E3 Nintendo Conference Thread

[Scott_Arm]

I don't see it. It won't be long before an X360 core unit is $199. I don't see PS2 fans looking at that and saying they would rather pay $249 to have a Wii and play tennis than an X360 for $199 and play Gears of War, Halo, GTAIV etc...

I don't find it believable that the legions of people that bought GTA3, Halo, Madden, MGS4, Splinter Cell, GT3/4, Forza, Final Fantasy are really going to forego those games this time around so that they can play WarioWare and Super Mario Galaxy. It's not going to happen.

These PS2 fans are just waiting to pay $199 like they did last time around and that time will come. Patience.

What makes you think the Wii is still going to be $250 when the Xbox360 hits $199? Nintendo has more room to budge on their price that anyone, and still turn a profit. And when the systems are both priced below $200, what makes you think people aren't willing to own more than one console? Hell, I own a Wii, but I'd like to own a 360 or a PS3 when they hit an affordable range.

 

[Todd33]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/84795.html?playlist=featured

Wii fit, I'm sold!

 

[fearsomepirate]

even though I don't think the Wii houses enough of the graphical know-how to cater to the shooter audience appropriately

Xbox managed to cater to the shooter audience even when its graphics were painfully dated compared to the latest FPS's on the PC.

P.S. Madden 2008 is coming to Wii with online support (finally!).

 

[archangelmorph]

Madden is already there are you telling me if the Wii keeps up the pace it is 3rd parties won't move big titles to the Wii? It is like the DS once sales got so over whelming big titles have started to move to it. DQ9 moving to the DS was major and the same thing will happen with the Wii if things keep up.

What makes you think that this is such a given?

DQ9 was an anomaly that Wii-enthusiasts like to throw up as evidence that this is a trend that will only increase on the aggregate when in fact if you look at the facts you'll see that the DQ series in itself was already declining in terms of sales and popularity on the PS platform (probably due to it's cutesy style and targetted younger demographic) and thus the decision was made to shift the IP to the only other mass-install-base, targetedly much more suitable platform..

This doesn't strike as a trend that could increase anytime soon nor does it come off as indicative of 3rd parties motivations to take titles away from platforms they can sell in the millions to (Gears for example) and plonk them onto a platform where the average user probably wouldn't "get it" anyway and thus sales would perform much worse (even to a potentially larger userbase..)

I really don't expect to see the same kind of big budget AAA games we're going to see on PS3 or Xbox360 coming out on the Wii.. I do however expect to see much more shovelware appearing on the platform as, as with consoles of previous generations, the lower development budget create a lower risk, lower return investment for publishers whom will be looking to simply "cash in on the craze" and generally improve there overall bottom line over any particular motivation to create "the next big thing"..

There's already an inherent mentality that "You can't sell like nintendo on on a nintendo" and so don't expect many publishers to push for it, spending big bucks on Wii development where it's likely that the software returns won't be particularly great as opposed to selling on one of the HD platforms (whose install bases have and will continue to grow and become much more viable regardless of what Nintendo is doing in the SD gaming space with the Wii...)

 

[Johnny Awesome]

I think if you took all those consumers who bought those big name PS2 titles and accounted for overlap, you would find the a large fraction of the PS2 userbase never even own those titles.

When you see Spiderman, Shrek 3, Pirates of the C. and Transformer the Movie games all in the top 25 of software, it lets you know that there are plenty gamers who'd buy the Wii even without the opportunity to play GTA4, Mass Effect, Killzone2, FFXIII and just about any other big name title coming out for the 360 and the PS3.

Sure, but the audience is getting older not younger. The biggest sellers of last gen were very much still the GT3, Halo, GTA3, etc... titles. I'm betting a lot of people will buy X360 and PS3 when they drop in price just to play similar titles. Tennis will only hold their attention for so long IMO.

 

[dobwal]

Sure, but the audience is getting older not younger. The biggest sellers of last gen were very much still the GT3, Halo, GTA3, etc... titles. I'm betting a lot of people will buy X360 and PS3 when they drop in price just to play similar titles. Tennis will only hold their attention for so long IMO.

The audience is dynamic. All those fans of the mentioned titles are getting older but younger gamers are being introduced all the time and the Wii directly targets that audience as well as those older more casual gamers.

There will always be a place for the 360 and PS3 but the Wii can sustain itself without the hardcore.

 

[bomlat]

I think we can see the two possible future:
1., the wii will get only hc show2elvare,the xb&ps owners are happy,the ps and xb is the mayor platform of hc gaming
2., the wii is the mayor platform for the hc gaming too,and the xb and ps receive only the cheap wii versions

 

[quest55720]

What makes you think that this is such a given?

DQ9 was an anomaly that Wii-enthusiasts like to throw up as evidence that this is a trend that will only increase on the aggregate when in fact if you look at the facts you'll see that the DQ series in itself was already declining in terms of sales and popularity on the PS platform (probably due to it's cutesy style and targetted younger demographic) and thus the decision was made to shift the IP to the only other mass-install-base, targetedly much more suitable platform..

This doesn't strike as a trend that could increase anytime soon nor does it come off as indicative of 3rd parties motivations to take titles away from platforms they can sell in the millions to (Gears for example) and plonk them onto a platform where the average user probably wouldn't "get it" anyway and thus sales would perform much worse (even to a potentially larger userbase..)

I really don't expect to see the same kind of big budget AAA games we're going to see on PS3 or Xbox360 coming out on the Wii.. I do however expect to see much more shovelware appearing on the platform as, as with consoles of previous generations, the lower development budget create a lower risk, lower return investment for publishers whom will be looking to simply "cash in on the craze" and generally improve there overall bottom line over any particular motivation to create "the next big thing"..

There's already an inherent mentality that "You can't sell like nintendo on on a nintendo" and so don't expect many publishers to push for it, spending big bucks on Wii development where it's likely that the software returns won't be particularly great as opposed to selling on one of the HD platforms (whose install bases have and will continue to grow and become much more viable regardless of what Nintendo is doing in the SD gaming space with the Wii...)

The problem is while the HD user base maybe growing the WII base is growing 2x-3x faster world wide. Even worse in japan were many games are made the Wii is out selling the hd consoles between 5-9 to 1. Right now the 360 user base is the only thing keeping hd-gaming alive. The problem is MS refuses to lower the price to increase that user base. It is getting to the point this fall were that the current 360 user base just simply will not have the money to buy all those great games. There are going to be more than 1 AAA title with horrible sales. The current 360 owners only have so much money and time. On the other hand the Wii userbase which is always growing and expanding will be craving some AAA type games. Those developers who get those WII AAA titles out first will make buckets of money. Just like capcom last year made buckets of money supporting the 360 early on. Once those few developers make those buckets of money the rest will fall in line just like what is happened with the 360 and DS.

Nintendo should be able to easily reach 12-15 million users by the end of the year and still be sold out in NA and Japan.

I am not exactly happy about this situation as a 360 owner but I can't blame the casuals for moving to the Wii. I blame sony and MS for pushing them away as hard as they could. While this generation might be messed up I can only hope every one learns from it. I never want to see 599 dollar consoles ever again. I never want to see a company go the first 20 months with out a price drop.

 

[Dresden]

Xbox managed to cater to the shooter audience even when its graphics were painfully dated compared to the latest FPS's on the PC.

P.S. Madden 2008 is coming to Wii with online support (finally!).

What potential shooters are scheduled to be released on Wii that don't house the same graphics of a previous console, ie GC? Because honestly, I don't know. And comparing Xbox to PC's of Xbox's time is complete apples and oranges.... It always is when you compare them with ANY consoles.

 

[archangelmorph]

The problem is while the HD user base maybe growing the WII base is growing 2x-3x faster world wide. Even worse in japan were many games are made the Wii is out selling the hd consoles between 5-9 to 1.

Monthly sales don't matter in the long term.. what matters is, as a dev/publisher you can say "well if i develop x game now, when its released in x months time will the installbase be big enough to guarantee returns?" - in this case the answer is already "yes" for the 360 in most cases with the PS3 soon to be yes by this time next year without question (& I doubt any games early on in development this yr will see release before that time..)

Right now the 360 user base is the only thing keeping hd-gaming alive.

That's just bogus..

The problem is MS refuses to lower the price to increase that user base. It is getting to the point this fall were that the current 360 user base just simply will not have the money to buy all those great games.

I agree that there's definitely going to be at least one AAA title which doesn't rack up the sales it deserves (or maybe it needs to break even) however i'm pretty sure this has more to do with market saturation than size of the install base since this kind of thing happened on the PS2 even upto the end of it's life.. At the end of the day if your trying to launch a FPS this fall against Halo 3 then I don't care how big the install base is, your game is going to sell like ass unless its already an established franchise (but even so your sales would still be affected)..

On the other hand the Wii userbase which is always growing and expanding will be craving some AAA type games. Those developers who get those WII AAA titles out first will make buckets of money. Just like capcom last year made buckets of money supporting the 360 early on. Once those few developers make those buckets of money the rest will fall in line just like what is happened with the 360 and DS.

In what respect is this happening with the 360 and DS?

DS support grew as a natural progression.. 360 support has been strong from the onset?
And lastly i'm not sure whether you can even infer that Wii gamers on the aggregate are "craving" AAA titles when so far its the mediocre ones that have sold very well generally (in terms of grosse ratio of cost : return).. Zelda sold badly in Japan and even though overall it sold quite well, this still hasn't prompted third parties to invest more money per game in Wii titles (see the nintendo dominate mentality i mentioned earlier).. The vast majority of Wii gamers also are casuals and thus probably care as much about AAAs as they do most of the shallowware thats been released so far.. Someone around here once said "they are just looking for something to play.." and its so true..

Nintendo should be able to easily reach 12-15 million users by the end of the year and still be sold out in NA and Japan.

You keep quoting sales figures as if it matters when it doesn't.. Sure it means more games will go the way of the Wii but this sure as hell doesn't mean that it will take away from the HD consoles in terms of the capacity and investment going into development, I can assure you..

I am not exactly happy about this situation as a 360 owner but I can't blame the casuals for moving to the Wii. I blame sony and MS for pushing them as hard as they could.

MS and Sony didn't market themselves towars the casuals from the onset.. They marketted themselves towards the hardcore.. For MS its paid off and the market is only waiting for a price cut (however small) and sales should start to race forwards again.. The PS3 priced itself a little too high but with a recent price cut and more on the way it's pretty clear that the platform is slowly and surely establishing it's foothold as financially viable platform.. Added to that the benefits of cross-platform development and it's pretty hard to write them off as platforms you can't make money off unless you plan on releasing Wii Sports..

While this generation might be messed up I can only hope every one learns from it. I never want to see 599 dollar consoles ever again. I never want to see a company go the first 20 months with out a price drop.

Don't we all.. At the end of the day the prices will come down and no matter how fast the Wii is picking up the casuals, it's not going to stop gamers who love their Halos, Metal Gears, Final Fantasys, Gran Tourismos and Mass Effects, picking up one of Sony's or MS's new shiny toys..

The age of the single market is fading and the concept of "console market share" is becoming more and more irrelevant (due to overlap and console diversification dramatically increasing market growth.. more than anything else) in the grand scheme of things..

So as a 360 owner you really have nothing to worry about..

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Monthly sales don't matter in the long term.. what matters is, as a dev/publisher you can say "well if i develop x game now, when its released in x months time will the installbase be big enough to guarantee returns?"

So monthly sales do matter as that will be your userbase when game X is released on date Y.

Anyway nintendo apparently is winning over more and more support according to gamepro

Nintendo gaining allies in console war

Due to the early success of Wii, Nintendo is gaining several developer and publisher allies in the hotly debated and contested console war the New York Times said on Tuesday.

The report says the shift to Wii is being closely watched because gamers tend to favor systems that have the most compelling games, something Wii may be able to pull off despite its inferior graphics. After all, Nintendo's DS has been the most sought after system over the last year despite its having the most antiquated graphic technology save the GBA.

"Publishers are saying: Instead of spending $15 million or $20 million on one PS3 game, come back to me with five or six Wii pitches," said one independent game developer.

"We had one meeting two weeks ago with a publisher that was asking for Wii games," he added, declining to identify the publisher. "Three or four months ago, they didn't want to hear 1 Word about the Wii."

Nintendo said a shift to Wii development has already begun, and just last week several companies including EA, Activision, THQ, and Ubisoft dedicated a large part of their press conferences to showcase Wii games.

"The Wii is a godsend," said Kelly Flock, executive vice president at THQ. "We are aggressively looking for more Wii titles." EA says the same. "There is a clear sense of excitement about the Wii at E.A.," a company spokeswomen said to which Nintendo confirmed. "Electronic Arts is doing much more for us than they have in the past," they said.

However, the shift to Wii does not represent a shunning of Xbox 360 and PS3 development says the Times, rather "an elevation of the Wii's status," though that comes at the expense of some development on 360 and PS3.

Given the growth and diversity of the industry, everyone has a place says EA. "I don't think you'll see any big shifts to one platform because you're supporting so many," said Kathy Vrabeck, president of the company's casual entertainment division

Nintendo has sold an estimated 8 million Wiis worldwide since first launching last November. By comparison, Microsoft has shipped a reported 11.5 million Xbox 360s and Sony 5.5 million PS3s.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

The audience is dynamic. All those fans of the mentioned titles are getting older but younger gamers are being introduced all the time and the Wii directly targets that audience as well as those older more casual gamers.

There will always be a place for the 360 and PS3 but the Wii can sustain itself without the hardcore.

Yeah the audience is dynamically getting older.

I agree that the Wii can sustain itself. No question. I believe it will sell 40 million units, but I'm not convinced it can sell 100 million units and take over the industry. That's all I'm saying.

 

[quest55720]

Monthly sales don't matter in the long term.. what matters is, as a dev/publisher you can say "well if i develop x game now, when its released in x months time will the installbase be big enough to guarantee returns?" - in this case the answer is already "yes" for the 360 in most cases with the PS3 soon to be yes by this time next year without question (& I doubt any games early on in development this yr will see release before that time..)


That's just bogus..


I agree that there's definitely going to be at least one AAA title which doesn't rack up the sales it deserves (or maybe it needs to break even) however i'm pretty sure this has more to do with market saturation than size of the install base since this kind of thing happened on the PS2 even upto the end of it's life.. At the end of the day if your trying to launch a FPS this fall against Halo 3 then I don't care how big the install base is, your game is going to sell like ass unless its already an established franchise (but even so your sales would still be affected)..


In what respect is this happening with the 360 and DS?

DS support grew as a natural progression.. 360 support has been strong from the onset?
And lastly i'm not sure whether you can even infer that Wii gamers on the aggregate are "craving" AAA titles when so far its the mediocre ones that have sold very well generally (in terms of grosse ratio of cost : return).. Zelda sold badly in Japan and even though overall it sold quite well, this still hasn't prompted third parties to invest more money per game in Wii titles (see the nintendo dominate mentality i mentioned earlier).. The vast majority of Wii gamers also are casuals and thus probably care as much about AAAs as they do most of the shallowware thats been released so far.. Someone around here once said "they are just looking for something to play.." and its so true..


You keep quoting sales figures as if it matters when it doesn't.. Sure it means more games will go the way of the Wii but this sure as hell doesn't mean that it will take away from the HD consoles in terms of the capacity and investment going into development, I can assure you..


MS and Sony didn't market themselves towars the casuals from the onset.. They marketted themselves towards the hardcore.. For MS its paid off and the market is only waiting for a price cut (however small) and sales should start to race forwards again.. The PS3 priced itself a little too high but with a recent price cut and more on the way it's pretty clear that the platform is slowly and surely establishing it's foothold as financially viable platform.. Added to that the benefits of cross-platform development and it's pretty hard to write them off as platforms you can't make money off unless you plan on releasing Wii Sports..


Don't we all.. At the end of the day the prices will come down and no matter how fast the Wii is picking up the casuals, it's not going to stop gamers who love their Halos, Metal Gears, Final Fantasys, Gran Tourismos and Mass Effects, picking up one of Sony's or MS's new shiny toys..

The age of the single market is fading and the concept of "console market share" is becoming more and more irrelevant (due to overlap and console diversification dramatically increasing market growth.. more than anything else) in the grand scheme of things..

So as a 360 owner you really have nothing to worry about..

Were are all these good selling 3rd party PS3 games then? The 360 has been putting 3rd pary games in the top 10 of the NPD since launch. The Wii has also been weak with 3rd party software sales but since dev costs are depending on the reports 1/2 to 1/5 of the HD consoles they need a lot less sales to make money.

Monthly sales are huge they show trends and the trend right now is less and less people are buying HD consoles. While the Wii continues to sell all they can ship. Lets be honest the last 2 months the 360 and PS3 hardware sales have been terrible. I fully expect the trend to continue tomarrow when the NPD come out.


Sony and MS have been only sucessfull with the hardcore of the hardcore gamers. Even at the PS2 launch core gamers were buying the system. While the Wii continues to sell to every demographic. MS has about tapped out the hardcore of the hardcore market. The PS3 price cut will help some but there are only so many hardcore of the hardcore gamers to get. We will see if they can maintain decent hardware sales in august and september. More importanly will the PS3 finally sell some 3rd party software. There is a good chance a lot of the new sales will be either as blue ray players or to current 360 owners who I bet will purchase 3rd party games on the 360 and have the PS3 just for first party games and the 2 major exclusives left.

The Wii is steamrolling towards critical mass numbers while the 360 and PS3 have been on the decline. The way things are trending the Wii could reach 20 million world wide early next year. With those kind of numbers so early in the game it will not be going away any time soon.

I can easily see 3rd parties moving some of thier resources to the Wii at the expense of the HD consoles. There will just not be enough HD consoles in gamers hands to support a ton of AAA titles. So the Wii will pick up the slack with its increasing user base. Even worse for 3rd parties next year will be the avalanche of sony first party AAA titles and MGS4 leaving a lot less money out there for them.

I am not worried at all as a 360 owner. I know there will be 3rd party support for a long long time with a few first party games thrown in here and there.

 

[quest55720]

I think we can see the two possible future:
1., the wii will get only hc show2elvare,the xb&ps owners are happy,the ps and xb is the mayor platform of hc gaming
2., the wii is the mayor platform for the hc gaming too,and the xb and ps receive only the cheap wii versions

Why not both? Instead of 2 AAA hd-console titles a year a 3rd party makes 1 AAA Hd- console title 2 AAA Wii titles and 2 shovel ware Wii titles. Spread the love around a bit and everyone wins. The casuals get theirs and the hardcore get theirs. I think it would be a win win for 3rd parties. With a few less AAA hd-console titles they should all sell a bit better to a limted user base. At the same time they can tap the huge non hardcore gaming base. I know right now I can't afford even half the truck load AAA titles coming for the 360 this fall. I feel even more sorry for those who own both the 360 and PS3 add in sonys big hitters and wow that is a lot of good games and not enough money.

 

[quest55720]

Here are the software canadian NPD numbers.

http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=63249


TORONTO (CP) - Nintendo dominated the June video games sales chart in Canada, taking the top three spots and 10 of the top 12.

"Guitar Hero 2" also did well, occupying three spots in the top 20.

The top-selling game was "Mario Party 8" for the Wii, followed by "Wii Play" and "Pokemon Diamond" (DS). "Forza Motorsport 2" for the Xbox 360 ranked fourth, followed by Nintendo's "Pokemon Pearl" (DS).

The Xbox 360 version of Red Octane's "Guitar Hero," the version with the guitar accessory, ranked sixth. The PlayStation 2 versions of the game ranked 14th - with the guitar accessory included - and 15th, without the guitar.

The highest new entry to the June chart was Capcom's "Resident Evil 4" for the Wii, at No. 7.

In all, Nintendo had 12 of the top 20 games. The other eight were divided between PlayStation (four for PS2 and one for PS3) and Xbox 360 (three).

 

[Natoma]

There's actually not much evidence of that beyond a couple statements by execs and some press releases. This E3 is evidence of the opposite. Where are the innovative third party games that will take advantage of the Wii's unique abilities? I didn't notice any at E3.

Zack & Wiki was one game off the top of my head. If you want to look at all of the games covered at E3, go to wii.ign.com and look at the E3 games list, sorting by Wii. There's about 3-4 pages worth.

Also, this year's E3 was just a wee bit more muted in terms of 1st party and 3rd party showings. I made several statements earlier this year that I believed E3 would be telling, but I also didn't realize that this year's E3 was going to be so crimped.

That said, the lineup for the 2nd half of the year from 1st party and 3rd party for the Wii is pretty encompassing. I've already listed several 'hardcore' titles, and I'm sure if I looked for more casual titles, they would be there in droves as well.

 

[Natoma]

I don't see it. It won't be long before an X360 core unit is $199. I don't see PS2 fans looking at that and saying they would rather pay $249 to have a Wii and play tennis than an X360 for $199 and play Gears of War, Halo, GTAIV etc...

I don't find it believable that the legions of people that bought GTA3, Halo, Madden, MGS4, Splinter Cell, GT3/4, Forza, Final Fantasy are really going to forego those games this time around so that they can play WarioWare and Super Mario Galaxy. It's not going to happen.

These PS2 fans are just waiting to pay $199 like they did last time around and that time will come. Patience.

Didn't all of those games top out around 5 million or so for each title? Surely there's some crossover in terms of people who enjoyed MGS series playing Splinter Cell. Those who enjoyed Forza playing GT3/4, etc.

Oh, and Madden is on the Wii these days, and the reviews have stated the controls make it the definitive version, even if the graphics aren't quite as good as the PS360.

That said, there will be people who will get the PS360 to play those games. But there are a TON more people out of the 110m or so PS2 owners who are price-sensitive and play the casual titles that the PS2 spat out in droves.

Those owners will probably flock to the Wii unless PS360 drop their prices.

 

[Nesh]

Zack & Wiki was one game off the top of my head. If you want to look at all of the games covered at E3, go to wii.ign.com and look at the E3 games list, sorting by Wii. There's about 3-4 pages worth.

Also, this year's E3 was just a wee bit more muted in terms of 1st party and 3rd party showings. I made several statements earlier this year that I believed E3 would be telling, but I also didn't realize that this year's E3 was going to be so crimped.

That said, the lineup for the 2nd half of the year from 1st party and 3rd party for the Wii is pretty encompassing. I've already listed several 'hardcore' titles, and I'm sure if I looked for more casual titles, they would be there in droves as well.

What the???

Checked the E3 page at IGN and I was surprised that Wii got only 3 pages while PS3 and 360 have 4 and 5 respectively.

I was expecting better and more announcements as well.

 

[thatdude90210]

Here are the software canadian NPD numbers.

http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=63249

TORONTO (CP) - Nintendo dominated the June video games sales chart in Canada, taking the top three spots and 10 of the top 12.

Here's the list of software rank from gaf. The Wii has 7 of the top 12 spots. But how can that be, grandma doesn't buy software.

June 2007

1 (3) WII - Mario Party 8
2 (4) WII - Wii Play
3 (1) DS - Pokemon Diamond
4 (6) 360 - Forza Motorsport 2
5 (2) DS - Pokemon Pearl
6 (10) 360 - Guitar Hero II w/ Guitar Controller
7 (-) WII - Resident Evil 4
8 (11) WII - The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
9 (7) WII - Super Paper Mario
10 (12) DS - New Super Mario Bros.
11 (-) WII - Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
12 (-) WII - Pokemon Battle Revolution
13 (-) 360 - The Darkness
14 (-) PS2 - Guitar Hero II w/ Guitar Controller
15 (16) PS2 - Guitar Hero II
16 (-) PS2 - Tomb Raider Anniversary
17 (20) DS - Mario Kart DS
18 (-) PS3 - Rainbow Six Vegas
19 (-) DS - DS Browser
20 (5) PS2 - Spider-Man 3

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Didn't all of those games top out around 5 million or so for each title? Surely there's some crossover in terms of people who enjoyed MGS series playing Splinter Cell. Those who enjoyed Forza playing GT3/4, etc.

Oh, and Madden is on the Wii these days, and the reviews have stated the controls make it the definitive version, even if the graphics aren't quite as good as the PS360.

That said, there will be people who will get the PS360 to play those games. But there are a TON more people out of the 110m or so PS2 owners who are price-sensitive and play the casual titles that the PS2 spat out in droves.

Those owners will probably flock to the Wii unless PS360 drop their prices.

We'll see. I'm still not convinced. Madden Wii sales were nothing to write home about.