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Wii U Community Thread

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antonz

Member
The problem with test games is that they really weren't games that would appeal to any sort of market.

I liked Zack & Wiki, but even if that were perfectly replicatable on the PS360, who's the audience it sells to? And to what extent would those numbers be greater than on the Wii, if at all?

The most egregious example of test games is from Capcom. RE4 Wii sells one million, so they make Umbrella Chronicles, a game no one asked for ever. It sells one million somehow. So they make Darkside Chronicles and it bombs and Capcom decides the Wii audience must not really want Resident Evil.

To a large extent, people are stupid. But I think they know when they are being shortchanged on a product.

Agree 100%. Zack and Wiki and the like are games that really are niche and wouldn't find a major blockbuster success on any of the consoles but certain companies use such titles to dictate development policy.

That is probably one of the more frustrating aspects of it all. Someone in the chain of command has to know these titles are not going to be the next COD yet somehow people in that Chain still put such expectations on the titles and when reality happens its obviously the consoles fault.

The Wii U this time I think is a little more fortunate as instead of random really old titles being the benchmark it is starting with some new titles. Batman is the one exception with its age. AC3,ZombiU etc are all new entries at least.
 

AniHawk

Member
That is the shitty thing that companies like Capcom did. Ubisoft at least brought Red Steel 2 and ended up taking a hit for doing so but they kept trying. You can bet the launch windows software sales will be looked at closely.

ZombiU will probably be heavily watched by all companies. If its a success thats good for the console. If it does poorly and I mean worse than Red Steel that will immediately get heads turning and projects on the hook ready to be pulled.

red steel 2, the sequel to a bad launch game that arrives on the console 3.5 years later when everyone was just starting to not care at all.

good timing!

a lot of the er, 'big stuff' came in 2009 and 2010, when 2008 was really the year it needed to be there. i rather enjoyed the weird shit the wii wound up with, but almost none of it made sense.

'hey you know who would like this fucking gory as fuck black and white brawler? wii owners.'
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
The problem with test games is that they really weren't games that would appeal to any sort of market.

I liked Zack & Wiki, but even if that were perfectly replicatable on the PS360, who's the audience it sells to? And to what extent would those numbers be greater than on the Wii, if at all?

The most egregious example of test games is from Capcom. RE4 Wii sells one million, so they make Umbrella Chronicles, a game no one asked for ever. It sells one million somehow. So they make Darkside Chronicles and it bombs and Capcom decides the Wii audience must not really want Resident Evil.

To a large extent, people are stupid. But I think they know when they are being shortchanged on a product.



I agree.
Let me add my two cents: if last gen (Wii-PS360) taught us something is that TP developers are good at creating their own traditional games (in terms of structure, gameplay, visual and promotion).

On the other side Nintendo proposed something different from what we saw in the market with both their new concepts (the "Wii-like) and their traditional concepts (as Mario or DK) because their traditional games are, today, so rare that also if they are classic they seem "new" (I mean: different). And they were so able in marketing their products that I think that they were the best selling software house of them all.

The result was that there was a huge market that TP weren't able to understand at all. They demostrate to be able to follow their traditional more comfortable path, while Nintendo was following their own. Two different paths, imho.

TP tried to "test" that market with products that were aimed at no one, I think, unable to propose a game experience really interesting for some demographic. Zack & Wiki for example was a shot in the dark, being a genre absolutely not popular (very small niche on home console I think) with a childish look but an hardcore level of difficulty. Who in the blue hell should have bought that game? I don't know.

The only softco able to target a right demographic was Ubisoft with Just Dance and Rabbids, and partially (too late?) Activision with Skylander (still in most of the PAL charts, with the Wii version) and Guitar Hero at the beginning.

What I mean is: TP demostrated that they are not so able to think outisde the box following totally different "Nintendo" path to aim at the right market, while they were great in aiming at the more traditional demographic. This was also Nintendo fault that totally ignored by their side that part of the market, not leading TP into the construction of this "modern-traditional" (core?) segment.

So, I think that IF Nintendo is really interested in gaining TP support must absolutely offer more chance to let them being profitable with their own CLASSIC (core?) productions (action games? fps games? adventure games? core games? call them as you prefer), and not forcing them (or offering them the excuse) to think in a different way. This will also allow TP in not missing completly the "Wii U train" (if it will become a train or have some success) as they did with the Wii (and I think that despite the refuse of developing for the Wii they showed during all the last gen, I don't think that they are happy to have missed it)

Otherwise they'll try "test games" that nobody really wants (minus rare exceptions I already stated) that will fail and it will be the Wii all over again.


How should they (Nintendo) do this? I don't know. Probably proposing also IP focused to that target and PROMOTING them? Maybe. Scary fact: they did nothing about this point in the last 2 E3...

How should they (TP) do this? I don't know. Probably putting their efforts on the console as they did with PS360 at the beginning (without any real fact that assured them to be successfull, but forcing themselves this success) without "testing" with poor B-team and shovelware titles...
 

Sagitario

Member
You guys know how Iwata managed to convince Capcom to put Monster Hunter on the 3DS despite the obvious success they had with the PSP? He might not get a coup quite like that again with the Wii U, but he's trying the same with third parties, regardless.

It is Tales, right? :p

So, you loved AW. Did you write about it somewhere? I am interest in reading why.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
A couple of tidbits.

  • Some rather impressive non-port titles are coming in the next 365 days. Some spin-offs and ports, too. But there are original titles there.
  • Vita dying a slow sales death is convincing some publishers to stay off Wii U (due to an expectation of being able to port between) and getting some publishers to consider moving Vita titles to Wii U.



sorry for the late quote but can I ask you one question?
Is there any new IP or "just" classic brands/sequels already established?
 

EDarkness

Member
I hate getting into the third party discussion these days because it's such a depressing topic. I just don't understand where these guys were coming from in some of the decisions. However, the biggest disappointment this generation was Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers. I was soooo damn hyped for that game when the trailer was first released. It was, by far, my most anticipated game on the Wii, and in the end it really wasn't anything like I was expecting. When they started talking about grandma's playing the game, I knew it was going to be "one of those Wii games". The sad thing is that the main character of that game won't really get a chance to shine in another game. Such a great character that got stuck in a mediocre game. And honestly, I can't even imagine what the developers of that game were thinking. Who did they think it was going to appeal to? Ugh. So frustrating.
 

Nibel

Member
Also, hi, I'm back. I couldn't stay out of the speculation for much longer, it was too much fun last time :)

iHNukgJ1jul5j.gif


More and more people from the old WUST are coming together

I'm TEARIN' UP IN HERE MAN
 

Sadist

Member
And the ironic thing is, Capcom is/was one of the developers who actually supported the Wii. But like everyone said, they didn’t make bad games but mostly games a lot of the Wii demographic just didn’t care for. One of the main offenders isn’t named yet: Dead Rising Chop till you Drop. I’m guilty, I bought the game (for twenty euros just to be clear) but I’m still surprised that the game received the greenlight from the higher-ups. Capcom saw RE 4 Wii Edition performing well, but I just don’t understand why Capcom thought it was a good idea to “rebuild” the game around an entirely different gameplay mechanic. The real joke is that it didn’t perform terribly either. Didn’t break the bank, but it’s sales performance was more of an grey area according to Seth Killian a few years back.

Dead Rising CTYD wasn’t a good game, but third parties sent out their good Wii releases out to die as well. Silent Hill Shattered Memories, A Boy and his Blob, Prince of Persia the Forgotten Sands, PES, Klonoa etc. were horribly handled by their respective publishers.
 
3rd parties perception of the Wii was that you could put any garbage you wanted on it with no marketing and it should sell because of the high userbase. And then they stuck with their only Nintendo games sell thing which was obviously untrue. Nintendo games were the most marketed and best games on the system. My top 10 Wii games would maybe include 2 3rd party games at most.
 

Litri

Member
I don't think a (late) port is out of question, but nothing more after Cevat's comments and their plans to shift their business.

Also thanks SA for all the news.

Edit:
4 posts since 2008 ? You've got patience.

You can't even start to imagine how lazy i am when it comes to posting...
 

ASIS

Member
This made me raise my eyebrows:
If you look at a Nintendo product, for instance. They have so many secrets and depth to their games that not a lot of people may ever see, but it's there. You know why? Because they're rewarding the players who enjoy that game. Even when we're doing games, we say, 'We want to do this', and they'll say, 'Well, how many people will see that?'. Not very many. 'Well, maybe you shouldn't do it.' I'm like, that's exactly why we should do it because we want to make sure that the people who are really looking in every single nook and cranny, that we're rewarding them for experimentation. It's important.
I tried the Darksiders demo and was impressed with it. Maybe I'll give the game a shot if that's the attitude they take.

Sorry for the late reply on this, but I want to stress how true this is. You always have these in Nintendo titles where it doesn't really enhance the experience but you always go "oh, that's nice!"

One of the more recent examples of this is in Twilight Princess, I didn't even know about it and I played that game about 3 times already: Click!

I wish more devs would do something like this.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
The most egregious example of test games is from Capcom. RE4 Wii sells one million, so they make Umbrella Chronicles, a game no one asked for ever. It sells one million somehow. So they make Darkside Chronicles and it bombs and Capcom decides the Wii audience must not really want Resident Evil.
.

Yeah that was ridiculous.
 

Nibel

Member
Wii U projected to sell 4m units by March 2013

Nintendo is preparing to shift 4-5 million Wii U units into retail during the system's launch period, according to a growing body of financial information and analyst projections.

Buried within the Tokyo firm's Q1 financial report, Nintendo forecasted it will ship about 10.5 million Wii and Wii U units combined during the current financial year, ending March 2013.
A key discussion point is how this total is expected to be split between the Wii and Wii U systems.

Nintendo sold 710,000 Wii units in the April-June quarter, and about 840,000 Wii systems over the January-March period.

Though it appears that the sales have ground to a halt, the Wii historically makes the majority of its annual sales at Christmas. Various bundles and retail promotions helped Nintendo sell 6.6 million units globally across the 2011 holiday quarter.

Based on these trends, Nintendo could be expecting Wii to sell six to seven million Wii systems globally in the current financial year. That would leave the Wii U with about four to five million sales.

Piers-Harding Rolls, lead games analyst for IHS Screen Digest, has told CVG that 4 million unit sales in the current financial year "is achievable but depends on launch price and timing".

"The big question is the extent of cannibalisation of Wii sales by the Wii U," he said.

"Our assumptions are that Nintendo will ship 6.5 million Wii systems in the current financial year, and about 4 million Wii U systems into retail. As such I think Nintendo's overall target of 10.5m console units is pretty neutral.

"In general, my outlook is that Wii U console sales will not replicate the success of the Wii. Aside from more intense competition from various other connected devices, the Wii U second-screen dynamic is a more complex consumer proposition compared to the Wii and is much harder to market."

Launched in 2006, the Wii broke records as the fastest selling home console ever across the UK, Europe, Australia and Japan.

A publishing source close to the matter has told CVG that the Wii U's European release date is likely late November but claimed it could slip into early December.

Source
 

chris3116

Member
I hate getting into the third party discussion these days because it's such a depressing topic. I just don't understand where these guys were coming from in some of the decisions. However, the biggest disappointment this generation was Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers. I was soooo damn hyped for that game when the trailer was first released. It was, by far, my most anticipated game on the Wii, and in the end it really wasn't anything like I was expecting. When they started talking about grandma's playing the game, I knew it was going to be "one of those Wii games". The sad thing is that the main character of that game won't really get a chance to shine in another game. Such a great character that got stuck in a mediocre game. And honestly, I can't even imagine what the developers of that game were thinking. Who did they think it was going to appeal to? Ugh. So frustrating.

Crystal Bearers had potential but the gameplay was flawed and not well executed. I think the game should have a new chance but they need to polish the gameplay. When I saw the trailer, I was hyped as well.
 

Donnie

Member
The most egregious example of test games is from Capcom. RE4 Wii sells one million, so they make Umbrella Chronicles, a game no one asked for ever. It sells one million somehow. So they make Darkside Chronicles and it bombs and Capcom decides the Wii audience must not really want Resident Evil.

The most baffling part to me is the decision to continue with Chronicles in the first place, when sales pointed to the fact that people wanted more RE4 like games instead. RE4 Wii sold over 2 million worldwide, while Umbrella Chronicles sold about 1.5m worldwide (with a larger userbase). So which one do they build on?, Chronicles! The conclusion that people just don't want RE games on Wii after the second Chronicles bombed was just the icing on the idiot cake.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
It was hard for Capcom to give a shit about Resident Evil on the Wii when they were making their money back and then some on the 360/PS3.
 

MDX

Member


What if Nintendo has been preparing an answer for Epic&Microsofts partnership with the Gears of War series, and their probable next gen collaboration, by teaming up with Crytek for an exclusive trilogy made with CryENGINE 3?

Cascaded Light Propagation Volumes for Real Time Indirect Illumination'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyfBoYo6khU
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
It was hard for Capcom to give a shit about Resident Evil on the Wii when they were making their money back and then some on the 360/PS3.

True, but the lessons they took from RE4's success- "hey let's put out more on rails shooters!", and especially "let's shoehorn the RE4 gameplay into Dead Rising" just made no sense.
 

MDX

Member
It was hard for Capcom to give a shit about Resident Evil on the Wii when they were making their money back and then some on the 360/PS3.


But thats not good long term thinking.
Third parties need to nurture future game players on as many consoles as
possible if they want to keep their IP relevant.
 

Aostia

El Capitan Todd
It was hard for Capcom to give a shit about Resident Evil on the Wii when they were making their money back and then some on the 360/PS3.

I think that RE4wii and Chronicles (at least the first one for sure) were decently profitable for Capcom.
Maybe the problem was just that :D HAHAHAH
Why spending money in doing another good RE while we an earn money with an onrail shooter?
The problem is that if Chornicles would have sold like shit, then we'd saw the tipycal feedbacK: "games don't sell on Nintendo platforms!"

:p
 

Donnie

Member
It was hard for Capcom to give a shit about Resident Evil on the Wii when they were making their money back and then some on the 360/PS3.

Any company that finds it hard to make reasonable business decisions in one part of their business because "well we're making loads of money elsewhere so who cares" is destined to fail.
 
I really think it will be. Rememebr all that hype leading up to E3? (how could we forget ¬¬) That was partly based on these 'big surprises' we were apparently going to see and certain insiders saying they were impressed with what they have seen in development for WiiU so far. I dont think that has gone away just because it wasn't shown at E3. Somthing was getting people'in the know' a little excited and I doubt we've seen what it was so far.

And now SA's comments I hope will remind people of that, whilst adding yet more hype-fuel to the hype-fire :D

It's going to be a good couple of months.

You should have read my other posts after this one. :)
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I know it was silly of Capcom to ignore that audience, as a lot of publishers did. But I mentioned this awhile ago: when publishers are finding immense success elsewhere, it's hard to argue to them that they should be finding success on your platform of choice. There was an audience there for Resident Evil on the Wii, but fact of the matter is Resident Evil 5 sold extremely well on the PS3/360. In Capcom's head that translates to "why bother with the Wii?". It's dumb, but that's where the logic is rooted.

@ShockingAlberto: No idea. They could have probably done a quick and dirty in the Resident Evil 4 engine and made their moneys worth easily.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
I know it was silly of Capcom to ignore that audience, as a lot of publishers did. But I mentioned this awhile ago: when publishers are finding immense success elsewhere, it's hard to argue to them that they should be finding success on your platform of choice. There was an audience there for Resident Evil on the Wii, but fact of the matter is Resident Evil 5 sold extremely well on the PS3/360. In Capcom's head that translates to "why bother with the Wii?". It's dumb, but that's where the logic is rooted.

@ShockingAlberto: No idea. They could have probably done a quick and dirty in the Resident Evil 4 engine and made their moneys worth easily.

It wasn't that they ignored it though- its that they just made really baffling decisions. Dead Rising was just...I don't even know what was going on in their minds when that was approved.
 

Effect

Member
I hate getting into the third party discussion these days because it's such a depressing topic. I just don't understand where these guys were coming from in some of the decisions. However, the biggest disappointment this generation was Crystal Chronicles: Crystal Bearers. I was soooo damn hyped for that game when the trailer was first released. It was, by far, my most anticipated game on the Wii, and in the end it really wasn't anything like I was expecting. When they started talking about grandma's playing the game, I knew it was going to be "one of those Wii games". The sad thing is that the main character of that game won't really get a chance to shine in another game. Such a great character that got stuck in a mediocre game. And honestly, I can't even imagine what the developers of that game were thinking. Who did they think it was going to appeal to? Ugh. So frustrating.

Crystal Bearers is such a mix bag for me. Disappointing but at the same time it had enough potential that it could have been something good. I didn't dislike it as much as others did but wasn't crazy about it and wouldn't recommend it now looking back on it. I still have my copy though and don't really want to get rid of it. It was interesting and new and I appreciated how your combat was based on the gravity power. It just had no direction in the end. The game was restarted three times I think and it really shows in the end. I don't think I've been as conflicted about a game as I was about this one. Then again perhaps my judgement is clouded as I was happy that Square-Enix was actually putting a game on the Wii and it didn't look to be some sort of on the rails game but something that would have some substance to it.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
It wasn't that they ignored it though- its that they just made really baffling decisions. Dead Rising was just...I don't even know what was going on in their minds when that was approved.

I honestly don't think Capcom ever gave a shit about the Wii audience when it came to games like those. From the get go I doubt they ever intended to invest in anything substantial, excuses of 'testing' be damned.

You don't think they made their money back and then some with their quick port of RE4 that sold almost as well as the GC and PS2 releases?

They did. Just as they made a quid on the 360/PS3. Smart business would have been to invest harder in the Wii early on. They took the cheaper rout, made some money, and made their mark on other platforms.

My point is simply that it's hard to convince a publisher their making bad decisions when they're finding success elsewhere. They usually don't give a shit, to the point of being short sighted. Resident Evil 5 was a tremendous success on the PS3/360 and that's all Capcom wanted to hear.
 

Donnie

Member
I know it was silly of Capcom to ignore that audience, as a lot of publishers did. But I mentioned this awhile ago: when publishers are finding immense success elsewhere, it's hard to argue to them that they should be finding success on your platform of choice. There was an audience there for Resident Evil on the Wii, but fact of the matter is Resident Evil 5 sold extremely well on the PS3/360. In Capcom's head that translates to "why bother with the Wii?". It's dumb, but that's where the logic is rooted.

@ShockingAlberto: No idea. They could have probably done a quick and dirty in the Resident Evil 4 engine and made their moneys worth easily.

I don't think people are ridiculing Capcom for not giving Wii more support. The point is more about what they chose to support the system with. They spent time and resources producing a sequel to an on rails shooter when sales told them that a RE4 based game was the better choice for a sequel.

Trying to port RE5 wasn't neccesary. They could have used the RE4 engine to produce a direct sequel to RE4 with improved graphics for the same kind of time and resources they spent on Darkside Chronicles and almost certainly had much more success.

If success with RE5 and a philosophy of "We're doing really well elsewhere, who cares what we release on Wii just flip a coin" is the reason for the decision then they deserve to be ridiculed IMO.
 
I know it was silly of Capcom to ignore that audience, as a lot of publishers did. But I mentioned this awhile ago: when publishers are finding immense success elsewhere, it's hard to argue to them that they should be finding success on your platform of choice. There was an audience there for Resident Evil on the Wii, but fact of the matter is Resident Evil 5 sold extremely well on the PS3/360. In Capcom's head that translates to "why bother with the Wii?". It's dumb, but that's where the logic is rooted.

@ShockingAlberto: No idea. They could have probably done a quick and dirty in the Resident Evil 4 engine and made their moneys worth easily.

Umbrella Chronicles was released in 2007. Darkside Chronicles came out in late 2009, the same year as RE5.

Capcom made the decision to make rail shooters for Wii in lieu of free-roaming RE4-style games long before they had any RE5 sales figures to respond to.

Sven gave a quote at E3 last year that, while vague, sounded like he was recognizing that this was a stupid decision in hindsight:

IGN: Any regrets with the Wii?

Svensson: I think like much of the industry, I wish I knew what it was going to be a year before it actually became apparent what it was going to be, in terms of market acceptance. I don't know that there's any publisher you could speak to going into that window that would have said "It's going to be that." Maybe Ubisoft did, they're the only ones that bet really heavily out of the gate on it. But I'm not sure if they capitalized on it any better than we did in the end.
I'm not disappointed with our Wii output at all.

There are certain things I wish we would have done, but the problem is the windows of opportunities closed. When it became apparent we should have done something, the chance had already passed us by from a business or development standpoint. But other than that, it was not terrible. We've had some major successes. The Wii helped us grow the Monster Hunter brand in the West. Our most successful Monster Hunter in the West was Tri in both North America and Europe. I think Zack and Wiki was an interesting experiment; very creative in its approach and reinforced that Capcom innovation is alive and well here. We brought Tatsunoko vs. Capcom to the West when everyone said it wouldn't come. We proved them wrong and it was modestly successful.

I'm not disappointed with our Wii output at all.

...but if RE6 isn't actually coming to Wii U this year, I suppose Capcom hasn't really learned anything.
 
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