Lets not deny an evident truth: everyone who had a pre-existing Nintendo system (for the most part) bought a Nintendo Wii. An article about motion controls basically led me to discuss this issue. A major portion of those buyers who are actually gamers (excluding people who keep trying like me and others) have given up playing their Wiis; which is bad because this accounts for a wide chunk of the original Nintendo fanboys. So how does Nintendo captivate that crowd? How does Nintendo fix this? Or has Nintendo already done their part? The biggest problem that these nay-sayers shout about Nintendo are twofold: motion control and graphics.
Because Nintendo has already done their part in creating Super Mario Galaxy (a great example of amazing graphics and gameplay) and Wii Sports Resort (a great game with amazing motion controls). Those are just two examples of great Wii games from Nintendo, there are many more. So what needs to happen is some convincing. Maybe the solution is already there, it is just clouded. Look at the 'waggle' and 'party' games they complain about. They don't buy those games anyway, and neither does any other gamer, so why complain? No one is forcing you to buy it. Now we need to show them compensation that the Nintendo Wii is still a worthy gaming system. Lets look at the line up (because we all know you already have the good Nintendo exclusives): Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid other M, New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and shall I continue? A boy and his blob and Muramasa: the Demon Blade are great 3rd party titles. The prime example of what Nintendo needs to gain back their audience is Red Steel 2.
There is no doubting that Red Steel was a bad game; it had poor visuals and controls, and the shooting was pretty bland. Look at the stunning art style and raw visuals that red steel 2 is dishing out. Look at the new gameplay mechanics that it introduces to the series. Not only is this just one game to the catalog of superb Wii games that already exist and/or are arriving in Q4 09 - 2010, it is a prime example of what Nintendo needs to bring to Wii. To quote a person that some people think is... well maybe I think it a little too, but just bear with me. "Nintendo brings more smiles, to more faces." We all know who said that, and we all commonly agree one way or another that she IS NOT a gamer, but she is ABSOLUTELY right. Nintendo is about fun. So forget the complaining of games you are not playing; buy the good ones. Stop bashing motion controls on bad games; you are not playing them. Use your Wii, it is simple, basic, and fun.
Serious Blogging Episode 3: Can Wii fix this?
Lets not deny an evident truth: everyone who had a pre-existing Nintendo system (for the most part) bought a Nintendo Wii. An article about motion controls basically led me to discuss this issue. A major portion of those buyers who are actually gamers (excluding people who keep trying like me and others) have given up playing their Wiis; which is bad because this accounts for a wide chunk of the original Nintendo fanboys. So how does Nintendo captivate that crowd? How does Nintendo fix this? Or has Nintendo already done their part? The biggest problem that these nay-sayers shout about Nintendo are twofold: motion control and graphics.
Because Nintendo has already done their part in creating Super Mario Galaxy (a great example of amazing graphics and gameplay) and Wii Sports Resort (a great game with amazing motion controls). Those are just two examples of great Wii games from Nintendo, there are many more. So what needs to happen is some convincing. Maybe the solution is already there, it is just clouded. Look at the 'waggle' and 'party' games they complain about. They don't buy those games anyway, and neither does any other gamer, so why complain? No one is forcing you to buy it. Now we need to show them compensation that the Nintendo Wii is still a worthy gaming system. Lets look at the line up (because we all know you already have the good Nintendo exclusives): Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid other M, New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and shall I continue? A boy and his blob and Muramasa: the Demon Blade are great 3rd party titles. The prime example of what Nintendo needs to gain back their audience is Red Steel 2.
There is no doubting that Red Steel was a bad game; it had poor visuals and controls, and the shooting was pretty bland. Look at the stunning art style and raw visuals that red steel 2 is dishing out. Look at the new gameplay mechanics that it introduces to the series. Not only is this just one game to the catalog of superb Wii games that already exist and/or are arriving in Q4 09 - 2010, it is a prime example of what Nintendo needs to bring to Wii. To quote a person that some people think is... well maybe I think it a little too, but just bear with me. "Nintendo brings more smiles, to more faces." We all know who said that, and we all commonly agree one way or another that she IS NOT a gamer, but she is ABSOLUTELY right. Nintendo is about fun. So forget the complaining of games you are not playing; buy the good ones. Stop bashing motion controls on bad games; you are not playing them. Use your Wii, it is simple, basic, and fun.
The weirder part is that as their leader, I've far from given up; I'm currently playing Fire Emblem, and have a sports game (Wii Sports Resort) and another strategy RPG on the way. And that's only counting the games I currently own; I'm not counting the games I plan on getting someday, like Muramasa, FF4-2, Darkside Chronicles, that new Silent Hill game, and many others. Yea, I agree with you that the problem is that most gamers just aren't convinced. My other theory: they're kinda lazy, looking only at the REALLY big games. I know I'd be that way in the same position :P.
Where can I see those stats again? Because forum posts of whiners, trolls and fanboys don't qualify as evidence of that being true. Until then, I see no issue that needs fixing with the actual Wii audience, especially when the attach rate of the Wii isn't far behind that of the other systems, while given its gigantic install base that means (and is shown in sales data) it pushes out far more software. What needs fixing is the misconception of the idiotic publishers with their constant "test games", as if a cheaply developed rail shooter that isn't advertised or even well regarded across reviewers is a good indication of how a big budget well marketed third/first person action title would do on the same system, or as if there aren't enough success stories of such games to go off of instead of need yet another test game."A major portion of those buyers who are actually gamers (excluding people who keep trying like me and others) have given up playing their Wiis "
CAPCOM: Hey, RE4 sold over a million units despite being a port, but hey, let's make a test RE rail shooter to be certain. Oh look, it also sold really good. Let's make another test game, another rail shooter. What the fuck, dudes? Oh EA, hi there, you're saying you didn't see the success of CAPCOM's games and you want your own test game with Dead Space Extraction? Well fuck you too. Etc (btw I think Darkside Chronicles looks like a quality game, just saying here). Mostly from Western developers, though it's certainly evident in the East as well, but a few big companies have changed and others have followed suit, while things are slowly changing in the West, and we only hear of actual sales issues from whiners who expect some cheap shoddy title to sell as good as a GTA game and blame the Wii/Nintendo if it doesn't.
Companies have nobody to blame but themselves if 3 years later they throw a bone to the Wii audience and expect a success. They didn't work to build customer loyalty and expect to make a killing by putting their D teams on spin-off projects. Make a game, market it and it will sell fools, there's far more evidence of that than stupidly labelled so called flops of games that either deserved to be that, or did better than claimed. </rant>
That whole 'gang' that LOVES to troll and ect is only a portion of people who own a Wii, used to like Nintendo, and are now gone. Look what fanbase the Wii is building. It is not a bad fanbase, but whatever they buy most (Wii Fit and ect) is going to be top priority. Also there are just people who let their Wii collect dust. Same thing, Nintendo needs that audience or else more harcore titles like Red Steel 2 are going to bomb.
I can't do anything but agree with you on the developer side, but fixing that misconception that "Oh, well this can't run on Wii, lets make it a rail shooter." Because the graphics were so good they found Re5 could have been done.
But don't you see that the audience being upright dumbshits affecting the companies? Look how bad games like a boy and his blob are going to sell or muramasa. Both are really good no? The audience doesn't know games very well as a whole unless it goes on tv, because it has become so casual. So companies are not going to take the audience seriously. Nintendo harcores must comeback.
Where can I see those stats again? Because forum posts of whiners, trolls and fanboys don't qualify as evidence of that being true. The Wii attach rates provided so far tell me the vast majority of the install base buys games on par with the other systems, etc etc etc I already wrote this."That whole 'gang' that LOVES to troll and ect is only a portion of people who own a Wii, used to like Nintendo, and are now gone. ... Also there are just people who let their Wii collect dust."
As for Red Steel 2, I don't see why it would bomb unless there's some major fuck up with Ubisoft considering the first sold great despite its issues. Again, what are the so called bombs that are actually legitimate because the games aren't niche and could in fact do great if it wasn' t for the Wii audience's fault? There are none. Test games succeed left and right and only give birth to more test games rather than the real deal. Games actually sell good like No More Heroes being more successful than Suda's past games on PS2 (was that a bad platform for games like the Wii is blamed?), Okami selling better on Wii, MadWorld doing better than any other Platinum Games/Clover title (though Bayonetta is set to change that, but we can see which game had more effort put into it) yet we still keep reading of Wii bomb this, Wii bomb that. I remember when De Blob was called a bomb then it went on to selll a freaking million copies. The same for Boom Blox. What are these bombs? Games that wouldn't sell anywhere, while we constantly ignore it's the HD bombs (due to added cost) that caused several studios this generation to close, or franchises like Valkyria Chronicles to not get full on sequels or exclusives like Tales of Vesperia to go multiplatform. It's all a big joke, imo.
In fact, there are pretty much, outside Nintendo games, NO high budget, well marketed, non-spin off or port, A-team, third party titles on Wii to speak of in order to judge how well such a game would or wouldn't sell. Monster Hunter 3 was the first Japanese one and sold great so all the real evidence we have is positive rather than negative despite the impression the various websites/media want to offer to their peculiar fanbase. The same will happen with Tales of Graces and Dragon Quest X (hmm, I wonder why they do a Wii sequel after a HD Tales game? Could it be because they see equal or more profit on it thanks to lower development costs and still great sales coming from as little as a spin off like Symphonia 2? Noooo it couldn't be, because Wii sux!). For the West, I don't see any game that meets the criteria. I wish I could say Silent Hill will be the first but it's clearly a low budget effort, though if it's decent I'm sure it will do decently, and it's a Western studio working for a Japanese publisher and franchise in this instance anyway. For evidence again we need to look to lower end games, which once again have proven to do extremely well, better than comparable PS2 projects did in the past, yet once again the tests result in more tests.
As for what Nintendo will focus on, meh. Companies don't only focus on what sells the most because then you create market saturation. Square doesn't only make Final Fantasy # and Dragon Quest #, or we'd be at number 50 by now, they have tons of other franchises or spin offs even if they sell less. Similarly, Nintendo will keep making Zelda, Mario (actually, that's still an incredible seller on par with any casual IP, look at Galaxy numbers and New Super Mario Bros numbers) and other franchises in addition to their casual titles (which hardly take resources from their other development studios anyway). Casual titles are hardly new for them also considering Mario Party had what, 8 titles before the Wii existed, and Animal Crossing exists since the N64? It's not like casual titles always sell better anyway, Wii Music sold on par or less than their core franchises rather than far exceed it like Wii Fit (the only casual IP that did so much better outside Wii Play's controller bundle anyway, yet we act as if that's ALL that sells?). They aren't going to "focus" on anything like that, unless we see them sell studios left and right and only keeping those who do the casual titles and the Pokemon company. Clearly they've shown no signs of that and even actively promote niche products like Sin & Punishment 2 by contracting Treasure for it, and hardcore products by securing titles like Monster Hunter 3, Samurai Warriors 3 and Dragon Quest X. But hey, let's ignore all that and fear monger gaming's casualisation instead, it's much more fun to do. If only it wasn't 24/7.
- There is no stat. Generally, Wii bashers 'claim' to be the old fanbase. Either way, you are right I cannot prove what I said so... invalid point?
- I wasn't pointing at sales for Red Steel 2 as much as the quality and appealing to the audience.
- World of Goo is low budget, but there you go.
- Yes, I know they have had some casual games... Look at the abundance and the sales numbers compared to before.
...It's questions like that which get you thrown in the dungeon. GUARDS!
Responses like that deserve murders like this! *stabs you a billion times* There. Now you're dead.
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