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[Xiaoki]

The economy is so bad right now running a video game console almost isnt worth it these days.

Nintendo sees a dip
Microsoft has a loss
Sony has a big loss

Of the major third parties EA was down and Ubisoft was down as well.

Looks like the only company posting higher numbers is Activision Blizzard. Course, WoW is doing so well that everyone at Blizzard has a solid gold hooker and the solid gold hookers have solid gold hookers.

 

[Cheez-It]

I can't take someone who compares animal crossing to 2d super fucking mario bros.

Do you jest? I think you are crazy. Very, very crazy.

I also think you don't realize how widely appealing 2d marios are. The audience is VASTLY beyond the current pool of Wii owners.

 

[rpmurphy]

I think it's too early to call that.
The only relevant example of a 2D Mario moving great numbers was on the DS.
It's yet to be proven whether it can do the same for Wii, when other titles, such as Animal Crossing, have done nothing close to the DS numbers.

Though the case of Mario Kart certainly helps validate its potential, given that it's outdone its DS counterpart, but I still think it's too early to call.

Animal Crossing: City Folk missed a great opportunity to introduce local co-op to the series, and nowhere better to do that than on the Wii. But they didn't and as a result it never really differentiated itself from its DS counterpart. NSMB Wii should not have that problem.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

charts

hey guys remember this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68649

 

[Caesar III]

Animal Crossing: City Folk missed a great opportunity to introduce local co-op to the series, and nowhere better to do that than on the Wii. But they didn't and as a result it never really differentiated itself from its DS counterpart. NSMB Wii should not have that problem.

Animal Crossing missed a lot, A TON of opportunities!
- New Style
- visit friends when they are NOT around (was announced IIRC)
- city to meet friends
- create your own furniture and share them
- BIGGER houses with 20+ rooms if you can pay for them (cost increase like always for each new one)
- seemless integration into the Wii Menu as a separate channel where you don't need a disc to just check your home town
- Mii support with custumes and hats and stuff you can wear even after Animal Crossing

too bad nothing of this happened.

 

[donny2112]

hey guys remember this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68649

Definitely one of those threads worth pulling old quotes out of.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Animal Crossing missed a lot, A TON of opportunities!
- New Style
- visit friends when they are NOT around (was announced IIRC)
- city to meet friends
- create your own furniture and share them
- BIGGER houses with 20+ rooms if you can pay for them (cost increase like always for each new one)
- seemless integration into the Wii Menu as a separate channel where you don't need a disc to just check your home town
- Mii support with custumes and hats and stuff you can wear even after Animal Crossing

too bad nothing of this happened.

This is NeoGAF Nintendo, dude.

 

[rpmurphy]

Animal Crossing missed a lot, A TON of opportunities!
- New Style
- visit friends when they are NOT around (was announced IIRC)
- city to meet friends
- create your own furniture and share them
- BIGGER houses with 20+ rooms if you can pay for them (cost increase like always for each new one)
- seemless integration into the Wii Menu as a separate channel where you don't need a disc to just check your home town
- Mii support with custumes and hats and stuff you can wear even after Animal Crossing

too bad nothing of this happened.

Well, of course there's a lot of things that they could have done, but the reasons why it didn't sell are probably mostly because of no local co-op and no Miis.

EDIT:
By the way, I am still shocked that there is no new Mario Party for the Wii again this year. I am really wondering what's going on here with Nintendo and Hudson Soft.

 

[EDarkness]

Animal Crossing: City Folk missed a great opportunity to introduce local co-op to the series, and nowhere better to do that than on the Wii. But they didn't and as a result it never really differentiated itself from its DS counterpart. NSMB Wii should not have that problem.

Seriously. My wife is a huge Animal Crossing fan and she said the Wii version was the same as the DS one and hence no reason to pick it up. Nintendo simply played it too safe with Animal Crossing Wii. A huge missed opportunity.

 

[perfectchaos007]

Nintendo will market the Hell out of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I see it being the winner this holiday season, maybe out of all console games.

 

[zero_suit]

Nintendo will market the Hell out of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. I see it being the winner this holiday season, maybe out of all console games.

Even if it's not the winner, it'll definitely beat any other holiday game's LTD sales.

 

[Ashes]

Even if it's not the winner, it'll definitely beat any other holiday game's LTD sales.

cod:mw2.
hopefully.

 

[Aaron Strife]

cod:mw2.
hopefully.

Doubtful.

By the way, I am still shocked that there is no new Mario Party for the Wii again this year. I am really wondering what's going on here with Nintendo and Hudson Soft.

I'm assuming Nintendo wants to keep riding sales of Mario Party 8, as it's done rather well for them (5-6 million copies). I wouldn't be surprised to see one that uses Balance Board eventually.

 

[Caesar III]

Seriously. My wife is a huge Animal Crossing fan and she said the Wii version was the same as the DS one and hence no reason to pick it up. Nintendo simply played it too safe with Animal Crossing Wii. A huge missed opportunity.

My mum never played the DS one because of the tiny screen but she thought the same thing about AC Wii. But after her first 30minutes she was hooked again :lol she has a super perfect town, no dust at all, flowers everywhere, no debts and all the season series And she LOOOVES fishing :lol

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Well, I guess that's what happens if a software company stops releasing new software worth a damn for 13 months(the gap between SSBB and WRS in Europe).

Man, I second that. Nintendo should improve the efficiency of their internal organisation. But it's alos true that the bad economy environment is hitting almost every company of the planet. If Nintendo keep making profits and also without any big selling games like SSBB or Zelda, well, it's hard to say they're in trouble.

 

[Souldriver]

hey guys remember this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68649

Haha, these kind of threads are always pure gold. Not only because of all the wrong predictions, but simply because you can see the general opinion and situation back in the days. The failure of the GC really had made people lose hope that Nintendo would ever perform well again huh?

The people saying Iwata should STFU because he's gonna have to come back to his own statement, the person hoping for a better advertising effort from NoE being urged to lower expectations "because we're talking about Nintendo here", people realizing that Zelda:TP will be delayed until the launch window of the Revolution yet don't really think it'll be ported, ...

It's awesome.

 

[marc^o^]

hey guys remember this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68649

Half of the posters in this thread are banned! And what happened to Jarrod?

 

[upandaway]

Man, I second that. Nintendo should improve the efficiency of their internal organisation.

I also agree. They basically put out a game after game out, from TP to MP3 to Galaxy to Brawl to Mario Kart Wii, with Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit being the biggest giants, and then suddenly for a full year almost (not in calendar), nothing.

The easiest reason to think of is bad organization inside the company, where they released everything too soon.
Another possible reason is that Nintendo started developing a bunch of games for that period in the style of Animal Crossing or Wii Music, and then as they witnessed the "unexpected" failures, they pulled back all of those games and were forced to go with easier to market titles like Wii Fit Plus/NSMB Wii, Galaxy 2 and Metroid.

Whichever it is, this period definitely wasn't planned, so I think that the guys inside Nintendo who know why the slight dip happened are far more worried than the guys in this thread.

 

[marc^o^]

I also agree. They basically put out a game after game out, from TP to MP3 to Galaxy to Brawl to Mario Kart Wii, with Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit being the biggest giants, and then suddenly for a full year almost (not in calendar), nothing.

I think they milked Mario Kart and WiiFit as long as they could.

They invested in Mario Kart to make it one the biggest franchises ever (it did not have this status before). A Mario Kart successor would now be their best asset to motivate people buy their next console.

WiiFit was another strategic title for them: in terms of image it allowed them to associate wii with a lifestyle/healthy product. In terms of controls, they wanted it to become a standard and they gave it a tremendous exposure. The result: almost half of the people with a wii now have a balance board.

Nintendo did not give these titles too much competition on purpose.
They sold +35 million units combined= pure profit, while being strategic.

 

[ZAK]

I also agree. They basically put out a game after game out, from TP to MP3 to Galaxy to Brawl to Mario Kart Wii, with Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit being the biggest giants, and then suddenly for a full year almost (not in calendar), nothing.

The easiest reason to think of is bad organization inside the company, where they released everything too soon.
Another possible reason is that Nintendo started developing a bunch of games for that period in the style of Animal Crossing or Wii Music, and then as they witnessed the "unexpected" failures, they pulled back all of those games and were forced to go with easier to market titles like Wii Fit Plus/NSMB Wii, Galaxy 2 and Metroid.

Whichever it is, this period definitely wasn't planned, so I think that the guys inside Nintendo who know why the slight dip happened are far more worried than the guys in this thread.

Whether you want to believe him or not is up to you, but I believe Iwata said in an interview that in fact it was planned. He said their strategy was to put out all their big titles early on to get high sales, which were then supposed to attract third parties. Then the drought, which I guess would be both from already having put out most of the games they were working on, and also to give third parties an open window without competition.

I don't even know if he said this before or during the drought; if during, it being after-the-fact bullshit made up to justify what's happening is a very possible interpretation.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Half of the posters in this thread are banned! And what happened to Jarrod?

I always wonder what happens to Jarrod. I'd thought that he did the self-banning thing in order to avoid spending all of his time on GAF, but the red block by his name suggests different. The immense number of animated gifs that he's made of the years is amazing.

 

[upandaway]

I think they milked Mario Kart and WiiFit as long as they could.

Then why did they make Wii Music?
They wanted it to be a success, it was the highlight of E3 2008! If it had been another hit, then the Wii wouldn't be in a bad (from Nintendo's point of view, like Galaxy's sales are bad) shape right now. No amount of hits could have stolen the spotlight from Wii Fit or Mario Kart Wii, and if something could, that something would be a much better IP for Nintendo to milk anyway.

Whether you want to believe him or not is up to you, but I believe Iwata said in an interview that in fact it was planned. He said their strategy was to put out all their big titles early on to get high sales, which were then supposed to attract third parties. Then the drought, which I guess would be both from already having put out most of the games they were working on, and also to give third parties an open window without competition.

I don't even know if he said this before or during the drought; if during, it being after-the-fact bullshit made up to justify what's happening is a very possible interpretation.

Yeah, he said it multiple times, both before and during the slow schedule (at least the first part, I only know he mentioned giving focus for third-parties during the slow schedule). But I don't buy it. The fact stands that the strategy isn't as successful as it could have been. Why would Nintendo let third parties a time frame to shine if there are no third party games announced for that period, or at all?

It seems kind of dumb because Nintendo doesn't owe anything to those guys. It's up to Nintendo and Nintendo alone to create the successful software that the Wii needs to succeed, and it's important for the software to be there at all times.
However, the least he can do during a slow schedule is, like you said, make something up in order to make it seem like it was intentional.

 

[ZAK]

Why would Nintendo let third parties a time frame to shine if there are no third party games announced for that period, or at all?

That would just be the way it was planned. I don't know if they could have done much differently once the third parties didn't act like they planned. What do you suppose they should have done?

 

[marc^o^]

No amount of hits could have stolen the spotlight from Wii Fit or Mario Kart Wii, and if something could, that something would be a much better IP for Nintendo to milk anyway.

Despite Wii Music only selling moderately, they didn't feel necessary to release Disaster Day of Crisis or other games from Japan. The unprecedent success of Mario Kart made them prioritize this game - for the reasons I evoked, and also to earn extra time and polish their upcoming games. They felt no urge to change this strategy, which paid off until very recently.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Definitely one of those threads worth pulling old quotes out of.

Looks like drohne was right, but not for the reason he thought.

"It [the Revolution] would be a complete failure if we didn't sell more units than the Nintendo GameCube," said Iwata.

boy, that quote will be fun to pull out several years from now.

 

[the thoroughbred]

You know Wii Music still managed 1m ww. It's not Mario Kart numbers, but still pretty good. Pretty good for a game that's not "badass, guitar playing, rockstar, coke snorting, popular/relevant music filled, groupies".

The drought was most certainly predicted by them, Iwata is a clever man. But something planned well in advance, cannot then suddenly be cancelled because 3rd parties are too busy wanking themselves off over Chun-li's upskirt HD screenshots. They realised the 3rd parties were too complacent, and they's attempted to do relatively inexpesive solutions, called Play on Wii. And they, i my opinion have made pretty wise choices. They could have released commercial hits, but they would have been criticized for milking. So they've released great games that were probably missed by many last gen.

 

[CTLance]

hey guys remember this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=68649

Huh. Speevy got manhandled banned? When did that happen?

So many banned users in that thread.

 

[milanbaros]

So, when do we think the Wii is going to surpass the NES to become Nintendo's most popular console ever?

They have just over 9m to go and hope to ship nearly 24m by March 31st 2010. They wont ship 9m this quater but will definately pass that mark before the end of the year.

My guess would be November.

 

[Jokeropia]

You know Wii Music still managed 1m ww.

2.65 million through March 09.

Anyway, Iwata has mentioned that several of their releases had to be delayed from the first to the second half of the year, presumably due to the delay of MotionPlus. (Originally scheduled for spring.)

From that viewpoint, we at Nintendo have to reflect on domestic Wii software deployment in the former half of this year. Like what had been to be released in the former half of this year was postponed to the latter, we were not able to reach the original goal – to regularly make new proposals.

・ As for our deployment during the latter half of this year, I would like to announce on the other day as it is not today’s main topic. I would like to address that Nintendo recognize that we have been short of new proposals during the former half of this year, so far.

http://www.vg247.com/2009/04/30/wii...orrow-satorua-iwata-makes-giant-announcement/

In other news, Nintendo's Supplementary Information about Earnings Release is out. The following games sold at least 1 million from April through June 09:

NDS Pokemon Platinum 1.91M / 5.66M
Wii Wii Fit          3.60M / 21.82M
Wii Mario Kart Wii   2.00M / 17.39M
Wii Wii Sports       1.91M / 47.62M

 

[farnham]

You know Wii Music still managed 1m ww. It's not Mario Kart numbers, but still pretty good. Pretty good for a game that's not "badass, guitar playing, rockstar, coke snorting, popular/relevant music filled, groupies".

over 2.5 m ww actually

 

[Tom_Cody]

2.65 million through March 09.

Anyway, Iwata has mentioned that several of their releases had to be delayed from the first to the second half of the year, presumably due to the delay of MotionPlus. (Originally scheduled for spring.)In other news, Nintendo's Supplementary Information about Earnings Release is out. The following games sold at least 1 million from April through June 09:

NDS Pokemon Platinum 1.91M / 5.66M
Wii Wii Fit          3.60M / 21.82M
Wii Mario Kart Wii   2.00M / 17.39M
Wii Wii Sports       1.91M / 47.62M

Wii Fit is at 21.82M

Holy crap.