronic Necronomicon: A collection of blasphemous unrealities so perverse that to even glimpse at its contents, if but for a moment, is to irrevocably forfeit a portion of your sanity.
Xbox - PearlBlueS0ul, Steam
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
There being more Wii games than Nintendo DS games is mind-boggling. Yeesh.
Also, that entire article seems well-reasoned and sagely. How unusual! Interesting facts and a good assessment of what's to come.
One thing to take into consideration is that the 1415 wii games includes the games that came out on wiiware as well as the games that came out on the virtual console.
Reric on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
0
Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited January 2010
Maybe Pachter has finally realized his Wii Doomsaying looks outright stupid.
It's the first thing he's said in a while that had some really good points to it.
Indeed, a recent GameFly "new release" listing included 62 new titles for the PS3, 72 for the Xbox 360 -- and 145 for the Wii.
Similarly, the current ESRB ratings list shows 696 titles for the PS3, 957 for the Xbox 360 -- and 1,415 for the Wii.
"The sheer number of games being thrown at the Wii is tremendous," according to Matt Matthews, Gamasutra's internal game analyst, who points out that the ESRB lists just 1,392 titles for the Nintendo DS, which has been out since late 2004, and 1,943 titles for the PS2... which has been out for a decade.
Nice to have some context for what most have suspected is a major problem: anything good is hiding under a mountain of crap, a mountain which is growing at a phenomenal rate.
I hereby coin the term Game Miner. We dig through the mountain that is crap Wii games to find the rare gems. Like Zack & Wiki or Little King's Story.
Umm, third parties are the ones responsible for the shitty games.
Gosh, I can't imagine why third party developers don't want to divert more money into Wii development.
And yes, Nintendo should totally take a "third party developers are nothing but our competition and release nothing but filth" attitude. That couldn't possibly ever bite them in the ass. Ever.
Either way, if it means more substantive games on the Wii and less shovelware I'm all for it. It's impossible for me to go browsing for Wii games -- which is how I used to do all my game shopping -- because the shelves at any retailer are just a mess of crap. I mean, even worse than them being a mess of crap, is the fact that some of them have interesting premises, but there's this lingering taint of, "I know this is actually just a stupid piece of shovelware," and "console game price tags are too expensive for a game with no depth like this anyway."
I keep telling myself I'll start buying Wii games as soon as Super Mario Galaxy gets price-dropped somewhere -- dazzingly, that's yet to happen anywhere I've seen. I guess the upside now is that by the time it finally does, there might be some third-party games with chops on shelves (in genres I enjoy) to go along with it.
I have to admit though, from time to time, I'm tempted by games I see on the shelves. There are a lot of Wii games. Some of them have very attractive names, or box art! It kind of makes me nostalgic for when I was a kid, renting Super Nintendo Games from the local mom & pop store, and I would just try anything because it looked cool, or even buy things on that basis. Now I need to look into anything and everything and cross-reference at least a dozen reviews before I even try it. Sometimes I feel like maybe I should more often go with my gut, and one of those games no one else liked, I would really enjoy ... but Wii games are expensive, and they're probably all shovelware minigames beneath the veneer of wacky and cool premises.
Similarly, the current ESRB ratings list shows 696 titles for the PS3, 957 for the Xbox 360 -- and 1,415 for the Wii.
"The sheer number of games being thrown at the Wii is tremendous," according to Matt Matthews, Gamasutra's internal game analyst, who points out that the ESRB lists just 1,392 titles for the Nintendo DS, which has been out since late 2004, and 1,943 titles for the PS2... which has been out for a decade.
Nice to have some context for what most have suspected is a major problem: anything good is hiding under a mountain of crap, a mountain which is growing at a phenomenal rate.
Those numbers arent concerning at all. That just looks like basic marketshare discrepancy, with a dash of small developers running where costs are low and maybe a little inflation due to having the ESRB rate a ton of VC games.
There being more Wii games than Nintendo DS games is mind-boggling. Yeesh.
Also, that entire article seems well-reasoned and sagely. How unusual! Interesting facts and a good assessment of what's to come.
One thing to take into consideration is that the 1415 wii games includes the games that came out on wiiware as well as the games that came out on the virtual console.
The Wii Shop Channel from the Wii Menu says it just recently reached 500 games, all things considered. So that means 915-ish retail Wii games, a number that is almost equal to the Xbox 360's retail + XBLA, and the 360 was out a year earlier.
Indeed, a recent GameFly "new release" listing included 62 new titles for the PS3, 72 for the Xbox 360 -- and 145 for the Wii.
Similarly, the current ESRB ratings list shows 696 titles for the PS3, 957 for the Xbox 360 -- and 1,415 for the Wii.
"The sheer number of games being thrown at the Wii is tremendous," according to Matt Matthews, Gamasutra's internal game analyst, who points out that the ESRB lists just 1,392 titles for the Nintendo DS, which has been out since late 2004, and 1,943 titles for the PS2... which has been out for a decade.
Nice to have some context for what most have suspected is a major problem: anything good is hiding under a mountain of crap, a mountain which is growing at a phenomenal rate.
I hereby coin the term Game Miner. We dig through the mountain that is crap Wii games to find the rare gems. Like Zack & Wiki or Little King's Story and Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection.
....and I'm going to keep on adding PHoF to posts like this, especially now that's it's been out for PS360 since September. It's out for everything current except DS at this point.
Anyway...
Third parties still saying they can't compete with Nintendo need to man up. Nintendo is not going to make their own games suck for your benefit. It is not Nintendo's fault that you can't or won't do better. Man up!
My mom is part of the problem. She actually bought Billy the Wizard for my nephews, along with four other random Wii games, only one or two of which I recognized. I almost wanted to open and try Billy just to see how godawful terrible it was, but we ended up playing New SMB Wii so much that we never got to the other games.
As someone who owns every systems this generation and a gaming PC, I can't imagine not looking into each of my purchases ahead of time on any system. High budget crap is still crap. 1415 games is a lot of crap, but 957 is still a lot of shit as well. This is why even big name games spend $10+ million on marketing campaigns.
Rakai on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]XBL: Rakayn | PS3: Rakayn | Steam ID
My mom is part of the problem. She actually bought Billy the Wizard for my nephews, along with four other random Wii games, only one or two of which I recognized. I almost wanted to open and try Billy just to see how godawful terrible it was, but we ended up playing New SMB Wii so much that we never got to the other games.
This is why I'm glad my wife and I both know video games...we'll never subject our children to this.
Although, knowing my luck, my kids will end up actually wanting them
My mom is part of the problem. She actually bought Billy the Wizard for my nephews, along with four other random Wii games, only one or two of which I recognized. I almost wanted to open and try Billy just to see how godawful terrible it was, but we ended up playing New SMB Wii so much that we never got to the other games.
My brother-in-law and I went to Best Buy after the holiday weekend to check out their sales. Surprisingly, there was no mention of the sale in the store itself - I had to look up the sales on their computers. Anyway, they had a section of Wii games on clearance, and I went over to look at them - I didn't recognize a single one. But they were selling pretty well since they were only $15-$20. Same thing with DS games - the $5 ones looked to be selling pretty well. And the DS section had been pretty well cleared out, too.
Thing is, A Boy and His Blob was one of the games on sale - it was $20. But with no mention of it anywhere in the store, no one knew about it. It meant I was able to get a copy, so I was happy, but I wish it had sold more.
Edit: The music from that video is awful. And will now likely be in my head for the rest of day.
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It ranked in the top 10 for 4 months starting in March, with a drop to 14th in June. From those records, it looks to have sold ~1.7 million in the US. It also sold at least 1.5 million in Japan. If the new Pokemon sells similarly to that, it will outsell Modern Warfare 2 in 2010. Probably outsell Mass Effect 2 as well.
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Wouldn't they just call it Natal?
Already a feminist bend to the name.
126K for an adventure title that came out well before they started getting "popular" again, and well after they were dead isn't bad.
Outside of XII, we've gotten games not far from the original NES and SNES in terms of gameplay.
Wonder what they have planned.
I thought X and X2 were turrible.
I'll still be buying XIII because I'm retarded.
And I also heard that the very linear dungeon maps that were making their way around the net a while back are not representative of the other dungeons. So we'll see.
#10 and #8 are moving farther up, maybe one game can jump over Madden into the top 10. Likely candidates are WF+ (~1.13m), ACII (~800k) or L4D2 (~744k).
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Argh - I just entered in all the numbers from the year's NPDs into a spreadsheet to come up with something similar. Oh well. Anyway, Wii Fit Plus will hop over Madden, and that'll probably be the only new title after the December NPDs. While ACII and L4D2 will have good sales numbers in December, I can't imagine either overtaking Wii Fit Plus.
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Warren Buffet once told his share holders that they would have been better off if he had just slipped out to the movies every afternoon instead of managing their investments that year. This sort of reminds me of that.
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Yep, and to be fair, it was probably the right call, too.
A small, mostly unknown developer facing a lawsuit from a much bigger company? And the game they're planning involves a mandatory expensive peripheral? Hell, I'd have bailed too.
I bet he wakes up every morning in a fucking sweat.
Seems like a nice guy though! You gotta be, I figure, to head that company. I certainly could never.
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Also, that entire article seems well-reasoned and sagely. How unusual! Interesting facts and a good assessment of what's to come.
Don't forget the marketing. I tire of developers just throwing games onto the Wii and expecting it to be successful without even telling anyone about it.
I think I may have seen one commercial.
But I can't recall. It's been quite a period of time since it's release. Still bought it on day one though. Fantastic game. Save for it's obvious re-playability flaws.
The only real advertising Zack & Wiki got was a campaign started by IGN which made some pretty large rounds around the net..but it obviously didn't do much for the games sales.
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Yes, but would it have a chance of selling anywhere even witha big advertising campaign? If Capcom thought it would sell that much, they are nuts. It had no demographic target that it could remotely appeal to without turning them off in some major way.
The Wii isn't so much DOOOOOOOMMMMMMED as "will sell less than it has." That HD gamers buy more games isn't shocking. For all that anecdotal evidence counts, I've seen a good number of Wiis go completely unused, only a few PS3s get used exclusively for BR, and very few 360s not to have a big stack of games next to them. Even the PS3s not used for games were only among the early adopters.
As for all the crap Wii games, I know people who have been turned off by that. They'll pick up a couple of games, not find anything that really catches their attention for long, and decide that the Will sucks and maybe that they don't liking gaming in general. It takes a lot of effort to overcome that mindset.
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One thing to take into consideration is that the 1415 wii games includes the games that came out on wiiware as well as the games that came out on the virtual console.
It's the first thing he's said in a while that had some really good points to it.
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I hereby coin the term Game Miner. We dig through the mountain that is crap Wii games to find the rare gems. Like Zack & Wiki or Little King's Story.
I dunno, just continuing my analogy. I honestly like their stuff, I'm a huge first party fanboy for them.
Yeah, I can't see any downside to actively sabotaging your relationships with third party developers.
Gosh, I can't imagine why third party developers don't want to divert more money into Wii development.
And yes, Nintendo should totally take a "third party developers are nothing but our competition and release nothing but filth" attitude. That couldn't possibly ever bite them in the ass. Ever.
I keep telling myself I'll start buying Wii games as soon as Super Mario Galaxy gets price-dropped somewhere -- dazzingly, that's yet to happen anywhere I've seen.
I have to admit though, from time to time, I'm tempted by games I see on the shelves. There are a lot of Wii games. Some of them have very attractive names, or box art! It kind of makes me nostalgic for when I was a kid, renting Super Nintendo Games from the local mom & pop store, and I would just try anything because it looked cool, or even buy things on that basis. Now I need to look into anything and everything and cross-reference at least a dozen reviews before I even try it. Sometimes I feel like maybe I should more often go with my gut, and one of those games no one else liked, I would really enjoy ... but Wii games are expensive, and they're probably all shovelware minigames beneath the veneer of wacky and cool premises.
The Wii Shop Channel from the Wii Menu says it just recently reached 500 games, all things considered. So that means 915-ish retail Wii games, a number that is almost equal to the Xbox 360's retail + XBLA, and the 360 was out a year earlier.
That is a still completely staggering number.
....and I'm going to keep on adding PHoF to posts like this, especially now that's it's been out for PS360 since September. It's out for everything current except DS at this point.
Anyway...
Third parties still saying they can't compete with Nintendo need to man up. Nintendo is not going to make their own games suck for your benefit. It is not Nintendo's fault that you can't or won't do better. Man up!
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Faux edit:
It's worse than I ever imagined.
This is why I'm glad my wife and I both know video games...we'll never subject our children to this.
Although, knowing my luck, my kids will end up actually wanting them
NMH is a great example. Low Budget niche beat em up but well made, sells better than any of the game designers previous niche games.
My brother-in-law and I went to Best Buy after the holiday weekend to check out their sales. Surprisingly, there was no mention of the sale in the store itself - I had to look up the sales on their computers. Anyway, they had a section of Wii games on clearance, and I went over to look at them - I didn't recognize a single one. But they were selling pretty well since they were only $15-$20. Same thing with DS games - the $5 ones looked to be selling pretty well. And the DS section had been pretty well cleared out, too.
Thing is, A Boy and His Blob was one of the games on sale - it was $20. But with no mention of it anywhere in the store, no one knew about it. It meant I was able to get a copy, so I was happy, but I wish it had sold more.
Edit: The music from that video is awful. And will now likely be in my head for the rest of day.
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