Dave Long Happy Fun Thread: Third Parties Hate The Wii

[RepoMan]

Gamasutra says so, anyway.

Some of the most troubling concerns about the possibility of waning enthusiasm for the Wii include whether there are too many Wii games on the market, whether gamers have had their fill of so-called Wii casual or party games, and whether publishers have a handle on the moving target that is the Wii audience.

Take the case of third-party publisher Capcom, whose stock rose to a five-year high in September, 2007 due to increased support for the Wii, according to the company.

At the time, its CFO spoke enthusiastically about Capcom's Wii portfolio -- which had doubled from three to six games -- and was poised to publish Zack & Wiki: Quest For Barbaros' Treasure the next month.

But Chris Kramer, Capcom senior director of communications and community, said even though "it was one of the highest-rated Wii games and was beloved by the media, it sold abysmally -- about 120,000 units in 26 months -- for no apparent reason."

Similarly, Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment focused heavily on Wii and PSP releases in 2009, but the company found a considerable difference in its success on the two platforms. Four out of its five PSP games in its first fiscal half were profitable while three of its four Wii games during the same period lost money.

According to Kramer, "If you're not Nintendo, it does seem harder to make money on the Wii today compared to the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It's a very tough market to crack and is ever-shifting."

He recalls that when the Wii first launched in North America in November, 2006, simple casual or party games did so well that they soon saturated the market. "Now, I don't even know what the market is," he says.

One thing's for sure -- the focus has changed. Stores like Target and Best Buy have reportedly told game publishers not to even bother approaching them with collections of mini games, which they will no longer pick up.

"Third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wii audience is," Kramer adds. "You can no longer say it is solely casual gamers or that only E-rated games own the space. For any sort of solid statement you want to make about the platform or the audience, there are enough opposite proofs to show that it is extremely scattered and chaotic."

To save everyone time, I'll recap the thread before it starts:

Dave Long: The Wii is still the biggest seller ever by far, and Nintendo is the only one who needs to make any money.
Everyone else: The Wii is a d0m3d fad!!!!!

There. That was less painful than what's actually about to happen.

Edit: Sigh. I had second thoughts and actually decided to delete this whole post, because we've been down this road before. Unfortunately the "delete" button had timed out, or maybe you can't delete OPs. In any case, please feel free to not reply.

[Bahimiron]

Or more likely...

Could you please remove my name from your post?

[Staff Sergeant]

Well it's in the title so that ship has sailed.

[MrCoffee]

the wii is d0m3d!

[roguefrog]

OUENDAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!

[scharmers]

Wow this board is getting bitchy. Threads calling folks out by name abound, even devs who haven't posted here in like over a year.

[Raife]

In before RepoMan gets a temp ban for being mean to Dave Long!

[BobJustBob]

Pretty sure Capcom bitched about Okami's sales on the PS2 too, whining about how the PS2 had too many games. And they're bitching about Western devs too, saying how no one bought Bionic Commando.

However, I know the real reason behind Capcom's woes and I would like to share it with them. Capcom, you haven't make a good game since Dead Rising. STOP. MAKING. SHIT. GAMES.

[RickH]

But Chris Kramer, Capcom senior director of communications and community, said even though "it was one of the highest-rated Wii games and was beloved by the media, it sold abysmally -- about 120,000 units in 26 months -- for no apparent reason."

The reason was pretty apparent to me: reviewers are overly enamored of Japanese-ness.

Zak and Wiki was never, ever going to sell gangbusters and Capcom was kidding itself if it thought it was a potential million-seller. The game was obscure, child-unfriendly despite its anime-styled graphics, prone to extreme difficulty spikes, and had a bad name.

Really, Capcom? What other puzzle games have sold great? You know, those games that you were benchmarking the sales predictions against? Yeah, I thought so.

And I liked the game.

[idrisz]

Capcom release monster hunter tri on wii, the sales on it was fairly disappointing in Japan compare to PSP versions.

Monster hunter is a major franchise in Japan too.

Monster hunter 2nd G sold around 3.5m in about a year, and Monster hunter tri sold a little less than a million in comparison.

[Dave Long]

Monster Hunter Tri sold 520,000 on the first day of release in Japan and Wii sales tripled that day. You're basically lying.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...japanese-chart

8. Monster Hunter 3 (tri):

Release Date: 8/1/09.
2009 Sales: 949,095.
Life-to-date: 949,095.

http://www.vgarabia.com/2009/12/28/t...ames-in-japan/

[RickH]

Capcom release monster hunter tri on wii, the sales on it was fairly disappointing in Japan compare to PSP versions.

Monster hunter is a major franchise in Japan too.

Didn't they also introduce a new pay-for-play online model with that version?

[Charles]

Capcom release monster hunter tri on wii, the sales on it was fairly disappointing in Japan compare to PSP versions.

Monster hunter is a major franchise in Japan too.

Monster hunter 2nd G sold around 3.5m in about a year, and Monster hunter tri sold a little less than a million in comparison.

Monster Hunter Tri sold 520,000 on the first day of release in Japan and Wii sales tripled that day. You're basically lying.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...japanese-chart

8. Monster Hunter 3 (tri):

Release Date: 8/1/09.
2009 Sales: 949,095.
Life-to-date: 949,095.

http://www.vgarabia.com/2009/12/28/t...ames-in-japan/

Truly, he is lying, for 949,095 is not a little less than a million.

[MattKeil]

Monster Hunter Tri sold 520,000 on the first day of release in Japan and Wii sales tripled that day. You're basically lying.

And yet it still didn't come close to the success the same franchise had on the PSP, which is actually the point of the comments made on it. I believe Konami currently expects to sell more copies of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on the PSP, as well, which is insane.

Truly, he is lying, for 949,095 is not a little less than a million.

You with your facts and reading comprehension! Fie on thee!

[Raife]

Well, he's basically reading.

[Charles]

And yet it still didn't come close to the success the same franchise had on the PSP, which is actually the point of the comments made on it. I believe Konami currently expects to sell more copies of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on the PSP, as well, which is insane.

Well, the PSP has almost as much units in the wild as the Wii. But the difference is that people who buy PSPs actually want to play games.

What we can take away from this, is that the PSP's notorious piracy issues are less of a problem than the Wii's audience.

[Staff Sergeant]

Dave Long's stances on Nintendo related things are beginning to reach "cliffski on piracy" levels of ridiculousness. Did you really just miss the point completely, accuse someone of lying, and then prove them right in the same post?

[idrisz]

I was gonna post 940k but then I was scared Dave was gonna dive through my screen and choke me, because I lied about the 9,049 missing copies.

so instead I used less than million since it sounds better than 940k.

[nlanza]

Zak and Wiki was never, ever going to sell gangbusters and Capcom was kidding itself if it thought it was a potential million-seller. The game was obscure, child-unfriendly despite its anime-styled graphics, prone to extreme difficulty spikes, and had a bad name.

Really, Capcom? What other puzzle games have sold great? You know, those games that you were benchmarking the sales predictions against? Yeah, I thought so.

And I liked the game.

Yep. I loved Zak and Wiki, but my efforts to pimp it to my friends pretty much completely failed. Nobody was interested in it at all, and all of the conversations had basically the same "Isn't that a kids' game?" / "Oh, it's just a puzzle game? No thanks." pattern.

[Dave Long]

He edited his post to include the information on 2nd G. And 2nd G was the second game on PSP, released two years before Tri IIRC. The franchise hit its stride on portable systems and was the only thing people bought for PSP in Japan for a time. The PSP was the "Monster Hunter System" there.

Capcom has never intimated that they were at all unsatisfied with the 8th best selling game of 2009 in Japan, otherwise known as Monster Hunter Tri. He's twisting the truth, otherwise known as lying.

This is the only board where people are interpreting Capcom's success with Monster Hunter Tri on Wii as some kind of problem. But that's completely expected with this place anymore.

[nlanza]

This is the only board where people are interpreting Capcom's success with Monster Hunter Tri on Wii as some kind of problem. But that's completely expected with this place anymore.

[idrisz]

He edited his post to include the information on 2nd G. And 2nd G was the second game on PSP, released two years before IIRC. The franchise hit its stride on portable systems and was the only thing people bought for PSP in Japan for a time. The PSP was the "Monster Hunter System" there.

Capcom has never intimated that they were at all unsatisfied with the 8th best selling game of 2009 in Japan, otherwise known as Monster Hunter Tri. He's twisting the truth, otherwise known as lying.

This is the only board where people are interpreting Capcom's success with Monster Hunter Tri on Wii as some kind of problem. But that's completely expected with this place anymore.

I edited my post to show how big a following monster hunter have in Japan, if you think 1 millions sales for a monster hunter game = big, then you are simply insane, not mentioning the last 300k sales was due to big price drop, major store drop cost of the game by around 50% 10 days after the release.

Also I didn't even mention Monster hunter G for WII, which is a BIG FLOP!!!

[Dave Long]

How big a following it has on the PSP. A portable system. You can't just pick a game up and move it to another platform and expect it to sell like gangbusters. It doesn't work that way and really never has.

Even so, with an additional purchase of the Wii console required to play Monster Hunter Tri, it sold nearly a million. I'm not sure how that's interpreted as bad.

Again, you're the only person I've ever see interpret it that way. Please read other forums or even the entire article linked which is not as negative as you and others are portraying it.

[idrisz]

Are you trying to imply every single game should be designed as a console seller?

or none of the japanese wii owners care about monster hunter?

You can't just pick a game up and move it to another platform and expect it to sell like gangbusters. It doesn't work that way and really never has.

if the franchise is big enough, it doesn't matter what system it's on, also monster hunter tri was the 2nd game of the franchise on the Wii.

It's not that hard to see that top 10 selling games on Wii are all First Party Casual Games, it's like that on Gamecube and it's like that on Wii, either 3rd party company hates Nintendo or Nintendo gamer just don't purchase 3rd party games.

[Dave Long]

I think you're the one who's implying every game should be a system seller since you're using that one game that was a system seller for the portable PSP to compare its sales to the same franchise released on a home console.

It really doesn't work like you're saying. Many games have moved from one system to another and "failed". It's pretty much the norm with this stuff, especially when you try to go from portable platform to console platform.

But I've already wasted enough time on your twisted opinion of the facts, and once again someone tossed my name on a thread where it does not belong.

[idrisz]

actually I'm implying that every console should be designed to be a viable platform for games from multiple genre, but Wii isn't.

[Dave Long]

Based on the 8th best selling game in an entire year in Japan you're making this implication. Please explain that to me.

[idrisz]

Based on the 8th best selling game in an entire year in Japan you're making this implication. Please explain that to me.

I'm based on the top 10 best selling games on Wii and Gamecube, and the fact that it's a franchise that consistently claim multiple top 10 spots on a different console.

[Dave Long]

...and here it's claimed one out of two top ten spots on the Wii console, and the one that didn't was a port from the portable so it was already owned by at least 3.5 million of that base already so why would they buy it again?

So by your own measurement, the game has already done what you expected with its first installment that is exclusive to the Wii.

Your explanation tells me that Monster Hunter Tri did extremely well on the Wii and it was only outsold by seven other games in the year 2009 in Japan. What would you consider "success" if that is not it?

Have we really gotten to the point on Quarter To Three specifically where a game that sells nearly a million copies in a country where that places it eighth overall among hundreds of releases in a given year, is going to be completely discounted as a failure of some kind?

[Charles]

How big a following it has on the PSP. A portable system. You can't just pick a game up and move it to another platform and expect it to sell like gangbusters. It doesn't work that way and really never has.

Even so, with an additional purchase of the Wii console required to play Monster Hunter Tri, it sold nearly a million. I'm not sure how that's interpreted as bad.

Again, you're the only person I've ever see interpret it that way. Please read other forums or even the entire article linked which is not as negative as you and others are portraying it.

You know the game got its start on PS2, right? So... it was moved from a console to a handheld where it sold like gangbusters.

Sometimes, it kinda does work that way.