What if the Wii outsells the PS2 in 7 years?

[obonicus]

There are, altogether, more XB360s and PS3s than Wiis. A cross-platform PS360 title has a larger install base to sell to than a Wii exclusive. Wii may well take >50% of the total market over the next years, but at this point in time it's not like PS2 versus GC where the PS2 market was several times the size of GC or XB, and GC+XB weren't sharing libraries in the same way XB360 and PS3 are.

The margin is slim, and it may not be long before the Wii matches the other consoles worldwide. It might take longer in the US, but that may just be because of lack of supply. But otherwise, true enough. Maybe the Wii will never become the next PS2, it just can't achieve that critical mass.

What Wii supporters claim, though, is that all those people who were going to buy a next-gen console when GTA4 came out, but didn't, really migrated to the Wii -- which would, sorta, make the Wii the new PS2, in that no matter the genre, you'll find a customer base for it. Again, I haven't seen any support for this, unless you somehow read this fact into the Wii's phenomenal sales. Again, I think we'll be able to have a better idea if this is true or not when Madden 2009 and Guitar Hero 4 come out, since those are 'casual' franchises where the PS2 does incredibly.

Personally, I think that the PS2 is still going to do very well. In general, I suspect the western publishers wish they had stuck a little longer with the PS2 (PS2 still gets a slow, but steady stream of games in Japan), though I admit I have no evidence to support this.

 

[Sonic]

Developers are not nearly as clueless as you think. Focus groups and things like that can help lead the way to what kind of games the main audience of a machine is interested in. I know this based off of direct experience. SEGA itself held many of these and sometimes on a weekly basis when they still produced consoles. Though the sad thing for them is they neglected the data that these focus groups provided for them. That's as deep as I want to get in on that.

IMHO, it is only a matter of time before devs will be influenced by publishers to at least attempt to make big franchises on the Wii. Ignoring that big of a userbase is insane, if one asks me. On the flipside, I really don't think the Wii is going to be this generation's PS2. I still think Sony has it in them to turn the PS3 into a monster of a sales force once they get it to a price that will attract the casual gamers, and parents.

 

[eastmen]

What Wii supporters claim, though, is that all those people who were going to buy a next-gen console when GTA4 came out, but didn't, really migrated to the Wii -- which would, sorta, make the Wii the new PS2, in that no matter the genre, you'll find a customer base for it. Again, I haven't seen any support for this, unless you somehow read this fact into the Wii's phenomenal sales. Again, I think we'll be able to have a better idea if this is true or not when Madden 2009 and Guitar Hero 4 come out, since those are 'casual' franchises where the PS2 does incredibly..

I don't really know why people expected gta 4 to light console sales on fire. The 360 has only had one price drop since it was released and the verizon everyone would want is sitting at a $150 more than the ps2 was at when gta 3 first released. You've also had a ton of other big games that came out before it that could have had some of that gta fan base buy into the platform already. Games like gears of war and halo 3 . Then you have the fact that the game released after the holidays instead of right before the holidays when alot of people were still paying off debt incured over the holiday. oh and lets not forget that this time the game was released on two consoles at the same time and thus people had a choice of which console to pick.

Now i doubt its any one of those items that caused sales to be lack luster but i believe it was a combination of all of those .

IMHO, it is only a matter of time before devs will be influenced by publishers to at least attempt to make big franchises on the Wii. Ignoring that big of a userbase is insane, if one asks me. On the flipside, I really don't think the Wii is going to be this generation's PS2. I still think Sony has it in them to turn the PS3 into a monster of a sales force once they get it to a price that will attract the casual gamers, and parents.

why is that . Are 3rd party games not making money on the xbox 360 and ps3 ? i think the 360 has more than double the million sellers that the wii has even with first party and mini games added into the wii total .

the 360 base buys crazy amounts of software and then on the flip side you can port over to the ps3. I think that is why the 360 will become this gens ps2

 

[AlphaWolf]

Would Forbes be a reliable source for you?

http://members.forbes.com/global/2007/0212/022.html?partner=yahoomag

I see nothing regarding any title named lost galaxy, but it does talk about lost planet. Now that we know you meant lost planet, the article speculates that they will spend another $20 million promoting, do you have a link that confirms it after the fact. And was that all spent on promotion for the 360 version as you suggested?

 

[quest55720]

On the flipside, I really don't think the Wii is going to be this generation's PS2. I still think Sony has it in them to turn the PS3 into a monster of a sales force once they get it to a price that will attract the casual gamers, and parents.

Not going to happen just look at the market. In japan traditional console gaming has been dead for several years. Handhelds are it now in japan the even the Wii is not selling great in japan. In america to the casual next gen = waggle like it or not. I still don't see Wiis on the store shelves yet almost 2 years after launch. Maybe in europe sony can make some headway but it will not be remotely enough to challenge the Wii. That and they have MS to split the HD console market share with.

 

[Blade47167]

To be honest I hate the Wii and I am very pissed off about Monster Hunter... I wanted to kill flipping Ratholos on my big screen in HD... The controls suck. I can never get mine to work right. I ended up trading my Wii TP in for GameCube TP so I could play with a normal controller. So I really hope this POS is truley a fad. I will most likely quit gaming in its entirety if consoles start to all move towards this crap...

 

[Flux]

you can play a normal controller on TP on the Wii...

 

[Readykilowatt]

I don't know if the wii is a fad or not. Thats for time to decide

The Wii fad will die in 2013...

 

[RobertR1]

If the Wii outsells the PS2 in 7 years then clearly Nintendo have done something right and the more importantly the market has accepted them with open arms.

The comparisons to last gen don't hold much water. The tech, competition, offerings and business plans are all different. Just because the players are the same doesn't mean you can effectively draw any strong parallels to the previous gens. People are spending waaay too much time doing this.

Wii/PS3/360 sales, at a macro level, will depend on their offerings and the public reaction to them. The Wii has clearly hit a home run with the consumers, similar to what the ipod did a few years back. Amongst the masses, the Wii is the cool new tech toy to have while the 360 and the PS3 are considered high powered consoles. The marketing approach is quite different also and goes long way to establish this mindset amongst the mass consumer. You have Nintendo always presenting their stuff as fun, with people having fun, the gameplay being not too serious.

On the other hand you have 360/PS3 game ads showing a top notch presentation but that's it! Sure, you have a few casual games that show people playing and laughing but those are easily surpassed by the amount of "hardcore" and serious gameplay content demonstated in ads. That sets the public perception of those consoles much different than the Wii and thus they have no chance of competing in the same mindset. Personally, i think the 360 and PS3 sales are doing quite well in light of the Wii's dominance which tells me that the Wii has brought in a lot more of the mass consumer into the gaming market than the previous generation.

 

[Zassk]

It seems to me that the market has expanded nearly 100% since last generation. i.e. the 360 and PS3 are going to share a market nearly as large as the PS2 was, while the Wii will itself match or exceed the PS2.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

I see nothing regarding any title named lost galaxy, but it does talk about lost planet. Now that we know you meant lost planet, the article speculates that they will spend another $20 million promoting, do you have a link that confirms it after the fact. And was that all spent on promotion for the 360 version as you suggested?

Sorry, damn, too many lost this and that games that I get mixed up.

Look at the date of when the article was written. The PC version didn't even come out till 2008.

"Capcom has spent $20 million developing the game and will spend another $20 million promoting it."

Doesn't sound like speculation to me.

 

[eastmen]

they say will. that to me implys over the course of the games life time. So that to me includes the pc and ps3 verisons of the game. It was most likely top heavy though with the bulk of the money spent when it launched.

then again that game is already a million seller on the 360 , i think its over 1.5m in the usa

 

[AlphaWolf]

they say will. that to me implys over the course of the games life time. So that to me includes the pc and ps3 verisons of the game. It was most likely top heavy though with the bulk of the money spent when it launched.

then again that game is already a million seller on the 360 , i think its over 1.5m in the usa

it was 1.5m on the 360.

 

[eastmen]

so 1.5m + then pc and + ps3 . they should do over 2m Sounds like a good game