Will The Wii Lose Its Steam In 2008?
by Torrence Davis 
Nintendo has done an amazing thing with the Wii. It’s so amazing that I still don’t understand how they did it. They took existing Gamecube hardware, upgraded it, repackaged it and added the Wiimote. They threw in a free game called Wii Sports and now every mother, grandmother, aunt, uncle, father and grandfather who never gamed before has to have one. They have successfully infiltrated a demographic that game publishers have been trying to crack for years. In fact, the Wii’s success seems to be because of this new demographic. The problem with these new casual gamers is that they aren’t really gamers. So what does this mean for Nintendo in the months to come?
I consider myself a hardcore gamer. I’ve owned everything from an Atari 2600 up to my recent PS3 purchase. I love games and always have. I know where to get information on games and where to find the games that I want to play. I can tell you what’s coming out next year, what’s in development and what’s selling in other countries. Most gamers can give you this information. These new ‘Wii gamers’ are the next level of casual gamers. They bought their Wii and maybe one or two games and play the hell out of them. If you ask them about Eye Of Judgement they’d probably look at you with utter confusion.
These new ‘Wii gamers’ don’t know games. They were bitten by Nintendo’s marketing campaign and invested in the Wii for the fun and exercise that it offered. They know nothing of PS3 or Xbox 360 except for what they see on tv commercials. Are these the people you want to try and sell multi-platform games like Need For Speed Pro Street or Soul Calibur Legends? Well I guess you WOULD want to sell those games to these gamers, but are they even interested?
Game sales aren’t as hot as system sales either. Right now the Wii is neck and neck with the Xbox 360 for number of systems sold. If you look at what is selling on the Wii, it’s the same old story. Nintendo first party titles are once again in the lead. Once Nintendo plays all their Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and Donkey Kong cards, what’s left? It’s the same thing every time they make a system. They rehash all of their great first party titles and when they are done, they start working on a new console. It happened with the N64, then the Gamecube, and it’s bound to happen with the Wii.
The worse part of the Wii phenomenon is that 3rd party games just aren’t selling. When 3rd party games don’t sell, 3rd party publishers jump ship. They go to greener grass and setup camp. So even with over 12million units sold, I still don’t see it outlasting the 360 or PS3. And you have to remember, they haven’t even hit Gamecube sale numbers yet. You have to understand that Nintendo, not unlike Microsoft and the Xbox, gave up on the GC after it had sold 21 million.
My question is this, with 2008 right around the corner, how is the Wii going to compare to the onslaught of Xbox 360 and PS3 titles? Next year is supposed to be the BIG year for the PS3. We don’t even know what’s in store for the 360 in terms of games but something like Gears Of War 2 would definitely sell millions. The hardcore gamers are going for the Metal Gear Solids and Gears Of War games, but Nintendo will be sporting games like(I’m not kidding here) Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, High School Musical, Barbie As The Island Princess, Puppy Luv and all kinds of other sugary goodness. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be hot, but will they be hot enough to keep the Wii afloat? Is the Wii Too around the corner?
For now we can only wait. I do plan on picking up a Wii for my son this Christmas, but I really don’t know what the future holds for this system. I almost think I’d be better off getting another Gamecube off of Ebay.
Stumble it!
View all posts by Torrence Davis
4 Responses to “Will The Wii Lose Its Steam In 2008?”
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you left out a few titles there my friend, no more heroes, mario kart, monster hunter to name a few.
I consider myself a harcore gamer and that nintendo to be at the forefrunt of pushing peoples expectations of video games as a whole. it will take time for developers to adapt to the wii controller and develop games from the ground up, but when they do i full expect the quality games to flow.
i feel that the x box, which had cost mircosoft billions of dollars since launch,
and the ps3 which has sold at a loss since launch are the ones in real danger of fading away. are these companies really going to support a product which makes them no money? trying to compete with high spec pc’s has cost these companies dearly and underestimating a company like nintendo must be comparable to writing of Man Utd, after one bad season. if you dont know football, then read that as foolish.
the wii continues to outstrip demand in almost everywhere it sells. with great games coming next year and more and more 3rd party developer jumping on board all the time, why would you think it would run out of steam next year?
A few things:
1) Soul Calibur Legends is a Wii exclusive, not a multi-platform game.
2) None of the seventh generations have hit Gamecube numbers. They haven’t been out long enough.
3) Looking at sales relative to launch the PS3 who has sales comparable to the GC did this far after launch.
4) The best-selling third party games for the Wii have sole more than the best-selling third party games for the PS3. See Rayman’s Raving Rabbids (1.04m), Red Steel (1.02m), Resident Evil 4 (0.84m), Tiger Woods PGA (0.72m), Sonic and the Secret Rings (0.72m) vs. Need for Speed: Carbon (0.58m), Call of Duty 3 (0.50m), Madden NFL 08 (0.49m), Fight Night Round 3 (0.46m), Madden NFL 07 (0.44m).
5) Drastically lower development costs mean fewer salees are needed to make a game profitable. Cross platform titles can also target the Playstation 2, which has a massive installed base and strong ongoing sales (see an awful lot of commercials for pc/ps2/wii games).
6) Nintendo doesn’t /need/ strong software sales to make their console profitable.
7) Casual gamers don’t /need/ a thousand games. Even the existing software library is enough to keep many people happy.
Oh my freaking lord of the blind faith!
Nintendo fanboys should not even be considered gamers, and I say this with no hate… but bro you can’t defend a company like that…”nintendo doesn’t need software to make profits” … well of course if you have to buy a peripheral for every freaking game (a pad for dance, raquet for tenis, wheel for kart, shooter for FPS), but those gadgets don’t impress hardcore gamers, [give me a 60+ hours gameplay or get the hell outta here] It has been said before, developers look to the Wii for cheap ass production costs, but let’s face it groundbreaking games are not created based on previously used tools…how excited can you get ’bout playing a sugary version of the sims (my sims) or the ever popular mario… after adjusting to the new control is the same level-platform with world jumping of the previous 12 mario tittles even the cool villains (wario) were sacked to milk the 5-10 yrs old gamer It has come to the point where some companies couldn’t break ground if they were digging their own grave.
Fanboy? I’ve never bought a Nintendo product in my life (though my wife bought me a Wii last Christmas).
Nintendo’s profitability has nothing to do with peripherals. They make money on console sales, period. They start out ahead of the game instead of having to make up the deficeit on subsequent game sales.
As for getting excited about games, it’s a matter of taste. I don’t care if the characters look alike, so long as games introduce new elements. Are the bevy of cookie cutter games on all the platforms really any better?
And who the hell cares what tools were used to develop a game? Do PC games suffer because they target a platform with a stable and mature instruction set instead of getting a completely different programming model every five or six years?