Wii consumers, being "Stingy" and games not selling well?

M

MegaDrive20XX

Segatron Genesis... call me the wizard.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/technology/21wii.xml

Nintendo sits atop the home video-game market. Its Wii, though less technologically advanced than Microsoft's Xbox 360 or Sony's PlayStation 3, continues to outsell those machines and is now in more than 20 million homes.

So why are retailers having so much trouble selling Wii games?

Take Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was one the most hotly anticipated video games of the year; it sold more than 1.4 million copies during the first week of its release, in early March, and broke records for Nintendo of America.

"We certainly have a built-in fan base for Smash," said Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America's vice president for corporate affairs. "I'm hoping that we can continue to generate success and awareness of the game."

But sales dropped more than 90 percent over the first four weeks, according to estimates from VG Chartz, a team of analysts who study video-game sales.

Some major retail chains - including Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us - have already begun bundling the Smash Bros. game with Wii machines for sales online, a sign that the base of hard-core gamers who went looking for the game has been depleted.

Retailers confirm the sharp drop. "We sold a couple thousand copies in the first week," said Xavier Pervez, assistant manager at a GameStop in Fairfield, Conn. "It's dropped off significantly now, maybe 100 in each of the last couple weeks."

Toys "R" Us has instructed its sales staff to warn customers that some Wiis cannot read the Smash Bros. disc, and to refuse to exchange the game if customers later claim it is defective. Some parents who receive that warning are just as happy to buy a different game instead. But Nintendo claims few Wiis are subject to the malfunction, and Toys "R" Us sales staff said few customers have been dissuaded from buying or keeping the game.
 
It shouldn't take rocket science to figure this out.

All the people who wanted SSBB, now have it. The rest are Wii owners who liked Wii sports and the like and don't really play too many games. Also, a majority of the games are not even close to having the same level of quality gameplay as Nintendo's First Party titles.
 
They sold a copy of Brawl to a seventh of all Wii owners worldwide, in a single month. Is it any wonder sales are slowing? When such a large percentage of the market already has a game, it's inevitable that its sales will fall off a bit. It's a trend that happens with any big release, no just Brrawl. In its first week, Halo 3 sold 3.3 million copies (if memory serves me correctly). The next month after that, it sold 700,000 copies. That is a huge drop-off in sales.

This trend isn't limited to the Wii, and definitely doesn't say anything about the console or its owners. It's an industry-wide phenomenon.
 
Yeah, games like that always have the fanbase that wants it ASAP.
 
its a console for non-gamers. sure it has a few games for hardcores, but for the most part its for people who want to have a bit of fun with their friends playing a couple of mini-games. i just hope that nintendo doesn't completely forget about their hardcore fanbase and go after casual gamers exclusively.
 
I'll tell you why... Nintendo is letting these developers come in and develop trash for the system inbetween good games.

I am not talking about 4-6 rated games.... I am talking 1-4 on a fairly common basis.

Nintendo needs to either help developers figure this out, or they need to tighten down quality.

you can't have high quantity w/ low quality... your system will bust. It also goes the other way. Although with higher quality and less quantity... is better than a lot of crappy games not selling :)

†B†V† :hat
 
Bluevoodu said:
I'll tell you why... Nintendo is letting these developers come in and develop trash for the system inbetween good games.

I am not talking about 4-6 rated games.... I am talking 1-4 on a fairly common basis.

Nintendo needs to either help developers figure this out, or they need to tighten down quality.

you can't have high quantity w/ low quality... your system will bust. It also goes the other way. Although with higher quality and less quantity... is better than a lot of crappy games not selling :)

†B†V† :hat
Click to expand...


This man, truth speaker he is.
 
Bluevoodu said:
I'll tell you why... Nintendo is letting these developers come in and develop trash for the system inbetween good games.

I am not talking about 4-6 rated games.... I am talking 1-4 on a fairly common basis.

Nintendo needs to either help developers figure this out, or they need to tighten down quality.

you can't have high quantity w/ low quality... your system will bust. It also goes the other way. Although with higher quality and less quantity... is better than a lot of crappy games not selling :)

†B†V† :hat
Click to expand...

Ya, that is what is happening. A lot of those games barely seem like they should count as games and seem like an insult to the Wii, if you ask me. I mean, it is awesome if you can get games developed for your system, but it almost seems like there should be some sort of standard, or a limit of how many crappy games can be put out on it compared to how many good games. But I think they are really concerned about there being enough games and do not want to discourage games being developed for their system, which is very understandable when I consider the n64 and cube.
 
Not too long ago, I read an article stating that producing many bad games is a good sign for a better system in the long run. Showing that, the developers have something to learn from.

Even though I don't entirely believe that, I just wonder if it worked on other systems in the past. Sad tactics by using trial and error methods such as this, but who knows.
 
Didn't the market crash 25 years ago because of a massive influx of crappy games due to poor guidelines or am I just imagining things? >_>

Srsly.
atuidnekt said:
i just hope that nintendo doesn't completely forget about their hardcore fanbase and go after casual gamers exclusively.
Click to expand...
That won't ever happen. In 2006, 'normal' games accounted for about 45% of game sales and several billion dollars in profit. They won't forget them. Saying they'll become just casual is a very misinformed opinion.
 
fhqwhgads said:
Didn't the market crash 25 years ago because of a massive influx of crappy games due to poor guidelines or am I just imagining things? >_>
Click to expand...
Yes, but it was also a sure sign of success for the PS2 which had tons of crap made for it. Consoles that sell well get a lot of crappy games, but I wouldn't call it a cause of success as much as I would a symptom of it.
 
Yeah, every system has crappy games on it, but people feel the need to point out the bad ones for the Wii, as opposed to the many good games.
 
fhqwhgads said:
Yeah, every system has crappy games on it, but people feel the need to point out the bad ones for the Wii, as opposed to the many good games.
Click to expand...

I think there are a couple reasons why people talk about crappy games on the Wii.

First off, the Wii is the best selling console at the moment, so its success makes its business models and strategies of interest. The fact that the Wii is selling as great as it is, but still lagging behind the 360 in terms of software sales, is also of interest. As people delve into these two things a few obvious points emerge:

The Wii, having the largest install base (see also: PS2), gets a lot of interest from developers not wanting to port their games to other systems but who also want to reach a large audience. Unfortuneatly, when this model for sheer profit is used, you end up with a lot of shovelware.

Especially because these developers don't hold a lot of respect for their audience. The "casual game" focus of the Wii sees developers putting games on the console they know won't stand up to the critic's or the hardcore's standards, but they don't believe casual gamers will know any better.

In addition to that the nature and promise of the Wii lends itself to a lot of junk titles. The Wii doesn't have the graphical horsepower to make average gameplay better, so Wii games are expected to deliver on innovative and fun gameplay above all else. Many developers, once again working under the quick cash model, don't do this, and end up creating sub-par to average gameplay with sub-par to average graphics. The best they can achieve in this scenario, is an average game.

For all these reasons, people tend to notice the amount of garbage games that show up on the Wii. People point out the bad ones because there are so many more poor games on the Wii than there are good ones. And people were expecting big things from developers because of the innovative promise of Nintendo with the Wii, but so far few companies other than Nintendo have provided that.
 
yeah but those are stupid little noob developers... so far capcom, namco and of course nintendo (in the close future square-enix) know these factors and they are able to develop games of good quality... as a result i think we should ignore games like carnival or hannah montana
 
Zidart said:
yeah but those are stupid little noob developers... so far capcom, namco and of course nintendo (in the close future square-enix) know these factors and they are able to develop games of good quality...
Click to expand...

Even big developers and publishers are guilty of this, like THQ.

as a result i think we should ignore games like carnival or hannah montana
Click to expand...

That's what people are already doing, which is why some people are wondering why software sales suck.

Homicidal Cherry53 said:
Yes, but it was also a sure sign of success for the PS2 which had tons of crap made for it. Consoles that sell well get a lot of crappy games, but I wouldn't call it a cause of success as much as I would a symptom of it.
Click to expand...

The difference with the PS2 is that it had just as many good games to balance out the bad. That's not the case with Wii.
 
CreepinDeth said:
The difference with the PS2 is that it had just as many good games to balance out the bad. That's not the case with Wii.
Click to expand...

I think this statement is particularly true. The sign of the PS2's success was the long list of games that everyone should have -but never- played. The Wii, on the other hand, just has a long list of games no one should, or should ever, play.
 
stealth toilet said:
I think this statement is particularly true. The sign of the PS2's success was the long list of games that everyone should have -but never- played. The Wii, on the other hand, just has a long list of games no one should, or should ever, play.
Click to expand...
I agree with what Creepin' said too, but I would say it was the cause of its success, not a sign of it. The PS2 won last generation by getting great, popular games at the right times. The Wii, on the other hand, has relied on Wii Sports and Brawl to gain a sales lead. No game drought seems to slow the Wii's sales either.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top