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[Aquamarine]

You really are a world traveler.

Gotta make the most out of your short time in this world.

 

[allan-bh]

COD3 sold more on Wii than PS3 from launch

Wii started selling much more than PS3, I believe that's the explanation for better CoD 3 sales, combined with Resistance being the primary choice for PS3 owners.

 

[AniHawk]

Wii started selling much more than PS3, I believe that's the explanation for better CoD 3 sales, combined with Resistance being the primary choice for PS3 owners.

i mean... higher install base leading to higher software sales is the reason publishers developed for higher install bases in the past.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

It's just after going through the GameCube years hearing everyone say that the reason GameCube didn't get certain games was due to install base, and then the Wii having a huge install base from the start and still not getting the games, it still stings.

You've got to look at the demographics and tastes of the install base. The major publishers have talent and expertise with a certain sort of game. They didn't just refuse to develop games for the Wii out of spite: they looked at the console's demographics and made the (totally correct) call that the usual sort of AAA action game they knew how to make just wouldn't sell to that audience, or wouldn't be worth the opportunity cost of developing.

If there had been a market for this sort of stuff on the Wii someone would have exploited it. Ubisoft was able to exploit the Wii extremely effectively by producing games that Wii owners actually wanted.

 

[allan-bh]

i mean... higher install base leading to higher software sales is the reason publishers developed for higher install bases in the past.

That's the rule, but Wii was not an ordinary console.

 

[AniHawk]

You've got to look at the demographics and tastes of the install base. The major publishers have talent and expertise with a certain sort of game. They didn't just refuse to develop games for the Wii out of spite: they looked at the console's demographics and made the (totally correct) call that the usual sort of AAA action game they knew how to make just wouldn't sell to that audience.

i think the argument is that they never actually made this sort of move. they had made the move to bank on the ps3. when the ps3 was doing its best gamecube impression in 2007, the reaction was to put games on the 360 as well, and not waste years of building new engines and creating games so it could go on a cheaper-to-develop-for and larger userbase.

there was a time early in the wii's life when people were receptive to the kinds of games that were popular on the ps2 and xbox. the great drought of 2008 made anyone waiting for anything of the sort take off for greener pastures.

 

[AniHawk]

That's the rule, but Wii was not an ordinary console.

the wii was an ordinary console. it was sold in ordinary storefronts, and had support from traditional customers. there's a world of difference between the wii as a platform, and say, steam. i consider steam a platform and valve a first-party developer who owns that platform. the storefront for steam is not traditional (almost entirely digital except for some card codes sold at retailers), and the support is pretty wide, including not just traditional publishers, but basically anyone who can get approved by the community.

what might not be ordinary about the wii was that it was a widely successful platform after a series of consecutively less successful platforms. but the wii finding non-gamers and turning them into gamers, effectively expanding the reach of the gaming market, was a fairly ordinary thing as well, as generations have always been bigger from one to the next (until this one, that is).

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

i think the argument is that they never actually made this sort of move. they had made the move to bank on the ps3. when the ps3 was doing its best gamecube impression in 2007, the reaction was to put games on the 360 as well, and not waste years of building new engines and creating games so it could go on a cheaper-to-develop-for and larger userbase.

there was a time early in the wii's life when people were receptive to the kinds of games that were popular on the ps2 and xbox. the great drought of 2008 made anyone waiting for anything of the sort take off for greener pastures.

Maybe it did indeed exist in the very early stages, but that core-receptive Wii audience was living on borrowed time. Every month that passed saw more HDTV penetration, every year that passed saw the price differential between the Wii and the HD twins shrink. If they had anticipated the Wii's success maybe they could have made some money in years one and two, but it's not really plausible that the hardcore audience would have been content with the Wii as a primary console for more than a year or two any more than it's plausible that they would have been content with the PS2 as a primary console well into the seventh generation. The hardcore cares about graphics, that's why console generations happen. By the time the big publishers understood that the Wii was going to be successful the clock had already started ticking, and they made the call that whatever audience existed at that moment probably wouldn't be around by the time whatever they started developing would come out of the oven.

the wii was an ordinary console. it was sold in ordinary storefronts, and had support from traditional customers. there's a world of difference between the wii as a platform, and say, steam. i consider steam a platform and valve a first-party developer who owns that platform. the storefront for steam is not traditional (almost entirely digital except for some card codes sold at retailers), and the support is pretty wide, including not just traditional publishers, but basically anyone who can get approved by the community.

what might not be ordinary about the wii was that it was a widely successful platform after a series of consecutively less successful platforms. but the wii finding non-gamers and turning them into gamers, effectively expanding the reach of the gaming market, was a fairly ordinary thing as well, as generations have always been bigger from one to the next (until this one, that is).

Every generation has been bigger than the last as a result of natural growth and aging of the core demographic. The Wii was responsible for the entirety of the seventh generation's gains, as well as the entirety of the seventh generation's losses, and it was sui generis in the fact that those gains came from non-adjacent demographics that no one at the major publishers understood.

And let's be frank: the major publishers made the right call not hitching their carts to the Wii. That audience vanished, and there's nothing any of them could have done to have stopped it.

 

[donny2112]

You've got to look at the demographics and tastes of the install base. The major publishers have talent and expertise with a certain sort of game. They didn't just refuse to develop games for the Wii out of spite: they looked at the console's demographics and made the (totally correct) call that the usual sort of AAA action game they knew how to make just wouldn't sell to that audience, or wouldn't be worth the opportunity cost of developing.

No. COD3 and RE4 say otherwise. Early on there were signs of a prospective good base for traditional core games on the Wii. COD4 made that generation, though, and with it totally skipping the Wii in 2007 and no real RE4 followup, natural attrition from those that wanted that core experience took place. After that early potential was gone, I'd agree with your sentiment, but my issue comes from people who try to dismiss that early potential as never really being there.

It wasn't about making games "for the Wii audience." That was their mistake. They just needed to port the games they were already making for PS360 to Wii, and the early core audience would've grown from there. Personally in this non-existent hypothetical world where every biggish PS360 game had a Wii version, I still think PS360 sales would've been > Wii, but I also think it would've been a very profitable audience for publishers + any spillover into those who bought the Wii for Wii Sports and just wanted to try out "that new games they'd been hearing about on TV."

If there had been a market for this sort of stuff on the Wii someone would have exploited it.

That's your mistake. I have to chalk this up to the axiom CosmicQueso referenced, though. It may not have been malice, but there was definite incompetence on third-parties and Nintendo's part to not foster growth in that early core audience on Wii.

 

[allan-bh]

the wii was an ordinary console. it was sold in ordinary storefronts, and had support from traditional customers. there's a world of difference between the wii as a platform, and say, steam. i consider steam a platform and valve a first-party developer who owns that platform. the storefront for steam is not traditional (almost entirely digital except for some card codes sold at retailers), and the support is pretty wide, including not just traditional publishers, but basically anyone who can get approved by the community.

what might not be ordinary about the wii was that it was a widely successful platform after a series of consecutively less successful platforms. but the wii finding non-gamers and turning them into gamers, effectively expanding the reach of the gaming market, was a fairly ordinary thing as well, as generations have always been bigger from one to the next (until this one, that is).

I don't think a system with a very weak hardware and focused on new way of play games (Wiimote) is an ordinary console.

Several Nintendo hardcore fans bought one for sure (Zelda attach rate at beginning was insane) but Wii made history with demographic expansion as you noted. The more traditional market was dominated by Xbox 360 and PS3.

 

[donny2112]

And let's be frank: the major publishers made the right call not hitching their carts to the Wii. That audience vanished, and there's nothing any of them could have done to have stopped it.

If the major part of the Wii audience that was fostered only by casual/mainstream titles from Nintendo and third-parties over the years was always going to leave for tablets, then maybe. You can't know that, though. Personally, I think that a more focused effort to grow a traditional userbase on Wii would have made it easier to keep more/most of those around, since they'd be more invested into the traditional market, then. No, you can't say that the publishers made the right decision early on, though, when it was that decision early on that directly influenced the end result, in my way of thinking. AniHawk has said it many times over the years, but it became sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy about lack of traditional titles on Wii leading to a lack of audience for those titles leading to even less traditional titles.

The more traditional market was dominated by Xbox 360 and PS3.

Shooters. Shooters on Wii are almost universally acclaimed as the second-best control method next to kb/m. Shooters, in particular, had a chance to make it huge on Wii and possibly expand into some of that mainstream/casual audience that got a Wii for Wii Sports. Motion controls were almost always too imprecise for traditional games, I felt, but pointer controls were a whole other story.

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

I skimmed the last five pages and saw ~193k for Sony, ~143 for MS, is this speculation or leaked? Didn't see any friendly pie charts...

 

[allan-bh]

No. COD3 and RE4 say otherwise. Early on there were signs of a prospective good base for traditional core games on the Wii. COD4 made that generation, though, and with it totally skipping the Wii in 2007 and no real RE4 followup, natural attrition from those that wanted that core experience took place. After that early potential was gone, I'd agree with your sentiment, but my issue comes from people who try to dismiss that early potential as never really being there.

Do you believe that Wii's destiny would be very different if Call of Duty 4 was made for the system too?

 

[allan-bh]

I skimmed the last five pages and saw ~193k for Sony, ~143 for MS, is this speculation or leaked? Didn't see any friendly pie charts...

It's ~153k for XOne. Both numbers are close enough.

 

[QaaQer]

Pretend it is 2003/4/5, and you are an exec at ea/activ/etc. Where do you earmark money and talent for 7th gen games? Both Sony & MS were willing to subsidize their powerful consoles, pay for partnerships, and fund games that attracted 13-34 yo males. Ninty offered a GameCube+ with unproven controls, Nintendo's famous 3rd party hospitality and tools, and no games targeting 13-34 males.

So, Wii releases, sells like mad. These big pubs would have needed 2+ years to pivot, they would have to redo their pipiline, and hope their was an audience for their games on wii in 2009 onward in standard definition. For the Wii to have had full support, they would have needed to produce a console with ps360 power, proper tools, and partner with those companies. That would have opened the door to Wii becoming ps2. It also would have been really expensive.

 

[donny2112]

Do you believe that Wii's destiny would be very different if Call of Duty 4 was made for the system too?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh my, yes. Had to be at launch. The thing came out two years later in place of Modern Warfare 2, but if the biggest and most influential game of the generation had come out also on the biggest and fastest growing userbase by far in Fall 2007, I strongly feel that the traditional market on Wii would've been a much different landscape in 2008 and beyond. That's assuming a good sales success on Wii for COD4 in Fall 2007, of course, but I don't think that's a big stretch to believe considering how COD3 had already performed better than PS3 since launch. Now Wii might've (probably would have) still been third in COD4 sales behind 360 and PS3, but it would've made a huge statement to the rest of the industry to see that hugely influential game showing good returns on Wii, too.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

No. COD3 and RE4 say otherwise.

No they don't, actually. You can't base your entire argument on these two games. Neither of them actually sold that well - neither by the standards of the console nor by the standards of the generation. And they sold as well as they did only because they were favorably positioned within the Wii's ecosystem. The console had no ability to sustain a competitive market of mainstream action games.

Early on there were signs of a prospective good base for traditional core games on the Wii. COD4 made that generation, though, and with it totally skipping the Wii in 2007 and no real RE4 followup, natural attrition from those that wanted that core experience took place. After that early potential was gone, I'd agree with your sentiment, but my issue comes from people who try to dismiss that early potential as never really being there.

But that natural attrition would have occurred even if CoD4 and RE5 had Wii ports. The early (relative) successes of CoD3 and RE4 were the high water mark for core engagement with the platform, not a sign that there was a sustainable audience for that kind of game on the platform. The Wii was a primary console for a small audience of core gamers only until the HD twins dropped in price enough to be attractive to upgrade to. Releasing hideous sub-HD ports of mainstream AAA games wouldn't have done anything to convince core gamers that they didn't need an HD console, especially when you consider that for a long time the 360 was only $50 more than the Wii.

That's your mistake. I have to chalk this up to the axiom CosmicQueso referenced, though. It may not have been malice, but there was definite incompetence on third-parties and Nintendo's part to not foster growth in that early core audience on Wii.

I don't think there was so much incompetence that the absence of it would have done anything but postpone ever so slightly the inevitable abandonment of the Wii by the core.

Shooters. Shooters on Wii are almost universally acclaimed as the second-best control method next to kb/m. Shooters, in particular, had a chance to make it huge on Wii and possibly expand into some of that mainstream/casual audience that got a Wii for Wii Sports. Motion controls were almost always too imprecise for traditional games, I felt, but pointer controls were a whole other story.

They had zero chance. Graphics and competent online matter to the core, motion controls don't.

 

[The Shogun]

To be clearer, this is what TheShogun said about New 3DS XL sales (remind, at Gamestop) so far


Also, we have an entire thread dedicated to how the console has sold out in many other stores (not just GS), especially in specific areas. It sounds like Nintendo didn't ship such a huge amount of consoles, but also that demand is there, and seemingly a pretty good one.

Yep. And yes, many sales are to existing owners upgrading.

I expect the n3DS boost to be pretty front loaded

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

I'd love to see data about how much money MS lost per console sale in November and December with all the deals and bundles. Seems like that was the only thing that made them win the NPDs. How much is the increased user base and catching up with Sony worth to them?

Probably was enough benefit to make up the monetary loss for them, I'd guess.

 

[Welfare]

I'd love to see data about how much money MS lost per console sale in November and December with all the deals and bundles. Seems like that was the only thing that made them win the NPDs. How much is the increased user base and catching up with Sony worth to them?

Probably was enough benefit to make up the monetary loss for them, I'd guess.

That XBL Gold money is worth it.

 

[4Tran]

If the major part of the Wii audience that was fostered only by casual/mainstream titles from Nintendo and third-parties over the years was always going to leave for tablets, then maybe. You can't know that, though. Personally, I think that a more focused effort to grow a traditional userbase on Wii would have made it easier to keep more/most of those around, since they'd be more invested into the traditional market, then. No, you can't say that the publishers made the right decision early on, though, when it was that decision early on that directly influenced the end result, in my way of thinking. AniHawk has said it many times over the years, but it became sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy about lack of traditional titles on Wii leading to a lack of audience for those titles leading to even less traditional titles.

Those publishers would prefer to have that audience on the PS360 instead. You have to look at what their selling points and target audience are. Moreover, DLC was increasingly seen as an important revenue stream but one that's not as attractive on the Wii. All in all, a core gamer on the Wii is not as valuable as one on PS360, so it'd make sense to attract them to the latter instead. They would then try to publish blue ocean friendly titles on the Wii instead. While, it may not have been the correct choice, it makes a lot of business sense.

 

[SodiumBenzoate]

Not that Sony really *needs* to do anything, but if I were in charge:

Lower price of the PS4 to $359. Sales bump from price drop, increase buzz, but still have the arbitrary $10 price difference just to tell your customers "yep, this is the superior console. It's worth the [trivial] premium."

 

[allan-bh]

Yes, yes, yes, yes, oh my, yes. Had to be at launch. The thing came out two years later in place of Modern Warfare 2, but if the biggest and most influential game of the generation had come out also on the biggest and fastest growing userbase by far in Fall 2007, I strongly feel that the traditional market on Wii would've been a much different landscape in 2008 and beyond. That's assuming a good sales success on Wii for COD4 in Fall 2007, of course, but I don't think that's a big stretch to believe considering how COD3 had already performed better than PS3 since launch. Now Wii might've (probably would have) still been third in COD4 sales behind 360 and PS3, but it would've made a huge statement to the rest of the industry to see that hugely influential game showing good returns on Wii, too.

Well.. it's possible but I tend to think that would not made much difference. CoD 4 with poor visuals (compared to HD consoles) wouldn't make a strong case in Wii's favour.

CoD 3 sold double on Wii, but I think it just showed how sales were bad in the PS3, not that Wii had the profile to justify CoD 4.

 

[Amir0x]

Not that Sony really *needs* to do anything, but if I were in charge:

Lower price of the PS4 to $359. Sales bump from price drop, increase buzz, but still have the arbitrary $10 price difference just to tell your customers "yep, this is the superior console. It's worth the [trivial] premium."

Man I always thought that's a dumb message to send. Like, if the system is better and costs just as much as the competitor, ya'll getting a better deal customers. Reward that behavior with more clamor for that piece of technology, not less!

Since the PS4 is still going to sell just as much as XBO in the US at this price for the next however many months until the Holidays, they can carefully lower in their price drop bomb when they're good and ready. There's no need to rush, they know they can continue to make higher profit at this price range because they're still selling a fairly considerable amount of units. So like you acknowledge, until there's a *need* Sony is going to take this on their terms. It leaves them in the best strategic position, because it means they still have high profile cards to play whereas their competitors can only go so low.

 

[donny2112]

No they don't, actually. You can't base your entire argument on these two games. Neither of them actually sold that well - neither by the standards of the console nor by the standards of the generation. And they sold as well as they did only because they were favorably positioned within the Wii's ecosystem. The console had no ability to sustain a competitive market of mainstream action games.

You're using late gen reality to color early gen results. You need to look at how things looked in 2007.

As of October 2007 for the top third-party PS3 games...

Madden 07:
PS3 > Wii, but they were separated by ~10%
Madden 08:
PS3 > Wii, with Wii ~half of PS3.

NCAA Football 08:
No Wii version.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma:
No Wii version.

COD3:
Wii > PS3, with Wii > 30% higher than PS3

As of October 2007 for the top third-party Wii games ...

Rayman Raving Rabbids:
No PS3 version.

RE4:
No PS3 version, but also > than all but the top PS3 third-party game to date.

Guitar Hero III:
WII > PS3 by about 3:1

Red Steel:
No PS3 version, but still would've been #3 on PS3's top selling third-party title list

Madden 07 was #5, and COD3 was the #6 best-selling third-party game on Wii to that point, for comparison.


It's not like COD3 and RE4 were all that had decent sales by the end of the first year (i.e. before COD4). Now, obviously, Wii had a much larger overall install base than PS3, but publishers shouldn't care about attach ratio to the install base if their games actually sell on the system. At least that's what makes sense to me. They shouldn't care if Nintendo has spots 1-10 on the top-selling games chart, if they're making good money with what they are selling on the system. From the other discussions mentioned in this thread, that may have been too simplistic a view on it, though. :/

motion controls don't.

Pointer controls. Motion controls and pointer controls are not the same thing. It muddies the discussion to use the terms interchangeably. I'm not talking about waggle, but about point and shoot gameplay closer to mouse controls than dual-analog. And Wii and PS3 had the same setup when it came to online games at that point (i.e. it was up to the publisher to work it out).

 

[Aquamarine]

I skimmed the last five pages and saw ~193k for Sony, ~143 for MS, is this speculation or leaked? Didn't see any friendly pie charts...

Leaked, but imprecise. No public, hard numbers in this thread are precise.

 

[Crimson_Fate]

Man I always thought that's a dumb message to send. Like, if the system is better and costs just as much as the competitor, ya'll getting a better deal customers. Reward that behavior with more clamor for that piece of technology, not less!

Since the PS4 is still going to sell just as much as XBO in the US at this price for the next however many months until the Holidays, they can carefully lower in their price drop bomb when they're good and ready. There's no need to rush, they know they can continue to make higher profit at this price range because they're still selling a fairly considerable amount of units. So like you acknowledge, until there's a *need* Sony is going to take this on their terms. It leaves them in the best strategic position, because it means they still have high profile cards to play whereas their competitors can only go so low.

Totally agree.

WIth the extra Profit Sony takes home it also gives them more $$ to secure exclusives for the following season. So I am expecting a big E3...

 

[jamesinclair]

The garbage treatment of Rock Band on the Wii is all the proof you need that some major publishers make extremely poor decisions that seem to be based more on fanboy bias than market analysis.

EA sports releasing Wii and Vita versions in 2014, but not a Wii U version solidifies that.

 

[donny2112]

Those publishers would prefer to have that audience on the PS360 instead. You have to look at what their selling points and target audience are. Moreover, DLC was increasingly seen as an important revenue stream but one that's not as attractive on the Wii. All in all, a core gamer on the Wii is not as valuable as one on PS360, so it'd make sense to attract them to the latter instead. They would then try to publish blue ocean friendly titles on the Wii instead. While, it may not have been the correct choice, it makes a lot of business sense.

And that could very well be the case. As said, discussion in this thread has raised my awareness that a lot more could've been looked at than just profit on the initial game sale to warrant attempting to grow an install base for that game type on Wii. It's definitely more nuanced than just "those games didn't sell on Wii" early on, though, as the facts dispute such claims.

Edit:
(Not you 4Tran) And round and round arguments with people who want to use late-gen results to color early gen realities is one of the main reasons I don't post near as much on GAF as I used to years ago. It's not worth it. I don't want to become "that" guy.

Fake Edit:
Oh my goodness, I didn't realize that was from xkcd! I only found that website this year, and I love them! Love, love, love xkcd! :lol

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

You're using late gen reality to color early gen results. You need to look at how things looked in 2007.

As of October 2007 for the top third-party PS3 games...

In October 2007 the PS3 was a $500 clusterfuck and core games were still selling comparably to their Wii versions. This isn't evidence that core games were doing well on the early Wii, it's evidence that they were doing really poorly.

Porting a 360 game to the PS3, for all its complications, is a much simpler task than porting it to the Wii. And the PS3 wasn't going to stay at $500 forever. The writing was on the wall: the Wii's huge hardware sales weren't translating into software sales for the sorts of games that the major publishers knew how to make, and the safe bet was on the HD twins.

Pointer controls. Motion controls and pointer controls are not the same thing. It muddies the discussion to use the terms interchangeably. I'm not talking about waggle, but about point and shoot gameplay closer to mouse controls than dual-analog. And Wii and PS3 had the same setup when it came to online games at that point (i.e. it was up to the publisher to work it out).

OK, sure, pointer controls. The core doesn't really care about pointer controls either, though.

 

[AniHawk]

I don't think a system with a very weak hardware and focused on new way of play games (Wiimote) is an ordinary console.

Several Nintendo hardcore fans bought one for sure (Zelda attach rate at beginning was insane) but Wii made history with demographic expansion as you noted. The more traditional market was dominated by Xbox 360 and PS3.

there was the old new audience on the ps3 and 360 (people who started on the ps1 and ps2 by and large). the wii had the new new audience. microsoft eventually grabbed some of that for themselves, and sony never ever did.

it's not ordinary that a console that is weaker than its competitors (by that amount) winds up outselling them, but what the wii was was and did wasn't completely alien in the marketplace. if you want that, go look at mobile where games are a feature ranging from free to a dollar.

 

[AniHawk]

Maybe it did indeed exist in the very early stages, but that core-receptive Wii audience was living on borrowed time. Every month that passed saw more HDTV penetration, every year that passed saw the price differential between the Wii and the HD twins shrink. If they had anticipated the Wii's success maybe they could have made some money in years one and two, but it's not really plausible that the hardcore audience would have been content with the Wii as a primary console for more than a year or two any more than it's plausible that they would have been content with the PS2 as a primary console well into the seventh generation. The hardcore cares about graphics, that's why console generations happen. By the time the big publishers understood that the Wii was going to be successful the clock had already started ticking, and they made the call that whatever audience existed at that moment probably wouldn't be around by the time whatever they started developing would come out of the oven.

i think the general point is that it was really too late to do anything after 2008. in 2007 there was quite a bit of time, and using the latter part of the generation to claim people would have moved elsewhere because of 'graphics' doesn't really work for me. it didn't seem to be the case for the 3ds and vita or other handhelds for that matter. i think people will just go where the games are.

Every generation has been bigger than the last as a result of natural growth and aging of the core demographic. The Wii was responsible for the entirety of the seventh generation's gains, as well as the entirety of the seventh generation's losses, and it was sui generis in the fact that those gains came from non-adjacent demographics that no one at the major publishers understood.

okay.

gen 3:
sms - 10m
nes - 60m
total: 70m

gen 4:
genesis: 35m
snes: 49m
total: 84m (+20%)

gen 5:
saturn: 9m
n64: 32m
psx: 101m
total: 142m (+69%)

gen 6:
ps2: 155m
xb: 24m
gc: 22m
dc: 10m
total: 211m (+49%)

gen 7:
ps3: 85m
360: 85m
wii: 101m
total: 271m (+29%)

as you can see from this chart, the biggest growth occurred with the ps1 and ps2, and doesn't seem to have come from any sort of natural aging, but rather a large boom. the wii's contributions were more modest, but continued to grow the console market as it had in the past.

the large boom last gen actually came from handhelds. the psp and the ds sold a combined 235-240m units of hardware. this was a long continued string of growth starting with the game boy color in 1998 that continued into 2010 or so. last gen, the audience had gotten so big that people were even buying second-place handhelds at rates higher than they'd ever been (and at higher than they currently buy first-place handhelds).

And let's be frank: the major publishers made the right call not hitching their carts to the Wii. That audience vanished, and there's nothing any of them could have done to have stopped it.

the audience vanished because no one was catering to them in the end. just dance still sold the best on the wii in 2014. the audience was out there, but no one was making games for them anymore.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

i think the general point is that it was really too late to do anything after 2008. in 2007 there was quite a bit of time, and using the latter part of the generation to claim people would have moved elsewhere because of 'graphics' doesn't really work for me. it didn't seem to be the case for the 3ds and vita or other handhelds for that matter. i think people will just go where the games are.

Graphics matter to console gamers. If people just went where the games are we wouldn't have console generations: people would just stick to the consoles they already own. As we're seeing this generation the console core seems willing to go where the graphics are even if there are no games there.

Don't really think the handheld market is particularly relevant to the question of the Wii.

as you can see from this chart, the biggest growth occurred with the ps1 and ps2, and doesn't seem to have come from any sort of natural aging, but rather a large boom.

You're conflating the two things I mentioned: 1) natural growth and 2) aging. Natural growth is just that the population grows every year, incomes rise every year (except under Republican presidents), and the demographic cohort that corresponds to your target audience grows alongside this growth in population and disposable income.

Aging is the process by which your target audience grows older while maintaining its interest in your product, thereby expanding the demographic reach of that product. Sony saw that there were gamers who had outgrown Nintendo or who had been too old for Nintendo in the first place, and was able to market a product to them. It then spread from there to the rest of that age cohort. The success of the PS1 and PS2 was the steady expansion of a single coherent demographic, and the steady increase of market penetration within that demographic. People who were gamers but weren't being served by Nintendo, and people who weren't gamers but who fit the demographic profile of a gamer - people who there was no reason couldn't be turned into gamers, in other words.

(The fifth to sixth generation expansion was at least in part attributable to the fact that the sixth generation lasted a lot longer than the fifth had.)

the wii's contributions were more modest, but continued to grow the console market as it had in the past.

The Wii grew the console market in a totally different way from the PS1 and PS2: it was aimed not at gamers, lapsed gamers, or people demographically similar to gamers, but at non-gamers. Nevermind the fact that the Wii's demographic wasn't adjacent to the existing gamer demographic, it wasn't even an internally consistent demographic at all: it was aimed at both genders and all age groups not already served by the HD twins simultaneously.

the audience vanished because no one was catering to them in the end. just dance still sold the best on the wii in 2014. the audience was out there, but no one was making games for them anymore.

Just Dance sold the best on the Wii in 2014, but that doesn't mean the audience was out there. It means that what was left of the audience was on the Wii as opposed to on another home console. Just Dance 2014 sold much, much worse than previous entries in the series because the audience had departed for smartphones and tablets and Facebook and the rest.

 

[Conduit]

Odd to see all the consoles are doomed talk back so soon after the robust holiday numbers.

The only way to sustain negativity about this generation is by refusing to acknowledge what's been going on with Nintendo. PS4 + Xbone are handily outselling 360 + PS3 and PS2 + Xbox and that doesn't look liable to change anytime soon. The only contraction is coming from Nintendo's inability to hold on to the Wii's transient audience, which tells us nothing about the health of the market overall.

On a global scale this generation is in even ruder health.

X360/PS3, PS2/Xbox didn't launch in same timeframe, PS4/Xbone did ( one week timeframe ). It is a unfair comparison. You can't compare PS4/Xbone install base vs. X360/PS3 install base because PS3 came out one year later. Of course PS4/XBone install base will be bigger, but you can only compare them to X360 only in first year.

 

[AniHawk]

Graphics matter to console gamers. If people just went where the games are we wouldn't have console generations: people would just stick to the consoles they already own. As we're seeing this generation the console core seems willing to go where the graphics are even if there are no games there.

i think that's a super simple outlook on what sony did with the ps4 in the last year or so. people didn't go there just because of graphics, but also the sort of promise that the ps4 would cater to their audience's needs. microsoft on the other hand did the exact opposite which might have worked if the audience they wanted to reach was interested in a $500 console (it needed to be $200 cheaper at least).

Don't really think the handheld market is particularly relevant to the question of the Wii.

i think it at least provides an indication that there are people who were in the market before this new audience arrived that aren't in it for graphical experiences.

You're conflating the two things I mentioned: 1) natural growth and 2) aging. Natural growth is just that the population grows every year, incomes rise every year (except under Republican presidents), and the demographic cohort that corresponds to your target audience grows alongside this growth in population and disposable income.

Aging is the process by which your target audience grows older while maintaining its interest in your product, thereby expanding the demographic reach of that product. Sony saw that there were gamers who had outgrown Nintendo or who had been too old for Nintendo in the first place, and was able to market a product to them. It then spread from there to the rest of that age cohort. The success of the PS1 and PS2 was the steady expansion of a single coherent demographic, and the steady increase of market penetration within that demographic. People who were gamers but weren't being served by Nintendo, and people who weren't gamers but who fit the demographic profile of a gamer - people who there was no reason couldn't be turned into gamers, in other words.

(The fifth to sixth generation expansion was at least in part attributable to the fact that the sixth generation lasted a lot longer than the fifth had.)

all right, i can buy that theory. it still doesn't mean that none of these people were on the wii, or that more of them wouldn't have purchased a wii had developers properly supported the platform.

Just Dance sold the best on the Wii in 2014, but that doesn't mean the audience was out there. It means that what was left of the audience was on the Wii as opposed to on another home console. Just Dance 2014 sold much, much worse than previous entries in the series because the audience had departed for smartphones and tablets and Facebook and the rest.

nah, the audience was out there. it was on there in 2013 too, when it sold 800k in december. it was there in 2012 as well when it sold even more.

what happened to the new wii audience was what happened to the core wii market early in the generation and what happened to the kinect. developers and publishers in the traditional market were no longer supporting them, so the audience went elsewhere for their gaming needs. there might have been some of it the other way around, but it was nintendo and microsoft who priced their platforms far out of reach with confusing marketing and unimpressive software. it was third-parties who stopped making games when they had no model to copy.

 

[AniHawk]

X360/PS3, PS2/Xbox didn't launch in same timeframe, PS4/Xbone did ( one week timeframe ). It is a unfair comparison. You can't compare PS4/Xbone install base vs. X360/PS3 install base because PS3 came out one year later. Of course PS4/XBone install base will be bigger, but you can only compare them to X360 only in first year.

more than that, the ps4 and xb1 were selling like what would otherwise pass for 2nd and 3rd place platforms for several months in a row last year. part of that could be thanks to the $399+ price points, but given the huge spikes they see (and with nintendo too), it could be that current gen consoles are becoming more seasonal affairs.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

Hard to say, Sony and especially Nintendo need to be profitable. There is a lot of pressure on Sony to rebuild itself financially. They managed to keep the XB1 from gaining too much significant ground for those two months in the US and the next few months at least will probably go back to the PS4. A game bundled in for $399 will keep them on top even if the XB1 is $50 cheaper. My gut tells me a $50 permanent price drop between E3 and November. Microsoft will counter with a $299 slim model unveiled at E3 (without Kinect). They should offer a premium model with Kinect and a 1TB hard drive for $399. Nintendo? I don't think they have a clue what to do next.

I'm thinking $299. They said it was built to drop costs fast. A $100 price drop after two years should still be profitable. Or at least breaking even. I don't see them letting another holiday in US play out like this past one. They have a great opportunity to take every major market.

PS Plus subscriptions are another source of revenue from hardware sales that make it worth it to win as much of the market as reasonably possible. They can do it without taking a bath.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

Not that Sony really *needs* to do anything, but if I were in charge:

Lower price of the PS4 to $359. Sales bump from price drop, increase buzz, but still have the arbitrary $10 price difference just to tell your customers "yep, this is the superior console. It's worth the [trivial] premium."

No need to yet. They will probably win every month in the first half the year as things are. Soak up all the full price sales as long as they can. Make the $100 price cut announcement for Gamescom.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

X360/PS3, PS2/Xbox didn't launch in same timeframe, PS4/Xbone did ( one week timeframe ). It is a unfair comparison. You can't compare PS4/Xbone install base vs. X360/PS3 install base because PS3 came out one year later. Of course PS4/XBone install base will be bigger, but you can only compare them to X360 only in first year.

Not that I accept the validity of this line of argumentation, but is there even some permutation of second year PS2 + first year Xbox or second year 360 + first year PS3 that outsells PS4 + Xbone?

 

[Alo0oy]

Dude you need to stop. Uncharted 1 & 2 didn't stop selling the day U3 launched.

Uncharted 1: 4.5 million
Uncharted 2: 6.5 million
Uncharted 3: 6.5 million
Golden Abyss: 1.5 million

Total: 19 million

Is a much more realistic estimate.

What we know is that the series sold 8 million units one month before UC3's launch, & 17 million 5 months after launch, we also know that UC3 sold double UC2 in its launch week.

So according to you, UC1 sold 3.1 million between 2007 & 2011, but as soon as UC3 launched, it sold an additional 1.5 million. & Uncharted 2 which sold 4.9 million between 2009 & 2011, somehow sold an additional 1.5 million also as soon as Uncharted 3 launched as well, not even Gran Turismo sells as well as this in its twilight years. & if the UC games have an insane amount of legs where they sell millions of units years after launch, UC3 must be at 15 million by now.

& then you have Golden Abyss, which - according to you - broke records by having a 100% attache rate.

The 17 million announcement wasn't made a couple of years after UC3's launch, it was right after the game's launch window, meaning that the vast vast majority of the 9 million increase can be attributed to UC3. Which completely fits the rate at which was it selling (double UC2, UC2 sold 4.9 million).

Let's use Occam's Razor, shall we? Sometimes the simplest explanation is really the correct one.

 

[ZSaberLink]

Yup. Better than the average non-holiday month.

Wait it's better than the average non-holiday month for the Wii U?.... Jeez.....

The success of the PS1 and PS2 was the steady expansion of a single coherent demographic, and the steady increase of market penetration within that demographic.

I have to say you're oversimplifying the PS1 to PS2 expansion since it wasn't just a single coherent demographic. Sure it was later in the cycle, but Guitar Hero exploded and brought in a very different audience to the PS2 that definitely didn't exist on the PS1.

 

[SMOK3Y]

That XBL Gold money is worth it.

Did I read on here that MS gives some XBL money to IW?

Could be wrong though

 

[Stilton Disco]

I have to say you're oversimplifying the PS1 to PS2 expansion since it wasn't just a single coherent demographic. Sure it was later in the cycle, but Guitar Hero exploded and brought in a very different audience to the PS2 that definitely didn't exist on the PS1.

Yeah, I'm assuming they weren't really old enough to remember gaming before 6th gen, because it wasn't until the PS2 that it really went mainstream and started to became acceptable amongst 'normal people' to be fans of.

The built in DVD player alone helped to get it into homes it never would have otherwise, and there was a huge number of titles out there that appealed to a far wider audience than had ever existed previously, not just the Guitar Hero crowd. It was that greater general consumer market penetration that the Wii was able to springboard off of with it's simple, intuitive controls and low cost of entry.

Without the PS2 getting that initial 'casual' audience, the Wii and then Mobile games industry likely would never have been as popular as they became.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

It's hard to say without actual figures, but I'd be surprised if Killzone:Sf has outsold KZ2 (the franchise high mark) or if Infamous:SS has outsold Infamous 1 (the franchise highmark).
Both titles hugely benefitted from launch drought 'must buy something to justify my new toy' as well.

EDIT:


Which franchise titles selling more on PS4 than on PS3 are you referring to here?
All of the "definitive edition" ports sold less than their respective last-gen cousins entirely because of userbase discrepancy.

Infamous SS is now the highmark. It outdid all the others in its opening NPD month, sold 1 million in 9 days and its LTD in NA alone is around 900k. Clearly its possible to have franchise growth even when the PS4 has a lower install base.

Killzone sold 1 million in 2 months.....meanwhile KSF sold 2.1 million in 2.5 months.

Everyone expects UC4 to be the best selling one due the new players who have a PS4, ND is now as popular as ever alongside it probably having a bigger marketing budget than ever.

 

[McValdemar]

13 days according to this news story
http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/15/75...x-one-is-getting-another-temporary-price-drop

Marketing stuff always amazes me how they can try to cover with crap even the simpliest things.

"We extend the promotion as we're happy of the engagement of system usage and fans"?

LOL

Just accept the fact that the market is telling you that your toy is overpriced for what it gives and you don't share the Kinect/No Kinect details because, essentially, the market if proving you didn't understand a fuck even of your fanbase when you were planning a Kinetic centric console...

 

[ILoveBish]

I cannot believe Donny is still talking about Wii pointer controls in 2015. I've been playing fps games heavily since gears 1 and cod4, and I've played every cod game on the Wii, the pointer controls are garbage. No one competitive would ever use them over a KB/m or controller. The turning is so bad it's literally unusable.

 

[geordiemp]

Every month that passed saw more HDTV penetration, every year that passed saw the price differential between the Wii and the HD twins shrink.....

, but it's not really plausible that the hardcore audience would have been content with the Wii as a primary console for more than a year or two

The hardcore cares about graphics, that's why console generations happen.
.

Nice points, I remember being a Wii only player for first to years since launch, then moved to Ps3 to have a go of these dual analogue things...then got 360's for the reasons you list.

 

[AstuteClass]

I can see PS4 winning NPD for February easily. Xbox One has sunk on Amazon.

I think Sony definitely have NA and worldwide in the bag.

 

[biglittleps]

I can see PS4 winning NPD for February easily. Xbox One has sunk on Amazon.

I think Sony definitely have NA and worldwide in the bag.

Sony has WW for sure but not NA yet and still MS competing very well. Sony can take NA if they cut the PS4 price to $299 with a slim version this holidays then its game over for MS.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

So, Wii releases, sells like mad. These big pubs would have needed 2+ years to pivot, they would have to redo their pipiline, and hope their was an audience for their games on wii in 2009 onward in standard definition.

This sort of ignores the fact that a lot of third parties still owned the same technologies they had used on the prior generation of consoles, still had employees that had used those pipelines, and in more than a few cases were still actively using those pipelines and technologies to build PSP games at the time.