Are Game Publishers Late To the (Wii and DS) Game? 211
simoniker writes "A new 'Analyze This' feature on Gamasutra examines analysts' views on the rise of Nintendo's Wii and DS, and how well game publishers have reacted to it, with Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter commenting: 'It's hard to criticize anyone for putting too much faith in the PS3, as most [publishers] haven't created "cutting edge" titles yet for that platform. Most of the PS3 titles so far have been perennial titles, like Madden, Tony Hawk, etc ... I'd say that most failed to capitalize on the DS and Wii opportunity. The exception on the DS side is THQ, which has made every game it can for the platform. On the Wii side, Ubisoft took a big chance by making ten games for the [Wii] launch window, and it has performed very well, so far. I think that the others will catch up no later than early next year.'"
Re:Duh, when game companies have to innovate.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Welcome Real Game Development (Score:0, Interesting)
Sucks to hear if you are a Wii fan expecting publishers to be jumping entirely on the Wii bandwagon. We have far to much experience dealing with Nintendo over the years and they haven't changed one bit this gen. Nintendo and the Wii are nothing any publisher is going to be insane enough to actually bank the company's next five years on.
Look for a million variations of sports and dancing Wii games that are already out there. We'll keep crapping the clones out as long as the suckers keep buying the crap.
Meanwhile HD TVs are moving into the mass market price range and the real next gen consoles are building up their user bases ready to buy our real games.
Knock yourself out thinking that there is some sort of amazing never seen before gameplay about to hit the Wii to make up for the abysmal cesspool of a library the system has right now. The chances of that happening are as good as Wii owners getting a true 1-1 control Lightsaber game...
Queue, indignant Wii owners...
Re:Not really (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at why the PS2 was successful, it got to market earlier than its competitors with a good product at a good price. That lead to strong initial sales, which in turn led to a lot of titles being developed for this new system. More titles turned into additional hardware sales, which led to even more developer attention on that platform, and the whole thing snowballed and ultimately 120 million PS2s were sold. The Wii may have been later to market, but at the rate it's outselling PS3 and 360 it will be the most common next-gen console by a significant margin for the Christmas '08 season. That is confirmed to be attracting increased developer attention (see the comments made by the CEO of EA [crunchgear.com] for example), which means we're going to be seeing more 3rd-party titles for the Wii in the future. That in turn will likely lead to increased hardware sales, and so on.
I don't think the Wii will have anywhere near the dominance that the PS2 enjoyed, however. This generation marks the first time that I can think of where the capabilities of the various competitors were split so starkly, while at the same time being somewhat equal in terms of their desirability. The 360 and PS3 are natural extensions of the bigger better faster more mentality, but the Wii is going in a completely different direction, last-gen graphics with a new control scheme. No one's measured it yet to my knowledge, but I suspect there will be a significant amount of overlap between owners of the Wii and "true" next-gen consoles (i.e. 360/PS3). That may have an impact on how gaming dollars get spent down the road. My money's on a rough split between the Wii and the 360, though I'm not sure which will be on top. I'm convinced at this point that the PS3 will be this generation's distant third.