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[Brofist]

After this generation is done, I'd love to see someone write a book or do a case study on wii. You have one of the most successful consoles in history, yet it's a system that is not really embraced by a lot of 3rd party publishers.

I don't think there needs to be a case study, you pretty much summed it up. At the end of the day Nintendo didn't need the type of 3rd party support the other systems got anyway.

The only case study that needs to be done is on the crazed Wii fanboys who don't own any other systems yet want to play core games.

 

[JJConrad]

Opiate, two years ago I'd have gone right along with you, but today I think the industry is taking this blue ocean stuff way too far. There is a lot discussion about 'how do we tap into this new audience?' But all its done is create a schism in the output of this generation... a game is either for a teenage boy or a 40-year old mom.

Its gotten to the point were geniuses are saying let's take a franchise squarely aimed at teenage boys and strip it down for 40-year old moms and then wonder why mom isn't moving upstream like she should. I don't think they realize that they're now making games that neither teenagers nor a mom would want and alienating everyone else in between.

The Wii's success isn't so much due to a new market (In the beginning, it was... Nintendo used that new market side step the rest of the industry that had already written them off, but that's not the reason for their success today). The Wii's success now is due to that majority of PS2 owners that were never interested in GTA or Madden but have no where else to go. The reason NSMBWii, MKWii and even WiiSports sell so well is because they are the best of a very small group of games that even try to hit that crowd without being overly patronizing.

I don't see this as something Nintendo caused or the continuation of what they've started. The industry has been trying to lean more and more "teenage boy" since at least '03 (its always been tilted that direction but it wasn't until GTAVC that people actually started talking that it was sustainable like that). Left to itself, I think the industry would have imploded by now... Nintendo was just there to pick up the pieces.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Nintendo seems to be one of the few making the big bucks off the Wii and I doubt they give a shit if anyone joins in.

 

[Dalthien]

I don't think NPD puts in Walmart estimates and what not, until they see what the actual numbers are from Walmart, Toys R Us, etc and if they do it is probably adjusted once they get the real numbers via quarter and fiscal year reports. Even then I'm not sure how Walmart and others factor in sections of their sales or if they just group them all into one pot?

As far as SIRAS goes, looks like another estimating tracking system to me, like NPD.

NPD completely guesses on WalMart and Toys R Us and any other retailer that they don't have a partnership with. NPD never receives the actual numbers from WalMart, etc.

Toys R Us ended their partnership with NPD fairly recently, so NPD has some somewhat recent data to try to make guesses from. WalMart ended their partnership with NPD years ago, so at this point, NPD just makes fairly random guesses at how WalMart's gaming business may or may not have changed from years ago. And other retailers exist that NPD has never had any association with whatsoever. NPD takes the data it gets from the retailers that do partner with NPD, and then they essentially try to make a best guess at what happened in the rest of the market. When the rest of the market includes the likes of WalMart and Toys R Us - that leaves some sizable room for error.

As for SIRAS - at time of purchase, after a store associate scans a product's UPC code and serial number into the cash register, the data is transferred to SiRAS's secure data warehouse. Nintendo has an excellent idea of exactly how much of their own product is being sold at any given time.

Edit - Or what Dragona said.

 

[Riou]

Yes, good conversation.

I think actual changes in values are very rare. Rather, I think Christensen argued (and I agree, it seems logical) that secondary and tertiary concerns become more significant once primary concerns are satiated.

Do you think technology/graphics have historically been the primary concern gamers in general? I can only think of one console (SNES) that was the most advanced technologically or graphically that was also the most successful and even that is somewhat debatable. Or do think technology/graphics being the primary "value" is a more recent trend.

 

[nextgeneration]

I don't think there needs to be a case study, you pretty much summed it up. At the end of the day Nintendo didn't need the type of 3rd party support the other systems got anyway.

The only case study that needs to be done is on the crazed Wii fanboys who don't own any other systems yet want to play core games.

Maybe not, but I'd still love to see one.

 

[Man God]

Technology has never meant much in the console market. SMS destroys the NES, tons of consoles beat out the VCS in power, N64 and the Saturn can beat down the PSX in many areas.

Handhelds are even worse. Every single competitor to the original Gameboy is technologically better, some by more than a generation.

 

[AnimeTheme]

Whether Nintendo's internal figure/SIRAS is more "accurate" than NPD or not does *not* really matter in sales comparison. The fact is, we have been using NPD data for ALL consoles since the PS1/2 era (or maybe even earlier, I dunno). It doesn't really mean much to compare figures calculated using DIFFERENT methods, says like the SIRAS version of Wii Dec 09 is bigger than the NPD version of PS2 Dec 02, or how much more the SIRAS Wii sells than the NPD PS3/XB360. Even Nintendo themselves call the NPD sales figures "official" in their statements.

Maybe the NPD version will just end up being pretty close to 3M, or not. We will see.

 

[Raistlin]

Nintendo seems to be one of the few making the big bucks off the Wii and I doubt they give a shit if anyone joins in.

Sounds pretty much like most Nintendo gens :\

 

[Spirit Icana]

It is disrupting the once-reigning values of graphical fidelity and substituting them for the interaction between the player and the console (via the touch screen, and subsequently the two-screen layout).

The "shades of grey" with the DS regard the fact that, while it disrupts the current paradigm, it simultaneously sustains it by being more graphically advanced than the GBA, and featuring more buttons than it, too.

Here's the thing I don't understand here. How exactly do you "sustain" a paradigm and then at the same time "change" it? The system isn't so much, I think, changing the rules of the game set by the Game Boy series, but rather expanding the gaming population via the Blue Ocean Strategy.

With Wii, there was PS2, GameCube, and Xbox previously which all followed the rules of more of everything, features, buttons, etc... Wii came out and changed the precieved notion of what gaming entertainment is all about. Where as Xbox 360 and PS3 continue to champion the rise of visual fidelity, features, more, more, more, the Wii went backwards and removed buttons and championed the user-interface over increased visual fidelity. The context of what propells entertainment in home console gaming is changing.

With the DS, it continues along the lines of the Game Boy Advance and adds more. The reason people think the DS has disrupted anything is because the PSP was announced around, I think, the same time and that some people thought the DS was somehow going backwards by cutting features and stuff because the PSP was adding even more features and upping graphics technology far more advanced than what the DS sported.

Now the PSP does overshoot the demands and needs of the mainstream, whereas the DS invites more people to play. But the rules of the game haven't really changed. The PSP never set the rules. The DS is a Game Boy Advance and more, with Blue Ocean titles like Brain Age that draw in non-gamers (these are games that couldn't have been nearly as accessible and inviting if it weren't for the touch-screen and dual screen set-up though).

 

[Man God]

Exactly.

 

[legend166]

I don't think there needs to be a case study, you pretty much summed it up. At the end of the day Nintendo didn't need the type of 3rd party support the other systems got anyway.

The only case study that needs to be done is on the crazed Wii fanboys who don't own any other systems yet want to play core games.

I think it's an incredibly fascinating situation.

One the one hand, you've got Nintendo breaking pretty much every record there is in this business and pulling in huge amounts of profits. So much so, they make more more than any other company in the industry combined. Nintendo are selling ridiculous amounts of software.

On the other hand, you've got a large group of 3rd party publishers. A couple are making tidy profits, but nothing spectacular. A majority are actually bleeding cash like never before, and are having to close studios and sack people left and right. They're seeing revenue grow but profit decline.

That group of publishers then essentially refuses to support the very same console that is making one company break said records. They come up with every excuse under the sun to support Microsoft and Sony, even as it clearly leads to financial ruin for many of the companies. They consistantly blame the consumer for their own failings and act as though there's some inherent power to the Wii that makes it only possible for Nintendo games to sell, as though the system will blow up if someone puts in a disc that isn't published by Nintendo.

At the same time, almost in unison, the group of 3rd party publishers starts to ignore every single bit of common sense that actually lead them to success in the past.

Whilst this is all going on, you have a media contingent who will due absolutely everything in their power to ensure the leading platforms, because they've come up with a scenario wherein if the Wii actually gained a lot of support, the games they love playing would completely disappear and never be seen again, rather than just be released in a form they have no problems playing 4 years ago, and in fact used the exact same superlatives to describe those games they now recoil in horror at any time they're forced to play through one of them.


I, for one, think this generation has been fascinating. An economist could write text books on the thing and show just how silly the idea is that companies will actually act in their own best interests.

 

[Opiate]

http://www.siliconera.com/2010/01/0...ds-successor-with-motion-sensor-in-the-works/

 

[legend166]

Whether Nintendo's internal figure/SIRAS is more "accurate" than NPD or not does *not* really matter in sales comparison. The fact is, we have been using NPD data for ALL consoles since the PS1/2 era (or maybe even earlier, I dunno). It doesn't really mean much to compare figures calculated using DIFFERENT methods, says like the SIRAS version of Wii Dec 09 is bigger than the NPD version of PS2 Dec 02, or how much more the SIRAS Wii sells than the NPD PS3/XB360. Even Nintendo themselves call the NPD sales figures "official" in their statements.

Maybe the NPD version will just end up being pretty close to 3M, or not. We will see.

It would not surprise me at all if NPD constantly talked with all the platformer holders to compare numbers. The platform holders use NPD as an official source on which to base their PR. You think if Nintendo knew for a fact they sold 3 million units, they'd let NPD report they only sold 2.5 million units?

 

[BowieZ]

Executive's reasons are far different, I suspect, and boil down to risk, as you suggest. Typically, large companies have an extreme aversion to untested markets. That's because there is no market research. No data, by definition. What these people want is poorly understood, and how to serve them even less so. Many publishers have even admitted this explicitly: the heads of EA, Ubisoft, and several other major publishers have described the Wii as "unpredictable." That word, in particular.

Obviously, it isn't that Wii owners actually have no pattern whatsoever to their buying habits, it's that third parties can't figure out what that pattern is, which to them is just as bad. It's not a market they're familiar with. Where they have 30 years of market research and careful, deliberate study in traditional "core" markets, they're virtually flying blind in this one.

Then, tack this problem on to another major one: that most of the major franchises third parties had to offer were already lined up for the PS3/360 well before the systems launched. Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Half Life, Assassin's Creed... all of these games were scheduled for release before the Wii had sold a single unit. Consequently, the audience for these types of "blockbuster" games was already migrating towards the 360 and PS3 before any of them even came out. You could say the battle was over before it started, and that would be a reasonable argument.

Trying to convince customers to migrate away from the PS3/360 and towards the Wii would take a great deal of additional effort. It's a lot easier when the tracks are already greased for you, with the franchises already established on that platform.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but if what you said (bolded) is true, what are some of the best hypotheses of what the actual pattern of Wii customer behavior is?

It goes without saying that many people who buy Wiis do so knowing that Nintendo themselves publishes high quality first-party content (somewhat subconsciously, I suspect?) so there's obviously a bit of a brand-name association factor ("Wii" Sports, "Wii" Fit, etc), and presumably many of these gamers are content playing solely those first-party products (such as myself), or buy an additional console.

Then of course there's an advertising factor. Surely the majority of people who own PS3s and 360s seek out gaming information, whereas the majority of Wii owners are more passive.

There must be other patterns though. I just don't understand why it appears Wii owners supposedly buy so much shovelware. (Do they?) Are they less skeptical that a random game sitting on the shelves might be lower quality? Then why aren't the higher quality higher profile games bought as much? (Or are they?)

Is a game's front cover a huge factor? For what it's worth, I know if I had to choose, I would pick up a colorful mini-game/party game collection over a darker, epic FPS, purely because I fear a barrier of entry and a steep learning curve with the latter, and the dark deathly vibe interests me none. (Though I say this knowing that I would basically never buy either.)

Anyway, I say all this as a preface to a question about whether it's possible (or probable) for third-party developers to develop a game like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, for instance (or any game really that appeals to new gamers with its cheerful style as much as hardcore gamers with its nostalgia and intense platforming content; and has little to no barrier of entry), market it similarly, advertise it just as much, and have it sell as much? And would whether it had an existing IP or not really make that much of a difference (Mario being the main exception, I guess)?

I just feel like there's a giant gap in the Wii's market for really high quality, cheerful family games (with newgamer-hardcore crossover appeal), and I can't understand why some third party developers aren't trying even HARDER to perfect a way of meeting this 'need' but I don't really know how to put that into words, and I fear it's just my anecdotal/personal irrelevance speaking.

 

[Spirit Icana]

The DS is a sustaining innovation, one of many, that developed from the original disruptive Gameboy (or Game & Watch, if you prefer). The DS, like its handheld predecessors, is disrupting console gaming. We can see this taking hold already in Japan. The new handheld values of portability, ease of use, and quick play time are disrupting the old market value of large screens, superior graphics, and in-depth play time.

Ah, I get it now. DS as a sustaining innovation disrupting the console space makes sense. I was trying to figure out how exactly DS was disrupting Game Boy previously. Thanks! And thanks for your discussion with Opiate (the thanks extends to Opiate as well). That was a good read. I didn't know how to respond to the drive thing and you are more informed to carry the discussion so I sat aside.

@Man God: Actually, I think kame-sennin makes a great point that dates back to the Game Boy. I'm kinda disappointed I didn't see it before. O_O

 

[gerg]

I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but if what you said (bolded) is true, what are some of the best hypotheses of what the actual pattern of Wii customer behavior is?

People who own the Wii typically enjoy games that either emphasise the interaction between the player and the console, the social interaction between multiple players, or have benefits in wider life.

It goes without saying that many people who buy Wiis do so knowing that Nintendo themselves publishes high quality first-party content (somewhat subconsciously, I suspect?)

Does it? I have known people who didn't realise that Nintendo produced the Wii.

so there's obviously a bit of a brand-name association factor ("Wii" Sports, "Wii" Fit, etc), and presumably many of these gamers are content playing solely those first-party products (such as myself), or buy an additional console.

There's a distinction between people trusting the Wii brand because of its past and current quality, and them deciding to buy it because they know Nintendo produces it.

Then of course there's an advertising factor. Surely the majority of people who own PS3s and 360s seek out gaming information, whereas the majority of Wii owners are more passive.

Not necessarily, no.

There must be other patterns though. I just don't understand why it appears Wii owners supposedly buy so much shovelware. (Do they?)

Not really, no.

Then why aren't the higher quality higher profile games bought as much? (Or are they?)

They pretty much are.

Now the PSP does overshoot the demands and needs of the mainstream, whereas the DS invites more people to play. But the rules of the game haven't really changed. The PSP never set the rules. The DS is a Game Boy Advance and more, with Blue Ocean titles like Brain Age that draw in non-gamers (these are games that couldn't have been nearly as accessible and inviting if it weren't for the touch-screen and dual screen set-up though).

I agree that the DS continues to sustain many of the features that made the GBA successful, but you're wrong if you think that the "rules of the game" haven't changed. As has been established in this thread, a paradigm shift isn't so much a change in values (depending on how we understand the concept of "change") as it is in a change in priorities of values. And, for handhelds, the priority will now be the interaction between the user and the product, and this may very well represent a change over "portability" being most significant - you're wrong if you think that Sony can adopt none of the values that have made the DS so successful and run away with the market.

 

[AnimeTheme]

It would not surprise me at all if NPD constantly talked with all the platformer holders to compare numbers. The platform holders use NPD as an official source on which to base their PR. You think if Nintendo knew for a fact they sold 3 million units, they'd let NPD report they only sold 2.5 million units?

I agree that NPD constantly talk with all the platformer holders to compare numbers. But NPD does NOT just work for Nintendo. I would be surprised if NPD counted 2.5M Wii, and changed it to 3M just because Nintendo said they did, and without any similar upwards "adjustments" applied to PS3, XB360 and other consoles in the same period as well.

 

[BowieZ]

...

K, thanks for responding to my suppositions. (Hope you knew I wasn't actually making assumptions, but rather asking questions in assumption form.)

 

[JJConrad]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I'm sure this has been discussed to death, but if what you said (bolded) is true, what are some of the best hypotheses of what the actual pattern of Wii customer behavior is?

It goes without saying that many people who buy Wiis do so knowing that Nintendo themselves publishes high quality first-party content (somewhat subconsciously, I suspect?) so there's obviously a bit of a brand-name association factor ("Wii" Sports, "Wii" Fit, etc), and presumably many of these gamers are content playing solely those first-party products (such as myself), or buy an additional console.

Then of course there's an advertising factor. Surely the majority of people who own PS3s and 360s seek out gaming information, whereas the majority of Wii owners are more passive.

There must be other patterns though. I just don't understand why it appears Wii owners supposedly buy so much shovelware. (Do they?) Are they less skeptical that a random game sitting on the shelves might be lower quality? Then why aren't the higher quality higher profile games bought as much? (Or are they?)

Is a game's front cover a huge factor? For what it's worth, I know if I had to choose, I would pick up a colorful mini-game/party game collection over a darker, epic FPS, purely because I fear a barrier of entry and a steep learning curve with the latter, and the dark deathly vibe interests me none. (Though I say this knowing that I would basically never buy either.)

Anyway, I say all this as a preface to a question about whether it's possible (or probable) for third-party developers to develop a game like New Super Mario Bros. Wii, for instance (or any game really that appeals to new gamers with its cheerful style as much as hardcore gamers with its nostalgia and intense platforming content; and has little to no barrier of entry), market it similarly, advertise it just as much, and have it sell as much? And would whether it had an existing IP or not really make that much of a difference (Mario being the main exception, I guess)?

I just feel like there's a giant gap in the Wii's market for really high quality, cheerful family games (with newgamer-hardcore crossover appeal), and I can't understand why some third party developers aren't trying even HARDER to perfect a way of meeting this 'need' but I don't really know how to put that into words, and I fear it's just my anecdotal/personal irrelevance speaking.

The majority of Wii's top selling third party games are multiplatform, almost all having a PS2 counterpart or being an extension from last gen. It's not that Wii gamers love ports, its that those are the games on the system that are most like normal games from last generation. There isn't a mystery pattern... the problem is everyone keeps looking for one.

Look at EA.... Madden being their prime failure. Their Wii and PS3 game sales were the closest in the systems' first year when the hardware sales were the closest. That was before they began trying to reach out to the "new Wii audience". The Wii's userbase is 50 million stronger today and EA is losing sales. They haven't touched Tiger Woods and it's grown every year.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

No, this is the correct answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnrXiaPVeHY

As long as it's Queen, I'm down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-xVb1qsPCw <--- Sony?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CTPLUcQAjk <--- Microsoft?

 

[Grampa Simpson]

I would negate your premise: that it would be fundamentally unprofitable for Nintendo to move upmarket. I don't think that the core consumers are inherently unprofitable.

Core consumers may believe Nintendo to be the enemy.

 

[Spirit Icana]

you're wrong if you think that Sony can adopt none of the values that have made the DS so successful and run away with the market.

Sony can adopt none of the values that have made the DS so successful and run way with the market. They can make new ones.

But I'll conceed that the Nintendo DS is disrupting the console space, as a portable.

 

[Future]

The Wii is the next gen board game. Growin up, everyone had Monopoly and a Chess board. But you only bust those out a few times a year and you're cool. Now of course there were hardcore players that would play more often and create high level strategies. But the largest group of buyers are the people that want it just for the ability to pull it out occasionally when the situation calls for it.

Thats the Wii, and its not a dis the system by any means. Nintendo manage to make a product that everyone had to have, regardless of how much they might actually play games. People just needed to swing that Wiimote around. Wii Sports was enough. And maybe Wii Fit cuz it was on Oprah. Hardcore gamers get a few quality titles as well. This is why the Wii doesnt always dominate NPD charts for brand new software, but they CONSISTANTLY have the same old killer app software that everyone just had to try and have in the top ten. How long has Wii Fit topped the charts?

Sony and M$ would kill to have a product like that, and they are trying...but through a different group of people. They are putting more and more tech, Bluray, deals with NetFlix and movie studios, things that gadget heads will love. But gadget heads arent gonna pull Wii numbers. My mom isnt gonna try to stream media from her cpu to her PS3. But she might stand on a balance board and wiggle around with a huge smile on her face, while her kids await Mario Galaxy 2.

The Wii brought gaming out of the hardcore, which is ironic since thats what Sony did to Nintendo awhile back. Like Guitar Hero and similar games, they might need to bring some new shit to the table with the Wii HD if they want to maintain dominance though

 

[Arde5643]

@Future : so the Wii's a fad?

Spoiler

alternative reply to future's post: lolwut?

 

[AnimeTheme]

The Wii is the next gen board game. Growin up, everyone had Monopoly and a Chess board. But you only bust those out a few times a year and you're cool. Now of course there were hardcore players that would play more often and create high level strategies. But the largest group of buyers are the people that want it just for the ability to pull it out occasionally when the situation calls for it.

Thats the Wii, and its not a dis the system by any means. Nintendo manage to make a product that everyone had to have, regardless of how much they might actually play games. People just needed to swing that Wiimote around. Wii Sports was enough. And maybe Wii Fit cuz it was on Oprah. Hardcore gamers get a few quality titles as well. This is why the Wii doesnt always dominate NPD charts for brand new software, but they CONSISTANTLY have the same old killer app software that everyone just had to try and have in the top ten. How long has Wii Fit topped the charts?

Well said. This pretty much summarizes what I think about Wii as well, at least in its current situation.

 

[Fritz]

I dont think there's any big secret behind the average wii owner. In the beginning of it's lifecycle people bought simply everything. Of course brand recognition like "Nintendo" or "Resident Evil" did help tremendously. Though, to be fair, those are the only big names on the console I can think of by now. Anyway, at first anything sold decently. But people wont be fooled twice. Nintendo is continuing to bring quality titles, casual or not. Their games are selling like hot cake. Shovelware, once decently successfull, is in decline. REUC was a big hit. A railshooter would have never sold that much on PS360. Though it was a mediocre niche game. Consecuently, people are not buying into REDC.

As people said over and over. 3rd party destroyed the market by themselves. And Nintendo is selling shitloads because they are the only ones taking their platform seriously.

I wonder how NMH2 will do, as it was a good game with decent sales. People will probably buy it again.

 

[NeoUltima]

Nintendo seems to be one of the few making the big bucks off the Wii and I doubt they give a shit if anyone joins in.

As long as them joining in doesn't mean less 1st party sales, of course they would want them to join in. Royalties are the reason the big three make hardware...Of course, unlike the other two, Nintendo makes hefty contrib. margin on hardware alone...so 3rd parties aren't quite as important to them as they are to the other two. But still, important.

 

[legend166]

The Wii is the next gen board game. Growin up, everyone had Monopoly and a Chess board. But you only bust those out a few times a year and you're cool. Now of course there were hardcore players that would play more often and create high level strategies. But the largest group of buyers are the people that want it just for the ability to pull it out occasionally when the situation calls for it.

Thats the Wii, and its not a dis the system by any means. Nintendo manage to make a product that everyone had to have, regardless of how much they might actually play games. People just needed to swing that Wiimote around. Wii Sports was enough. And maybe Wii Fit cuz it was on Oprah. Hardcore gamers get a few quality titles as well. This is why the Wii doesnt always dominate NPD charts for brand new software, but they CONSISTANTLY have the same old killer app software that everyone just had to try and have in the top ten. How long has Wii Fit topped the charts?

Sony and M$ would kill to have a product like that, and they are trying...but through a different group of people. They are putting more and more tech, Bluray, deals with NetFlix and movie studios, things that gadget heads will love. But gadget heads arent gonna pull Wii numbers. My mom isnt gonna try to stream media from her cpu to her PS3. But she might stand on a balance board and wiggle around with a huge smile on her face, while her kids await Mario Galaxy 2.

The Wii brought gaming out of the hardcore, which is ironic since thats what Sony did to Nintendo awhile back. Like Guitar Hero and similar games, they might need to bring some new shit to the table with the Wii HD if they want to maintain dominance though

The problem with this theory is that the Wii's tie ratio is very much inline with the historical trends of every other 1st place console. So unless you're willing to apply this same theory to the PS2, PS1, SNES and NES, then it doesn't hold.

 

[d+pad]

It goes without saying that many people who buy Wiis do so knowing that Nintendo themselves publishes high quality first-party content (somewhat subconsciously, I suspect?) so there's obviously a bit of a brand-name association factor ("Wii" Sports, "Wii" Fit, etc), and presumably many of these gamers are content playing solely those first-party products (such as myself), or buy an additional console.

Actually, I'm not so sure this is true. Here's a completely anecdotal story that hopefully illustrates my point:

A few years ago, my mom bought a DS. She had played mine, liked Tetris DS and Brain Age and some other game, so she bought a DS and a few games. She intended to buy Brain Age, but ended up with some other Brain Age-like game--which she didn't much like. When I asked her why she bought it, she said, "I thought it was the same one you have--you said it was from Nintendo, right?"

She thought that because the packaging said Nintendo on it, Nintendo made the game. Whoops. It took a while to explain to her that all games are "licensed by Nintendo" and that if she wants to buy games made by Nintendo she has to do a bit more digging.

So, I'm not sure we can say casual gamers as a whole really know and understand--and are drawn to--the Nintendo brand the way so-called core gamers are.

I do think many people are roped in by having "Wii" in the title, but that can't be it entirely. If it was, Wii Music would have sold on par with Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit, wouldn't it? So, advertising, marketing, word of mouth and other factors must play a role, too.

 

[perfectchaos007]

Nintendo sells 3 million consoles, in one month, in one territory....


3rd party developers: "Yeah we're going to develop our games for non-Nintendo platforms now..."

*facepalm

 

[Arde5643]

I dont think there's any big secret behind the average wii owner. In the beginning of it's lifecycle people bought simply everything. Of course brand recognition like "Nintendo" or "Resident Evil" did help tremendously. Though, to be fair, those are the only big names on the console I can think of by now. Anyway, at first anything sold decently. But people wont be fooled twice. Nintendo is continuing to bring quality titles, casual or not. Their games are selling like hot cake. Shovelware, once decently successfull, is in decline. REUC was a big hit. A railshooter would have never sold that much on PS360. Though it was a mediocre niche game. Consecuently, people are not buying into REDC.

As people said over and over. 3rd party destroyed the market by themselves. And Nintendo is selling shitloads because they are the only ones taking their platform seriously.

I wonder how NMH2 will do, as it was a good game with decent sales. People will probably buy it again.

NMH is definitely a fun "mature" game that appeals to males 18-34 that doesn't overshoot its motion control properties and instead make it fun - whereas I think the HD version coming out will unfortunately be unfairly judged with the likes of God of War or DMC due to the lack of motion control finishers.

As long as NMH2 remains in the same line as NMH, it should do very well.

 

[Taurus]

Rather than laugh at you, I'll just give you the facts.

In the United States, these are the life-to-date sales as of November. They'll all go up significantly in December, somewhere between half and 3/4 of a million on the low end (PSP) up to the 3 million reported for the Wii on the high end, with everything else in between:

DS: 35.4 million
Wii: 23.3 million
Xbox 360: 17.3 million
PSP: 16.2 million
PS3: 9.8 million

In Japan, these are the life-to-date sales as of last week:

DS: 29.1 million
PSP: 13.5 million
Wii: 9.4 million
PS3: 4.4 million
Xbox 360: 1.2 million

For other countries and regions--Europe most notably--we don't get concrete sales figures, only the occasional press release or company report, but rest assured that the Wii and DS are dominating similarly to the US figures.

From Europe we know this:

DS: 40 million LTD
Wii: 20 million LTD

http://www.edge-online.com/news/ds-and-wii-break-european-sales-records

 

[Sipowicz]

I don't think there needs to be a case study, you pretty much summed it up. At the end of the day Nintendo didn't need the type of 3rd party support the other systems got anyway.

The only case study that needs to be done is on the crazed Wii fanboys who don't own any other systems yet want to play core games.

that's unfair. i own other systems and i would love some more great games for me on the Wii. Thankfully 2009 more than delivered on that front. A lot of "core games" have sold really well on wii, whereas some haven't

Nintendo might have increased their output this gen but their releases are scarce. they definitely need third parties going forward, and i hope they get them

 

[Atreides]

Innovator's Dilemma is frequently mentioned in these forums, but I'm not sure how many people truly understand it. I say this, simply because so few people have pointed out the glaring distinctions between Christensen's prototypical "disruption" and the actual one we're seeing in the games industry.

One of the primary reasons why disruption occurs, according to Christensen, is that companies are constantly chasing the enthusiastic, highly devoted consumer. In most industries, this absolutely makes sense, because in most cases, highly devoted consumers provide larger profit margins. Not only is that empirically true, but it simply makes sense: of course it's possible to profit more on incredibly enthusiastic customers. People who don't care very much are going to be very picky about price, while people who care a great deal can be exploited for more cash than might seem otherwise necessary.

The problem is, this isn't how the gaming industry works, and it's part of the reason the game industry's disruption has been so dramatic and controversial. It is the new markets that provide higher margins, while the established markets are providing either no profits at all or losses. On a per capita basis, Sony and Microsoft should be capable of reaping more profits out of us (i.e. the "hardcore" gamers) than Nintendo is out of these new -- and presumably less dedicated -- consumers. Sony and Microsoft have failed so spectacularly at this that they are clearly banking very hard on this "convergence device" future.

I bring all this up for a reason: many have pointed out in the past that according to The Innovator's Dilemma, the disruptive company will eventually begin to move upmarket and invade established segments. However, the whole reason disruptive companies do this is because the higher end markets typically provide higher gross margins. Therefore, the theoretical impetus for Nintendo driving upmarket is essentially nonexistant.

All of this could have been explained very simply, with one rhetorical question: why would Nintendo spend the money and resources driving upmarket when that upmarket isn't profitable? (Of course, the answer is that they would not). I just felt it was odd that no one have ever pointed this out, because the standard "disruption" model has some pretty significant distinctions from what we're seeing in the games industry, yet no one ever points these out.

The reason because the upmarket is not very profitable this time is because a lot of money is needed to create the upmarket games.
But going upmarket for Nintendo would not mean making cinematic games with great graphics. It would mean having better motion controls, because in disruption, moving upmarket is done with the new values, not the old ones. Therefore they can move upmarket without the fear of losing profits.

Edit: OK, beaten by a lot. Still, I'd like to say that Nintendo doesn't need to match the values that HD consoles have (graphics and internet play). They just need to have them good enough. With their next console, Nintendo will still be behind Sony and Microsoft in both graphics and internet play, however consumers will perceive that the difference is much lower than this generation, meaning that motion controls will have a much higher weight in their minds while deciding which games/consoles to buy.

 

[boontje]

I agree that NPD constantly talk with all the platformer holders to compare numbers. But NPD does NOT just work for Nintendo. I would be surprised if NPD counted 2.5M Wii, and changed it to 3M just because Nintendo said they did, and without any similar upwards "adjustments" applied to PS3, XB360 and other consoles in the same period as well.

That is assuming if the Wii model is incorrect the other platforms must be equally incorrect as well.

 

[Aaron Strife]

I would negate your premise: that it would be fundamentally unprofitable for Nintendo to move upmarket. I don't think that the core consumers are inherently unprofitable.

I think it would be hilarious if while Sony and Microsoft begin scrambling to push natal/gem and their casual lineup consisting mainly of wii sports ripoffs, Nintendo began pushing Zelda and Metroid and other "core" titles and try and get those guys.

Par the course for this gen, a complete reversal of what everyone expects.

 

[Onesimos]

Whether Nintendo's internal figure/SIRAS is more "accurate" than NPD or not does *not* really matter in sales comparison. The fact is, we have been using NPD data for ALL consoles since the PS1/2 era (or maybe even earlier, I dunno). It doesn't really mean much to compare figures calculated using DIFFERENT methods, says like the SIRAS version of Wii Dec 09 is bigger than the NPD version of PS2 Dec 02, or how much more the SIRAS Wii sells than the NPD PS3/XB360. Even Nintendo themselves call the NPD sales figures "official" in their statements.

Maybe the NPD version will just end up being pretty close to 3M, or not. We will see.

With this talk about the reliability of NPD's sales figures, I wonder why NeoGAF banned (if I am told is true) discussion about ******** (a web site that is censored here) data. On a GameSpot forum I frequented, some claim that since NPD does not report on software and hardware sales from major retailers like Walmart, its numbers are no better than those found on that site.

I would like to mention that the skepticism of NPD data may be driven by console fanboys who do not like that their favorite console is faring poor in sales in the U.S., and will question the sales numbers as an act of an unwillingness to face the truth.

 

[Prine]

This new market seems to be far more fruitful than dirty core gamers for Nintendo. They really dont need 3rd parties atm.

3rd parties should simply concentrate on the HD systems, Nintendo can do their own thing watch the money pile.

Iwata and Miyamoto throwing their stacks on the table when they hit up the clubs in Kyoto. Ho's drinking Champaign bought from kids DS money. i could imagine them throwing money on the floor making people get on their knees to pick it up. Hilarious.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

With this talk about the reliability of NPD's sales figures, I wonder why NeoGAF banned (if I am told is true) discussion about ******** (a web site that is censored here) data. On a GameSpot forum I frequented, some claim that since NPD does not report on software and hardware sales from major retailers like Walmart, its numbers are no better than those found on that site.

I would like to mention that the skepticism of NPD data may be driven by console fanboys who do not like that their favorite console is faring poor in sales in the U.S., and will question the sales numbers as an act of an unwillingness to face the truth.

There are a lot of details as to why oi-oi's magic butt numbers are banned here and NPD is valued, but in the most simple sense it is because NPD is statistically valid and reliable (at least until you get to really low sellers, at which point the formula seems to crap the bed), while oi-oi's numbers are neither. I've seen him change sales data on numbers by the hundreds of thousands after NPD comes out. There's simply no reason to take his numbers seriously unless you're a dipshit that knows nothing at all about stats.

edit: and just to make it very clear, yes, citing oi-oi's numbers from the CHORTZ will result in a ban.

 

[swerve]

This new market seems to be far more fruitful than dirty core gamers for Nintendo.

I don't disagree about the 'more profitable' thing, but this idea they have no 'core' gamers anymore is silly. The dirty core gamers bought 8 million copies of Super Mario Galaxy and Brawl. Nintendo have far more support for their 'core' titles than they've enjoyed in years. We are simply not in a position to know if the players of Mario Galaxy are any different to those who wowed over Mario 64, or Mario World before that... And we never used to care so much if people playing Mario 64 were 'core' gamers or not.

 

[Ninja Moomin]

I don't think there needs to be a case study, you pretty much summed it up. At the end of the day Nintendo didn't need the type of 3rd party support the other systems got anyway.

The only case study that needs to be done is on the crazed Wii fanboys who don't own any other systems yet want to play core games.

The simply point is... just as Sega said recently.... that the people buying Wii's are not the sort of people to buy a console and go on to buy 5 or 6 games during the year... they are happy with wii sports and wii fit and might buy another game if the profile is high enough.

So in this scenario, how does a third party make any money?

 

[AColdDay]

With this talk about the reliability of NPD's sales figures, I wonder why NeoGAF banned (if I am told is true) discussion about ******** (a web site that is censored here) data. On a GameSpot forum I frequented, some claim that since NPD does not report on software and hardware sales from major retailers like Walmart, its numbers are no better than those found on that site.

I would like to mention that the skepticism of NPD data may be driven by console fanboys who do not like that their favorite console is faring poor in sales in the U.S., and will question the sales numbers as an act of an unwillingness to face the truth.

Metaphorically speaking, the body of water between the truth and NPD is a sizable lake. The body of water between the truth and v.g.c. is an ocean. NPD relies on proven and reliably accurate methods on tracking games sold through most of the retailers, while the ones that aren't tracked are probably estimated by actuaries. V.G.C. uses conjecture and rumors as their hard-line data, and while that can occasionally be accurate, it would be disingenuous to say that it is anywhere near as accurate as the method employed by NPD.

 

[Xavien]

The simply point is... just as Sega said recently.... that the people buying Wii's are not the sort of people to buy a console and go on to buy 5 or 6 games during the year... they are happy with wii sports and wii fit and might buy another game if the profile is high enough.

So in this scenario, how does a third party make any money?

As someone said earlier in this very thread, attach ratios on the Wii are similar to the PS2, so where does that leave third parties?

Leaving a massive pile of money on the table, thats where.

 

[gkryhewy]

The simply point is... just as Sega said recently.... that the people buying Wii's are not the sort of people to buy a console and go on to buy 5 or 6 games during the year... they are happy with wii sports and wii fit and might buy another game if the profile is high enough.

So in this scenario, how does a third party make any money?

This is the same Sega that has sold more than a million copies of House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return, according to a recent NPD thread.

 

[ninjapanda]

With this talk about the reliability of NPD's sales figures, I wonder why NeoGAF banned (if I am told is true) discussion about ******** (a web site that is censored here) data. On a GameSpot forum I frequented, some claim that since NPD does not report on software and hardware sales from major retailers like Walmart, its numbers are no better than those found on that site.

I would like to mention that the skepticism of NPD data may be driven by console fanboys who do not like that their favorite console is faring poor in sales in the U.S., and will question the sales numbers as an act of an unwillingness to face the truth.

The quantity of raw data for analysis obtained by the site in question is not of a power to effectively allow for hypothesis without a large margin of error. This is evidenced by previous predictions being of ~300K units different to reported Nintendo SIRAS obtained figures. When such a disparity is brought to light it is not uncommon for numbers listed by the site to be adjusted accordingly. The history of the groups creation and its founders can actually be traced back to neogaf. It's invention was initially met with enthusiasm here but with time and mounting questioning of accuracy and reliability was banned along with its creator. (this is all according to my memory which is fuzzy.... there should be a thread somewhere).

 

[Meesh]

Maybe it's 3 million sold to retailers ?

Shipped?

but wow, that's huge...third parties might as well call it quits, that's another 3million Wii gamers who don't give a shit

 

[Parl]

The simply point is... just as Sega said recently.... that the people buying Wii's are not the sort of people to buy a console and go on to buy 5 or 6 games during the year... they are happy with wii sports and wii fit and might buy another game if the profile is high enough.

So in this scenario, how does a third party make any money?

Tie-in ratios strongly disagree. Wii software, even excluding Wii Sports entirely, are on par with PS3 and on par with 360 at the same point in its life.

 

[thestopsign]

The quantity of raw data for analysis obtained by the site in question is not of a power to effectively allow for hypothesis without a large margin of error. This is evidenced by previous predictions being of ~300K units different to reported Nintendo SIRAS obtained figures. When such a disparity is brought to light it is not uncommon for numbers listed by the site to be adjusted accordingly. The history of the groups creation and its founders can actually be traced back to neogaf. It's invention was initially met with enthusiasm here but with time and mounting questioning of accuracy and reliability was banned along with its creator. (this is all according to my memory which is fuzzy.... there should be a thread somewhere).

Your memory is fairly accurate. ioi, the sites founder used to be common staple in NPD and Media-Create threads here on NeoGAF. As time went on, he began to doubt the accuracy of the trackers, and decided that they were often tracking wrong by a certain percentage. So he arbitrarily adjusted numbers up 10% or so on his website, and often reported data that was truly unattainable, like Top 120s (a bit exaggerated) for weekly sales in Japan. Most of the topics he was in would be derailed into arguments over the accuracy of his numbers. Eventually he was banned, and so was his site. He uses a very small sampling of stores and never directly states what his sources are. The whole site is bullshit, that's why it's a banned offense to post his numbers. Be careful whenever looking at numbers on blogs and even some bigger sites, they often cite his site for sales, and posting those articles of GAF is also a banned offense.

 

[Nessus]

Nintendo seems to be one of the few making the big bucks off the Wii and I doubt they give a shit if anyone joins in.

Very true, but this time around I strongly believe Nintendo genuinely wanted and tried to give them a chance, particularly in the first year where Nintendo left them vast windows of opportunity. But no one believed in the Wii early on, and produced only lackluster software, and it's since become a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. The sort of software each console receives has long since been defined, I think.

However that doesn't mean that if Capcom, Konami, et all had gotten on board early on with the Wii with high production value, properly marketed AAA titles (for a fraction of the budget of a 360/PS3 game) that the landscape wouldn't be radically different right now.

There's no reason the Wii couldn't have had good third party support, but now I think it never will.