Wrong Crowd?
by skywardfire on Jan.17, 2010, under Entertainment, Industry, games
Until a year ago, I never understood the success of Nintendo Wii. I always thought it was the best selling console with the worst line up of the videogames history, and so did many others across the world. I refused to agree with NPD numbers, and so did many PS360 owners everywhere. But then again, I’m not a kid, I’m no mother with a child, I’m no grandparent with grandkids, I’m no aunt or uncle with nieces or nephews, and neither am I a casual gamer. And quite a marginal number of gamers who might be reading this article won’t consider themselves casual gamers either, so it’s safe for me to make that statement.
For the gift giving crowd, the Wii is by far the best console amongst the basic three to choose from. Especially with it’s line-up of fitness games, it’s also by far the best console for the holiday season with many women looking to work off all that food they eat during the holiday season. January’s NPD very much reflects what the sales figures were like for the Nintendo Wii and the games lined up for the same over the stretch of the holiday season in 2009. We’re talking about games that are family and party friendly, unlike what we usually have for the PC, the PS3, and the Xbox 360.
The lack of games that more gamer oriented (‘hardcore’, as some might put it as) people would find attractive is also a reason for the kind of stereotype that the Wii has become. Wii is no longer a fad, and is going to continue to sell more units inline with X360 and PS3 going forward. One month out of the year doesn’t diminish in anyway the trend that was established over the course of the whole year.
That said, this isn’t to say it won’t continue to outsell the HD consoles month to month, but it probably won’t dominate sales month to month as it did in past years. And it will also continue to dominate December sales figures until we move onto the next generation of videogame consoles.
January 17th, 2010 on 2:55 pm
Hmm… I wonder how many games for the wii have you tried out. I mean, ofcourse, if your definition of “hardcore” is about mutilating ppl with blood splatting all over in a testosterone filled nonsensical space marine fantasy… yeah, wii doesn’t have many of those, unlike the others.
But if you are talking about games that are not totally for grandparents and others you mentioned there, then Wii has many such games. You’ll be surprised how high the difficulty curve of the games are, They start nice and easy but if you play it whole, you’re in for a challenge.
Even if you try things like “wario land shake it” or “little kings story” you’ll find huge challenges there. its not just for “casual” ppl as most would say. I mean, play punchout and see for yourself if you want a quick sample of how much skill is required for playing those games.
but ofcourse there is no denying of the other facts you put there, like its the easiest gift option and there are many options for casual gamers.
Last year saw wii almost reach its saturation numbers, there will be a decline this year too, what with almost everyone owning 2 already
Lets just hope third parties don’t just keep making throw away games and complain.
BTW, its the NPD not NPR
NPR’s the famous american radio channel.
January 17th, 2010 on 3:26 pm
Thanks for that. I had the radio channel on my mind while I was writing the post, that’s why the error
Isn’t blood spattering games what is very mainstream these days? That is what I’m talking about. And when I mentioned grandparents playing Wii, I didn’t mean to say it’s a bad thing. I’m just saying that particular market category would rather play something on a Wii than play Gears of War 2 on the X360, or the likes.
For various challenges and games that you mention, it’s still a long way to go until people actually discover all of that. And I don’t think the devs are going to shy away on developing stuff for the Wii. The console probably has more potential to sell than the other two big dogs.
January 18th, 2010 on 9:18 pm
Well, you said that Wii lacks “hardcore games” hence I asked what you actually meant by hardcore.
If you meant “mainstream” as in something that sells well with less thought put into it. Wii is already full of those. For every “Dark Sector”, you have a similar “Carnival Games”. But if you meant hardcore, for every “Demon’s souls” there’s “Punchout”
You too, can buy, sit, play and enjoy those games if you really wanted. But if its the lack of Gears of War type of games, games which are not grey-shaded and dont have chainsawing and headshotting, that makes you think that its something only for “casual” gamers, then its quite wrong. You can say its not for “dude-bro” gamers if you want
Well ofcourse, those games I mentioned, if you were really a person who were interested in games unlike the average grandparent you mentioned, you would already know about those, and I’m pretty sure you knew of them before I wrote. Its not like you, who is not interested in Wii Sports and Wii fit, would just buy a Wii with no idea of games that will be of interest to you.
As for the third parties, I was talking about how they are not taking much efforts to make non party centric games. But ofcourse, the sales numbers show that the ones they did make (dead space, etc) didnt sell well, its like a two way problem. Most people interested in those games wait for price drops and stuff like that.