Nintendo: What Have You Done? And Why Won’t You Stop?
Filed under: Game Reviews and Opinion, Gaming News and Reportage 10 Responses
It was this news that started it all (special thanks to the madmen of DailyGamesNews): Platinum Games’ MadWorld, after launching at £34.99 in the UK and disappearing from sales charts after entering at no. 34, now sells for as low as £16.99. Then Nielsen released their latest PC Game and Video Game Console Usage 4Q 2008 results. In every single study – Usage Min %, Active User %, Averaged Session Mins, Averaged Usage Days, Daily Averaged Number Sessions – the PS3 and 360 each score higher than the Wii.
Cowen & Company’s Doug Creutz then told Gamasutra that, “Nintendo is the dominant publisher on the Wii with over one-third of software market share on its platform. Guitar Hero and Rock Band account for one-sixth of sales. So the addressable market for third-party Wii titles is only about half of what the installed base would imply. The situation on the 360/PS3 is less daunting, with less than a quarter of software dollar share going to first-party publishers and Guitar Hero/Rock Band.” The short version? “You have more control over your fate on the 360/PS3 if you can come up with a high-quality game. Whereas on the Wii, it’s a bit of a crapshoot for what works and what doesn’t.”
It was Douglass Perry’s article “Looking Back at 1996: Nintendo’s Fall, Part 1″ on EDGE that finally sealed the deal. Nintendo, for all we’ve known it, is one of the founding fathers of gaming. However, the Wii has become a venerable albatross on the neck of the company. The sad part? They love it.
Hardcore titles like Dead Space Extraction, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templar, The Conduit, Dead Rising, Dragon Quest X, Overlord: Dark Legend and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories are all walking to their graves. Why? Because it’s easier to design on the Wii. Because developers can concentrate on gameplay and originality than internet play or high-definition. Because there’s such a huge user-base on the platform, certainly more than either the PS3 or 360. So who can blame them for going for the more lucrative, easier option? The same goes for third party titles like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Army of Two: The 40th Day, and the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises. Resources and production are expended to cater to another audience while netting an additional revenue. But guess what? Because of Nintendo, all of them will fail. Not out of some misguided malice at the company, I assure you. The Legend of Zelda will always remain my favourite, and undoubtedly the best, video game series of all time.
However, Nintendo has gone too far in appealing to their new “casual” market of gamers. Perhaps the term “non-gamers” applies to them more, given the negligible amount they contribute to the gross revenue of third party titles and hardcore exclusives. The environment was facilitated for Nintendo’s first party titles. If they were any where in the league of classic Mario, Metroid or Zelda, at least there’d be the relief that Nintendo hasn’t abandoned it’s long time fans. Scan any top selling Wii game and you’ll find Wii Fit, Wii Sports and blasphemous of all, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. House of the Dead: Overkill, a good title and the best HotD of the series, sold a measly 45,000 units after launch in February. Not only is Nintendo choking off the hardcore and third party title market on the Wii but it’s doing so with utter filth targeted at the lowest common denominator.
So why won’t Nintendo stop? Why doesn’t it just tell all the MadWorlds, Dead Spaces and Conduits to take a hike onto other systems, where the combined market share of the PS3 and 360 not only exceeds that of the Wii but actually plays, even craves, these titles? Why doesn’t it keep the casual realm of gaming and leave the ruination of the hardcore Nintendo audience out of it? The problem is also the solution in this case: For all it’s faults, Nintendo is still Nintendo. It still holds ownership over the titles we enjoyed in the last generation and which they know we want. It knows it can dangle that carrot over the collective heads of fans and use it to draw the curiousity of those who associate the Nintendo name with such classics but have no inkling of their current strategy. Once in a while, Nintendo will dole out a Mario or Zelda, just to appease it’s fans. And little by little, it’ll stop catering to that market share altogether until it’s ready to move onto the next generation and repeat the process. One can only hope that gems like MadWorld don’t suffer the same fate, and that their sequels are released on the PS3 and 360 where they can earn the profit they deserve.
Because the fact of the matter is, Nintendo knows what it’s doing. It also knows we hate it, but finds it funny when we ask why it won’t stop. Here’s a hint: We’re a dying breed, the irrelevant, the gamers. And Nintendo has too many cash-cows to milk to worry about what we think.
10 Responses to “Nintendo: What Have You Done? And Why Won’t You Stop?”
What a complete idiot.., Might want to pull your head out of your ass and actually read the articles you link. Wii getting twice the play time of the PS3 in your link yet you claim PS3 is beating it. You cant even read yet you act like you know it all?
The only “proof” you have is some bias idiot, an article you cant even comprehend and false claims of Madworld failing. You know Sega? The people that actually publish it? They already stated its opening was promising. So who are you to argue? I mean other than an upset fanboy without a clue? Oh but please name off all the black and white million sellers on PS3 please? Yeah I thought not moron
The highest rated game this gen is filth.. You sir are an idiot and no amount of crying will ever change that. This entire article is nothing but a clueless inbred fanboy trying his best to make a console look bad but not having any facts to back it up.
Guitar Hero fail? You dont even know it sells better on Wii?
The first thing you need to do is go get an actually clue wtf you are talking about….
Guitar hero Wii sales are almost equal to 360/PS3 sales combined for Guitar Hero..
I wonder when you will hate on PS3. It gets less play time than the xbox, has an attach rate lower than the Wii, and is dominated by 1st party games. Since its so wrong of Nintendo I am sure the Sony sucks article will be coming soon.. Since you’re not bias or anything.. Idiot… You only take what you want to prove your point and leave the many many facts that prove you wrong out of it.
I really hate this article because it said that 3rd parties who make games for wii are walking to their graves. Who would care for the conduit if it came out on the 360 or ps3. It would be just another shooter. Plus Guitar Hero has sold the best on the wii so i have no idea why you are saying they will fail. Hardcore games can sell well too, have you seen the sails for resident evil 4 or call of duty:waw?
@Charles:
From Nielsen’s report:
“The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are regarded as the console of choice for the hardcore gamer. Both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 console user type’s fall into the ‘Heavy’ category of usage”
Also, I don’t see why you’d take Sega’s word over actual sales reports that state MadWorld dropped out of charts and in price in the UK. Maybe if they said the next Sonic would be great you’d believe them then, too.
Also, PS3 does have a black-and-white seller: Killzone 2! Okay, bad joke but I don’t see how a game’s colours affect it’s sales. Are you trying to say it’s easier to make such games with a unique art style like MadWorld? I don’t think so.
“Wii getting twice the play time of the PS3 in your link yet you claim PS3 is beating it.”
I meant beating it in terms of how much people play it. I’m well aware of the sales difference, thank you very much. Also, the “filth” I was referring to was Wii Fit, Wii Sports and Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. Don’t know what you’re yammering about.
“I wonder when you will hate on PS3″
Been there, done that. For the same reasons as every one else. e.g. SixAxis, Killzone 2, Home, etc.
“You only take what you want to prove your point and leave the many many facts that prove you wrong out of it.”
But I pretty much fail at everything right? Good to see you’re demonstrating the above method so well for me.
@Tenko:
Have you seen the sales of House of the Dead: Overkill?
Wow Charles you are an idiot, you didnt even read what the article said properly as Ravi correctly points out. I lol’ed hard when you thought the word of SEGA was more reliable than actual reports of its sales from retailers, thats an 8 year olds logic and proves you know jack shit about the video game industry.
Great article, well researched and some good points, fact is nintendo is making so much more money out of casuals why would it start listening to its much smaller hardcore fanbase now? They dont give a flying fuck that hardcore games flop and wii owners can only buy party games.
You sir obviously are upset with the lack of innovation with your console choice. Hd graphics can only take u so far. Nintendo is the real hardcore. Just for the record, on a Nintendo console third partys usually fail due to one reason. They are competing with the best in the industry. Great games almost always sell. Madworld is a niche title and will succeed in the long
Run. Peace
Instead of asking Nintendo to stop killing hardcore gaming on the Wii, maybe you should ask hardcore gaming to start supporting the Wii, if they really want it to be a system for them. The games are few, but they’re there. Nintendo didn’t keep people from buying MadWorld. People just opted not to buy it. If the “hardcore” audience is, in fact, hardcore, they’d know about the game and they’d pick it up.
The argument that Nintendo should go back to the hardcore crowd is absurd. As the sales show, the hardcore crowd isn’t big enough to support any software made specifically for them.
Gameplayer had an interesting theory on how Nintendoo’s setting the stage for the next videogame crash…
Wii is leadin the downfall of videogames, look at number of trash games in Wii ……
More like Shovelware.
That’s an idea for the WII.
ShovelWare Wii.
MSRP 59.99$
Rated G for gross
You are in a farm helping out and it’s your job to be the pooper scooper and you need to be the best pooper scoober so you can start your own buisness and be a pooper scooper empire!
The more money you make the bigger the farm you unlock with more poop to scoop!
You will use the WII mote and pretend to actually shovel it or you can use the standard controller if you are too smart to make fun of yourself.
It even has an online mode even though it’s as buggy as hell but Nintendromes don’t mind it so neither should you!.
If you bought this product and don’t like it remember to not complain at our forums or the Fanboys will toss you overoboard!
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