Wii After a Year

[Nesh]

I see the available data. I saw the EA sales which showed that Wii owners were buying more games per user then PS3 owners. Something that flys in the face of your whole argument. Reading Nintendo's comments about its target market or marketing stratergy isn't going to tell us anything concrete about the userbase either.

Yeah EA alone is reflective. Then you are telling me that I should be carefull with my "lacklaster" evidence.
At the same time you ve got general third party support that is not representative of a console that sold 13 million in one year, charts that almost always have some 1st party games, games that are often uncompetitive and different to what is seen on competitors, low metacritic scores and a huge sample of people you keep ignoring.

The Wii reflects completely what Nintendo aimed the Wii to be and the market it was targeting and it shows.

edit: by uncompetitive I dont mean bad games, but games that are not aiming to compete what it is offered anywhere else

 

[MulciberXP]

I'm only posting this to show some references instead of this silly bickering.

Wii wins big among casual gamers

Wii too casual for Assassin's Creed - Patrice Desilets

"fewer reasons to get excited if you're a hardcore gamer, but these low risk-big profit ventures make sense in the current market." - Ryan Payton

Konami claim Wii gamers aren’t as hardcore as PS3 and Xbox 360

Anicdotal musing of New York Times' Seth Schiesel on Wii appealing to wider audiance

Ubisoft targeting casual gamers with Petz and My Coach on Wii and DS

Nintendo expanding market. Speculation at E3

 

[ninzel]

Read the Economist, watch the available data. I have nothing more to say.

I haven't read that Economists article but I would like to if it's online. One problem I see with the article though right off the top without having to read it ,is the date. You mentioned that the date is October 2006? I thought we were talking about what the mix of Wii gamers is today.How can an article in October 2006(a month before the Wii is even released) tell us what the typical Wii gamer is today?

 

[ninzel]

I'm only posting this to show some references instead of this silly bickering.

Wii wins big among casual gamers

Wii too casual for Assassin's Creed - Patrice Desilets

"fewer reasons to get excited if you're a hardcore gamer, but these low risk-big profit ventures make sense in the current market." - Ryan Payton

Konami claim Wii gamers aren’t as hardcore as PS3 and Xbox 360

Anicdotal musing of New York Times' Seth Schiesel on Wii appealing to wider audiance

Ubisoft targeting casual gamers with Petz and My Coach on Wii and DS

Nintendo expanding market. Speculation at E3

I wasn't aware that we were "silly bickering."
We clearly have a difference of opinion,but everyones been civil so far.
I'm rereading those articles right now,but so far I've seen alot of speculation and musings, stereotyping etc...... but not much else of substnace.

 

[Arwin]

The first person to start a conversation with me about the Wii and who had hands on experience was my grandmother's sister. Though a lot of non-gamers I've talked about or shown the PS3 to know about the Wii much more than any other system. It's fairly obvious to me in that regard. The biggest hardcore crowd the Wii has are, imho, the former GameCube owners (who have been making their presence known online last gen too ) and PC owners that bought a Wii.

This is again though just my personal experience, both offline and online.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I wasn't aware that we were "silly bickering."

I think MulciberXP 's point is that no-one offering links or real data! Citing references always helps with arguing ones case...

Going by what I've heard over the past year, all the talk has been on Wii reaching new demographics and selling to 'casuals' rather than existing gamers, yet there's clearly crossover. News outlets aren't going to report 'existing gamers buy console', any more than they'd report 'existing golfers buy golf-clubs'. I don't know at all what percent were existing gamers or not and don't suppose anyone does, and I've no idea how breakdown could be measured without a proper survey. Software sales ought to be a good measure, comparing key 'hardcore' (actually casual by a different metric!) game sales like Madden and COD with user base.

 

[ninzel]

I think MulciberXP 's point is that no-one offering links or real data! Citing references always helps with arguing ones case...

Going by what I've heard over the past year, all the talk has been on Wii reaching new demographics and selling to 'casuals' rather than existing gamers, yet there's clearly crossover. News outlets aren't going to report 'existing gamers buy console', any more than they'd report 'existing golfers buy golf-clubs'. I don't know at all what percent were existing gamers or not and don't suppose anyone does, and I've no idea how breakdown could be measured without a proper survey. Software sales ought to be a good measure, comparing key 'hardcore' (actually casual by a different metric!) game sales like Madden and COD with user base.

Well software sales are what I've been looking at. A lot of let's say "traditional gamer" software and traditional Nintendo games have been performing well compared to others stuff. I did cite some specific examples.
Also I think we have to be careful when trying to use a negative to prove a positive.The most common one being that since 3rd party sales are low(negative) that must equal people are just buying the Wii for Wii Sports(positive) .
That's why I prefer to compare how games like Rayman and Red Steel performed. Two games released under similar cases,but presumably aimed at different audiences.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I'm only posting this to show some references instead of this silly bickering.

Wii wins big among casual gamers

Wii too casual for Assassin's Creed - Patrice Desilets

"fewer reasons to get excited if you're a hardcore gamer, but these low risk-big profit ventures make sense in the current market." - Ryan Payton

Konami claim Wii gamers aren’t as hardcore as PS3 and Xbox 360

Anicdotal musing of New York Times' Seth Schiesel on Wii appealing to wider audiance

Ubisoft targeting casual gamers with Petz and My Coach on Wii and DS

Nintendo expanding market. Speculation at E3

I always wonderd how you can call a piece of hardware not hardcore, I really dont understand those people. Its like the ''GC is kiddy'' comment. WTF, its hardware, it doesnt have a personality or whatever. If the GC had a big black box would it suddenly be mature? Calling wii casual, gc kiddy, ps3 hardcore etc, its all just mind games, keep saying it long enough and you'll eventually believe it but it doesnt change the fact its just not true. Release only cheap minigames and yes you'll push a console in the casual corner, but release plenty of ''hardcore'' games on it and it will go into the hardcore corner.

For example, take home, alot of people are hyped about that (god knows why) but if you ask me its as casual as its going to get. So does that suddenly make ps3 casual?

Its all between the ears...

 

[fearsomepirate]

Could MOH2 have gotten unfairly stigmatized because it also got a PSP release? Has the MOH series just in general overstayed its welcome? I have gotten the couple of Wii owners I know to at least rent the game, and they both liked it quite a bit. But neither of them had played an MOH game since Rising Sun.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Could MOH2 have gotten unfairly stigmatized because it also got a PSP release? Has the MOH series just in general overstayed its welcome? I have gotten the couple of Wii owners I know to at least rent the game, and they both liked it quite a bit. But neither of them had played an MOH game since Rising Sun.

Personally, I'm really interested in playing it to see how well the Wii control works, and how well the multiplayer works, but I don't have any interest in buying it. It's another WW2 shooter, and it's sort of, "Been there, done that" for me.

 

[MulciberXP]

I always wonderd how you can call a piece of hardware not hardcore, I really dont understand those people. Its like the ''GC is kiddy'' comment. WTF, its hardware, it doesnt have a personality or whatever. If the GC had a big black box would it suddenly be mature? Calling wii casual, gc kiddy, ps3 hardcore etc, its all just mind games, keep saying it long enough and you'll eventually believe it but it doesnt change the fact its just not true. Release only cheap minigames and yes you'll push a console in the casual corner, but release plenty of ''hardcore'' games on it and it will go into the hardcore corner.

For example, take home, alot of people are hyped about that (god knows why) but if you ask me its as casual as its going to get. So does that suddenly make ps3 casual?

Its all between the ears...

I disagree. I think consoles do have a personality. One based on its design philosophy as well as the general collective desires of the people who buy it.

 

[liuelson]

That's not what I'm saying though. I'm saying that over the normal course of the year $250 is not much for someone to pay for a Wii. The vast majority of people purchased their Wii for standard retail price.

This is true. However, you can also think of it in terms of arbitrage. If Nintendo allowed supply and demand to set price, rather than setting a price cap and allowing shortages, the market would drive the price of the Wii above $250. That would be a better measure of the price demand of the console.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I disagree. I think consoles do have a personality. One based on its design philosophy as well as the general collective desires of the people who buy it.

I agree, but that still doesnt make a console kiddy, casual or hardcore. What is kiddy about the GC hardware? nothing, neither was it designed to only play kids games. Its devs/gamers that gave it that name. Same for wii, its supposed to be casual. Why? because of the hardware? DS has bad hardware, go play contra4 on it, it a hell of alot harder than games on those consoles that are supposed to be hardcore. You alway hear people say wii is casual because wiisport, wiifit and braintraining. Well, ps3 has singstar, buzz and home, just as casual. But ps3 doesnt seem to be casual.

IMHO you cant call a console something based on the machine. All consoles are capable of all sorts of games and all 3 companies had the idea of selling as much consoles/games as possible I think. Some just chose a different path to accomplish that than others.

Wii can be just as harcore as x360 if you release those kind of games of it (and they will sell, mp3, rs and re4 both got around/over a million) and you can make x360 in a non gaming machine if you only release that kind of games on it.

 

[ninzel]

One year in I think Ninendo was a little too conservative with it's specs leading me to believe that they really weren't sure of it's success.
I would have added one more 64 MB Samsung chip and support for 4x AA.That's it,but that would have done a lot for a relatively low cost.

 

[Arwin]

Nintendo's own software is what gives Nintendo hardware it's image. Since they create some great software, and that same software is exclusive to Nintendo hardware, that software becomes platform defining to a large extent. Connect that to some very restrictive policies towards certain types of (mature) software in the past, and they have created an image for themselves that is now not easily overcome simply by releasing games like Manhunt 2 on the platform.

They are much more likely to be successful in this regard through their new software markets approach (the wii sports and brain training material), though overall their Mii's aren't helping I think.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

About the policies, thats just not true. The snes had doom for example. They also had MK but I dont remember if the nintendo version had the blood or didnt. Didnt the n64 also had doom? The GC had RE4, doesnt get more mature than that. Its not that nintendo dont allow those games. I think they have the ''kiddy'' image more because they themselves dont release mature games.

Image is easily overcome I think. Look at the image the NES and Snes had, that was pretty much gone before they knew it with the n64 and the kiddy image they had with that of the unpopulair GC is fading fast too with the succes of the Wii.

 

[Nesh]

Nintendo always marketed their consoles as toys of entertainment. They were in the past very concerned about the content of violence and I remember reading about some games in the past that passed threw some few changes.

Nintendo always cared about the easy accesibility and focus on gaming entertainment especially for the youngsters. Thats one of the reasons they liked cardridges and kept them for the N64. They repeated the same focus when they revealed GC too. The smalll cube shape, the colorful versions and the unbrakeable nature of the hardware expressed that same thing. They said that they wanted people of all ages and especially the younger audience to buy something that would purely satisfy their gaming needs without worrying about useless to gaming features (see DVD movies), unfitting content, or hardware that is easy to brake due to its complexity.

They just wanted people to get something and enjoy as simply as possible just like any other game.

It didnt work well with the GC, but they achieved it perfectly with the Wii

 

[MulciberXP]

Image is easily overcome I think. Look at the image the NES and Snes had, that was pretty much gone before they knew it with the n64 and the kiddy image they had with that of the unpopulair GC is fading fast too with the succes of the Wii.

Yea, now they're "kiddy and geriatric"

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Thats one of the reasons they liked cardridges and kept them for the N64.

You sure? I think the fact you cant easily play ''backups'' was alot more important factor. Dont forget cartridges were anything but cheap to produce, it also took alot more time to produce more games for the stores than a cd did so just using cartridges because they are harder to brake wasnt the #1 reason I think. They basically did the same with GC. They might as well used the standard dvd disk like they did with Wii and just no pay the license fees for dvd playback. It wouldnt have cost them more, maybe even less considering normal sized disks are produced alot more than the small ones but it would have made playing ''backups'' alot more userfriendly. Just look at wii, mod it and your good to go while GC you had the problem of getting the small disks and some mods even require you to steam games from your pc? defenitly not userfriendly.

The same goes for the hardware. Nintendo untill Wii never used hardware alot different from others in terms of performance. The reliability of nintendo hardware probably has more to do with their production setup and QC.

I dont know much about what nintendo did and didnt allow but given how all their systems have their share of mature games I really dont think its that hard to get mature stuff on nintendo's platform.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

This is true. However, you can also think of it in terms of arbitrage. If Nintendo allowed supply and demand to set price, rather than setting a price cap and allowing shortages, the market would drive the price of the Wii above $250. That would be a better measure of the price demand of the console.

I know that, I was just explaining the appeal at the $250 price point. We're saying the same thing. I'm saying $250 is cheap to most people and you're saying that the equilibrium price of the Wii is above $250. No argument.