The 3DS
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Yves Guillemot: ZombiU Wasn't Profitable, not even close, no sequel planned
- Thread starter Saty
- Start date
It costs twice as much if you have to do it twice. Commercials, magazine features, web shit, reviews ( I keed!).
I know quite a lot of people who bought the Wii only to play Wii Sports. They never bought anything else and hardly touched their Wii after a few months.
Maybe it's the same with the Wii U crowd. I own a Wii U, I own NSMBU, but I feel no need to spend money on the Luigi U version. It's just more of the same. The competition offers so much more for the money and I decided that I will wait for the PS4. I will also pass Wind Waker HD and wait for a true new Zelda..
IceDoesntHelp
Banned
3 million of you with a Wii U, and not even half that many could pick it up, really?
I feel like it would have sold pretty poorly on 360 and PS3 too. There's a lot of competition out there in the FPS landscape, and ZombiU was pretty hardcore.
I think this is moreso the case.
btw, do we actually have any estimated numbers for ZombiU? I didn't read through the entire thread. It definitely didn't breach a million, but it was the premiere 3rd party launch title it must have sold over 250k.
It's not my genre, not my kind of stuff, why should I buy it? Simply because "there's nothing else"?
No thanks. I bought a 3DS at launch for Pilotwings, that doesn't mean I feel like buying bullshit like Steel Diver or Nintendogs just for the reason of it.
The quicker Nintendo fans come to terms with the failure of the system the better.
I do not mean that to seem mean. I know there are people out there who are fanboys, and system warzzz can run hot and heavy at this time in the console cycle. People want their "team" to win and your "team" to lose and nobody likes that feeling.
But hopefully my posting history is enough evidence that this in not my motivation. My motivation is that we can only start learning from failure if we admit that failure exists in the first place. If we insist that Nintendo are doing nothing wrong except maybe marketing, then there is virtually nothing to learn; Nintendo should keep doing what they're doing because they are by definition doing nothing wrong.
Lastly, I am not suggesting that Nintendo simply ape Sony or Microsoft and repent their sins against the core audience they have spurned. That audience exists, but now we have plenty of evidence that other audiences exist too -- in many cases much more profitable audiences -- and the first step in figuring out how Nintendo can capture any of those groups in the future is to admit that they are doing a very poor job of capturing them right now. Okay, so Nintendo screwed up. Especially with a company that takes big risks with their hardware like Nintendo has, that's bound to happen sometimes. What can they learn from this experience?
I do not mean that to seem mean. I know there are people out there who are fanboys, and system warzzz can run hot and heavy at this time in the console cycle. People want their "team" to win and your "team" to lose and nobody likes that feeling.
But hopefully my posting history is enough evidence that this in not my motivation. My motivation is that we can only start learning from failure if we admit that failure exists in the first place. If we insist that Nintendo are doing nothing wrong except maybe marketing, then there is virtually nothing to learn; Nintendo should keep doing what they're doing because they are by definition doing nothing wrong.
Lastly, I am not suggesting that Nintendo simply ape Sony or Microsoft and repent their sins against the core audience they have spurned. That audience exists, but now we have plenty of evidence that other audiences exist too -- in many cases much more profitable audiences -- and the first step in figuring out how Nintendo can capture any of those groups in the future is to admit that they are doing a very poor job of capturing them right now. Okay, so Nintendo screwed up. Especially with a company that takes big risks with their hardware like Nintendo has, that's bound to happen sometimes. What can they learn from this experience?
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Maybe, yes. But poor selling on the 360/PS3 could still be better selling than what it has already done on the Wii U, which is (as far as we're aware) miserably.
Storm Chamber
Banned
I honest to God didn't know the release date prior to this post.
Oh my goodness gracious.
shinra-bansho
Member
It's not just that though, I think on the whole Wii U owners are just buying less software, or rather less of the "core" software. Based on the revenue figures, assuming mostly full price software, the average Wii U owner has bought less than 2 games.
Over the first 4 months of the PS3, Resistance had a 50% attach rate.
But third party software was still selling "okay" and the system apparently had a 5 month tie ratio of 2.3, despite the system itself costing $599.
Does this mean that Wii U apologists will stop suggesting that third party games would sell on the system if "third parties invested in new IPs that were a good fit for the system instead of broken ports"?
Zombi U was a great game, and a better fit for the system than anyone else has put out (including Nintendo). It was also reviewed well. If games like this don't sell on Wii U, you can't blame 3rd parties for bailing ship. Nobody is in this business to lose money.
I'm looking forward to Bayonetta 2 and a few other Wii U games, but I have no delusions that they'll sell well.
Zombi U was a great game, and a better fit for the system than anyone else has put out (including Nintendo). It was also reviewed well. If games like this don't sell on Wii U, you can't blame 3rd parties for bailing ship. Nobody is in this business to lose money.
I'm looking forward to Bayonetta 2 and a few other Wii U games, but I have no delusions that they'll sell well.
Can we atleast give them the holidays? It's been a miserable year so far, but they have a very strong holiday lineup of exclusives.
I feel as if this market is going to explode very soon, either in a good or bad way. The market this holiday is more oversaturated with consoles and games than it's ever been. Between Pokemon and new Playstations and Xboxs and GTA and 3D Mario and Vita and the ios/android world and another goddamn Assassins Creed.....like how the fuck is this gonna work?
But maybe WiiU and Vita will just get the kick to the curb as everyone predicts and everything will be fine. I'd like to give WiiU one more set-of-months, stacked with exclusives, a console update, hopefully some Earthbound and a price-drop/bundle. I think they can turn it around (so to speak, turning their Virtual Boy into a Gamecube).
Man... I really had no idea that peoples expectations for Zombi U were so high. I feel like I missed something.
This is a game that started life on an entirely different platform, went through god knows how many stylistic changes (probably quite a few mechanical ones as well) and then ended up as a survivor horror first person shooter with controls clunkier than Last of Us, perma-death and plenty of bugs to completely fuck your save.
I enjoyed Zombi U, it was a motivator for me to get the Wii U early, but I never once thought that it would do any better than any other survival horror game out there. Doubly so when I actually played it. I figured it would get a boost from being a launch game, but nothing dramatic.
I guess if people here were expecting 1.5 million for it, then maybe Ubisoft were too. That shit is kinda crazy to me.
This is a game that started life on an entirely different platform, went through god knows how many stylistic changes (probably quite a few mechanical ones as well) and then ended up as a survivor horror first person shooter with controls clunkier than Last of Us, perma-death and plenty of bugs to completely fuck your save.
I enjoyed Zombi U, it was a motivator for me to get the Wii U early, but I never once thought that it would do any better than any other survival horror game out there. Doubly so when I actually played it. I figured it would get a boost from being a launch game, but nothing dramatic.
I guess if people here were expecting 1.5 million for it, then maybe Ubisoft were too. That shit is kinda crazy to me.
Most Wii Us are purchased with Nintendoland.
My dad and aunt use their wiis exclusively for wii fit.
Though I also know someone who uses a ds as dedicated dictionary.
Everyone's already said Mario, so I'll follow that up with the number two either being Netflix or nothing at all. Mine's been a $350 dust collector for months.
In my opinion, no. This is not just a system performing badly, or one that is off to a slow start. It's a disatrous start, one closer to completely failed systems like the Saturn or Vita or Dreamcast than it is to "slow but may end up doing okay" systems like the PS3 or Xbox 1.
Runners who get off to a slightly slow start can still win a 1 mile race. They cannot do that, however, if they fall down and take several minutes to get back up, which is basically the optimistic situation for Nintendo now. Ubisoft, EA, Take 2 and Activision are not coming back. The system will never sell particularly well.
Start with this as your baseline premise. Now figure out how Nintendo can do better 5 years from now. In my opinion, I believe it's clear that EA/Take 2/ et. al are gone and are never coming back in any substantial way. Ever. Even if Nintendo have a hugely successful system, as the Wii shows us.
Okay, so that's a big problem. How do they fix it? How did iOS fix it? How did PC fix it? How did 3DS do it? They didn't have the big four publishers backing them either and they're doing fine-to-excellent. It's clearly possible to do.
shinra-bansho
Member
Yes, and apparently many Wii U owners are satisfied with just Nintendo Land and NSMBU.
The PS3 had, as far as I'm aware a tie ratio on the low end, which could partially be explained by the high initial outlay for a consumer to purchase the system itself. The Wii U's is even lower. I really don't think third parties look at their software sales and say to themselves, "Well there was a pack-in, so it's okay our sales are terrible."
The Wii had a tie ratio a bit under 3 despite having a pack-in in every box.
The 360 had a tie ratio above 4 in the corresponding period after launch.
You answered your own question. They are playing nothing because there is basically nothing.
For me though I am playing Batman (borrowed from a friend) and still trying to 100% Lego - although I'd prefer something new.
Are we really going to talk about that for the next 3-4 years?
Talking about how Nintendo can fix NEXT generation is just incredibly depressing, especially before we've gotten a single big game from them.
Plus we've had the same discussion over and over. The name, the OS, the games, the third parties. It's very obvious what they have to do to become competitive with Sony and Microsoft. Hell, so long as the name of the system doesn't have 'wii' in it, it's a huge, huge start.
I know it's anecdotal, I just know a large group of people waiting on WiiU. They are waiting for games to play, Smash Bros, price drops, wii sports, etc.. I think when there are games to play we should take another look.
Now this doesn't line up well with history. The Wii actually sold quite a bit of software in its day; by 2010, it still had a better attach rate than the PS3, let alone selling more software units.
So someone out there was buying software. Maybe not your friends, I don't know. And everyone loves to tell tales of how they know people who played it once and threw it in the cupboard and never looked at it again, or how they bought one themselves and played it once then sold it, or whatever.
The point is that data simply did not back up the claim that people were getting bored of their Wiis in some unique way -- at least, they weren't until software support completely fell off the face of the earth in about 2011.
The Wii was a legitimate smash hit success system and people who don't like are wrong to downplay its objectively profound success. The Wii U, on the other hand, is basically the disaster that people who didn't like the Wii wanted it to be. People did not just buy Wiis to play Wii sports; we can see what they were buying and they were buying lots and lots of other things. This time around, though, they really are just buying Mario, and that's it.
It might not be their main focus, but PC has always had the backing of the big 4 (assuming you mean Take 2, Ubisoft, Activision, and EA). All of those companies have had several notable PC exclusives this past generation.
Your other two examples are handhelds, and the 3DS at least launched with the full support of the Japanese gaming industry.
Tallshortman
Member
The mass market people who bought the wii are the ones who only owned wii sports and maybe 1 or 2 other titles. The Wii U crowd is undeniably nintendo fans and some core gamers only at this point. If they're not going to buy third party software on it they may as well get used to only first party support.
And on the flipside, despite the smaller install base, Tretton said at E3 that the Vita has an average attach rate of 10 games per system. No wonder we hear about indies/niche pubs being content with sales on the platform.
Mass market people also bought Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Mario Kart, NSMB Wii, Just Dance, etc, etc. Opiate is right. The attach rate was too high to claim that most people were not buying games.
But not in, say, 2003. In 2003, those four companies were running for the hills from the PC. By 2010, yes, I agree, PC was on a noticeable upswing with all of them. How did the PC turn it around? Because I propose it was mostly through companies other than EA/Activision/Ubisoft/Take 2. They came back when other companies proved how fertile the PC space still was, and I'm not suggesting that couldn't happen for Nintendo -- but like the PC, I suspect the big four will follow only once someone else proves the ecosystem can be successful for third parties.
Are you suggesting that a home console literally could not possibly be successful without the backing of Activision/Ubisoft/etc.? Because I don't agree. Saying, "well, the 3DS is a bit different" isn't very helpful input unless you literally mean to suggest that Nintendo has no possible way to be successful in the home console realm.
shinra-bansho
Member
prag16
Banned
Frankly Nintendo fans don't have to accept anything yet if they don't want to. Nintendo botched this thing six ways to Sunday. Three games.. a 2D platformer and two mini game collections.. yes as such they completely squandered the year head start.
But all this grandstanding about how some fans on the Internet need to acknowledge it's a failure, who the hell cares? What the fans "learn" doesn't matter if said fans are in it mostly in it for Nintendo games (of which there will be plenty, just a bit later than expected).
That type of talk is akin to sports fans feeling as though they can affect the outcome of this week's match negatively if they look ahead to next week's match.
Fun to analyze, sure, but it doesn't warrant admonishing and talking down at those who don't have extreme Wii U buyers remorse.
What these types of posts amount to (though you're admittedly far from the worst offender) is that anybody having fun with their Wii U's are doing it wrong and should instead feel bad.
Also, Ubi (and to some extent Activision) haven't left yet. We'll know in early 2014 where they stand with much more clarity. As the guy you're responding to correctly stated, giving it until then makes sense.
Isn't it tracking fairly similar or worse than Dreamcast at this point? That's hardly ideal. Ten months from this point in its western life span, Sega threw the towel in.
I don't think you understand my perspective.
I am not saying that you should feel bad about purchasing or enjoying a Wii U, just as the PS3 was also a complete economic disaster but it's fine to enjoy that, too.
This is a discussion of objective market analysis. There are plenty of things I personally like that I belittle in threads like this, because what I personally like and what is actually financially successful are two different things.
Lastly, some of what you've written here belies a common problem; the tendency of people to associate the commercial success of their favorite products with their own success or happiness or their own ego. I strongly advise against that behavior, even if I understand it's common and natural.
If you don't like objective market analysis, then these types of threads may not be for you. At least until Nintendo turns it around, I suppose.
I'm not sure exactly what would count for Vita attach rate in particular, but there is PS Mobile stuff that gravitates between .99 - $10 available. Still, even if we lower Tretton's number a bit, an attach rate of 4-7 is fairly impressive considering the platform, and you have bigger pubs like SE now saying that PS Mobile is getting too big to ignore and porting stuff to it.
That's indicative of the Wii U's primary issue, lack of software. Nintendo has only released 3 games that are attributed internally, plus Lego City and Ninja Gaiden 3. We don't have numbers for the Made in Wario but it's probably pretty low given the critical reception. Among the 3rd party releases we know the non-late ports did much better than the late ports but those are solely restricted to Ubisoft and Activision. It's of course obvious why those 2 games are the only ones selling and would point to more high profile Nintendo games having high tie ratios.
I don't think Opiate was arguing that people who are enjoying their Wii U's shouldn't continue enjoying them. In fact, this isn't even a thread about how much people enjoy their Wii Us. This is a thread dealing with the state of the Wii U in the marketplace and how that's determining the quality of 3rd party support the system is seeing. In that context, I think Opiate's posts are more than valid. There have been a lot of posters in this thread (and others that are similar) arguing from a position of how much they're enjoying their Wii U, and not from a realistic position on how the Wii U is performing as a product.
I mean, it's not like we're shitting up the Wii U Appreciation thread.
EDIT: Oops, Opiate already responded.
shinra-bansho
Member
There is software to buy that people aren't buying. If there wasn't software to buy, then there wouldn't be software failing to sell, and the latter is known.
Just Dance 4 and Sonic were late ports and did better than day-and-date Injustice. It is not that they are "non-late ports," they are more attuned to the audience that Nintendo's product positioning has delivered.
No one is saying you can't buy, own and love your Wii U. You don't need buyers remorse to examine the situation dispassionately.
Letting one's own post-purchase rationalization get in the way of examination is, however, what leads to comments about how "there's nothing wrong with the product."
People who own and love their Vitas should equally be able to realise it is a flawed product. People who bought PS3s early on should have been able to set aside their own personal like of the product to see the many issues with it.
It's the marketing/advertising, it's the name, people are confused, it's the economy, it's Obama, anything other than the product.
Tallshortman
Member
That's not what I was saying, I was responding to someone else making that claim. I'm saying even if casuals had a low attach rate that's not even an excuse this time because they have zero casuals even buying the console.
catstronaut
Member
I have a WiiU, I love the console itself, but it has very few games I want to play. I have NSMBU and Nintendoland, have had them since launch, and the only other thing I've played on my WiiU is Super Metroid, which I've already beaten. The console itself is fantastic, and I love the Miiverse integration in particular. But besides the games I already have, the only thing I was remotely interested in was Monster Hunter, and the demo absolutely killed that for me.
The WiiU doesn't have any games. That's the crux of the problem. I want to buy games for it, as the console itself is really great. But there's nothing.
But wait! Just around the corner is Pikmin 3, which I'm wishy-washy on. Then there's Wonderful 101, which looks fantastic. Then 3D World comes out, and I'm really, really looking forward to that. Then comes Wind Waker HD, which I'm somewhat interested in, and Sonic Lost World, which could win me over. And then WiiU's getting Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros, Tropical Freeze, Bayonetta 2, and X. That's an incredible line-up of games, really. Nintendo faced this once before with the 3DS: there were no games for it, so they pulled out all the stops and made it an amazing handheld. And now that they're up to speed, they can do the same with the WiiU.
I think there are a lot of people who just aren't that interested in Nintendo's games, and that's fine. But for those who are, they've really got a stellar line-up. I think they'll have to bungle up pretty hard to not see a surge in sales when those games come out.
The WiiU doesn't have any games. That's the crux of the problem. I want to buy games for it, as the console itself is really great. But there's nothing.
But wait! Just around the corner is Pikmin 3, which I'm wishy-washy on. Then there's Wonderful 101, which looks fantastic. Then 3D World comes out, and I'm really, really looking forward to that. Then comes Wind Waker HD, which I'm somewhat interested in, and Sonic Lost World, which could win me over. And then WiiU's getting Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros, Tropical Freeze, Bayonetta 2, and X. That's an incredible line-up of games, really. Nintendo faced this once before with the 3DS: there were no games for it, so they pulled out all the stops and made it an amazing handheld. And now that they're up to speed, they can do the same with the WiiU.
I think there are a lot of people who just aren't that interested in Nintendo's games, and that's fine. But for those who are, they've really got a stellar line-up. I think they'll have to bungle up pretty hard to not see a surge in sales when those games come out.
Father_Brain
Banned
These trends are unsurprisingly very familiar from Vita threads, but I guess that comes with the territory with a failing system.
If Nintendo fans want me to say something nice, I can point out that Nintendo's bottom line will almost assuredly never look close to as bad as Sony's did in the early years of the PS3.
Most people just look at unit sales and decide what it is doing "well" and what is doing "poorly" based on that, but that is an extremely facile system, especially in a market which completely restarts user bases every 5-7 years.
Take solace in the fact that Nintendo's financials are just "poor" rather than "epically disastrous". They'll be fine, they won't have to cut literally tens of thousands of jobs like Sony did.
But again, don't take this to mean that everything at Nintendo is peachy and they should just keep on the same path they're on with the Wii U. Something has to change. I think it will actually be rather exciting trying to figure out what that change should be over the next few years. If you find such talk depressing, that's fine, you don't need to join sales or market analysis threads.
Most people just look at unit sales and decide what it is doing "well" and what is doing "poorly" based on that, but that is an extremely facile system, especially in a market which completely restarts user bases every 5-7 years.
Take solace in the fact that Nintendo's financials are just "poor" rather than "epically disastrous". They'll be fine, they won't have to cut literally tens of thousands of jobs like Sony did.
But again, don't take this to mean that everything at Nintendo is peachy and they should just keep on the same path they're on with the Wii U. Something has to change. I think it will actually be rather exciting trying to figure out what that change should be over the next few years. If you find such talk depressing, that's fine, you don't need to join sales or market analysis threads.
prag16
Banned
I'm an engineer. I always prefer objective analysis. I don't get overly emotional.
Nintendo fucked up royally and spectacularly. They did almost every damned thing wrong. I recognize this even though I have played my Wii U for almost 400 hours since launch and enjoyed every minute.
I just find passing final judgment before any of Nintendo's big guns have launched hard to swallow. It's a massive fuck up that none of these big guns are here yet, granted. But this game is still in the first quarter even if the hole that's been dug is massive. And "success" is measured in varying ways.
I'd feel similarly about Vita even.... that is if Sony seemed to give a shit about it whatsoever.
Even in 2003 PC support wasn't as bad as Nintendo third part support has been for most of the past decade. At least for the type of games that GAF cares about. Battlefield 1942, Medieval: Total War, Rainbow Six 3 and Call of Duty were all released around that time as exclusives (Rainbow 6 was ported 6 months later to Xbox). Max Payne 2 hit PC a month before the console versions. Blizzard wasn't part of Activision at the time, but they had just released Warcraft 3/The Frozen Throne in that time frame. Atari had recently released Neverwinter Nights and Unreal 2/Unreal Tournament 2003. PC was starting to lose its premier developers to Xbox (and later 360), but exclusives with reasonably big budgets were still plentiful.
All of that said, I do agree that smaller pubs and digital distribution lead to a PC gaming renaissance in the last 3-4 years.
Admiral Bone to Pick
Banned
Yes, but for Nintendo as a company, their losses have been relatively minimal (especially when compared to the massive profits they made with the Wii/DS). Meanwhile, Sony lost billions on the PS3 alone. So Nintendo's current position is quite bad, but they're not in danger of bankruptcy. The 3DS will be a strong source of revenue going forward, and the big Nintendo series should sell decently on the Wii U.
Father_Brain
Banned
Well, Vita has been on the market for significantly longer, so almost by default Wii U deserves some modicum of benefit of the doubt beyond what that platform gets. The first-party titles coming this holiday and early next year will result in some sort of recovery, however limited.
That said, the fundamental problems the system faces are clear and significant enough that I don't find Opiate's posts at all premature.
TheRedSnifit
Member
Ding ding ding. ZombiU was developed as a throwback to the old RE/Silent Hill/Fatal Frame games, none of which sold spectacularly well except, briefly, for RE. Looking back, FF games are all commercial failures, ditto with modern Silent Hill, and REmake barely topped a million sales.
Fact of the matter is that genuine survival horror is very, very niche, and pouring a AAA budget into a survival horror game is a mistake. Why Ubisoft expected ZombiU to outsell the games it wishes to emulate, especially being a launch title, is beyond me. Even if the Wii U weren't selling fucking horribly, or even if it were multi-plat, ZombiU would be doomed to bomb.
Poetic.Injustice
Member
Always amusing to see WII U owners come into these threads to offer excuses as to why the game didn't sell.
fart town usa
Gold Member
Same here.
I fire it up occasionally to check out the miiverse but ten minutes later it's turned off again. There's literally nothing to play. Lego City Undercover looks neat but I don't care enough to buy it. I'll probably get Wonderful 101 for my next game.
I just dont understand this logic at all other than killing my brain cells
friskykillface
Banned
I bought a copy, on launch day. smh this is awful news to hear 
ZombiU was amazing and it had me shook and 0_o most of the time when i was playing it.
Hell i couldn't play for a week cause i was planning what to do since i had few supplies and i didn't want to lose my survivor after failing two times in the palace.
one and done :'( not like this
shouldn't be that hard to port it to xbox 360 and PS3, cmon guys it can be done, i dont think im port begging, im sequel begging
spoiler for the first game
ZombiU was amazing and it had me shook and 0_o most of the time when i was playing it.
Hell i couldn't play for a week cause i was planning what to do since i had few supplies and i didn't want to lose my survivor after failing two times in the palace.
one and done :'( not like this
shouldn't be that hard to port it to xbox 360 and PS3, cmon guys it can be done, i dont think im port begging, im sequel begging
spoiler for the first game
someone has to get the prepper and kill him or something, guy just had us do all his work.