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[heidern]

You're defining "audience" narrowly towards single games and single genres as "new audiences," the MGS audience and FF audience, the "arcade gamer". Tomb Raider was developed and designed towards the same audience as Resident Evil as Madden as Need For Speed.

I'm defining the existing audience as the people who already own a console. New audiences are people who don't own the console. The likes of FF sold to some of the existing audience, but they also attracted new audiences. The existing and new audiences are often in a similar demographic but that is not necessarily the case. The initial PSX audience was proven to like arcade games like Ridge Racer and Tekken, they were not proven to like slower paced games with storylines and characters like FF or single player adventures like Tomb Raider. They were also not proven to like games like DDR or Bishi Bashi Special.

Just as the Game Party was developed for the same market segments as Sports Active as Just Dance as Deca Sports.

Yeah, and these games did a weak job of it in comparison to the likes of FFVII, Madden, MGS, RE and Tomb Raider which all sold multiple millions and were able to retain a large audience in the future. The Wii games also failed to provide variation compared to PSX IPs which offered a greater diversity from the initial hits. When a customer averages buying 9 games per console a one dimensional library is not the order of the day.

Once again, based on what exactly? And on whose dimensions of quality? Yours, apparently.

Once again, otherwise word of mouth would have led to major hits and there would have been greater audience retention.

Again on what basis whatsoever are you deriving that "genre diversity" is what that consumer segment wanted. Because they've clearly migrated to mobile for the genre diversity of runners, quiz games, match three, that they couldn't get on consoles?

That's an unsubstantiated assumption that they chose to migrate to mobile gaming. As for "genre diversity", 100M is a diverse audience and will have a diversity of tastes and interests. The human brain is wired to like new experiences and gets bored with excessive repetition. Seeing as the videogame industry is part of the entertainment industry and seeks to alleviate boredom, by definition diversity is what the consumer segment wants.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

AC3 was the first AC game to come out on a Nintendo console ever. On top of that, there are just a large number of factors that lead to the WiiU having one of the most awkward launches in history. Between confusion about what the console is, who it was marketed to/for, who it was even supposed to pull in, the controller confusion, you name it. So AC3, in a lot of ways, was already doomed from the start on WiiU

I think the biggest thing that just led to AC3's failure on the console though, was that it was the first AC on a nintendo console. If you're a major AC fan, then you've more than likely already had the console that you're going to play it on already. Why would you buy a 300 dollar machine on a new network infrastructure when no one else you're going to play it with is?

Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 5 were the first time those games hit the Xbox platform. DQ 6 was SNES, DQ 7 and 8 were PSOne and PS2, DQ9 was DS. Sonic Adventure 2 did really well on GameCube, as did Virtua Fighter 4 on PS2. Guitar Hero 3 was the first time that franchise hit the Wii and it became the best selling version. Destiny is the first Bungie game ever on PlayStation. Even FF XIII moved over a million units on Xbox.

This is a poor excuse, truly big franchises typically do well wherever they are introduced... if the interest is there. The Wii U is particularly unique in that not only did AC and CoD fail spectacularly on the platform, but there hasn't been a single 3rd party release in 18 months that the owners have rallied around in any real way. Nothing.

 

[shinra-bansho]

And I'm defining audience in terms of demographic consumer segments, wherein the "new audiences" you refer to are the same as the "existing audience" you refer to, even if you want to consider a new user who buys a system tomorrow a different audience from a user who bought the system yesterday. And wherein third parties cater to the consumer segments shown as present on a given platform by making games they think make [business] sense for that userbase. This rings true for any platform, whether its iOS or the Wii or the PlayStation or the Ouya.

Your assertions always circle back to how much you subjectively think that compelling third party products "should" have sold, what you think defines quality in the eyes of those consumer segments, how long the cycle of the Wii "should" have lasted. As opposed to what can be seen as compelling products based on what people bought, what they're buying now, where they're gaming now, what needs were addressed and are addressed.

"The software made by third parties weren't quality products."
Why? They sold well.
"They didn't sell as well as I think they should have."
On what basis were they expected to.
"Because..."

"Software diversity is what these consumers wanted."
Why?
"Because the output didn't maintain the Wii indefinitely as a viable platform."
Why is this expected?
"Because, they're humans."

There isn't any unsubstantiated assumption that the demographics of the mobile market mirror the demographic base of the expanded Wii audience, as far as I'm aware this can be seen from things like the ESA studies. And their are a billion+, let alone 100M, smartphone users, who are playing games on their phones, with no indication that "genre diversity" is what drove them to make it their preferred gaming platform. As opposed to things like ease and accessibility.

Riddle me this: Why exactly should a consumer segment be maintained indefinitely in a particular product sphere if something else offers them superior consumer value in dimensions that they care about?

 

[heidern]

And I'm defining audience in terms of demographic consumer segments, wherein the "new audiences" you refer to are the same as the "existing audience" you refer to, even if you want to consider a new user who buys a system tomorrow a different audience from a user who bought the system yesterday. And wherein third parties cater to the consumer segments shown as present on a given platform by making games they think make [business] sense for that userbase. This rings true for any platform, whether its iOS or the Wii or the PlayStation or the Ouya.

So basically, you're not defining an audience. Under your definition the audience for Dance Dance Revolution was the same as the audience for Resident Evil. That's a broad definition that ultimately would include everyone on the planet. There were many gamers that bought a PSX at launch that would never have any intention of buying an RPG like Final Fantasy. I don't think it's useful to define them as the same audience. Different games may share some of their audience and don't share the other part. Collectively, all the overlapping audiences for all the games make up the userbase. If you want to segment in detail you can do so in various ways, whether it's fans of a particular franchise, particular genre, age group, gender, affinity for a particular countries games, time spent gaming etc.

Your assertions always circle back to how much you subjectively think that compelling third party products "should" have sold, what you think defines quality in the eyes of those consumer segments, how long the cycle of the Wii "should" have lasted. As opposed to what can be seen as compelling products based on what people bought, what they're buying now, where they're gaming now, what needs were addressed and are addressed.

If you define them as compelling based on how many people bought them, obviously if more people bought them then that would mean they were more compelling. If people are not buying them now then that means there was some limitation in their design. A superior design and people would still be buying them.

Do you have any evidence for where the actual Wii audience is gaming now? Both in terms of platform and physical location? How much they're gaming? What reasons people give for any change? Even if people are playing mobile games that doesn't mean that's the reason they don't play console games.

"The software made by third parties weren't quality products."
Why? They sold well.
"They didn't sell as well as I think they should have."
On what basis were they expected to.
"Because..."

They fell short of audience penetration of successful games on all previous gaming platforms. They also were a fraction of the quality games on the Wii itself(Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit, Mario Kart). Just Dance managed to get to 5M which would put it as a success, the other 3rd party games only topped out at 2M. The disparity in sales reflected the disparity in quality. Game Party declining from 2M to 1M for the sequel illustrates this further.

"Software diversity is what these consumers wanted."
Why?
"Because the output didn't maintain the Wii indefinitely as a viable platform."
Why is this expected?
"Because, they're humans."

I'm glad you agree with the facts about basic human psychology.

Riddle me this: Why exactly should a consumer segment be maintained indefinitely in a particular product sphere if something else offers them superior consumer value in dimensions that they care about?

This is based on the assumption people have decided to completely forego playing games on the tv and instead are now sitting on the couch playing games on their mobile. I don't see this as likely. People likely to play mobile games outside the house, when they're commuting for example or perhaps when they're in a room other than the one with the tv in. Of course as we know human psychology leads people to variety so they could partake in either depending on their mood.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I'm talking about audiences in broader consumer market segment terms. If the demographic and psychographic make-up of consumers buying DDR and RE were the same then I see no issue with looking at them as a singular consumer segment for the purposes of product development. I didn't, however, say they were.

Publishers will not make products for which they do not see a market. Publishers will make products for which they do. That is the ultimate point. That is what has led to such a statement from Yves Guillemot. That is what led to the products made for the Wii, the NES, the PSX, the PS4.

If people are not buying them now, either they no longer offer sufficient perceived value or something else offers superior value.
Superior design by whose standards, by what metrics? You seem to be implying a desire for greater complexity and budget despite all evidence to the contrary.
Again, what audience penetration standards? That of different games for a different demographic consumer segment.

There is a thread about a recent ESA survey showing the demographics of the mobile market, that mirror those that expanded the market for the Wii. That much can be said. There is no information at an individual level. There is no information to assert that consumers did not see value in those products at the time. Declines in particular franchises, declines in Wii sales, do not speak to that. Products decline from saturation, products decline from misalignment with needs over time, products decline as new products serve needs and interests better, products fail to make repeat sales as prior purchases may sufficiently meet needs.

There is no basis for your assertion as far as I'm aware, that a product and/or value proposition can sustain interest indefinitely. That simply through more publisher output, more investment in games for the Wii, bigger budgets and bigger focus, that the Wii's expanded consumer market could have been sustained in perpetuity in the console space. I would be interested in whatever peer-reviewed research shows that all consumer segments uniformly value "genre variety" as paramount.

I take it you won't answer my rhetorical question because the obvious answer is they won't be maintained. This doesn't just apply to gaming. It applies to consumer markets in general. Regardless of your supposition about people's behaviour in this room or that room.

And as usual this ceased to be particularly productive discussion long ago.

 

[iKhayal18]

I thought Wii U owners did not buy AC games...:

The top three games on the eShop are Ubisoft games...

 

[Recall]

I thought Wii U owners did not buy AC games...:

The top three games on the eShop are Ubisoft games...

The fact there is Ubisoft sale going on right now might help.

 

[heidern]

Publishers will not make products for which they do not see a market. Publishers will make products for which they do. That is the ultimate point.

It's not the ultimate point, looked at from a wider context this is all limited by a publishers ability to see.

If people are not buying them now, either they no longer offer sufficient perceived value or something else offers superior value.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The Atari market garnered sales for a while but because the quality wasn't high the consumer decided it no longer offered sufficient perceived value and the market crashed. Your contention that Wii games were compelling because Wii consumers bought them is as invalid as the assertion that Atari games were compelling because Atari gamers bought them. The price of a new console also raises the bar below which perceived value needs to fall for the consumer to exit the market. The quality wasn't high not not by my standards, but by the standards of the Wii audience itself.

I would be interested in whatever peer-reviewed research shows that all consumer segments uniformly value "genre variety" as paramount.

You don't need peer reviewed research to see that consumer entertainment products including DVD, cable tv and music CD were successful because of genre diversity. That the Wii audience bought 9 games per console in a variety of genres shows they did value diversity.

I take it you won't answer my rhetorical question because the obvious answer is they won't be maintained.

Your rhetorical question has nothing to do with anything I said. The Wii demographics needed hundreds of quality new IPs targeted towards them including a significant number of high quality IPs, they they didn't get them and the market crashed.

 

[shinra-bansho]

76M units of "uncompelling software" was purchased for the Wii in the last two years. The software met consumer needs at the time. It still meets those needs for some. That doesn't mean those needs can't shift or be better served elsewhere over time. And whence that occurs that doesn't mean the software was retrospectively uncompelling.

You contend there wasn't variety while concurrently citing the variety of software purchased as indicative of a desire for variety. Under some guise of psychological theory.

Meanwhile the Wii didn't crash. It declined, as products do. There are a myriad reasons that can be attributed to, not least of which natural adoption curves. But the demographics that bought the Wii are still gaming. They're just doing so via something that presents superior value. And there's absolutely no basis to suggest that "hundreds of IPs" of "quality" based on your metrics of quality would have prevented something better serving their needs and offering better value.

Again, it seems quite clear this serves no productive purpose as your view that the Wii could have been sustained in perpetuity - through sheer virtue of publishers, with no onus to do so, pouring money into it - seems intractable. So feel free to respond if you so desire, but I don't intend to respond further in this thread.

 

[Roo]

I thought Wii U owners did not buy AC games...:

The top three games on the eShop are Ubisoft games...

Child of Light 1st place <33333

 

[heidern]

Again, it seems quite clear this serves no productive purpose as your view that the Wii could have been sustained in perpetuity

This is just dishonest. I never said anything about Wii being sustained in perpetuity. That's just you twisting my words. Having invested hundreds on a Wii the audience had the choice of less than high quality games made by b-grade teams or high quality games targeted at other audiences. There wasn't a variety of quality new IPs targeted towards the new audience so they didn't have the incentive to spend hundreds of dollars on a new console and exited the market by default. It's not complicated. And with that, I'm out too.

 

[NastyBook]

Echoing how sad it is we'll never see a Zombi U2.

Nintendo owns the IP rights? If so, lame.

 

[Roo]

Nintendo owns the IP rights? If so, lame.

No? Ubisoft owns the IP.
ZombiU is a reboot/sequel of a 25+years old game.

 

[NastyBook]

No? Ubisoft owns the IP.
ZombiU is a reboot/sequel of a 25+years old game.

So a sequel isn't out of the question. Cool.