Network now...FEATURE
Games At-a-Glance: Wii Quality
The Nintendo Wii is an odd duck.
It's innovative but low-tech; it's accessible for gamers, but difficult to nail from a game design perspective; it has a large install base, but one that has proven tough for third-parties to crack.
Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst Jesse Divnich asks again: If your videogame-illiterate (and ficticious) Aunt Sheila walked into a store and bought you a Wii game, what are the chances that it would be a quality title?
From the Wii's launch through 2008, four percent of Wii games, or 12 games, have rated over 85 percent on average. Fifty-four percent of Wii games, or 155 titles, have rated below 65 percent.
This rate compares less favorably to the Xbox 360's and PS3's libraries, which laid claim to 48 and 36 85 percent-plus games, respectively. (See EEDAR charts for those consoles here and here.)
There may be a few explanations for the Wii's lower marks. First, the hardware is fundamentally more accessible for game makers. It lowers the barrier for game development, but at the same time allows for more lower-quality games to crowd the shelves, typically from studios looking to make a quick buck on the back of the Wii's wild success. This dilutes the library.
Secondly, developers, even the ones with strong track records, have had a considerable learning curve in Wii development. Sure, programming a game isn't as complicated as the Xbox 360 or PS3, but dialing in strong game mechanics that play to the Wii Remote's motion-sensing features and resonate with the Wii's audience (and game reviewers) is difficult. Even Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime recently suggested that third parties don't quite "get it" when it comes to Wii development. They didn't "get" the DS when it first came out, but they caught on, eventually.
Lastly, the old chestnut of whether or not game reviews really matter is perhaps most interesting when talking about a product like the Wii and its software. This is essentially a casual-focused device aimed at a wide demographic, many of whom wouldn't know the difference between Edge the magazine and The Edge from U2.
Former EA Casual head Kathy Vrabeck said in 2007, "I get less concerned about game reviews because the casual gamers don’t read any of those things." To an extent, she's right.
But the games that keep people coming back to Nintendo are those quality (albeit significantly outnumbered) first-party games--Mario, Zelda, Metroid and even new franchises like Wii Fit--that are often reason enough to own a Nintendo console.
Click on to the next page to see EEDAR's system for handling review scores.
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Its ironic that Nintendo revived the gaming industry with its strict quality control policies, after Atari and co all but but brought it to its knees with "shovel ware" that the Wii is been over swamped with the shovel ware the NES (comparatively to Atari 2600 ect)shed off. Its a blunder that goes hand in hand with going for a comparatively weak system spec to the competition,why are developers going to put their real effort into getting real good gameplay and graphics if real effort wasnt put into realising a console spec that would present more creative freedom? Ok,creative freedom was taken in the direction of new control,but it would seem at the expense of graphics,and that is contary to popular opinion, a first for nintendo! They have always been in the graphics race starting with nes right up to Gamecube. Now if Wii was comparable to say 360, like Gamecube was to original xbox (it blatantly had better visuals to ps2 anyway) WITH the new control scheme,i really dont think the shovel ware situation would be soo prolific. Its like a bottle neck in the system the developers are too lazy to navigate,counter the relatively weak graphics spec with more attention to artistic direction like towards the end of last gen with ps2 (okami ,shadow of colossus)
So who ARE those 12 Wii games over 85%?
I find it difficult to believe that EA has little concern for review scores of casual games. While 'casual' gamers may not care about those scores or know of them, I'm sure someone at EA corporate does. As does every developer / publisher for that matter. Though as I wrote that, I realize that maybe it's not so difficult to believe. It is very likely the real issue is that if a developer doesn't care about review scores, that is a reflection quality, or lack there of, for Wii games in general and casual games specifically.
It is most unfortunate, as 'casual' shouldn't mean 'shovelware'. Simply because a game is developed for the casual market, doesn't mean fundamental game mechanics should suffer as a result such as poor controls and interface, among other things. Wario Ware clearly demonstrates that a casual game, in its case a collection of mini-games, can be exceedingly fun and equally well made, if the development is handled with care for the quality of the end product.
What I find most irritating is that not every Wii game runs in 480P. Mad World is a recent example of a possibly stellar Wii game, that with everything going for it the developer did not render it in 480P. How can a lack of 480P be regarded as anything but lazy? Is it because the Wii demographic trends towards 'casual' and that audience simply doesn't care about quality? Does the audience care equally as little as the effort put into most Wii games by their developers?
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Not only are the Wii games sub-par, but the Wii audience is aware of it as well:
Despite having sold more machines than either the 360 or the PS3, the Wii has fewer million sellers than either of them. It also has way more of the library selling at unsustainable levels.
Go to www.vgchartz.com and look at the games section. They show game sales for all the platforms from the best sellers to everything that sells down to 10,000 units. Anything under 10,000 units simply shows as 0.00 million.
Globally the Wii has 477 titles in release with sales at 10,000 units or greater. The 360 may have come out a year earlier, but it only has 379 titles in that category. The PS3? 263 titles.
Now then... out of those 477 Wii games only 40 of them have managed to sell a million copies or more. That's just 8.39% of the Wii library as a whole. I'm not even going to get into the whole "You shouldn't count Wii Sports/Play/Fit" because I don't have to. The difference between 40 and 37 (THIRTY-SEVEN!) isn't significant.
The 360 blows this away with 63 million sellers. This is despite the poor performance in Japan. Despite the smaller library. Despite having sold around 2/3rds as many machines as the Wii. Just over 16% of the Xbox 360 library has sold a million units or more.
The PS3 has an even smaller library, but managed to have 26 / 263 titles selling a million units or more. 9.89% of the PS3 library is in million seller status.
Turn it around and look at the low end... Of the Wii's 477 titles 218 of them sold less than 100,000 units. Almost 46% of Wii games fail to sell at any realistic level whatsoever. This compares to 90 / 379 titles on the Xbox 360 (23.75%) and 79 / 263 on the PS3 (30.04%),
Or if you want graphics:
Number of Million Selling Games (Higher is Better):
http://i39.tinypic.com/ftk9pl.png
Percentage of Game Library Made Up of Million Sellers (Higher is Better):
http://i40.tinypic.com/2drur6u.png
Number of Games Selling LESS Than 100,000 Units (Lower is Better):
http://i41.tinypic.com/od20h.png
Percent of Game Library Selling LESS Than 100,000 Units (Lower is Better):
http://i42.tinypic.com/2ljm7gx.png
It depends from developing costs jordan.
In Jazz music market selling 100.000 copies is a HUGE success.
So developing a videogame with costs let's say just four/five times a GOOD jazz music cd and marketing it is sustainable without probs, also videogames cost double or more than music cds to the audience/users.
These sells would not be sustainable for resident evil 5 or gears of war 2, but it is ok for Little Pet Shop.
Small expences, small but consistent profit.
And if they deliver, small expences and HUGE profit (eg carnival games).
On HD twins the risk is that if your product sells less than around 700.000 it is a flop, so you see bankrupt etc...
So the industry is converting late but for some software houses just in time to Wii where they can make good profit with much less risk.
So it is also possibile to have on Wii "alternative" software (No more heroes, Mad World, Deadly Creatures, a very innovative version of PES, etc...) that would be too risky for publishers to release on HD etc.. technology...
On them you see very "mainstream", let's say "Hollywood", contents plus some experiments made ONLY by the console manifacturer (expecially Sony, eg no third party publisher would allow Little Big Planet).
1). With a system like the Wii having a library filled with shovelware, but yet you try to spin having the most games selling under 100k as a bad thing without putting it in context. Surely you don't expect games like Ninja Bread Man and Anubis 2 to be million sellers do you? Those games deserved to sell under 100k units, but you make it sound like that's a bad thing that they did! Also, how can you say that selling less than 100k is unsustainable? Surely Ninja Bread Man sold like shit, but I bet it made a nice profit. You can't say under 100k is unsustainable until you know what the game's budget was. So many developers and publishers lost money due to HD projects that didn't sell up to expectations and are concentrating on Wii development. That totally kills your sustainability case.
Also, I mean this in general, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't bash the Wii for having shovelware but then complain that the shovelware doesn't sell. That's contradictory!
2). I'll repeat the rule: To the winner goes the shovelware. This gen, the Wii is also the cheapest to develop for, which makes it even more of a shovelware magnet. This skus the ratio between good and bad titles. You ignore this fact.
Also, Kris points this out in the 5th, 6th, and 7th paragraph.
3). You say the Wii has less million sellers than the PS3 and XBox360, but the very graph you provide to support that shows that the Wii having more million sellers than the PS3.
4). Also, according to your source, the Wii has 47 million sellers, not 40: http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=Wii&publisher=&sort=To...
5). VGChartz is a great source, but it is missing some data (particularly in Others). Iwata went on record at GDC saying that the Wii has 73 million sellers. How do you explain that?
http://www.edge-online.com/features/gdc-iwata-how-succeed-wii-ds
The reason I mark 100,000 unit sales or less as being a complete and utter failure is because the Wii has sold more than 40,000,000 machines to date.
If a game sells 100,000 units to a potential audience of 40 million that means they only reached 0.25% of he audience. Ridiculously low numbers. Since around half of the Wii library meets this criteria it means that Wii owners aren't that dumb. They recognize the games are garbage and are not buying them.
The typical argument against the review scores is "well the reviewers aren't typical Wii owners" which is true, but when the game sales are abysmally low as well it kind of clues you in to what the audience is thinking as well.
I haven't pulled the VGChartz numbers in a while now, so they may be out of date. Let's see what it is right now...
I showed 477 Wii titles with sales in excess of 100,000, there are currently 495.
I showed 40 titles (8.38%) with sales in excess of 1,000,000, there are currently 47 (9.49%).
I showed 218 titles (45.7%) with sales less than 100,000, there are currently 219 (44.24%)
Regardless of how you cut it, the Wii is doing TERRIBLY in terms of software sales. They have sold plenty of hardware, and those customers love their Wii Play and Wii Fit and Wii Sports but it's not turning into software sales for many other titles, certainly not for non-Nintendo titles.
Xbox stats:
400 titles, 62 million sellers (15.5% of the library), 101 sub 100,000 titles (25.25% of the library).
PS3 stats:
278 titles, 29 million sellers (10.43% of the library), 84 sub 100,000 titles (30.21% of the library)
Now to address some other complaints...
Yes, the PS3 has fewer million sellers than the Wii, it also has less than half the user base and a little more than half of the games. You'd expect it to have less million sellers. What you wouldn't expect is for them to have a greater percentage of their library made up of million sellers, which they do. You also wouldn't expect them to have a smaller percentage of games that don't sell as well due to the smaller user base, and yet they do that as well.
Regarding the "Other" region and how sales may be mis-represented. That may be, I don't pretend to know VGChartz methodologies. But you can bet that if the Other region is mis-represented then it's misrepresented for all three current consoles. The ratios would end up being the same.
As for why Iwata says there are more million sellers than are on VGChartz, as far as I'm aware VGChartz only tracks retail sales. They don't have access to sales info for the Virtual Console. Iwata presumably has that info.
1). You're essentially repackaging the same argument: "Wii software sales fail because crappy games aren't selling". This makes no sense.
2). You say "the Wii is doing TERRIBLY in terms of software sales", so how do you explain such a healthy attach ratio!?
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20713
The higher the installed base, the lower the attach rate. Clearly, people are buying more than Wii Fit and Wii Play.
3). Wii Sports, WiiWare, and VC games aren't counted in any of NPD, Chart-Track figures. WiiWare and VC games are tracked by Media Crate. Nintendo doesn't include Wii Sports, WiiWare, or Virtual Console in any of its figures. So the 75 million sellers kills your argument outright, but I'll still entertain you...
4). You *STILL* fail to put game budget into context, and *STILL* use the same 100k unit metric as a means to determine a game a failure which is totally asinine. Did 130 million PS2's do anything for the sales of Okami, God Hand, Psychonauts, Beyond God & Evil!? So would you consider the PS2 software sales abysmal? How about God of War 2 on PS2... it only sold about 2.5 million on a 130 million userbase. Epic failure!?
A huge installed bases DOES NOT guarantee a certain minimum amont of copies will be sold on that particular system. Once you realize this, you'll simultaneously realize that your argument is incredibly weak.
"Regarding the "Other" region and how sales may be mis-represented. That may be, I don't pretend to know VGChartz methodologies. But you can bet that if the Other region is mis-represented then it's misrepresented for all three current consoles. The ratios would end up being the same."
You absolutely nailed it with that.
Actually, no. This is what he said in the OP: 'Wii has 477, 360 has 379 titles, PS3 has 263 titles.'
If Others data is misrepresented for all three consoles - and it is - the Wii would actually have more to gain by updating numbers in that region by the number of titles available for it alone.
In other words, of all three consoles, the Wii would actually stand to gain the MOST from that missing data and the numbers would be skewed in it's favor - huring jordan's argument furthermore.
Nice post Ken. I would take a lot of those stats with a grain of salt.
One thing I did want to point out though was your 2) comment. Unfortunately for the Wii, it smashes the standard set by the PS2 (in a bad way) when it comes to the percentage or poorly and highly rated games. I had a huge blog I was going to put up but can't figure out how to get it to look right so I decided not to put it up. But basically the last two generations' consoles' good/bad game averages are very interesting to look at. The Wii is the only console for the last two generations to have a poor (65 and below) average above 40% (53%). The PS2 was last gens console winner and its poor game average was only 40%. So, unfortunately for the Wii, it has lowered the bar for percentage of good and bad games by a system that has the largest install base. Here's the numbers (based purely on Metacritic). The numbers might be about 2 weeks old, and I'm not re-doing that shit...
Total games followed by games scoring 90 or better, then 85 or better, 84-66, then 65 and below.
PS2 Xbox GCN
Total games: 1594 856 502
Score of 90: 63 (4%) 32 (4%) 26 (5%)
Score of 85: 150 (9%) 109 (13%) 66 (13%)
Score of 84-66: 807 (51%) 452 (53%) 258 (51%)
Score of 65-0: 637 (40%) 293 (34%) 179 (36%)
Wii 360 PS3
Total games: 374 582 301
Score of 90: 8 (2%) 21 (4%) 12 (4%)
Score of 85: 17 (5%) 58 (10%) 43 (14%)
Score of 84-66: 60 (42%) 289 (50%) 163 (54%)
Score of 65-0: 197 (53%) 234 (40%) 95 (32%)
The Wii has the smallest number and percentage of games scoring 90 or better, 85 or better, and 84-66. It also has the highest percentage of poorly rated games of any console over the last two generations.
The 360 and PS2 have nearly an identical average with the 360 have a 1% edge in games scoring 85% or better. It seems that the leaders over the last two generations that would be considered HD/traditional show a nearly identical average.
The PS3 has the lowest average of crappy games of the 6 consoles, and beat out its 3rd place rival GCN and last gen's runner up Xbox 1 by 1% in the games scoring 85 or better.
The GCN has the highest average of games scoring 90% or better beating 4 of the other consoles by 1% and has a 3% point edge over the Wii.
Bottom line, 5 of the 6 consoles over the last two generations are relatively close to each other when it comes to high quality games, average games, and low-rated games. The Wii is the only exception performing far worse having a 50% deficit in the average of games scoring 90 or higher, 50% deficit in games scoring 85 or higher, and a 17% lead (topping out at 21% when compared to just the PS3) in average of games scoring 65 or lower. If those numbers don't show anything, nothing will.
edit: Damn numbers aren't showin up right so it's hard to read them, sorry.
1). Even given the amount of crap on the Wii now, I'd refrain from judging a 9 year game library (PS2) to a 2 1/4 year game library (Wii). It's just not fair.
2). Your second point is easy to explain too. The difference between this gen and last gen is that the PS2/GC/XBox were all very similar in terms of power. Developers could develop for XBox without toning too much down graphically for GC/PS2 releases. Therefore, all systems had similar libraries - just like the 360 and PS3 do today. This current gen is different because the Wii isn't nearly as powerful as the HD Twins. Therefore, games have to be seriously downgraded tech wise to be playable on the Wii - most devs don't bother. This makes the same cross platform strategy amongst all three consoles unrealistic this gen. Also, development costs are FAR higher this gen than it was last gen - again, save for the Wii. Therefore, the smallest developers with shoe-string budgets only have Wii as an option - skewing the shovelware count even more into the depths of the low 65% percentile. Last gen, shovelware was more evenly split, with the PS2 taking the bulk. But the PS2 was also the leading console by far, so it got the most AAA support from devs. The same hasn't happened with the Wii on a large scale to even things out (which was the case for the PS2)... but just be patient!
AAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!! I finally fixed my post so it was easier to read but while I was editing it you must have replied cause it wouldn't let me post it. Oh well.
You make some excellent points. We'll see how the rest of this gen plays out.
This whole argument is based solely around Metacritic which, although useful and helpful in tracking such things, shouldn't the sole basis on which generalizations are formed. As was mentionned previously, are critics looking at Wii games through the eyes of the intended end-users? I can't say for sure. I think Metacritic is a fair sized piece of the whole picture, but shouldn't be used without also exploring other sources.
Nice stats man. Not going to go into the whole VGChartz is not always correct blather.
Now let me just state here:
I don't think those stats really show what you are trying to make them show. To me it shows that Wii owners aer more willing to experiment with the games they buy than PS3 and 360 owners. This has to do with the relatively newness to gaming that most Wii owners are.
PS3 and 360 owners have been gaming for most of their lives. They know what they want and developers know what they want. When that happens, it is easier to develop million seller games.
The Wii audience is new to gaming. They are not sure what they find fun yet. They test the waters and try different games out. If they don't like it, they tell there friends and their friends won't buy it. This would account for all the under 10k games.
On the development side, the Wii's audience is something that developers aren't familiar with. They are not 100% sure on what to make to have a million seller. So they test the waters with cheaper to produce games and are able to make more games than the other consoles. These games are then tested by Wii owners and it starts the chain again.
I think these numbers will be more telling later in the life of the consoles, but I don't think we can honestly come to the conclusion that Wii games suck and the Wii owners know it.
Interesting report but it seems true from my personal assessment. Nintendo barely makes anything I even remotely want to play.
I'm surprised the article doesn't bring up the idea of systemic bias in game reviewing. Most reviewers appear to be young, male and have prominent interests in sci-fi, comic books and crime movies. Wouldn't we expect them to rate highly games that are aimed directly at their own demographic (as most major PS3/360 games are) and not so highly those that are very definitely not (many Wii titles)?
Even Wii owners seem to think the games suck. Look at my sales post above. Almost 1/2 of Wii games sell less than 100,000 units despite the fact that there are some 40 million of the machines out there.
That would seem to indicate that while your average Wii owner is all about the Wii Sports/Wii Play/Wii Fit they really aren't buying anything else.
Except for the fact, which has been brought up countless times here before, that the Wii has a slightly higher attach rate then the PS3 (5.3 to 5.1 if my memory serves me), which means that Wii owners buy at least as many games as PS3 owners. Obviously, they don't buy as many games as 360 owners do but, to my understanding, the 360s current attach is high even by typical console sales standards.
Agree Asym.
Have seen this clearly with Wii Music, that is a fantastic and innovative software and has got reviews from 4/10 to 9/10 just because most music "journalists" (including Ign, gamspot, etc...) were not (musically) prepared for this kind of software.
E.g. in Italy it has got generally very good reviews on major portals, but maybe there is a sort of ancient "cultural" approach in this country, while e.g. in US generally bad reviews from people who clearly, from what it was written in thos reviews, did not "understand" that game at all.
And yes I am sure those "reviewers" will just condider rubbish a "little pet shop" game just because it IS a pet shop game.
With Wii we have clearly seen as unprofessional and with that confused idea that they should be the target of every product most "reviewers" are.
Most of them have big problem to understand if wii fit is a good piece of software or not as they try to make a confrontation with, uhm, metal gear solid and do not take it for what it is.
Lucky that we have forums where people have direct experiences and we can easily do not rely on "reviewers" anymore in internet era ;)
I touched on this a bit in another post, but I'll just mention one thing. I partly agree and partly disagree. I think that's why having an average of all the reviews is important. If a game clearly is a 9, then a few 6-7s isn't going to make much of a dent. And it's human nature to disagree with reviews of games you like. I loved Too Human, one of my favorite games of 2008 but the reviews were pretty terrible. I can make the argument that after you put in a hefty amount of hours the game starts to really shine, and should have been reviewed higher if the reviewers did that. But the average review score for that game fell around the 6-7 range. Just because I liked the game doesn't mean that average is "wrong" or the reviewers didn't get it right because they didn't "get" the game like I did. That's the beauty of opinions. We can disagree with each other all day, but that doesn't mean anyone is "right" or "wrong".
Come on, don't play devil's advocate. There is no way you can twist or spin this, no matter how much you play the biased review card. Not all reviewers are male and some of them are professional enough to attempt an objective review.
No asym is right. There seems to be a dearth of reviewers who fit in the target demographic of the Wii. If you took a poll of all the professional reviewers who have reviewed a Wii game, most would list the Wii as their #3 console of choice.
I won't go so far to say it is because they are male, but it is because they are the more traditional gamer and not of the primary target audience of the Wii..
I'm forced to agree as well. I've read a couple of reviews of a few games i've played over the past year or 2 (Sonic and the Secret of the Rings comes to mind) and wondered if these people were even talking about the same game I just finished playing. My brother and I both came to the conclusion that these reviewers must be looking at these games through a "hardcore" gamers eyes, and not the eyes of the kind of gamers it was intended for. They complain about clunky and/or unresponsive controls, but I could experience no such similar issues. I've heard "watered down gameplay" come up more then once, but it all seemed fine to me. Perhaps their expectations are higher then mine?
Actually both are true.
Third parties have released a load of rubbish but yes a lot of gamer reviewers aren't that professional and fall into a very specific group.
There's been enough scandal over sites (like GS & kane and Lynch) to prove that game reviews aren't that reliable full stop. It's not real news so of course they're not held to standards. More so when anyone can start up a website to review games.
Someone mentioned that Ninty can't control what 3-rd parties release for their console. What happened to the golden seal of approval?
Nintendo CAN enforce a review process if they wanted to.
Also, the Wii biased-review argument is similar to movie reviews. You have movies aimed at kids, pre-teens, action flicks, chic-flicks, etc. that are pretty bad movies but for the audience they're aimed it's liked. BUT, there are movies aimed at a particular audience that meet that criteria but are good movies in general. I've seen some chic-flicks with the wife that were god-awful, but I've seen some chic-flicks with her that I actually enjoyed. Chic-flicks aren't all "good" movies just because all the "chics" like them. Would you say the Olsen twin movie was good just because 13 y/o old girls think so? All movies/games are good to SOMEONE, doesn't mean they are quality games. There's highly reviewed "kiddie" games. The lego games, Kung-Fu Panda was a highly rated game that is obviously aimed at kids. Arguing that a crappy game is good because it's good to people who don't really know any better (kids, aunts, grandmas, people new to gaming) isn't really an argument. All types of genres are preferred by a certain group who may be more forgiving than someone who doesn't like that genre, and that goes for every game in every genre, and on every console.
"Would you say the Olsen twin movie was good just because 13 y/o old girls think so?"
Whoa whoa whoa, you were NOT just ripppin' on Mary-Kate and Ashley, were you? Listen pal, when they start bringing home Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and such, you'll change your tune. They'll ALL change their tune.
Well what do you expect make a quick game on the Wii that doesnt cost any money and you sell alot of games. Make a stellar game on the Wii (Madworld) and do average business.
Quick count how many hard core fans are Wii owners. Just want to know because House of the Dead sold only about 45k
MadWorld and HotD:O did average business by whose standards? Yours, or SEGA's? I think I'll take SEGA's word - which can be found right here coincidentally:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/07/sega-overkill-sales-met-expectations-m...
Hasn't anyone learned from the Boom Blox debacle!? Remember, you can't judge Wii game sales by the first figures released... With Boom Blox, the media jumped on it and said it flopped, only to see the game posting very solid numbers months later:
"Boom Blox a bust at retail, sells only 60k units"- (6/16/08): http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/16/boom-blox-a-bust-at-retail-sells-only-...
"Boom Blox not a bomb afterall" - (7/29/08): http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/29/boom-blox-not-a-bomb-after-all/
One side of me feels like Nintendo as the market leader needs to lead by example and show all the new people to gaming how gaming really is. If these people are new to gaming and they only play the Wii, they may start to realize some of the games they're playing aren't matching the excitement they got from Wii-Sports or once the rush of buying this new exciting hard-to-find piece of gaming fades away and they realize it has arguably more gimmicky shovel-ware than high quality games they may believe this is all gaming has to offer and turn away for good. But the other side of me can't blame Nintendo as they can't control what games are released for their system. Most of their games seem to get pretty solid reviews with only a few exceptions but maybe they could implement a more strict review process to reduce the amount of games that are obvious quick-cash in pieces of junk. I'm sure as with the DS 3rd party devs will get the hang of things and the quick-buck games will start to be less successful and eventually go away for the most part.
It would be nice if Nintendo made a better effort at controlling the quality of the games released by 3rd party devs, but then you would be treading ground they want to avoid. They are trying to be a bit more open when it comes to game development. By forcing strict quality controls they would be seen as less open and could damage them more than help in the long run.
To me, they just need to continue setting the example they are. They have shown how to make a great platformer, party game, action adventure, fighter and FPS. What more do they they need to show? It is not their fault that everyone is running with the party game example and ignoring the rest (minus a few notable examples)
Very true, very true. It could be a case of Nintendo just knowing their hardware best and being that much of a better developer for their own console than anyone else. The only downside to that is if people stop buying the Wii because games like Dragon Age: Origins, Bioshock 2, or any of the other high-profile multi-platform releases don't come out on it (but I suspect many Wii owners don't care about games like that). Sad though, Bioshock, Oblivion, Mass Effect (from Dragon Age devs bioware) were amazing games and should be experienced by all gamers (the same can be said for some Wii 1st party titles, but I don't know about Wii 3rd party titles). What must-have Wii 3rd party games should be ported (theoretically obviously) to the 360/PS3?
Yeah, but Monster Hunter 3, Tales of Graces, MadWorld, and other high-profile releases won't come out on the HD Twins - so I'd say it's a fair trade. I won't even throw in the myriad of 1st party AAA games like Metroid Prime 3, Twilight Princess, or Mario Galaxy which obviously won't come to the HD Twins, or even those great, lesser known releases like de Blob, Boom Blox, Rune Factory: Frontier, etc. All those games you listed, I'll play if ever I wanted to. Having a Wii doesn't stop me from having a 360 or playing 360 games. I'm not confined to my Wii console and you shouldn't assume any Wii owner is.
Just sayin'... there are quality HD games that won't appear on Wii, but there are just as many quality Wii games don't won't appear on HD consoles.
That's a tough question,a s everyone's tastes are different. Must-have 3rd party Wii games for the Wii audience might not be desirable to the PS3/360 audience. It's very subjective.
Ken,
You don't think they'll ever consider a MadWorld port (I can't help but think of the first Gears commercial and the Madworld song that accompanied it when I hear the title MadWorld)? Maybe an XBLA/PSN port? Are the mechanics slaved to the Wii-mote so much so that they couldn't be mapped to some face buttons?
Yeah, I guess you're right there may be quite a few Wii owners that have a 360/PS3. I know I tried.
Lol, you say you're not going to list the 1st party games then you did. I'm well aware of the 3 main big-hitters on the Wii.
Ozzman,
What 3rd party games on the Wii would you be bummed you couldn't play? I know it's subjective, but I'm asking for your opinion. I could list a few 360 games (I've already listed a couple) that I would miss. And probably a few PS3 games. For some reason though I never was interested in Mario Galaxy when I had a Wii, nor did Twilight Princess grab me (to be fair, A Link to the Past was the only Zelda game I played all the way through). I also had a hard time getting into Metroid Prime 3 (loved Super Metroid and Metroid Prime). I still consider Super Metroid as the #1 game of all time, for me anyway. Halo 1 and Oblivion are up there though.
Hard to say, because 1) - Don't game very much compared to, i imagine, most people here and 2) - I don't really get excited about games, so not sure I would "miss" not playing any of them
No More Heroes was one I really enjoyed. A mix of GTA-style open world gameplay and good ol' fashioned hack 'n' slash fighting
Zak and Wiki was a fun little game, but i'm sure there's similar options available out there.
Mercury Meltdown I enjoyed a lot. Not sure if that was available on the other consoles or not.
That's about it, really. As i mentionned, i don't play many games, so not much to talk about, personally.
No, I don't think Clover'll consider a MadWorld port. You guys get Bayonetta. Be happy with that!