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[Video Game Industry Thread] Nobody is Buying Anything.
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I'm sure they did and I'm sure they love it. What was the last game they bought? But they won't buy the more expensive Wii U, I'd bet.
Steam: adamjnet
If the average family plays 360 10 hours per week and the Wii 5 hours per week, that's still 260 hours a year. That's not an expensive doorstop.
How can you even begin to guess what the average family thinks of a device based on a couple surveys that don't even ask that?
Maybe the average family uses a smartphone phone 30 hours a week. Does that mean they enjoy it 3 times as much as the 360?
If the average family only spends an hour reading, does that mean books should be assumed to generally be nothing but expensive doorstops?
I can't tell if this is serious. You can honestly only speak for what your personal metric for value, because the word means different things to different people, with varying values.
Number one thing to avoid when you're discussing things (especially on the internet): Always remember to phrase things to be about your perspective, NEVER speak for other people, be they strangers or friends the people you're speaking with doesn't know.
Otherwise don't try to ascribe others' value judgements to the number of hours they spend doing something. We could just as easily say it is better-liked than PS3 because it's got a similar tie ratio with more consoles sold, but we can't make a judgement based on that either.
Maybe the tie ratio is inflated because games are slightly cheaper!
Maybe the "average family" means the teen plays CoD all the time on 360 and nobody else gives a shit, but the Wii is brought out every Friday for family game night!
Firstly no. The question was how many hours a week do you use this device.
Secondly, the polls were per user. Whether families or individuals were involved is irrelevant.
I am not trying to ascribe worth to anything based on conjecture. The facts are, pound for pound, hour for hour, per person, the Wii wasn't providing the hours of entertainment it's competitors were. Therefore, it's more expensive follow up is not selling as well given the competition.
Steam: adamjnet
First film is watched 50 times, 2nd film is watched once. That's the comparison you should be making.
Steam: adamjnet
That still doesn't define value, it's an example of repeating something.
Therefore implies a clear logical connection. You have not established why "hours of entertainment" effects "decision to purchase". I gather you think it is obvious, but I disagree and so do many other people.
Until you demonstrate this connection your conclusion does not follow.
Put another way, you've only demonstrated a correlation, but you are presenting it as a causal connection. You are saying one is causing the other. Correlations do not work like that.
I was much happier playing through Little King's Story once over ten hours or whatever than I would have been playing Call of Duty multiplayer for two hundred hours.
I actually have yet to buy Xenoblade in spite of being pretty interested in it because by the time it released I was at a point in my life where I wasn't sure if I'd really have time to devote myself to a hundred-hour campaign.
Portal was only a few hours long, and I would still call it one of the best values of any game I ever bought because it was so unique and memorable and has stuck with me for so long in my mind.
"Relatively low amount of time played per user" doesn't automatically abstract to "users are unsatisfied with the product". You can't determine the number of people who ultimately considered their purchase of the console worthwhile purely from that statistic.
So I mean... really, how does this "hours invested means more or less sales" thing actually work again?
Go make a [Wii Is a Doorstop] thread, I'll totally contribute.
You don't see why discussion about why something made / did not make money is relevant in a thread about why those same things may / may not make more money...?
*edit* ok I retract the doorstop comment. Otherwise everything else stands.
Steam: adamjnet
If we want to talk about how the Wii U is doing or what Nintendo's strategy is or should be, that's fine. Trying to suss out if the Wii was used in households doesn't really seem to go anywhere because there's no way to get numbers on that.
Really, the only thing that is relevant to the Wii U's fate as far as the Wii goes is where did all the Wii owners go? Are they not upgrading because they see no point? Are they not upgrading because of a flaw in the Wii U or its marketing? Were they people who normally wouldn't buy a game console, and therefor won't end up buying a new one? Are they converted to normal console purchasers, but are waiting for more info on the other consoles?
Needless to say, something happened with the Wii that isn't happening with the Wii U. I find the question of why this is happening to be much more interesting than bashing the Wii. The Wii did very well for itself. My theory is it relied very heavily on a market that isn't there for game consoles typically, and that explains the low numbers for the Wii U. Others are saying the whole market is shrinking, myself I believe that's true, but only if you consider the blue ocean customers to be part of the market.
The fact that the attach rate for the Wii was the same as for the PS3 says to me that it was more than the Wii-sports machine so many people paint it as.
I don't know where those gamers have "gone" (if anywhere), but I would bet it comes down to the same damn thing as always - games. And that is where Nintendo fucked up the WiiU launch.
It's $100 more expensive and has two SKUs (confusing) and one of them does not have the pack-in which is also not as immediately compelling as Wii Sports was, with its sports with well-known rules and a perfectly matching controller.
Also it didn't make the rounds on the daytime talk shows and morning news as a must-have device like the Wii did, to my knowledge.
Apparantly in total this generation has sold around 240 million consoles. Last generation sold a little less than 200 million consoles. So, it's not a dramatic shift.
Now, of course, there's a lot of factors you have to consider with these numbers, such as the number of people who owned multiple consoles each generation. Either way, even if we lost all 40 million new console owners next generation, it wouldn't be a significant loss by any means, and doesn't mean doom for the industry.
Yes, and the PS2 sold around 150 million units world wide. People moved around this generation. But as far as new sales this gen vs last, there's about a 40 million unit sales increase. If each and every one of those sales was a blue ocean customer buying a Wii or the 360 for the Kinect, and we lost every single one, the industry wouldn't be doomed.
I'm not sure what conclusion to draw from this yet, if only that if the Wii "doesn't count" and those gamers are "gone", then the market shrunk.
Also that requiring sales of 5 million to an audience of only 150 million (HD systems) is even more insane than I originally thought. Tomb raider needed to sell to 3% of the ENTIRE HD market, assuming that PS3 and 360 numbers aren't inflated by broken systems (which I assume they all are).
Yes, there is, which is what the entire discussion was about - the amount of usage of the Wii in households. It's not 'trying to suss out' how much it was used, there are numerous respectable surveys stating the numbers. Again, I'm on my phone, but here's the first report I found: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/08/nielsen-report-reveals-average-game-console-usage/
This is absolutely relevant. Manufacturers release consoles infrequently. If a console is purchased and gets less use than its competitors, over time that will affect its successors sales compared to its competitors.
Which was also what that entire line of discussion was about.
I'm not bashing the Wii. I've not made a single comment about it's quality. Only what statistics say about its sales and usage.
I will use a very simple analogy. A lot of people pay to go and see Movie X. It makes a lot of money, however they don't love it. Focus groups show that if they buy it on DVD, they only watch it twice, compared to Movie Y, which is watched 4 times. Therefore they do not pay any money to go and see Movie X: 2. Tickets to which cost more than the first. However they go and see movie Y.
Steam: adamjnet
Do we have numbers from more recent that 4 years ago? Because that seems completely useless in relationship to the Wii U. I know you're posting on your phone, but if you can't post the information, the discussion can't go anywhere. And since it's your assertion that's in question, you need to supply the evidence.
I think it's really odd that you're saying it's not a dramatic shift. 40 of 200 is close to a quarter of the latter number. In fact it's a fifth. An industry growing by 20% is actually pretty big - usually industries talk about numbers less than 10%.
there are probably people who reached working age during this generation and bought a console later in the gen.
http://www.davidjaffe.biz/
He gets... really whiny though.
There's also people who abandon the industry altogether as consumers.
My initial post was in response to this
If we assume that the "Wii audience" he was talking about is the 40 million new sales this generation, then all we're doing is going back to last generation's numbers. Was console gaming fucked in 2006 before the current round of consoles came out?
Yes, it's a dramatic shift, for Nintendo. As far as the industry as a whole goes, it's not all that dramatic of a shift. In fact, it won't have any effect on Microsoft or Sony (again, if the blue ocean crowd that boosted up Nintendo with the Wii left the market). They haven't been counting on those numbers. And, quite frankly, neither has Nintendo (warchest and handhelds and all that).
When a subset of a market is generally located around one competitor, their leaving the market doesn't doom the industry as a whole. Just that one company, if their strategy relies on that market being present.
Basically, yes, it is a dramatic shift if you just look flat at the numbers. If you look at where those numbers would actually be coming from, it's not as dramatic of a shift.
What if a chunk of HD games were funded by sales of cheap, quick-to-produce games on the one with the previously-large install base?
I'm watching right now, his initial defense is pretty poor. The guy in my avatar uses the defense of "hey when I speak, I'm speaking in the moment to fill the air, it doesn't reflect a well constructed thought." And in that case, it makes sense. But Jaffe saying that his blog reflects the same attitude is a load. When you write, you have plenty of time to read back on what's said before you publish for everyone to see, as opposed to a live broadcast. If he's putting out half-assed thoughts, that's his own fault. Though I guess he admits to it being his fault to an extent.
I REALLY hate the voice he's putting on when he's putting across other people's objections and counter-arguments. He's being a really dismissive jackass about it.
I've never cared for people saying, "Well that's the way it is, too bad!" Just because you're defeated and don't strive for conditions to be better doesn't mean anyone else should. Leave the "misery loves company" shit over there. Away from this.
He's ignoring legit concerns about taking any deal offered perpetuating bad deals offered in the first place.
Ugh, his overall attitude is making this unwatchable.
If DoR is correct, the numbers are remaining relatively flat for MS and Sony.
The budget issue is one divorced from the loss of the Blue Ocean. That's unsustainable development practices. AAA will consolidate and developers either learn to play in the B level, or die and create indies who will play in the B/C level.
Not seeing third-party Wii title sales to justify the speculation, expect for possibility Ubisoft (Just Dance), and the only thing funding AC is AC. It's a beast that will continue until it kills itself.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
Those budgets have been present on the 360 and PS3, not the Wii. The PS3 and 360 have combined sales of around 140 million units, which is about the lifetime sales of the PS2. Publishers HAVE been making games with 2013 budgets based off of 2006 numbers.
Then I'd say the entire industry is doomed to fail because apparently publishers don't understand basic business practices. You don't fund your super expensive projects if you don't get a return on super expensive projects. If the game industry worked in the way you're describing, publishers would have shied away from the AAA model in 2008/2009.
Edit: This isn't to say that the AAA model isn't ridiculously risky. However, businesses aren't likely to keep doing something if they're not making a profit off of doing it.
Also, I think 40 million is lowballing the casuals - previous generation a lot of people bought PS2 as a cheap DVD and singstar machine. And right now 360 had a few months of being a kinect machine.
The "hardcore" market is lower than the 200 million. By how much, who knows? I could see it being as low as 150 million, once you take out those who own multiple systems.
Yes, that voice he does is so fucking annoying.
I actually agree on this point. The number of individual consumers is probably a lot less that we'd assume from the numbers. I do wonder with the lack of third party exclusives this generation, if the cross over ratio between PS3 and 360 owners is a lot less than in previous generations. I know last gen I owned all 3 consoles at one point or another. This gen I've been perfectly fine with just a 360 (and a Wii a while). There's no real way to suss out these numbers, but it is interesting to think about how much the landscape has changed over the last 7-8 years.
Hurm, got a link? As I said, their Wii games outside of Just Dance didn't sell at an appreciable level to assume it funded the annual AC machine.
Casual efforts are starting to move towards free-to-play online games. Development even cheaper than Wii U/360/PS3, and the possibility of higher return. Not that Free-to-play might not find its place on Wii U.
I think the 150 million for the PS2 and 360/PS3 combined is a solid number.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
I'd love to see someone who really knows their stuff crunch the numbers.
Like for instance, how many HD gamers are out there? Once you take out broken systems and those who own both, does it drop from 140M to as low as 100M? To go back to Tomb Raider (because it's such an insane example), that then puts it at 5% of the audience to buy in. One in twenty.
If you really want to have your mind blown, realize that the number sold is less than the number of players for a particular game because of the used market. With those numbers, we may find that the percentage of the market playing the game may be anywhere from 5%-100%. It very well could be that the vast majority of players for a game comes from the used market.
Then think about the fact that every time that game changes hands, there's a very good chance whoever bought it may purchase DLC. So the revenue for a single copy of a game could look like this:
$60 Game is purchased
$20 Season pass is purchased
- game is sold to gamestop and purchased
$10 DLC is purchased
-game is sold to gamestop and purchased
$10 Ten dollar initiative is purchased
$20 Season Pass is purchased
-game is put on a shelf to never be purchased again
Total extra revenue: $60
It all depends on if the DLC is sold and when it finds someone who doesn't sell their games.