Wii bubble? The Nintendo revolution has only just begun
Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 8:32am by Jack
Thanks to a healthy dose of E3 hype, the Wii has coasted past the Xbox 360 to become the console with the most “exclusive titles”, according to Gaming Target, which has tracked such things since last year. “Yes, the Xbox 360 is no longer the leader in exclusive titles for the first time since we began tracking them in October of 2006. Nintendo’s little white behemoth has pulled ahead after a stellar E3 where nearly every major (and minor) publisher pledged plenty of support for the system,” Gaming Target said.But the thing that caught my eye wasn’t the graph depicting Wii taking over the top spot, it was a sentence buried in the post graph analysis on page 2.
The PS3 now has the small, dedicated fanbase that is selling almost solely on the strength of its first party releases (taking over for the GameCube).
And then this:
And the system’s lo-fi graphical capabilities will guarantee that the budget releases will continue to flood the system (likely further increasing the quantity of exclusives). But the sheer number of games that are in development for the Wii (even if most are budget titles or minigame compilations) will fuel system sales, which will fuel more budget releases, which will create an endless loop of sales
The parallels to the PS2 era are striking, to say the least. But there’s more to it than that. Satoru Iwata is looking more like a genius and less like an overconfident executive when he said the Wii could surpass the PS2 in sales.
Our resident Blue Ocean Savant Malstrom recently dropped by to leave a comment yesterday that I think applies to this discussion too.
And you want to know what the funny thing is? The Wii explosion has not yet really begun. We are still on the cusp of the ‘revolution’. The real sales fireworks has yet to come. Typically, a disruptive product will have a higher than usual early adoption rate. Then, the product will coast for a while until truly taking off (this is when analysts proclaim the fad is over). The higher the early adoption rate, the greater the degree of future disruption.
Everyone is mistaking the Wii has already taken off. It hasn’t. We are witnessing insane early adoption rates. The Wii, aside from Wii Sports, still doesn’t have the correct software for it (but it will get it). The ‘Super Gamecube’ games like Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, and Mario Kart Wii won’t be the ‘correct’ software either. Nintendo needs something else, and it will probably emerge in September to “surprise the market”.
The funny thing about disruptive surprises is that you really can’t predict exactly what they’ll be. It’s called a “paradigm shift” and, when that phrase isn’t being watered down by bloggers and columnists trying to sound intelligent, it means things have changed or transformed to a point where we humans could not have imaged it before it happened. I’m talking the invention of fire type stuff here. Real deep like.
But as for gaming, I think Mal’s right. Can I call you Mal? I hope so. Reminds me of Serenity, and I aim to misbehave. In gaming, we’re seeing the beginning of this shift with the DS and now more so with the Wii. When a paradigm shift really begins to find its wheelhouse, there’s no turning back to what things were, only to what things will be when it’s all said and done.
Some people mistake this flowery rhetoric with a call for the end of hardcore gaming or the PS3. While I do think the PS3 will end prematurely, I do not think the types of games and visuals found on said system will ever “go away.” They can’t. They’re a genre in the bigger gaming picture.
However, what we will see is a further backlash against Nintendo. E3 was a great (or should I say sad) example of this. Nintendo actually offered up what people had supposedly said a gaming company could not survive without in this day and age. They offered release dates for their traditional first party IP titles like Metroid and Mario; they offered a glimpse at 32-player online functionality; and they previewed new partnerships and third party titles. And yet, they were attacked and will probably have their E3 2007 framed as “the show where they revealed WiiFit and the press complained hardcore might die because of it.”
What we’re seeing are the rumblings of a press and a community that are still very uncomfortable or even afraid of gaming’s now hazy and uncertain future. Think about your own life; when you were younger and didn’t understand something, what do you do? Nine times out of ten you probably stepped on it or — if it was particularly sunny out that day — took our your magnifying glass. You were afraid of it.
Chris Kohler over at Game|Life visited this topic after reading Joystiq’s reaction piece on Nintendo’s untraditional E3 showing:
“It says the games business is about to enter a period of mass acceptance and prosperity. Developers aren’t tasked with a choice between ‘casual’ and ‘hardcore’ — they have to choose between ‘casual’ or ‘go out of business.’ I’m exaggerating (a little), but as I’ve said before, the sort of zero-sum game thinking that says casual games are destroying hardcore games is wrong. If hardcore games die out, it’s not casual games’ fault — it’s their own. If anything, casual games, by increasing the total audience, will only help other kinds of games.”
I’ve used that rising tide line before, so I’m going to assume Game|Life is going to offer me a job in the next few weeks or I at least get a royalty check or something.
More seriously, people laughed at Nintendogs and Brain Training and the like, but then those games sold millions (and still are). Thing is, I don’t care about those games at all (well, maybe Brain Age… 23-year-old brain here *cough*cough*). What I do care about are the games that flood the system after their wild, wild success. WiiFit and the balance board are but a base for future IP on Nintendo’s system. Some people can see that clearly, even if the future is uncertain now thanks to Nintendo’s non-traditional success. Others, well, they attack and criticize something they’ve never tried simply because Reggie Fils-Aime looked awkward heading soccer balls onstage in Santa Monica. I think we addressed that sad phenomenon in Super Paper Mario, so I won’t revisit it here.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:20 am
This sums up everything I was thinking. Great article.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Huh?
So, where is the current place for “hardcore” games (a.k.a. “difficult” games)? I see games like that coming out currently on PS2, PSP, and DS (e.g., Persona 3, Riviera, Etrian Odyssey)… but Wii is being left behind in that area, it seems.
I see a pattern here: developers that dedicate themselves to craft “hardcore”, deeper games need to work with systems that they feel familiar with so they can dedicate their time to the mechanics of gameplay. The implementation of Wii-mote controls is right now an obstacle that undermines development of a deeper game. That’s why you see the best games launching on older or simpler platforms…
July 24th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Hardcore means difficult?
Gears of War, arguably one of the best “hardcore” titles out right now, has a damage system that makes dying difficult. Hurt? Just hide. It also was lambasted for being too short. Same with games like Medal of Honor. Just hide a while! It’s also another FPS, but that’s a debate I’ve had before and will have again, I’m sure. I disagree with the logic that hardcore means difficult.
The Wii is being left behind in this area only so much as the current crop of media headlines will have you believe. Nintendo rattled off a host of first party “hardcore” fare at E3. Resident Evil 4’s port with waggle added is being hailed as the definitive version of the game. That to me means people who never played it will now buy it, and those who have played it *might* buy it again. Regardless, it means more users in the installed base.
The Wii is also less than a year old. As we’ve pointed out before here at Infendo, it took a while for the DS phat to find its legs after the initial novelty of the portable wore off.
The Internet has made us impatient, methinks. After this holiday season, I predict the Wii takes off, again, much like the DS. People call the Wii a bubble system, ready to burst. I call it the tip of a very large, industry-changing iceberg.
If you build, they will come
July 24th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
I’m so tired of the false dichotomy of “if casual games become popular, hardcore games can’t survive.”
What we now call “casual games” were, prior to the rise of complex games in the mid-90’s, merely called “video games”. A couple years from now, we’ll probably be back to just calling them “video games”. And a couple years from now, the next Zelda game or the next Resident Evil or the next Halo or whatever will still sell millions of copies.
It’s just that those games, the people who make only those games, and their fans will no longer run the industry, and it’ll no longer be possible to make money through a gaming magazine or website in the key of “OMG R0XX0RZ TEENAGE BOY LOLZ @KIDTENDO SK8R HARDCORE!!!!@!!!!1″ as I would now characterize EGM/1up, Gamepro, IGN, Gamespot and most independents (if I hear Punch Jump use the word “drop” to mean “release”, or the word “rockin’” to mean something other than playing music or moving back and forth, I’ll probably remove their RSS feed.)
Clearly, I couldn’t be happier. And yeah, some of that is schadenfreude after 10 or 15 years of watching the gaming scene turn into this adolescent garbage. People my own age are coming back to gaming after being alienated for a decade or more, such that I no longer have to feel like some kind of predator when I look for people to play against.
It’s a whole new world, and one I like a lot.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
The best part about Nintendo’s disruption of the videogame industry is watching the psuedo-journalists and harcore fanboys try and understand it. They constantly deny Wii’s success, claiming the bubble will burst any day. Each new announcement is the “straw that broke the camel’s back” that will doom the Wii to the novelty it really is and allow the PS3 to regain the lead.
It’s like the 5 stages of grief. They’ve moved from stage 1 (denial) to stage 2 (anger). “The Wii is killing hardcore gaming!” “Nintendo has abandoned us!” Also hints of stage 3 (fear).
The industry has been changed forever. You simply cannot predict what will happen next based on past trends. Everything that has come before is irrelavent now.
It really is fun to watch it happen.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
“I disagree with the logic that hardcore means difficult.”
True, I chose the word poorly. Perhaps I should have used the word “immersive”, but that would confuse the effect that the Wii-mote has on gameplay, which is truly immersive. Maybe “deep” would be more appropriate. And I mean deep in the sense of living inside that game for a while, thinking of different ways to beat it and maybe replaying it to see different outcomes. Games like the Disgaea series in PS2 or RE4 (either GC or Wii) come to mind. Disregard control schemes or hi-res graphics.
I don’t think “casual” games will kill development of “hardcore” games, I just think they are completely separate niches. One has no influence over the other. Nintendo and its third-party developers seem to be concentrating right now only on the “casual” ones for Wii, though…
July 24th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
great- budget games and the wiibored are the future. what are we trying to say here? that nintendo is outselling sony? yes, we know. that the wii will have a great hardcore gaming future because of a september surprise?
…really? that sounds less reasonable than ‘ps3 sales will accelerate (right, due to magic) to help it surpass the wii’s install base’
and i think we can give people a little more credit than ‘they fear the unknown’. I have no doubts about saying that i will never ever want to seriously play with the wiibored, much less own one. and right, i’ve never even touched the thing.
and yeah, hardcore does not mean more difficult. the ‘let’s define hardcore’ conversation has taken place here before, so let me say this:
mario galaxy will fall in my definition of hardcore. so will metroid. but to me they look like saturday morning cartoons. where is the bioshock of the wii? this budget game explosion wont provide it. is it waitingg for us in september? i doubt it.
the harcore game developers almost always want the powerful systems. they want to create graphics unseen, AI unheard of, and immersion unfelt before. in general this takes power! and, it seems, not nintendo power. do you not doubt that we’ll ever see spore, bioshock, assassins creed, etc on the wii? however, we will definately see jenga.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
drat- double negatives there confused me:
do you not doubt that we’ll *never* ever..
ok, that’s right… i think…..
July 24th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
“the hardcore game developers almost always want the powerful systems”
What?
The PS2 disproves your entire point. Or you’re missing the point. Or you’re just plain wrong. I haven’t the time right now to figure it out.
And to dismiss something you’ve never tried while a moment later saying a game like BioShock will never appear on a Nintendo system is the height of both ignorance and hypocrisy.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
actually i’m drawing a distinction between where they want to publish and where they publish. they ‘want’ the power.
to elaborate- the games that were the pinnacle of the last gen (imo, natch)- ninja gaiden, jade empire, far cry, half life 2, doom 3- were not on anything weaker than an xbox.
ps2 got hardcore games, but i think those developers would have been more than happy to have the power of an xbox or pc available. as i recall, the spore developers scoffed at the idea of a wii spore, for instance. and last year team ninja wouldn’t comit to ninja gaiden 2 on the 360 because they wanted to see if the ps3 would be a grade superior in technology.
which gets to my point- which probably can use some clarity: to find the pinnacle of hardcore games of this generation, i wont look to the wii.
fun forum! (here’s hoping you can squeeze the time to read this clarification into your schedule!)
July 24th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
oh- i don’t want to play the wiibored and don’t believe bioshock will be on the wii… height of both ignorance and hypocrisy?
…really?
July 24th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
In order to enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.
The PS2 had no hardcore games. Neither did the PS1. They were not the pinnacle of of hardcore games, so nobody looked to them, and no gamer in their right minds owned them.
This new version IS the past, and no other past could have existed. Ignorance is Strength.
July 24th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Thanks Jeff
July 24th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
“We’ve always been at war with Eurasia!”
July 24th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives… It isn’t only the synonyms: there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good’, for instance. If you have a word like ‘good’, what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well - better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not.”
Orwell, George ([1949] 1989): Nineteen Eighty-Four. Harmondsworth: Penguin
In the same way, the Wii/DS games are never ‘bad games’ but simply ‘non games’. Just as with ‘ungood’, it is impossible to justify these new games since they are labeled ‘non games’.
This fall, the ‘hardcore’ will proclaim that Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers, and others do not really count as ‘hardcore games’. They are only “Mario Games” (so they are illegitimate).
This generation is like watching a ball game with the “industry” pulling the goals further apart each time Nintendo succeeds (and pulling the goals closer together for Sony and Microsoft).
“$249 for a Wii? Too expensive. It won’t sell.”
(Hardcore picks up the goal post and moves it further out.)
“Sure, it is selling this Christmas. But it is a gimmick. Watch sales collapse after the holidays.”
(Hardcore moves the goal post further out.)
“OK, it is still selling. But does it have any hardcore games?”
(Goal posts move further out.)
“I know Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, and other big games are out. But do they really count? They are just Mario games after all.”
(Hardcore moves the goal post further.)
“Yes, I see all these hardcore games coming out for the Wii now. But will it survive higher HD adoption rate? Surely not!”
And on and on it goes.
For Xbox 360: “It will win the market!”
(Moves goal posts further.)
“Sure, Wii has outsold it worldwide. But has Wii outsold 360 in America? Therefore, Wii isn’t successful yet.”
(The goal posts move further out.)
“OK, Wii has finally outsold 360 in America. But has it outsold 360 in NEBRASKA? That is the only true measurement of success.” (or whatever they say)
For PS3: “It will sell 5 million with no games!”
(Goal posts move closer.)
“See? It is selling 135% more since the price cut!”
(Goal posts move closer.)
“Eventually, when enough price cuts come, PS3 will become a tsunami and swamp the industry!”
Anyway, Reggie has spoken much on disruption and even wrote a column about it. ( http://www.brandweek.com/bw/magazine/features/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995536 ) I am surprised that with the success of the Wii and DS that journalists and analysts are not busily digging up all Nintendo said in the past. It is like they can only analyze the technology business and become lost when the subject is the entertainment business. Since the Wii isn’t using “advanced technology”, they don’t know what to analyze!
PS- You can call me Mal if you want. =)
July 24th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
hehe- 1984 seems a bit dramatic for a conversation about, well, video games. no?
and i’m not sure who said the ps2 had no hardcore games (is that on this thread?).
but this conversation will be proven one way or the other with time. I still feel that the house that Mario built will largely be where Mario lives. Alone. Playing Jenga. ;-P
*ducks!*
p.s. Mal, I too would expect the gaming press to drag up the old Nintendo disruption speeches- talking about capturing the vast blue ocean. And I would probably critisize them for that, since I view the wii shortage as largely indicative of the company not expecting demand to be where it was. That is, despite the speeches, I think the wii’s success caught everyone by surprise, including Nintendo.
*ducks again*
July 24th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
i endorse malstrom and jack
July 24th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
It would help, deepthought, if the things you got across weren’t attempts to rewrite history or breaking the anchors of reality, and the things you don’t get a across made a lick of sense.
Mario being by himself playing Jenga? What? Please explain your points fully so that they can be put to the light of truth. If that is what you want, of course. Isn’t it?
July 24th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
Of course Nintendo didn’t expect it do this well. I bet they thought that right now they would be selling well, but slowly, and stock piling Wiis for when consumers got it. But it seems that the consumers figured it out a head of time. Now I hope they are getting another factory on line for Giftmass.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
I think that the reason we see people in the gaming media unable to believe Nintendo may dominate this time around, and that Sony won’t, is that these people can’t actually remember a time when Sony didn’t dominate…. which would be the 24 years of the console industry prior to the PS1’s ascension to dominance.
deepthought, the reason people are comparing your words to Orwell is that your premise is flawed and makes you appear to be rewriting history. More developers are committing to the Wii as time goes on, not less; some of those are bound to develop games you would call “hardcore”; and the dominance of the PS1 and PS2 in their respective generations demonstrates that developers don’t care about which system has the best hardware, but about which system is selling the most units. Yes, the Wii being cheaper to develop for probably means there will be a lot of budget titles available. The same was true of the PS2, but anyone who wasn’t a Halo freak knows the PS2 won the last generation and is still doing all right even now.
As for the “best” games of the last generation…. well, you’re free to buy whatever console you like, but that doesn’t have a lot of impact on the market at large. My buying a Gamecube last time around didn’t really help Nintendo much, nor did my buying a Wii this time around hurt Sony appreciably. What drives game development is what sells in quantity, so if you want more “hardcore” games you’ll need to get together with your “hardcore” buddies and start a grass roots movement to “save the hardcore”. Then you all need to buy multiple copies of that poor, underappreciated Halo 3 and the next Crytek magnum opus if that’s what it takes to get them to continue making the kind of games you like. Lord knows I’ve bought Pac-man enough times over the last 25 years.
Finally, if Spore ever gets released at all, I’m pretty sure the Wii will eventually be included. Maybe it hasn’t gotten into development yet, but the writing is on the wall for developers now, just as it was a year after the PS2’s release. E3 demonstrated that with the sheer number of Wii exclusives. They’ve already announced a DS version of Spore, so I really don’t think power or graphical performance is a real issue.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:41 am
briefly:
- i still think developers prefer the more powerful system and their games will show it (do you think a wii version of spore would be the definitive version? i don’t). i also gave ex.s of developers saying they want power. heck, crytek wants everyone to buy new rigs to run their IP. spore will also be a power hog. well, not on the ds.
- all platforms get harcore games; in my opinion the best of those games show up on the top hardware. again, i chose bioshock over metroid- i believe it will be more immersive and i prefer the realistic style. ymmv.
- after e3, who’s servicing the hardcore fan more? wii or anyone else? just check gamespy’s ‘best in show’ category for a list of their top ten-There are no wii games on it. none. (which is weird, I was really expecting mario galaxy and metroid on it. but even if they were, that would be 2 games of ten.)
that all sounds kinda reasonable to me. there’s other points, but i’m lazy so here’s some stuff that confused me:
i write: ‘the hardcore game developers almost always want the powerful systems’ and ‘ps2 got hardcore games’
i hear: ‘the ps2 dissproves that’ and (mocking) ‘The PS2 had no hardcore games.’
so, since the ps2 had hardccore games, the developers didn’t want more power? is this me rewriting history?
i write: ‘mario galaxy will fall in my definition of hardcore. so will metroid.’
i hear a prediction: ‘This fall, the ‘hardcore’ will proclaim that Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers, and others do not really count as ‘hardcore games’. ‘
actually, i’m ok with my view. i also think that none of those games will be at the apex of hardcore gaming when this generation is over.
my jenga comment is a joke about jenga having been announced for the wii.
oh, and i still want to know how disinterest in the wiibored and believing that bioshock will not be released on the wii is ‘the height of both ignorance and hypocrisy’. hyperbole much? (not to mention poor word choice- i’m ignorant either of my own actual interest in the wiibored or because bioshock is obviously coming to the wii? and i’m hypocritical because, uh, why?)
you’re all correct though- the wii will get a lot of support from third parties because of its install base. but i don’t see many hardcore games as a result yet. i see jenga. and my horse and me. hopefully the games are coming. some dragon fire game looked promising, till i heard the developer describe their approach as ‘keeping it accessible’.
off topic- whenever i hear ‘fanman’- i keep picturing a megaman boss.
holy cow that wasnt brief at all. i think i’ve said my part though; hope that clarifies my view here. seems reasonable to me. calling me an ignorant hypocrite though… not really adding to the conversation much. imho ymmv yada yada yada
July 25th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I’m getting the distinct impression that this argument is taking on an atheist versus religious person vibe. An yet, like an insane person, I keep coming back trying to explain things the same way and expect a different result. Sigh.
Anyway, developers prefer the system that makes them money. Crytek is an exception. Horsepower games are a niche, and this generation will expose that more than ever before. I imagine that when Crytek’s love child sells a few million copies and they don’t really make the money back that they invested in this ambitious project, you won’t see them trying it ever again.
Dismissing something you’ve never tried is ignorance in its purest, most basic sense. Saying a game will never come to a system simply because it’s “too hardcore” is ignorant. If Metroid is half the success people are saying it will be, then the games like BioShock (note, I never said BioShock itself), will come to the Wii first. They’ll have to because it offers the best control scheme that’s accessible to the most people. Again, the money thing.
But I digress. I owe an apology. You’re right. I admit I was wrong. You’re certainly no hypocrite, but ignorance is bliss.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
hi jack- i know the thread here’s dying, but i really don’t think disinterest in a item after watching a tech demo is ignorance. it’s just disinterest. i really think i have all the info i need to gauge my interest on this item. you saw no demos at the e3 that didn’t interest you, despite not playing them? and i doubt we’ll see bioshock on the wii due to technological limitations, not genre limitations. but i agree that ‘its too xxx for the wii’ sounds silly.
if i’m guilty of anything in my argument, its probably being overly harsh in the wii’s year 1 line up, as most consoles struggle that first year for a well rounded library and yeah, publishers are jumping on board. but then, i’m talking about where the (imo) top games will be- not where the most games will be.
ok, i’ll return now to my lofty seat on Mt Ignorant. cheers!
July 30th, 2007 at 8:30 am
deepthought, as usual you are blind when you say that wii cannot handle any game based on technical limitations, bioshock can be handled on wii, with obvious reworking of graphics, but the gameplay can stay the same. you have no basis for believing otherwise, and i have yet to see a game that was not done on an HD system that wasnt done on a console before it.