more 12 year olds own a wii then 32 year olds.

done NEXT!

I wish I could answer these questions but I happen to be the opposite. I buy more cool 3rd Party games than I do 1st Party or Popular 3rd Party games. My collection looks something like this: No More Heroes, Zak & Wiki, Madworld, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, Sin & Punishment 2, Dewy’s Adventure, etc…

@UJN - I’m coming over to play games at your house!

I think a big problem is the marketing of the systems. Coming from someone who was looking at getting a new system recently I have to say when you take the time to talk to not just the sales reps, but people who own the systems and play themselves, this is what they tell you.

PS3 is more geared for hardcore type mature players
XBOX 360 is a nice round mix that caters to the hardcore games as well as the family users. They also emphasize the quality of child controls on the XBOX vs the PS3.

Wii is far more marketed to the children with the obvious game selections. Also with the focus on fitness games lately women (mostly) who feel not at their best have been going crazy over these systems.

And just by looking at the aesthetics of the systems themselves you can see this is also true. The wii is a pure white, somewhat boring looking system. The PS3 is sleek and black, and the XBOX has a variety of styles that can be customized depending on what setup you wish.

Anyhow, that’s just how I see it.

I now have a PS2, Wii and a 360, and of course a really nice gaming PC. There’s a nice variety for me.

try more effort and more advertisement. I cant even tell the last time i saw a wii third party commercial. madworld was a bit niche, since day one. no more heroes did well, well enough to garnish a sequel. to sell a wii game, you have to make a game that sparks interest, as well as advertise. If the game sparks enough interest, you don’t have to advertise at all.

“more 12 year olds own a wii then 32 year olds.

done NEXT!

TANOOKI84″

i would hope so, being theres way more wii’s out there than xbox 360’s

Alongside with actually marketing their products, third-party Wii publishers need to avoid pandering to the Wii audience. IMO, the latest iterations of Madden Wii bombed terribly because they weren’t presented as equal to versions on other platforms — instead, they featured cartoonish graphics and cover art that mocked the consumer. People are less inclined to buy your product if you’re saying to them “Here’s a dumbed-down experience for you”?

But then, this reflects a larger problem with the industry as a whole, with the Wii treated as some alien artifact that needs to be “tested” with low-budget spinoffs (another insult!). Want to know why first-party Wii titles sell well? Because NINTENDO DOES NOT DO “TESTS.”

–R.J.

RJ makes a good point, the first party games tend to cater to the wii, utilizing its abilities for the better, as do the successful 3rd party games, however the other 3rd party games are ports with tacked on waggle controls and such, they dont do well.

As for why MadWorld and The Conduit dont do well, the Wii has started to garner a reputation for being childish, if they marketed these more hardcore games more often, they may be able to do away with this label.

i forgot all about Madworld. i might have to pick that up from a bargain bin somewhere.

Cmon, would any of you actually bother listening to Reggie if i provided a link to comments made recently?

He has argued there are successes, COD WAW, RS, etc have all been big million plus sellers.

Then theres the definition of success. According to Sega, HOTD and Conduit are BOTH SUCCESSES. Klonoa is doing well. Okami has done MORE on Wii than Ps2.

This tired ignorant perspective is DESTROYING Wii game development potential because it is not true.

Wow, thanks for all the great comments. I have a reply to this post going up in the morning. Make sure to read it.

@Waza - EA did cut there Wii team in Montreal. They were in charge of pretty much all the wii games/ports

Marketing. The original Assassin’s Creed was marketed to death and sold an incredible amount. They need to push Wii games at EB Gamestops. Pushing game helped sell Modern Warfare 2 and a bunch of other games.

The Conduit didn’t sell because it sucked. The game was incredible… and then I played it. It really is a horrible game.

I’m going to go play Madworld, excuse me.

@ tanooki84

Just wanted to point out that more 12 year olds own PS3’s and 360’s then 32 year olds. Believe it or not the tier off age for gamers is around 30. Why you might ask? Most people over the age of 30 have lives and bigger concerns even if they love gaming. Bills to pay, family to look after (wife/husband, kids ect.), are in post graduate school, and so forth.

@ Topic

The truth is that the Wii (like the Gamecube before it) has been type casted. People act as though this is the first time a Nintendo system has been considered for the “young” crowd… but it’s not. One of Microsofts big campaigns last generation was to label the Gamecube as a ‘kiddie’ system. Sadly it worked because coincidentally Nintendo was releasing some very colourful titles (Super Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker) which played right into that negative campaign by Microsoft.

It’s very much same today with the Wii. This time though you have Sony and Microsoft play that angle constantly. It’s like politics in general… when someone, or something is doing well, and your company/party isn’t, what is one of the best ways to even the odds? Smear campaigns, whether through advertising or by some viral means.

The biggest campaign against the Wii has been over the last 3 years is that it is for the ‘casuals’. If you can convince a person that by owning a certain system that they are less of a gamer (the ‘casual’ label) then they will try and avoid it in the hopes of not tarnishing their reputation as a gamer. The sad thing is that this is where the initial damage was done to the Wii, and this stigma continues to plague it even now, not because it’s true, but simply that it is perpetuated through the gaming community.

So even if great games are released the gaming community is reluctant to buy it cause their initial thought is “well it won’t be as hardcore as it would be on another system” and as a result they choose to pass on the game or wait for it to eventually be brought to HD on one of the other systems. It doesn’t help that a lot of games aren’t marketed on the Wii. There aren’t enough ads out there to convince gamers other wise, that the games are hardcore. In the end you have twice as many factors going against game releases on the Wii.

At this point even though the Wii has been a success, the damage to it’s reputation has already been done, and developers came little to late to show another side to the Wii, which in turn again leads to the final issue where 3rd party devs complain that they can’t sell their titles on the Wii.

I’m sure many third party developers have been frustrated with Wii, but that has more to do with the fact that they gambled against Nintendo, and lost big. The Wii wasn’t taken seriously when it was unveiled, not when it was released, and even after a couple Christmas seasons with sold-out consoles, the development community still expected the fad to burn out at any minute.

A lot of what developers do is tied to their committments on XBox 360 and PS3. Those were the “big” players, and that’s where production dollars went. And the production costs are outlandish, absolutely insane. A single console game on the HD Twins (I really like how that name sounds) will cost tens of millions of dollars and consume two years’ time.

That’s a terrible and futile business model in so many ways, and one is the industry’s inability to quickly adapt to new trends. We’re seeing that now. Nobody expected Nintendo to be successful on the console front. They hadn’t been a contender in that field since the Super NES - three generations ago. And nobody could have fathomed that Wii would sell 50 million units.

I’m sure everybody has their reasons (ah, Jean Renoir’s old phrase!) why 3rd party development on Wii is what it is. And I’m sure there are many valid points to be made, pro and con. But I think we are now seeing the results of business decisions made in 2006 and 2007. Factor in the usual 5 year life cycle, and by this point in the game, the major players are already gearing up for the NEXT generation of game consoles. Putting your AAA talent on Nintendo Wii at this point is just a pipe dream. It’s far too late and there are far too many resources devoted to the HD Twins.

I suppose one possibility is a longer console cycle this time around. Both Sony and Microsoft have bled a lot of money, and the skyrocketing game budgets are pricing nearly everybody out of business. This cannot continue indefinitely. Nintendo was absolutely right about that. So maybe everyone will just agree to be happy with the technology we’ve got now.

The downside - ironic for Nintendo - is that everyone expects a next-generation Wii console by 2011. They have the oldest hardware and the strongest incentive to upgrade. So if you’re a AAA software developer, you’re probably thinking it may be wiser to hold our for Wii 2.

But then developers lose faith in Nintendo, write off their console success as a “casual gamer” fad, and bet all the chips on Sony and Microsoft. And that brings us back to…D’oh!

This is such a funny little industry.