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Wii 'Popularity Bubble' to Burst?

Posted by Zonk on Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:17 PM
from the it's-a-big-one dept.
Wii (Games)
A combination of industry and developer observations has prompted Tech.co.uk to wonder if the Wii's overwhelming popularity is due to end sometime soon. This is based on a report from Japanese business newspaper The Nikkei, which published an article recently entitled 'Software Houses Miscalculate Audience, Demand For Wii'. "The report goes on to discuss the likelihood that many Wiis are gathering dust in owners' cupboards, citing one software house president as saying, 'People bought it out of curiosity, and it's likely a lot of them haven't used it.' Given that September saw Wii sales fall sharply in Japan for the second consecutive month, it seems reasonable to speculate that the bubble inflated by the novelty factor is starting to deflate, but writing Nintendo off at any stage is a perilous course to steer." Is this just worrying, or is there validity to this?
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  • "Wii are bored".

    • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by woohoodonuts (734070) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:30PM (#20956861)
      Bored and worried about saving for Christmas, would be more correct. While I'm still excited about the wii, I'm also sitting around waiting for the new mario Galaxy game to be released. I finished beating Zelda, never was too fond of 1st person shooters (Metroid Prime) and so am left with a small gap until the holiday season allows my game spending budget to pick up another game or two. Since I only buy a few games a year, I don't take changes. When Brawl and Galaxy come out, I'll buy. Since Nintendo has cultivated a mostly Non-hardcore gamer market, the majority of their customers are only going to buy the AAA titles because that's what they hear about in the media. Most of those will be released in the coming months.

        • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:5, Insightful)

          by NoTheory (580275) on Friday October 12 2007, @01:32PM (#20957905)
          Then what on earth do you mean by FPS, if it doesn't mean "a game with a first person perspective, in which one's primary interface with the world is, in fact, shooting"? Sure Metroid isn't Doom, it's not Quake, nor is it Halo[1..3]. So you actually have objectives, and have to, god forbid, explore. So what? Does that disqualify it as an FPS?

          • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:5, Insightful)

            by orclevegam (940336) on Friday October 12 2007, @01:48PM (#20958115) Journal
            Some purists might argue that it does. The main point of the Prime series (and all Metroid series really) was to explore and find power-ups that allowed you to get farther into the "dungeons". In contrast the primary goal of most FPS games is to make it from point A to point B by killing or otherwise eliminating anything that gets in your way, possibly with conditions attached such as ensuring that some object is either protected or destroyed. I think one of the key features that sets Prime apart from other more traditional FPS titles is the need to use the various Visors and jump upgrades which effectively make the game play closer to a platformer such as Mario Sunshine. The fairly constant switch to third person when performing certain jumps and using the morph ball also serves to distance Prime from a FPS.

            • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:4, Informative)

              by Bob-taro (996889) on Friday October 12 2007, @03:54PM (#20960051)

              ... The main point of the Prime series (and all Metroid series really) was to explore and find power-ups that allowed you to get farther into the "dungeons" ... one of the key features that sets Prime apart from other more traditional FPS titles is the need to use the various Visors and jump upgrades which effectively make the game play closer to a platformer such as Mario Sunshine. The fairly constant switch to third person when performing certain jumps and using the morph ball also serves to distance Prime from a FPS.

              So I guess to the purists Half Life 2 isn't a FPS because there are physics puzzles. And Doom wasn't a FPS because you needed to navigate "dungeons" and find and use keys. Halo isn't a FPS because of all the 3rd person cutscenes.

              Now, I'm being a bit of a hypocrite because I don't personally feel like it's a REAL fps unless you have a keyboard and mouse (I never got into consoles), but logically, if it's mostly first person and mostly shooting, I think you pretty much have to put it in the FPS category, even if it does overlap with other genres a bit.

            • This is the problem with purists. (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Mahjub Sa'aden (1100387) <msaaden@gmail.com> on Friday October 12 2007, @05:35PM (#20961089)
              This is the problem with purists: endless classifications that serve no real purpose except to exclude. Classifications do this automatically -- of course -- and some are valid -- of course! -- but when it comes down to an absurd pissing contest about who can be the most pure on a particular subject, you have to ask if there isn't something wrong.

              I see this in music all the time. You get "purists" who believe that it's somehow helpful to have jazz fusion and Indo-jazz fusion and Indo-jazz Bollywood fusion and Indo-jazz Bollywood fusion fuzz-pop. The same with games. Is it a first person shooter? I don't know; is it in the first person, and do you spend a lot of time shooting? The answer to this question seems pretty straight-forward.

              Of course now some purist purist is going to come along and tell me why it's important that purists constantly and consciously engage in follicle division, and why there are seven kinds of purists, and this is their genus, et cetera. You know what? We're not 19th century scientists any more. Not everything needs a rigorous classification system.

        • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AuMatar (183847) on Friday October 12 2007, @01:45PM (#20958065)
          Its first person perspective, and you shoot stuff constantly. That makes it an FPS. It has puzzle elements added, but its still an FPS.

          • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:4, Interesting)

            by mahdi13 (660205) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Friday October 12 2007, @02:14PM (#20958493) Homepage Journal
            First time I played Zelda TP I couldn't stop thinking how much it was like Metroid Prime except in third person...

            That's really the only difference other then story between them. Weapon upgrades, new items to access new locations you couldn't get to before, beat a big boss to get new items/power ups. I know lots of anti-FPS people that love Metriod Prime because it's more of a platformer then a shooter.
            And constantly shooting at things is a terrible argument, ever play Xevious? That wasn't first person

    • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by plague3106 (71849) on Friday October 12 2007, @01:52PM (#20958183)
      Heh.. I know I am still waiting for games I'm interested in. For now though, I've been picking up gamecube games to hold me over. The Wii is a great game system, its just that game studios didn't think it would take off, so most of the games are the Mario varity.

      That said, it looks like some good ones are coming up; manhunt, tomb raider: aniv., RE: chronicals, etc. hopefully RE: 5 will appear on the wii as well.

      • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:4, Insightful)

        by coolGuyZak (844482) on Saturday October 13 2007, @04:22PM (#20968701)

        The Wii is a great game system, its just that game studios didn't think it would take off, so most of the games are the Mario varity.

        <rant>

        I believe that even after game producers remove their collective heads from their asses that the Wii is still destined to fail, for two reasons. First and foremost, we have well-established, risk-averse publishers. The big houses have found a niche that they know will sell sans innovation (think "pop-gaming"). Why experiment with the Wii's controller when the graphics fall far short of Advanced Console Theta? When we can co-brand games with other mass-media? When our development staff knows nothing beyond button mashing? Why experiment when we can repeat the mold with guaranteed profit?

        Initially the WiiMote was hyped to break the mold. It could bring 1992's VR hype (see: the evil Sys Admin in hackers) to the masses! Look at the market, though. Developers approach the WiiMote superficially, grafting functionality onto their games instead of incorporating it into the experience. Face it: most games treat the Wiimote as a gimmick. What's worse, consumers are beginning to hold the same belief as developers--the only thing the WiiMote is good for is gimmick after gimmick. That's why this console, for all of its potential, is withering on the branch. It could be said that the market lacks an "entrepreneurial spirit"--the vision of change, and the inclination to do it.

        So, where are the entrepreneurs? Written out of Nintendo's business strategy, it seems. Nintendo caters solely to the massive, stagnating atmosphere of the past 5 or so years. In a seemingly schizophrenic move, Nintendo priced the Wii development kit at $2000, but they refuse to license it to anyone without prior success in the market. WTF? Likewise, Nintendo built an innovate console, but they didn't innovate their market for content. Presenting a novel platform to a stagnant environment accomplishes nothing except stagnating the platform. That's why Wii games are, and will continue to be, the same, lifeless crap as on every other system.

        If Nintendo wants their 'Revolution' to be successful, they must dedicate themselves to the cause. They should encourage variety and competition. Likewise, the developers who play the "Wii Game" should have an "innovate, or die" mentality.

        Why? More innovation forces developers to investigate every nook and cranny of the system, to push it beyond what the console developers originally expected. Leave no feature unexamined, because that could give your competitor an edge.

        How do you accomplish this? Invite new players--entrepreneurs-- with new projects and new ideas to the market. Entrepreneurs don't have the opportunity to rest on their laurels, because that bed of flowers hasn't been made. Their incentive is intrinsic to their goal. in addition they may force the big players to shift as well.

        And if the big guys don't shift? So what? The new developers provide your content.

        Companies like Microsoft encourage this form of development. They give away an XBox360 development kit (XNA Game Studio), and XBox Live gives indie game developers a market for their games. XBox Live flourishes (even if it flourishes with crap), while the Wii Shopping Channel rots. Furthermore, every developer tied to MS is one less available for Nintendo. Their "potential content network" dwindles daily.

        As a budding entrepreneur who is highly interested in game development--particularly on the Wii--I'm pissed they're excluding me. But what really pisses me off is knowing that, when I finally make my case for the Wii, the market may have passed it by for Game Iteration X++ only on Advanced Console Theta.

        </rant>

    • Re:Nintendo's new motto: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FyRE666 (263011) on Friday October 12 2007, @06:52PM (#20961819) Homepage
      Tell me about it - I owned a Wii pretty much as soon as they arrived in the UK - bought a bunch of games, and realized I only liked Wii sports. Zelda - got bored after about 20 minutes of wandering around a dull village with a horse. Tiger Woods golf - one round was enough. Then I bought a PS3 with Resistance Fall of Man - played that all the way through - great! In fact, I didn't play the Wii again after buying the PS3 (after playing games in High-def, you don't want to go back to 480p!) I sold the Wii with all the games, plus extra controllers, store credits etc for 120 pounds, just glad to get rid of it. Yeah, the wiimote is a great controller, but the system's hardware is very "last gen", and the games are just, well, shallow...

    • The projections of this generation are fascinating (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hayden (9724) on Saturday October 13 2007, @09:26AM (#20965669)
      But I believe they are horribly wrong.

      History has shown that once a console gains market dominance it's all but over bar the fat lady singing for the competition. Sure they may be able to eke out a borderline existence but no console has ever had a heartwarming come from behind Disney style win once a clear leader was established.

      The NES bitch slapped all comers. The Playstation surprised everybody, destroyed Sega and did Japanese fetish like things to Nintendo. The PS2 laughed like a bad guy in an anime at the competition before crushing them all.

      Despite all this the current crop of "games journalists" seem to be adamant about how Sony will execute an amazing come from behind win. "It's has the hardware that gives me wet dreams." "It's a Playstation and therefore is sent from heaven to save us from actual gameplay." "It's bigger than the first generation XBox controller." "Zero Punctuation owns one so they must be the shit."

      I believe that Sony has fluffed this generation in a way that rivals the mistakes made by Osborne or Apple in the early 90s. They took a name that was the pretty much the definition of sex in the nerd world and turned it into the equivalent of COBOL for masses. Unless a Y2K event happens in the near future, Sony will be pan handling for change soon.

      As for the 360, MS has never made hardware this complex before and it shows. It is less reliable than a business person who honestly believes that ties make you more professional and successful. Consoles are supposed to be something that gets about as much attention as a VCR. You plug in in under 2 feet of cables and the charming photos that Aunt May sent you last Christmas and it just works. Not something that requires raised floors and dedicated air conditioning to survive the harsh environment of the average consumer's home.

  • Redirect shipments... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JayDot (920899) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:19PM (#20956669) Journal
    from Japan to the US. I still can't get one in a major metro area of WI. And I can see at least 5 games that I want to play.

  • Poor timing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Veilrap (875588) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:21PM (#20956701)
    This statement is very poorly timed and thus most likely completely inaccurate. 1. Christmas season starts soon. Christmas = high sales period. 2. Wii has 3 extremely popular games being released between now and february.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by the dark hero (971268)

      This statement is very poorly timed and thus most likely completely inaccurate. 1. Christmas season starts soon. Christmas = high sales period. 2. Wii has 3 extremely popular games being released between now and february.

      Agreed! November is the shopping month and the new Mario comes out. Link's Crossbow training is also due out. December has a few good releases. Smash in February! Mario Kart in Spring! Mind you these are just the first party titles. We should be getting hit with the onslaught of games from developers that are just catching up(because no one expected wii to do so well) after a late start.

  • Sort of (Score:3, Interesting)

    by orclevegam (940336) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:23PM (#20956735) Journal
    Have I played my Wii much recently? Not really. I beat Metroid Prime 3, and that was fun, but other than that not to much out there interests me right now. Of course, by the same token I've played my PS2 even less than my Wii. I just don't have much time right now to spend on gaming consoles. When something like Smash Bros, or Mario Kart hits I'm sure it will see more use.

  • No dust. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Aladrin (926209) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:23PM (#20956737)
    I don't know anyone that has a Wii that is gathering dust, and that includes the one at my Mother's house.

    Games for -all- consoles tend to be a bit lacking this year, as far as I'm concerned, but the Wii has definitely kept up with the others in terms of game count. If anything, they should be asking if the PS3s are gathering dust. There's hardly any good games yet, and the ones that ARE out came out later than their 360 counterparts. Gamers aren't known for their patience at the time of a game's release... They buy what's available.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by hansamurai (907719)
      My Wii would be gathering dust, if I hadn't already sold it. I don't say this as flamebait or anything, but I beat Twilight Princess and then saw nothing on the near horizon so I sold it to my brother-in-law on the cheap in December 2006. Smash Bros. Brawl is the sequel to my most played game of all time so I will definitely be picking up another Wii early next year, but I don't miss our time apart. The only game that's out now that I even would have considered buying was Metroid Prime 3. I'm not really

      • Re:No dust. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by gfxguy (98788) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:52PM (#20957249)
        I don't have a lot of time for games... I'd go for Zelda; Metroid Prime is not my cup of tea...

        That doesn't seem to leave a lot. I lucked into finding a Wii last month, and I have Pirates of the Caribbean (only because I though my wife would like it after seeing a video of people playing) and Pokemon Revolution (for the kids).

        I've always though those Pokemon games sucked, and still do, but they seem to like it enough. Pirates is OK, I suppose; but we still play bowling a LOT. Really, we could have gone without any other games and we'd still be enjoying it, but I want to see some interesting games soon.

        So the only problem I see is that people still love their Wiis, there just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of quality games for them.

    • Re:No dust. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by techstar25 (556988) <techstar25@[ ].rr.com ['cfl' in gap]> on Friday October 12 2007, @12:48PM (#20957175) Homepage Journal
      As software/hardware maker, which would you prefer: The Wii gathering dust in people's homes, or the PS3 gathering dust on store shelves.
      Let's not forget, Christmas is just a couple of months away, and the Wii is the hot item once again.

    • Re:No dust. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Wordplay (54438) <geo@snarksoft.com> on Friday October 12 2007, @12:50PM (#20957217)
      I have all of the major consoles, and of them, the Wii is the least-played, and the Xbox 360 is the most-played, with the PS3 in the middle. The PS3 only has a handful of good on-disc games, but as the other guy who replied mentioned, the downloadables save the system. Many of the downloadable games are very high quality.
    • If your mom plays the heck out of Wii Sports, that is ok for Nintendo. But if that is all your mom does with it, than things could be better. Sure, Nintendo is making a profit on every Wii sold, but they also want to make yet more money. They (and Sony and Microsoft) usually do this by getting you to keep buying new games.

      For a 3rd party publisher, the fact that your mom really likes Wii Sports does not do them much good. They did not make Wii Sports, and they sure as hell aren't getting a cut of the pr

    • Re:No dust. (Score:4, Informative)

      by radish (98371) on Friday October 12 2007, @01:31PM (#20957891) Homepage
      I'll join the others introducing themselves to you :)

      I stood outside TRU in Times Square for 6 hours the morning of launch day to get my Wii, so no-one can say I wasn't excited to get this thing. Played it a bunch the first month or so, but since my wife finished SPM we've basically never switched it on (except to install an update every so often). I honestly can't remember the last Wii game I bought, Metroid is something I'm interested in playing but to be honest it's at the end of a very long list. I just don't have enough time to play all the games on other systems I'm into, and nothing on the Wii appeals enough to beat them in the queue. Mario Kart is a probable buy, likewise Galaxy - but this just feels like the GC all over again.

      Meanwhile I'm finishing Bioshock before starting Halo, finishing DiRT before starting Forza or PGR4 and at some point I'll make it back to R6 Vegas. Ratchet & Clank looks unmissable (first PS3 title to win that award in my book) and I still haven't really finished Crackdown. I will say that the PS3 isn't currently used much more than the Wii, but the 360 is miles ahead (at least for the games I enjoy).

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by metamatic (202216)
        So you don't like Zelda, Metroid Prime, Super Paper Mario, Resident Evil, Madden, or Mario Strikers. So, no sports, no FPS, no platformers, no adventures, and as you mentioned, no minigames. So what sort of games do you actually like, that the PS3 has had a steady stream of?

  • strange premise... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by russ1337 (938915) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:25PM (#20956779)

    The report goes on to discuss the likelihood that many Wiis are gathering dust in owners' cupboards, citing one software house president as saying, 'People bought it out of curiosity, and it's likely a lot of them haven't used it.' Given that September saw Wii sales fall sharply in Japan for the second consecutive month, it seems reasonable to speculate that the bubble inflated by the novelty factor is starting to deflate, but writing Nintendo off at any stage is a perilous course to steer
    It also 'seems reasonable' to speculate that the decline in sales is because everyone has already bought one....

    It also 'seems reasonable' to speculate that everyone who bought one still plays it every night...

    They should have added "It 'seems reasonable' that the company the 'software house president' works for isn't selling as many games as they would like because their particular games suck balls."

    • Re:strange premise... (Score:5, Funny)

      by jollyreaper (513215) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:50PM (#20957213)

      They should have added "It 'seems reasonable' that the company the 'software house president' works for isn't selling as many games as they would like because their particular games suck balls."
      Given the Wii's proclivity for innovative controllers, one that sucks balls could be a huge hit.

  • Oh please. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Naelok (1162515) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:27PM (#20956795)
    With all the heavy hitters that Wii has lined up in the next few months, one can only conclude that this article is BS. I bet these are the same 'analysts' who predicted that Nintendo would remain a distant third last year at about this time. They were wrong then and they're wrong now.

  • Really bad assumptions (Score:4, Informative)

    by milamber3 (173273) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:27PM (#20956797)
    Suggesting that tons of people bought the Wii and have never even used it is a really awful assumption. While it's true some people will buy it and use it less often than other's that's not to say it will sit in a box collecting dust. I got the Wii on launch day and my girlfriend and I have gone through periods where we use the Wii and lot and then periods when we dont play for a while. It has more to do with our jobs then a lack of interest. Some of the games we most want to play have not even come out yet. Regardless, the Wii does not have some special characteristic that will make people lose interest and not buy games for it any more that they would for the PS3 or Xbox 360.

    • Re:Really bad assumptions (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cowscows (103644) on Friday October 12 2007, @01:42PM (#20958033) Journal
      There's a couple things at work for the Wii here I think. First off, the supply of games has been a bit slow, likely due to miscalculations by lots of developers not expecting the Wii to take off the way it did. But on the other hand, the PS3 doesn't have a huge flood of games either, and it more hype than I'd ever seen. It's still early in the lives of both consoles.

      Second, Nintendo's "casual gamer" idea seems to really be happening, and the usage patterns of a "casual" hobbiest(is that a word?) are irregular and can leave a console sitting idle. My tennis racket has been sitting untouched in the garage for a couple years, but that doesn't mean that I don't like tennis or that tennis isn't popular. It means that I don't have time to play tennis anymore.

      And third, sort of connected to the casual gamer deal, a good number of the games that are out are geared towards more casual and social play, so it's difficult for a hardcore gamer to sit down and spend entire days playing it.

      From the point of view of a traditional hardcore gamer, those three things might look pretty discouraging for the Wii. But what Nintendo has discovered is that to have a successful console, it's not really necessary to give that sort of gamer everything they want. A couple months of sales fluctuations to not make a trend, and it seems silly to try and figure that sort of stuff out right now, when the big christmas season is right around the corner.

  • A similar case? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by metroid composite (710698) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:30PM (#20956857) Homepage Journal
    In the months leading up to the release of Halo 3, XBox 360s dropped and dropped in monthly sales.

    In the months leading up to the release of [Super Mario Galaxy], [Wiis] dropped and dropped in monthly sales.


    Not to say the Wii's popularity isn't dropping, I just think it's too early to draw a definitive conclusion here.

  • Shoddy article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Felonius Thunk (168604) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:31PM (#20956883) Journal
    Without a shred of evidence, this merely echoes some other newspaper article without investigation. This is no better than an "ask slashdot". The other article apparently says Wii sales declined two months in a row, without saying if other consoles gained. I assume the Halo effect (heh) help Xbox even in Japan, so we should expect to see some spike there, but I'd be more curious to hear about sales from the studios' POV. Are there any Wii titles they were late to put on the platform that have sold better/poorer than expected? Any that outsell the other platforms' version? I suspect this kind of article is mere hope from the harder core gaming crowd, trying to blow the Wii like they had done before launch.

  • I agree (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RogueyWon (735973) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:35PM (#20956951) Journal
    I know my credibility on this issue is near zero around these parts, as I've not been afraid to state all along that the Wii is over-hyped, but I agree with the fundamental tennet of this argument; many Wiis are not getting used because there is very little on them worth playing for more than about 10 minutes at a time. Looking at the "new releases" reviews on the average game-site (IGN is my personal preference, but your mileage may vary), it's easy to see that games coming out for the Wii mainly fall into 3 categories; "party" games (or extended tech demos, as I tend to think of them), rushed and nasty cross-platform ports and virtual console games (whose quality varies from the stellar to the derisory - but which many games will have been emulating for free for years).

    The first category are ok on occasions when you have friends over, but are no use at all the rest of the time. A brief glance at gamerankings will show just how badly Wii ports of cross-platform games tend to fare. And virtual console games... well... great... but I don't want to spend all my time on my new console playing games that came out a decade ago.

    There are a tiny number of other titles which actually have some gameplay value. Zelda is ok... slightly above average for its genre. Metroid Prime 3 is pretty good, although I still have problems with the backtrackeriffic gameplay style of Metroid games. Resident Evil 4 remains one of the only two cross platform games to actually be enhanced through being on the Wii (the other being Rayman Raving Rabbids, which falls into the "insipid party games" category anyway).

    I know what people are going to say at this point; the Wii isn't for me, it's for the casual crowd. Thing is, I suspect that over time, even the average Joe will realise that, cheap though the Wii is, the limited use it eventually gets still means its horrible value for money.

    Right now, Nintendo have things pretty easy. They had an unprecedented hype-machine for the launch of the console and some excellent initial sales. However, it seems to me that for those of us in the UK, the comparison to Gordon Brown's political honeymoon as Prime Minister are most appropriate; there comes a point at which people realise there's no substance there and the wheels fall off spectacularly. Happily for Nintendo, Sony continue to shoot themselves in the foot at every opportunity. They have an excellent machine out there, which, despite the high price-tag, is significantly more future-proof than any of its competitors (especially with the Blu-Ray drive, which is looking like a better and better idea). However, because they've mismanaged their relationships with developers and insisted on pushing their horribly broken and unnecessary motion-sensing controller, they've yet to attract a significantly better range of games than the Wii (although at least the PS3 has slightly more in the way of "substantial" games).

    My instinct still stays that when all the dust settles, the slow-but-steady pace set by the 360, with no gimmicks, few headline-grabbing features, but an increasingly solid and well-rounded games lineup will win the day.

  • Where are the network games!?? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Stone316 (629009) on Friday October 12 2007, @04:50PM (#20960687) Journal
    I have a Wii and I barely play it.. My kids play it every now and then but days (weeks?) go by without it being turned on. My son continues to play his gamecube more. Why don't I play it more? I can't stand playing against AI.. I want to play real people and 1 year later where are the network games?!? Are there any?? I think there are a couple like the Pokemon one and I heard Call of Duty or some such is coming out in a few months with game play up to 16 people. The Wii has alot of potential but if they keep focusing on party games and things like Wii Fit, then people are going to get tired of it.

    • Re:The better question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by XxtraLarGe (551297) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:27PM (#20956801) Journal

      Honestly, will anything be different?
      Well, people who don't have one may actually be able to find one on the shelves...

      • Re:The better question (Score:4, Interesting)

        by SoCalEd (842421) on Friday October 12 2007, @03:26PM (#20959643)
        Hope it does mean more availability. Three of my work colleagues have been hunting for one to no avail. Oh yeah: That's an attorney (male, 45 y.o.), an accountant (mid-30's, female) and an IT guy (mid-20's hardcore gamer).

        This little box has a lot of broad appeal. Mine? No dust. Had it since January and still play it 4 or 5 hours a week, but only because I don't have more time. Beat Zelda, finished Paper Mario, almost done with RE4. Metroid is next. Also, I keep coming back to Tiger Woods. But my wife and I honestly get the most replay value out of bowling, billiards and tennis. I'll admit there aren't too many other titles out there I'm itching to play at the moment, but I've got such value out of the ones I've picked (with IGN's help) that I am happy to wait for the pipeline to get going.

        Others have said it, I'll concur: graphics be damned. If the games make you smile, people will line up for them.

        • Re:The better question (Score:5, Interesting)

          by FreeKill (1020271) on Friday October 12 2007, @10:00PM (#20962957) Homepage
          I know I personally really wanted a Wii when it first came out. I attempted to find one for a few months after (3 or so) and when it was still 4-5 months later and there were still none on the shelf, I simply just lost interest. It's one thing to hold back a bit to create demand, it's entirely another to not make sales because you can't meet demand (or you don't want to meet demand to give the illusion of excessive demand). I recently checked at a local store the other day in Toronto (almost a year since it was released) and they still don't have any on the shelf. Pretty lame if you ask me, they definitely lost at least one sale there with me...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Carnildo (712617)

      who gives a shit if this so called "Popularity bubble" bursts? Honestly, will anything be different? Will your wii not work anymore?


      No, but if the Wii becomes less popular, there might be fewer third-party games for it.

    • That's what I thought about the Dreamcast too (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Moraelin (679338) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:54PM (#20957301) Journal
      Well, that's what I thought about the Dreamcast too. I mean, who cares if it only sold a fraction of what the PS2 was selling? Mine will still work, right? And Sega will surely keep making games for it, right?

      Well, I'm proud to say, I was partially right there. My Dreamcast still works flawlessly. Hasn't had a new game made for it for a damn long time now, though.

      Seriously, the prices of developping a new game are insane these days. Actually, make it: for a decade or so now, and it's only getting worse. So they need a certain market size just to recoup the costs.

      And no matter what game you make for a console, not every single owner of that console will buy it. Doesn't matter what game it is. Even Hallo 3, not every XBox owner on the planet bought it. And that was a major success. You have to hedge your bets a bit for the case when it's a lot less of a success. I.e., you have to have a bit of a safety margin there.

      So if a bubble bursts, it can be bad news. But, hey, your own console will keep working.

      And before someone pipes up with "But Nintendo itself will keep making games for it"... well, so much good that did to the popularity of the N64, eh?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by orclevegam (940336)

        Well, I'm proud to say, I was partially right there. My Dreamcast still works flawlessly. Hasn't had a new game made for it for a damn long time now, though.

        Not strictly true. Hasn't had a US game made in a long time, but it's still possible to get new releases for it from Japan. At least as of a year ago, I think I heard somewhere that they finally stopped making Dreamcast games even in Japan recently.

    • Re:Not surprising... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Volante3192 (953645) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:38PM (#20957015)
      So they package "Wii Sports" in with the system (or "Wii Play", I can't remember which one Japan got)

      Japan didn't come with a bundled game.

    • Not many hardcore gamers in any territory are going to want to own the system that their grandma and little sister thinks is cool. That probably sounds harsh, but that's the way 18-24 year old males think
      No, that's the way that 13-18 year old males think, maybe 13-20. Once you get above 20 or so, in my experience, people grow the fuck up, and buy a console based on what it has available, not whether their grandma or little sister likes it. Hell, I'm 22, and a proud Wii owner.

    • Re:Not surprising... (Score:5, Informative)

      by metroid composite (710698) on Friday October 12 2007, @01:29PM (#20957857) Homepage Journal

      they're casual gamers, they're not out buying a new game every week.

      I'm a game developer, and before that an administrator for a gaming website. I don't buy a new game every week. Studies I've read suggest that this "once a week" demographic only accounts for 3% of all gamers.

      It's happening. Look at the Japanese software charts, not just the hardware charts. Not a single Wii game in the top ten last week, this on supposedly the most popular console in Japan.

      You're right, according to last week we should expect the 360 to win in Japan! ...Or we could look at this week [neogaf.com], where in the top 30 there's 5 Wii games, 1 PS3 game, and 0 360 games (despite the Wii hardware dropping AGAIN). Now, 5/30 is low, but 0/30 and 1/30 are DISASTERS.

      the competition's got big games in the pipeline too (not to mention a price drop).

      The Wii is also quite capable of dropping price. This is less of a big deal in Japan, mind you, and more of a big deal in North America where people continue to buy GBAs over DSs for being $30 cheaper.

      Not many hardcore gamers in any territory are going to want to own the system that their grandma and little sister thinks is cool. That probably sounds harsh, but that's the way 18-24 year old males think, and they make up the majority of hardcore gamers.

      My experience with siblings is the opposite--younger sisters tend to take interest in whatever the older brother is playing. People get into arguments like "I want to play the NES" "No *I* want to play the NES".

      As for the 18-24 male have-moved-out-of-the-house range, why would they care what their relatives are playing? If playing a game can get them into girl's pants, they'll do it, but otherwise they'll play whatever they like, or their dorm-mates like.

      Whether or not the Wii continues to outsell the PS3 and Xbox 360 (by whatever shrinking margin it can muster), the big problem for them is that games aren't selling, really at all.

      In North America the Wii games are selling better than PS3 games, and worse than 360 games. More 360s have been sold than Wiis in North America, and more Wiis have been sold than PS3s in North America. It's almost like install base is important after all!

      Now, yes, the 360 has a spectacular attach rate--the 360 probably having the most hardcore of the ownership bases, and having achievement points which seem to be an obsession for some people. For this reason, the Wii could pass the 360 in America and still not control the region. This doesn't mean that the clear #2 console will be ignored by developers, though (the original XBox wasn't ignored last-gen; only third place (GC) was).

    • Re:Third party developers (Score:5, Informative)

      by moderatorrater (1095745) on Friday October 12 2007, @12:52PM (#20957253)
      For the past week the top five games for the wii included Carnival Games at #1 and DDR at #3. Resident Evil's been up there, Rayman's been up there, and you have to go back six weeks to find one in which there aren't two games in their top five that are from a company other than nintendo. Developers that put out games for the wii have, so far, been reaping some nice benefits from the data that I've seen.

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