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NPD Sales Results for February 2009

Lightning

Banned
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Your point being I've been wrong before? You can do that to most users on the forum. We post to share opinions, I posted mine then just I am doing again now. Simple as that.

No one can tell the future. NG2 published by Microsoft is not going to the PS3. If one asked I would have said that would never happen this gen either, hence I've been wrong before and will be again in future no doubt.
 
grandjedi6 said:
Ahahahaha, and there were so many people who mocked me for suggesting that DotNW and Vesperia were close in sales and that there was a possibility that Vesperia had sold a little more so far.

For reference this means Vesperia is the 2nd best selling Tales of game in the US while DotNW is the 3rd. Pretty good for the franchise if you ask me :D

They will probably end up switching around though since DOTNW only came out two months ago, while TOV is three months older now and on a platform which is generally front loaded.
 

Firestorm

Member
grandjedi6 said:
Ahahahaha, and there were so many people who mocked me for suggesting that DotNW and Vesperia were close in sales and that there was a possibility that Vesperia had sold a little more so far.

For reference this means Vesperia is the 2nd best selling Tales of game in the US while DotNW is the 3rd. Pretty good for the franchise if you ask me :D
Did Destiny and Destiny II (Eternia) sold less? Or disregarding those as I don't think we have numbers?
 

AniHawk

Member
Nuclear Muffin said:
They will probably end up switching around though since DOTNW only came out two months ago, while TOV is three months older now and on a platform which is generally front loaded.

Actually, TOV is already in third.
 

Eteric Rice

Member
Firestorm said:
Um, if the RPG fanbase isn't there already, what would put it on there? Star Ocean and Tales are high profile as far as RPGs go. Not high profile games, but for RPG fans I'd say they are. 360 still doesn't have a significant fanbase.

Unless you mean "Nomura games" or "Final Fantasy + Kingdom Hearts".

They're on a system that Japan is pretty clearly rejecting.

Basically, Japanese game developers are going against the current. Instead of making their games for the two/three (DS, Wii, PSP) most popular systems, they're putting big games on the system that Japan obviously doesn't care for.

AniHawk said:
Actually, TOV is already in third.

Do you know something we don't, Anihawk? :O
 

donny2112

Member
Eteric Rice said:
Do you know something we don't, Anihawk? :O

It's pretty easy to figure out. If they're that close in January, Wii games have better legs, and the Wii game came out later, it's a simple step to believe that the Wii game is doing better currently and would, thus, be ahead by now. I'm not sure if that's specifically what AniHawk is referring to, but it certainly makes sense.
 

AniHawk

Member
donny2112 said:
It's pretty easy to figure out. If they're that close in January, Wii games have better legs, and the Wii game came out later, it's a simple step to believe that the Wii game is doing better currently and would, thus, be ahead by now. I'm not sure if that's specifically what AniHawk is referring to, but it certainly makes sense.

That's exactly it.
 

Firestorm

Member
Eteric Rice said:
They're on a system that Japan is pretty clearly rejecting.

Basically, Japanese game developers are going against the current. Instead of making their games for the two/three (DS, Wii, PSP) most popular systems, they're putting big games on the system that Japan obviously doesn't care for.



Do you know something we don't, Anihawk? :O
They're putting a lot of their games on DS and PSP I'd say. Wii is the only one left out. Maybe because PS2 games seem to be doing as well as Wii games and they have similar capabilities? Persona 4 and Odin Sphere's numbers look pretty good.

Maximum Profit go DS or PSP.
High Budget go wild developers go 360 and PS3.
Balanced go Wii and PS2.

Might be oversimplifying thing.
 

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
AniHawk said:
Actually, TOV is already in third.
Hush you, at least my statement was true when I originally made it :p

Firestorm said:
Wow =O

And "Did they sold less" wtf was i saying
Plus all the previous Tales of games only managed to achieve their mediocre sales through several price drops while Vesperia & DotNW haven't dropped significantly at all yet, which is good news from Namco's perspective. While the Tales of series hasn't managed to emulate Symphonia's sales perfectly or become the next FF or anything, it has at least cemented itself a firm fanbase in the States :D
 

HK-47

Oh, bitch bitch bitch.
grandjedi6 said:
Hush you, at least my statement was true when I originally made it :p


Plus all the previous Tales of games only managed to achieve their mediocre sales through several price drops while Vesperia & DotNW haven't dropped significantly at all yet, which is good news from Namco's perspective. While the Tales of series hasn't managed to emulate Symphonia's sales perfectly or become the next FF or anything, it has at least cemented itself a firm fanbase in the States :D

And if they would stop being stupid and put it on PS3 well only good things can come from that
 

Sean

Banned
Not sure if this was posted yet or not, but the top 10 for accessories in February (from Kotaku)

Top 10 Accessories
1. WII NUNCHUK CONTROLLER NINTENDO OF AMERICA
2. WII REMOTE CONTROLLER W/ JACKET NINTENDO OF AMERICA
3. PS3 DUALSHOCK 3 WIRELESS CONTROLLER SONY
4. 360 LIVE 1600 POINT GAME CARD MICROSOFT
5. 360 LIVE 1 MONTH GOLD CARD MICROSOFT
6. 360 LIVE 12 MONTH GOLD CARD MICROSOFT
7. WII REMOTE CONTROLLER NINTENDO OF AMERICA
8. WII CHARGE STATION NYKO
9. WII WHEEL GRIP NINTENDO OF AMERICA
10. 360 HEADSET MICROSOFT
 

Rlan

Member
Why would the 1 month live sales be more than the 12 month?

Hopefully all those 1600MSP are going towards awesome XBLA games :)
 

C4Lukins

Junior Member
Some general comments after finally catching up with this thread.

Wii numbers as usual, just insane. I thought that this was the month where things would begin to level out a bit, but the numbers continue to be out of this world.

For the 360, they did 100K above what I would have expected this month. The pricedrop has better legs then I would have thought. It was also a month devoid of big exclusives which makes it more surprising. SO4 appears to have bombed which was expected.

For the PS3, also did well above what I expected as far as console sales. Fantastic SF4 numbers for both consoles, but damn really impressive for the PS3 userbase. Killzone 2 is a bit disappointing. Yes only two days, but for those that have been paying attention those first two days tend to tell you a lot. As an individual title it is doing great, as the most hyped PS3 title outside of MGS4 those numbers are not much of a game changer for Sony.
 

C4Lukins

Junior Member
On the topic of multiplatform games where developers are leaving money on the table not porting the game to the Wii. You really have to look at those titles on an individual basis. With games like Fight Night Round 3, Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia there is no reason not to have a Wii port of those games. These are games where the general mechanics of the game is easily translated and a downgrade in resolution is not going to affect the funfactor at all. But with something like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Burnout Paradise or Fallout, you are looking at a Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop scenario. Potentially you could create a good Wii game out of it, but it is going to be a very different game for reasons beyond just graphics.
 

AniHawk

Member
C4Lukins said:
On the topic of multiplatform games where developers are leaving money on the table not porting the game to the Wii. You really have to look at those titles on an individual basis. With games like Fight Night Round 3, Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia there is no reason not to have a Wii port of those games. These are games where the general mechanics of the game is easily translated and a downgrade in resolution is not going to affect the funfactor at all. But with something like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Burnout Paradise or Fallout, you are looking at a Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop scenario. Potentially you could create a good Wii game out of it, but it is going to be a very different game for reasons beyond just graphics.

The Wii should've had a Burnout of some sort though. There's Excite Truck, sure, but something like the later PS2 Burnouts would be awesome. Especially with some online thrown in there. I love my Burnout Paradise regardless.
 

C4Lukins

Junior Member
AniHawk said:
The Wii should've had a Burnout of some sort though. There's Excite Truck, sure, but something like the later PS2 Burnouts would be awesome. Especially with some online thrown in there. I love my Burnout Paradise regardless.

If they made a Burnout similar to Takedown or Revenge on the Wii, I would buy it day one. I hate Paradise. In this case the slower processing speed of the Wii would be used for good. I would even buy a second Wii wheel.
 

Alcibiades

Member
C4Lukins said:
On the topic of multiplatform games where developers are leaving money on the table not porting the game to the Wii. You really have to look at those titles on an individual basis. With games like Fight Night Round 3, Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia there is no reason not to have a Wii port of those games. These are games where the general mechanics of the game is easily translated and a downgrade in resolution is not going to affect the funfactor at all. But with something like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Burnout Paradise or Fallout, you are looking at a Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop scenario. Potentially you could create a good Wii game out of it, but it is going to be a very different game for reasons beyond just graphics.
For all the games you've mentioned, from Fight Night and Tales to Bioshock and Fallout 3, all of them could be ported to the Wii in phenomenal form despite some loss of graphical fidelity. It all depends on whether the 3rd party is willing to pony up time and money to get it done.

Would Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros. Brawl be the games they were if they had the resources given to Chop Till You Drop?

Chop Till You Drop is one of the worst examples of what could happen with those games on Wii, because it was obviously not a serious effort from Capcom.

IF Chop Till You Drop had a similar budget, team size, and development time frame to the original on XBox 360, then you'd have a point, but because it didn't, the point is moot.

When Wii "core" gamers ask for these games (even say RE5, MGS4, FFXIII, etc...) and when people propose that these games would do well on Wii, they assume an close or equal number of resources are going to go to them.

Would a Dead Rising game with a $5-$10 million budget, A-team, and 2-3 years development time on Wii turn out like Chop 'Till You Drop? Probably not. It would probably be much closer to the original on 360, have gotten rave reviews, and been much better accepted by the "core" gamers on Wii looking for those types of games.

As has been established by these sales numbers, Wii multiplatforms games even in traditional categories like FPS (COD3/World at War), survival horror (RE4), and 3rd-person-action (Force Unleashed) can do really well and even outsell the PS3 versions sometimes.

It's not a matter of whether a near-identical port of Bioshock would have done well on Wii. Based on all the relevant data we have, it would likely have done pretty good and probably outsold the PS3 version.

Like I said, imagine Nintendo's AAA blockbuster titles on a budget of Chop 'Till You Drop - no way would they have come out as well.

A better (if still flawed because there are improvements that could no doubt have been included) example is World at War: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/callofdutyworldatwar?q=call of duty

The game sold really well on Wii (~500,000 estimated) and no doubt it was profitable for Activision, and like most Wii titles will probably continue to have legs even if out of the Top 10. Just like Activision could turn out a well-received port of a technically advanced game, so could all these other 3rd parties if they cared to.

Supposing 3rd parties had taken this approach from Day 1, and invested into the Wii similar budgets and talent that their 360/PS3 flagship games get - and had experienced the success of "core" titles like COD3, World at War, RE4, Force Unleashed, Metroid Prime 3, etc... Maybe some of these studio closings would still be going on, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt to have money coming in from games like Bioshock, Fallout 3, MGS4, Assasin's Creed, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, GTA4, RE5, SF4, Burnout etc... on Wii.

I understand from a stand on principal why some of these executives at major companies would not want to give into a system with less horsepower, but considering the system in question is more powerful than hardware last gen (PS2/XBox/GCN) that still carried a lot of AAA flagship multiplatform titles, wouldn't these companies prefer to but principle aside for a minute for the sake of not having to shut down so many studios (and of course not suffer the losses most major 3rd parties have in recent reports)?

EDIT: Obviously the industry is growing big time and money is pouring into the industry like never before - you'd think 3rd parties would be fighting for every last dollar on the Wii table but instead it's like they have an aversion to Wii money if it takes anything beyond a chump effort (which is why we see mini-games and gimmicks but not AAA mainstream multiplatform titles).
 

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
Fredescu said:
Trackmania for Wii would make a lot of sense. For all it's faults, I'm hooked on the DS version.
The Trackmania DS team, Firebrand Games, has an excellent racing engine for the Wii, Octane.
 

Fredescu

Member
Jocchan said:
The Trackmania DS team, Firebrand Games, has an excellent racing engine for the Wii, Octane.
Nice.

"We are currently developing two Nintendo Wii titles for 2009 launch. Octane Wii has been designed to maximise the potential of the Wii hardware in the same way as the technology did on DS."

So should I be excited or do we already know what they are? I guess given their DS titles they could be anything.
 

Jocchan

Ὁ μεμβερος -ου
Fredescu said:
So should I be excited or do we already know what they are? I guess given their DS titles they could be anything.
I have no idea, honestly, but Trackmania seems such a perfect fit it would be criminal not to make it.
Local + online multiplayer and heavy focus on sharing user generated content (tracks and customized vehicles), with a decent marketing campaign, could make the game huge.
 

C4Lukins

Junior Member
Alcibiades said:
For all the games you've mentioned, from Fight Night and Tales to Bioshock and Fallout 3, all of them could be ported to the Wii in phenomenal form despite some loss of graphical fidelity. It all depends on whether the 3rd party is willing to pony up time and money to get it done.

Would Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros. Brawl be the games they were if they had the resources given to Chop Till You Drop?

Chop Till You Drop is one of the worst examples of what could happen with those games on Wii, because it was obviously not a serious effort from Capcom.

IF Chop Till You Drop had a similar budget, team size, and development time frame to the original on XBox 360, then you'd have a point, but because it didn't, the point is moot.

When Wii "core" gamers ask for these games (even say RE5, MGS4, FFXIII, etc...) and when people propose that these games would do well on Wii, they assume an close or equal number of resources are going to go to them.

Would a Dead Rising game with a $5-$10 million budget, A-team, and 2-3 years development time on Wii turn out like Chop 'Till You Drop? Probably not. It would probably be much closer to the original on 360, have gotten rave reviews, and been much better accepted by the "core" gamers on Wii looking for those types of games.

As has been established by these sales numbers, Wii multiplatforms games even in traditional categories like FPS (COD3/World at War), survival horror (RE4), and 3rd-person-action (Force Unleashed) can do really well and even outsell the PS3 versions sometimes.

It's not a matter of whether a near-identical port of Bioshock would have done well on Wii. Based on all the relevant data we have, it would likely have done pretty good and probably outsold the PS3 version.

Like I said, imagine Nintendo's AAA blockbuster titles on a budget of Chop 'Till You Drop - no way would they have come out as well.

A better (if still flawed because there are improvements that could no doubt have been included) example is World at War: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/callofdutyworldatwar?q=call of duty

The game sold really well on Wii (~500,000 estimated) and no doubt it was profitable for Activision, and like most Wii titles will probably continue to have legs even if out of the Top 10. Just like Activision could turn out a well-received port of a technically advanced game, so could all these other 3rd parties if they cared to.

Supposing 3rd parties had taken this approach from Day 1, and invested into the Wii similar budgets and talent that their 360/PS3 flagship games get - and had experienced the success of "core" titles like COD3, World at War, RE4, Force Unleashed, Metroid Prime 3, etc... Maybe some of these studio closings would still be going on, but it certainly wouldn't have hurt to have money coming in from games like Bioshock, Fallout 3, MGS4, Assasin's Creed, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space, GTA4, RE5, SF4, Burnout etc... on Wii.

I understand from a stand on principal why some of these executives at major companies would not want to give into a system with less horsepower, but considering the system in question is more powerful than hardware last gen (PS2/XBox/GCN) that still carried a lot of AAA flagship multiplatform titles, wouldn't these companies prefer to but principle aside for a minute for the sake of not having to shut down so many studios (and of course not suffer the losses most major 3rd parties have in recent reports)?

EDIT: Obviously the industry is growing big time and money is pouring into the industry like never before - you'd think 3rd parties would be fighting for every last dollar on the Wii table but instead it's like they have an aversion to Wii money if it takes anything beyond a chump effort (which is why we see mini-games and gimmicks but not AAA mainstream multiplatform titles).


I think it is all bull shit. I would argue that Chop Till You Drop was a serious effort. If they could have simply downgraded the resolution and taken out some effects they would have. That would have been a much easier effort then turning the entire scenario on its head like they did. They reduced the graphics, reduced the amount of enemies 5 fold, reduced destructible objects and usable objects and removed the semi open world streaming of the game. I doubt they rearranged the entire structure of the game because they were lazy, they did it because that is what was needed to make it work.

And you mention Fallout 3. I am no expert on the power of the Wii, but the popular consensus is that it is a little more powerful then the original XBOX. Morrowind is the most similar game that you can find to Fallout 3, plug that one in for a blast to the past. Insane loading times, giant square headed creepy ass character models, vomit inducing framerate. Now lets plug Fallout 3 into that. Combat that requires fighting from 100's of meters instead of inches, intelligent AI and not just homing combatants, realtime character deformation and not just them falling down dead, an actual physics engine..... Well that is not fair, I am sure Morrowind had some sort of Physics engine, but I digress.

This is not a hate on Morrowind argument, but it is an example of what the original XBOX was capable of doing with a more complex game like that, and it had nothing to do with graphics. I keep hearing this argument concerning the Wii, as if it was the Doom2 era, where you just need to shrink the screen down to make the game run better. There is more going on with many of these triple A games then good graphics. Mario Galaxy is a fantastic looking game, but it is very simplistic compared to the things going on behind the curtain in a game like Fallout 3. An enemy encounter against an enemy that has wearable items, who is shooting a unique weapon, ducking and covering throughout a 3D space, while chanting various taunts at you takes more processing power then a goomba homing in on your location. Now add 6 more of those enemies in an environment that has traversable objects tens of stories tall with weather effects and a dozen other little things that nobody notices and you are looking at something that would need an extensive overhaul before you could even begin porting it to the Wii. It is not that you cannot make Fallout 3 for the Wii, but they would have to essentially make it from scratch. The question is whether or not it is worth that sort of effort. The multiplatform games that tend to do best on the Wii are games that benefit from the unique aspects of the Wii.


Of course I am not a programmer, so I am pulling most of this out of my ass, but it makes sense in my head:)

I would like to hear from some people in development on this topic though. If you had the budget of a Fallout, Bioshock, or GTA4 on the Wii, what do you think you could or could not accomplish as far as replicating those games on the system.
 
Who exactly is going to buy a Bioshock and Fallout 3 Wii??

Seriously any gamer who doesn't have a PS3 or 360 at this point cannot be taken serious as a retail customer. If they are that stingy about money or in such dire financial straights that they cannot afford an HD console at this point, they are simply not valuable customers. Period. And it would be complete foolishness to create a game that targets their market.

The only Wii games that sell well are the ones that parents are buying for their little kids. Parents are not going to rush out and buy an M rated game for this kids. And that's why any M rated or even T rated Wii game has no future.

For those of us core gamers who do own a Wii, we only buy the best of the best. And that usually means Nintendo first party stuff. We are not going to buy a ported down bastardization of a HD game we either already played or have already passed up on.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
PuppetMaster said:
The only Wii games that sell well are the ones that parents are buying for their little kids. Parents are not going to rush out and buy an M rated game for this kids. And that's why any M rated or even T rated Wii game has no future.

pwnt teh garbage wii!!!!
 

VerTiGo

Banned
I'm curious to see what kind of success Ubisoft's Red Steel/No More Heroes two-pack will have at retail. If I didn't already own No More Heroes (never bothered with Red Steel) I would've easily considered picking it up.
 
Rlan said:
Why would the 1 month live sales be more than the 12 month?

Hopefully all those 1600MSP are going towards awesome XBLA games :)

I know personally I hit my wall and have started getting 1 months to hold me over until I can drop for the full year. Why do people get Weekly Metrocards instead of Monthlies?

It's cheaper, silly!
 
PuppetMaster said:
The only Wii games that sell well are the ones that parents are buying for their little kids. Parents are not going to rush out and buy an M rated game for this kids. And that's why any M rated or even T rated Wii game has no future.
250px-Resident_evil_the_umbrella_chronicles_uscover.jpg
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Aaron Strife said:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d8/Resident_evil_the_umbrella_chronicles_uscover.jpg/250px-Resident_evil_the_umbrella_chronicles_uscover.jpg[img][/QUOTE]
To be fair, that game has the words "Resident" and "Evil" on the cover, so it's a kinda unique case. Still valid though.
 

Alcibiades

Member
C4Lukins said:
I think it is all bull shit. I would argue that Chop Till You Drop was a serious effort.
I would argue that it wasn't. If it was, it would have received the same level of support the one on 360 got, rather having done outsourced rush-job done as quick as possible.

If they could have simply downgraded the resolution and taken out some effects they would have.
I don't think anybody suggests they do simple downgrading. Rather, using an talented team and a large budget, from the ground up they recreate an engine that can work on Wii to best mimic what the game was on XBox, while at the same time modifying portions of the game that don't work well, and adding things in certain places, for example.

That would have been a much easier effort then turning the entire scenario on its head like they did. They reduced the graphics, reduced the amount of enemies 5 fold, reduced destructible objects and usable objects and removed the semi open world streaming of the game. I doubt they rearranged the entire structure of the game because they were lazy, they did it because that is what was needed to make it work.
They didn't modify anything. They took another engine (RE4) and put a paint-job on it and reworked the control and levels to be as much as possible like Dead Rising. That just screams of laziness and a non-serious effort.

How about putting your best in-house developers on the project and giving them 24-30 months to get a proper port done from the ground up rather than trying to fit the game onto a engine built for a game from last generation.

It is not that you cannot make Fallout 3 for the Wii, but they would have to essentially make it from scratch.
That goes for just about any 3rd party multiplatform game. And that's what Wii "core" owners would appreciate. All these great flagship AAA 3rd party games - instead of skinning old engines (like Dead Rising) - doing ground-up efforts or modifying current-gen engines to be able to bring as faithful as possible ports to Wii (like World at War)

The question is whether or not it is worth that sort of effort.
the question is not whether it's worth the effort (it obviously is) - the question is whether they want money from the Wii table they currently aren't getting...

The multiplatform games that tend to do best on the Wii are games that benefit from the unique aspects of the Wii.
There are many ways to define "best" (compared to other versions, compared to other Wii 3rd party titles, compared to Nintendo titles, etc...), but suffice to say that when 3rd party titles of major games have been released, they sell really, really well (unless it's an absolute crap port like Dead Rising).

Lego Star Wars, Force Unleashed, Guitar Hero, RE:4, COD3, World at War, etc...

They all sold a respectable amount (and many times shown long legs) not because they necessarily took advantage of a specific Wii features - but by the very nature of being released at all.

The extent to which Bioshock, Fallout 3, Mirror's Edge, Assasin's Creed, etc... Wii versions were to take advantage of Wii features is not as important as getting released at all. Of secondary importance would be giving these AAA games AAA ports, and last in importance would be going out of their way to take advantage of Wii features.

Importance chart:

1) game released at all on Wii
2) giving it a budget, team-size, and development time to get near-identical ports (if that means a budget 1/2, 3/4, or the same as 360/PS3 versions so be it - anything but sloppy ports handed to C and D teams).
3) taking advantage of Wii specific features (actually - by the nature of having high budgets and talented developers, this would probably work it's way into game development anyway)

Who exactly is going to buy a Bioshock and Fallout 3 Wii??
The same people buying quality games on Wii.

Seriously any gamer who doesn't have a PS3 or 360 at this point cannot be taken serious as a retail customer.
You must be joking. There are legions of "core" gamer customers out there without these systems. Some of them own one or a combination of the following: PS2, GCN, DS, PSP, Wii

Seriously, I know TONS of hardcore gamers that live and breathe by their DS - it's the primary system of choice for many gamers this generation, especially if you are into RPG's or puzzle games - the system just owns.

For those of us core gamers who do own a Wii, we only buy the best of the best. And that usually means Nintendo first party stuff.
That's because Nintendo puts their best teams on projects and is willing to take the time and money to get things just right.

We are not going to buy a ported down bastardization of a HD game we either already played or have already passed up on.
I wouldn't buy bastardizations either (Dead Rising), but near-identical ports that were managed by A-teams with high budgets I certainly would (World at War is almost there - 80%+ on metacritic - hopefully only a matter of time before a multiplatform game reaches 90%)
 

EDarkness

Member
PuppetMaster said:
Who exactly is going to buy a Bioshock and Fallout 3 Wii??

Seriously any gamer who doesn't have a PS3 or 360 at this point cannot be taken serious as a retail customer. If they are that stingy about money or in such dire financial straights that they cannot afford an HD console at this point, they are simply not valuable customers. Period. And it would be complete foolishness to create a game that targets their market.

The only Wii games that sell well are the ones that parents are buying for their little kids. Parents are not going to rush out and buy an M rated game for this kids. And that's why any M rated or even T rated Wii game has no future.

For those of us core gamers who do own a Wii, we only buy the best of the best. And that usually means Nintendo first party stuff. We are not going to buy a ported down bastardization of a HD game we either already played or have already passed up on.

No offense, man, but I think you're wrong.

I have a 360 and yet I would buy Bioshock for the Wii in a heartbeat. Why? Because I want pointer and motion controls. For me, that tops all. I bought Call of Duty WaW on the Wii because I wanted pointer controls and I don't regret that purchase one bit. Give me some great games with decent controls and I'm all over it. Graphics are nice, but they're not a deal breaker for me. I'm sure I'm not the only one considering how many copies WaW has sold so far on the Wii.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that people like flashy graphics. I don't want to take that away from them, but for other people it's all about experiencing games we've been playing all this time with a different control method. What bugs me the most is that I figured by this time in the Wii's life we would be seeing more traditional experiences with developers experimenting with different control sets. Instead we haven't even scratched the surface. That's the saddest thing about this generation for me so far.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
C4Lukins said:
I think it is all bull shit. I would argue that Chop Till You Drop was a serious effort. If they could have simply downgraded the resolution and taken out some effects they would have. That would have been a much easier effort then turning the entire scenario on its head like they did. They reduced the graphics, reduced the amount of enemies 5 fold, reduced destructible objects and usable objects and removed the semi open world streaming of the game. I doubt they rearranged the entire structure of the game because they were lazy, they did it because that is what was needed to make it work.
I would argue that chop till you drop wasn't so much an attempt to release Dead Rising on Wii as much as it was an attempt to release an RE4 like game on Wii. This would be why they rearranged the entire structure of the game, they took RE4 and some of the assets from DR and mashed them together. Hence, why the Wii version is focused on shooting rather than melee, because that is what fits with the engine that they used, nothing to do with a lack of power. COD:WaW is a good example of an almost straight downport, with reduced graphical capabilities. And that still wasn't a serious effort, as the lack of capture the flag shows that some features they just didn't bother to incorporate.
 
Battle Fantasia - 4,704

I heard once that the minimum press run for X360 games is 50k units. If I were to assume this was true, there would be 45,296 unsold copies at retailers or Aksys HQ.

It can't be true, right? If so, how would a publisher like Valcon games expect to return a profit on something like Raiden Fighters Aces?

I wonder how Namco and Ubisoft made out with Culdcept Saga and Wartech: Senko no Ronde too.
 

Sadist

Member
PuppetMaster said:
Who exactly is going to buy a Bioshock and Fallout 3 Wii??
Bioshock Wii? Built from the ground up (and not a on-rails shooter LOL!) and has actual effort in it? Why not.

Didn't say anything about Fallout 3 because I don't like it
 

Narcosis

Member
You know who I partly blame for the lack of decent "core" games on Wii?

Nintendo.

if you are a platform holder then you are typically the company most responsible for your platform's image and reception. If Nintendo can't even be bothered to bring some of their more mature "core" games to the US (Fatal Frame, Disaster etc) then what message does that send out across the board as to what you think your platform is and what content it should have?

Now that's not excusing anything others are doing, clearly the huge amount of absolute shit released on the Wii is a sign of a quick cash in mentality with only a small few who try to create something unique and appealing to any "core" gamers who own the system (and Wii owners should want unique quality experiences, ala Mad World, not just downgrades of games from the other platforms), but Nintendo as the platform owner are not doing their part and helping set this tone. Maybe while Nintendo's main Japanese teams develop their first party offerings it could be useful for the other regional offices to try and localize some of the content we're not getting and reach out to the 3rd parties in the same way MS did to secure additional support for some new Wii exclusive killer apps.

Again, before I get a shitstorm of hate, I am not excusing the activities of 3rd parties, but Nintendo's leadership role has to be called somewhat into question here.
 
_dementia said:
I heard once that the minimum press run for X360 games is 50k units. If I were to assume this was true, there would be 45,296 unsold copies at retailers or Aksys HQ.

It can't be true, right? If so, how would a publisher like Valcon games expect to return a profit on something like Raiden Fighters Aces?

I wonder how Namco and Ubisoft made out with Culdcept Saga and Wartech: Senko no Ronde too.
surely that cant be true about a 50k minimum print run for xbox games, i know nintendo has a minimum 3k run for wii games
 

Scrubking

Member
People really need to stop using Chop Till you Drop as some sort of standard for HD to Wii ports. The game proves nothing other than Capcom's desire to cash-in on mediocre Wii efforts.

but Nintendo's leadership role has to be called somewhat into question here.

Yes, because we know exactly what Nintendo has been doing and saying to developers behind the scenes. We know everything.
 
_dementia said:
I heard once that the minimum press run for X360 games is 50k units. If I were to assume this was true, there would be 45,296 unsold copies at retailers or Aksys HQ.

That's odd.
SpikeOut Extreme had less than 5,000 copies in its initial printrun. I can't imagine why Microsoft would require everyone to jump to 50k. Aksys would have gone out of business a long time ago at that rate.
 

EDarkness

Member
Scrubking said:
Yes, because we know exactly what Nintendo has been doing and saying to developers behind the scenes. We know everything.

I seem to remember Reggie talking about how they were trying to get games like GTA on the Wii during the early days. Somehow I don't think that worked out too well....
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
PepsimanVsJoe said:
That's odd.
SpikeOut Extreme had less than 5,000 copies in its initial printrun. I can't imagine why Microsoft would require everyone to jump to 50k. Aksys would have gone out of business a long time ago at that rate.

DigitPress has mentioned the 50k thing a few times for North America. It is strange, but they're pretty much the source for this thing so I guess I believe it.
 
EDarkness said:
I seem to remember Reggie talking about how they were trying to get games like GTA on the Wii during the early days. Somehow I don't think that worked out too well....

reggie tried to get GTA on the gamecube, i wouldn't be surprised if GTA on wii gets announced at E3
 

[Nintex]

Member
frankie_baby said:
reggie tried to get GTA on the gamecube, i wouldn't be surprised if GTA on wii gets announced at E3
It's already in development, one of the Rockstar studios formed a Wii development group not too long ago.
 
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