michaelpachter
He speaks, and we freak
Running through the NPD results for 2009 (U.S. only in retail dollars), it looks like Nintendo first party Wii titles sold 27.5 million units for a total of $1.53 billion at retail. In contrast, overall Wii software sales were 72.4 million units and $3.23 billion.
I think that this illustrates an obvious point: Nintendo first party titles dominate on the Wii.
Nintendo captured 38% of unit sales and 47% of dollar sales, leaving the rest for third parties. The average Nintendo first party Wii title sold for $55.63, while the average third party title sold for $37.85. Nintendo first party titles captured the top 6 positions, 9 of the top 10, and 15 of the top 21.
The games I mentioned in Bonus Round (Resident Evil The Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction ) finished at positions 151 and 261, respectively.
Interestingly (at least to me), the six third party titles in the top 20 were EA Sports Active, Lego Star Wars, Madden 10, Tiger Woods 10, Deca Sports (?), Game Partyand Rock Band 2.
The Nintendo first party games in the top 21 are the usual suspects, with Mario and Sonic counted as a Nintendo title because it has the name "Mario" in the title.
Recently, we've seen comments from third parties (Capcom, EA and Ubisoft) expressing frustration over an inability to generate big sales on the Wii. Similarly, we've seen comments from Nintendo about how quality and marketing is the key to success on the Wii.
I found it fascinating that the highest ranked Guitar Hero title on the Wii in 2009 was GH World Tour at #30. I also found it fascinating that games like Just Dance, Cabela's Big Game Hunter, Deal or No Deal, The Biggest Loser and Jillian Michaels 2009 all finished ahead of the highest ranked GH game.
The conclusion I draw from this is that the Wii audience is far more casual and harder to reach than the PS3 or 360 audiences (pretty obvious), and they buy brand name software (with "Wii" or "Mario" in the title, or with a TV/product tie-in). The only titles that don't fit this are Deca Sports and Game Party. The average selling price of third party titles says a lot, coming in almost $7 below the average for all Wii titles, and almost $18 below first party titles. There were a lot of units sold with the word "party" in the title at $20 or less.
I made a comment on Bonus Round that half the Wii audience is hard core and half is purely casual. That split sounds pretty agressive, and the data above suggests it's more like 25/75.
Given that NeoGAF is a hard core site, I'm curious to hear your spin. What should publishers do?
I think that this illustrates an obvious point: Nintendo first party titles dominate on the Wii.
Nintendo captured 38% of unit sales and 47% of dollar sales, leaving the rest for third parties. The average Nintendo first party Wii title sold for $55.63, while the average third party title sold for $37.85. Nintendo first party titles captured the top 6 positions, 9 of the top 10, and 15 of the top 21.
The games I mentioned in Bonus Round (Resident Evil The Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction ) finished at positions 151 and 261, respectively.
Interestingly (at least to me), the six third party titles in the top 20 were EA Sports Active, Lego Star Wars, Madden 10, Tiger Woods 10, Deca Sports (?), Game Partyand Rock Band 2.
The Nintendo first party games in the top 21 are the usual suspects, with Mario and Sonic counted as a Nintendo title because it has the name "Mario" in the title.
Recently, we've seen comments from third parties (Capcom, EA and Ubisoft) expressing frustration over an inability to generate big sales on the Wii. Similarly, we've seen comments from Nintendo about how quality and marketing is the key to success on the Wii.
I found it fascinating that the highest ranked Guitar Hero title on the Wii in 2009 was GH World Tour at #30. I also found it fascinating that games like Just Dance, Cabela's Big Game Hunter, Deal or No Deal, The Biggest Loser and Jillian Michaels 2009 all finished ahead of the highest ranked GH game.
The conclusion I draw from this is that the Wii audience is far more casual and harder to reach than the PS3 or 360 audiences (pretty obvious), and they buy brand name software (with "Wii" or "Mario" in the title, or with a TV/product tie-in). The only titles that don't fit this are Deca Sports and Game Party. The average selling price of third party titles says a lot, coming in almost $7 below the average for all Wii titles, and almost $18 below first party titles. There were a lot of units sold with the word "party" in the title at $20 or less.
I made a comment on Bonus Round that half the Wii audience is hard core and half is purely casual. That split sounds pretty agressive, and the data above suggests it's more like 25/75.
Given that NeoGAF is a hard core site, I'm curious to hear your spin. What should publishers do?