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This Ain't A Console War, It's a Genocide (Sales Figures! Ooooh!)
Storm Rider:
No way. Third party developers won't ignore a platform with the Wii's install base size. Whether or not the games they do make are ones traditional gamers will be interested in is the question. I think there will be more than the Gamecube, certainly, because the Wii is rapidly approaching the Gamecube's sales for its entire five year lifespan and might get there before the end of 2007. How many more, there's no way to know. The success of Red Steel (regardless of the quality of the game) shows that there is a market for 'core gamer fare' on the Wii, and another important factor is that Wii design is much less costly than cranking out a game for the 360 or PS3 that is high enough quality to avoid getting lost in the shuffle. As such, I think that smaller developers will gravitate to the Wii simply because designing an impressive game in the HD-era is (at this point) still very expensive. The thing is, this is ultimately just more extremely shrewd business by Nintendo, because their bread and butter has always been the titles they develop themselves (they are at this point, the top-selling software publisher in all three major gaming regions), and by producing systems that don't require massive budgets for software development, they keep their costs low but their sell-through more or less the same as all their competitors, which is making them money like crazy and I honestly don't think that's going to change dramatically. Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Brothers Brawl will probably sell as well as any game not named Halo or Grand Theft Auto this holiday season, but I guarantee they both cost a hell of a lot less to make.
I think a big factor in the fate of 'core gamer' fare for the Wii is how well RE4 sells. That is a perfect example of both a high-quality port that was done with actual real consideration of the Wii controls, and an unabashedly M-rated game on a system identified as being more kid-friendly. Capcom is a large publisher, and has proven that they are willing to undertake pretty ambitious projects (Dead Rising was probably the first truly 'next-gen' game except for Oblivion). If they are willing to get behind the Wii fully on the basis of RE4's sales, I think a lot of others will follow.
ackblom12:
I honestly think everyone who got a Wii and is complaining about it's lack of high quality releases seems to have forgotten that every console ever made has had a terribly shitty first year. Add in the fact that no one but THQ was developing anything for it until after E3 of last year and I'm amazed it got as many good titles it's first year as it's going to.
With it's install base already nearing that of the 360's within 8 months there's no way it's not going to get more developer support. I can't imagine core games won't be made for it. I mean seriously, I doubt there's many big name developers that won't give a shit that it won't be as pretty if it makes them a boat load of cash.
Storm Rider:
It's true. The 360 didn't get it's first really good title until 5 months after it launched, and the next one came another 5 months later. Then in all the '06 holiday season is when it really started to stack up. The Wii does have the stigma of being a year late to the party on top of being inferior graphically, so it has to fight for attention with a system that's already pretty well established. It's sort of like how the DS started out and nobody really believed it was going to do well against the PSP, and then people bought the hell out of it, so third parties followed suit. Nobody was really convinced the Wii would be a success until around March, and you figure from-the-ground-up game development takes 8 months at the very least, so I'm expecting we'll see a lot of cool Wii games at the end of this year and next spring. That'll sort of be the proving time. If people keep buying it after all that stuff hits, then I think it's established for good.
ScrambledGregs:
What you guys are missing is that, even with a large install base, developers aren't necessarily going to spend the time to craft 'hardcore' experiences for the Wii when they can crap out a casual game in a short amount of time and make the same profit. Now I'm not saying this is what will happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if, say, Konami or Capcom announce games for the Wii, but instead of things like Metal Gear Solid 5 or Mega Man Legends 3, we end up getting weird, casual aimed stuff.
Honestly, though, I want a Wii just for the Virtual Console. That's the only thing so far that's totally sold me on the Wii, because I don't want to play Twilight Princess that badly, and the 'hardcore' games have yet to come out as of this writing.
0bsessions:
I don't see how we're missing that. Basic assumption would reason that third parties are most likely to put their best selection on the console with the largest user base. Wii will, by the end of the year, no doubt have the largest for the time being. From the largest user base springs the largest software base which brings a larger user base and it all moves in cycles from there.
Just because they can get away with casual stuff doesn't mean the companies are going to forget the non-casual audience. If they were going to avoid going to the trouble of making a deep gaming experience in favor of casual, they'd drop games for the other two in their entirety.
Look around at quotes from the industry. The biggest reason, far and away, is that comapnies underestimated the Wii's appeal. Suddenly developers are jumping on board left and right. Sega even went so far as to apologize for their earlier dismissal of the console. Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, has gone on record saying how he can't wait to test the boundaries of the Wii remote.
Problem is, all these developers were deep into production on releases for the PS3 and 360 expecting the Wii to get left in the dust.
A perfect example of this situation is the Nintendo DS. Its software library was abysmal for the first year. All of a sudden, they've got exclusive rights to the biggest franchise in Japan, Dragon Quest, for the next installment. They actually took a huge game franchise and decided to put it out on the weakest "system" currently being developed for. Why? Because it has the largest installed user base while maintaining innovation. I wouldn't be surprised to see the next installment wind up on the Wii.
Software developers like to play with pretty graphics, but they are a business first and foremost. They will go where the customers are and the customers are with Nintendo right now.
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