Wii has more kiddie titles in first year than GameCube
Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 9:17am by Jack
What to make of this news? Gamasutra has a bunch of pie charts up today comparing the distribution of ESRB rated games for this and last generations’ consoles. By the looks of these charts the Wii, when compared to the GameCube, looks like a Chucky Cheese’s game room. Meanwhile the ‘cube is Studio 54 in the 1970s.
In my jaded opinion this is really no surprise. First, the entertainment medium in general has trended from R to more PG-13 and PG titles, and I’d apply this shift to video games as well. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t; videogames are a serious, multi-billion dollar industry. Hence, there would naturally be fewer “Mature” games on any given console today (except the Xbox, which actually saw an increase in the number of mature games from 2001-2007. Surprise.). This is doubly true for a Nintendo system, which I whole-heartedly admit welcomes lighter fare with open arms.
The bigger picture here, which I’m sure Gamasutra was getting at, is that the Wii could be become pigeonholed just like its older, profit generating brother. That would be true of the industry wasn’t so shaken up right now. Today, instead of an E rating meaning “for kids,” it really means what it was meant to all along: E is for Everyone.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:06 am
“E for Everyone” is one thing….in the Wii’s case, “E” usually means cartoony graphics and usually some sore of licensed kid show as the pont of the game. I don’t think there’s any question there’s way too much of that stuff on the Wii and the ratio to those type games to actually decent games is favored to the licensed kiddy crap. Anyone with sense can look at the Wii’s lineup and see most of these “E for Everyone” games truly mean “E for kids” because it’s obvoius that was the target audience.
So while the Wii is obviously more successful than the GameCube, to me the problems of the “too much kiddy stuff” have actually gotten worse on the Wii. I know it’s mostly 3rd party developers going for a quick buck, but it’s gotten pretty useless for me to even go look in the Wii Section because I know the crap waiting for me there.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:31 am
Without indicating how many titles were used for each chart (total number of games considered per time frame), the charts are meaningless.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:00 am
Yeah, and why happens this? Because the sales indicates it, this the law of supply and demand.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:29 am
I’m pretty sure that’s not true videoanime. I agree that in this case of looking at the distributions, E rating by and large equals a Kiddy game with some kind of franchise cartoon association. Plenty of the Kiddy games have sold shit on Wii. Why? Because they were in fact, shit. To me it’s fairly clear that the distribution slants this way not because Nintendo pigeonholed themselves, or because it’s what the market wants and has been buying.
No, once again, it’s entirely down to the single minded, retarded, anti-Nintendo bias of all but one or two 3rd parties, determined to die rather than ‘lower’ themselves to the mass market with any real effort. It’s now firmly engrained in their mindset that:
Market = Mature = Graphics = Avoid Nintendo AT ALL COSTS.
Every part of this is wrong, and as a result every major Western 3rd party barring Ubisoft (who for better or for worse actually bothered with Red Steel) has lost money.
Simultaneously, the higher ups think:
(Wii Sorts + Mario Galaxy)*(Creativity+Effort+Marketing) = (My Sims + Hannah Montana)*(lazines – money)
This is so wrong it’s stupefying. The kind of thing markets deserve to collapse for.
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:39 am
what constitutes “kiddie games”?
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:50 am
A kiddie game is a hard definition, but I think it gets down to who the game is marketed to. I don’t agree at all that, especially in Nintendo’s case, that “E” usually means “Everyone”, I think it usually meand “kids”. Most kiddie games are easy to pick out…..the Nickalodean (sp?) games come to mind, and any others based on children’s cartoons. I also think games that what I termed “sickly sweet” are as well. I’ve seen many Nintendo fans rave about Elebits but to me that is a game aimed at kids due to its presentation. Same with Dewey. I think a game like My Sims is obviously been aimed at kids rather than older gamer, for the simple fact that they changed it from adults in the games to kids.
That’s not to say just because a game has cartoony looks that it’s automatically a “kiddie” game and I admit sometimes it’s hard to really nail down when a game is and isn’t, but to me it gets down to common sense. I think it’s obvious that the third parties see the Wii as the “kids” machine, evident by their decisions to make most of the Wii games they make cartoony and light hearted.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
If I wasn’t such a Nintendo fanboy I would complain so much at all the developers out there, pairing the Wii with how the gamecube was. I find myself often defending the wii when people say that it’s just a load of cartoony games, saying that those cartoony games are still fun as hell. Which is true. Still though… I find it irritating that developers marketing is so off par. Instead of them being seen as games that anyone can play (including the hardcore) they’re being marketed with this ‘E for everyone’ rating meaning it’s dipsy enough for a 3 year old to play and so should be ignored by cores.
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:34 pm
“Kiddie game”, for the use of Gamasutra’s article, is simply a game rated “E”…
The reasons why there are more “kiddie” games for Wii than for GameCube within the same time period are technical and VERY simple: 1) it is cheaper and faster to develop a game for the Wii now than it was to develop for the GameCube back in its first year; and 2) there are more “kiddie” franchises to make games for today than there were back in the first year of the GameCube.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
That’s true but the problem is, it seems like there’s a bigger percentage of “kiddie” games vs. non-kiddie games on the Wii’s first year than the GC’s first year.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Then, the principal reason of this is the target maket of the Wii, the kids, now is when see the direction of the developers and their games.
Its true, there are mature games, but not in quantity than before.
Now that think about it, maybe is more easier found people to play with on wii under 18 XD damn it XD
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
something that isn’t mentioned: 200 virtual console games, and it just happens that olde thyme games weren’t really all that T or M.