Console race progress report
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 11:46am by Jack
In line with Blake’s Wired “do it in a sentence” post from earlier this morning, I though I’d throw up a series of three interviews over at Gamasutra that are an impromptu progress report for each of the three consoles on the market today.
That’s pretty much it on that. No extra commentary or snark or insults.
OK, ok. One insult. Michael Pachter is an attention whore.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
“The casual gamer that Nintendo is going after — soccer moms, older gamers — is not the same as the casual gamer that helped propel the PS2 to break 100 million units.”
I think this is an often overlooked sentiment, and pretty dead-on. The difference, I think, is that the PS2-casual gamer bought 2-3 titles, whereas I’m not convinced (yet) that the Wii-casual gamer is buying anything other than Wii Play. The low attach rate (2.8) seems to support this theory.
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:00 pm
That’s absolutely right! “Casual” gamers buy the Wii as a Wii Sports machine, they usually don’t care about games being released…
What Nintendo needs is more kiosk exposure in the stores, but have new games to play in the Wii kiosks, not just Wii Play!
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Hum… attach rate of 2.8 in 10 months VS attach rate of 2-3 on 7 years… give Wii more time and it will show itself. Casual gamers will not buy a new game because someone released it. It will buy one when they see fit to do so. Publishers should release these games sparsely, so they probably would see a better attach rate to their products.
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Fabio, I’m saying that the “Casual” part of the PS2’s fanbase has an attach rate of 2-3. PS2 was a jack-of-all-trades system, appealing to both “2-3 attach buyers” and also consumers who will buy far more titles than 2-3. I’m not yet convinced Wii has these same consumers, so a much larger portion of the install base has less interest in playing games.
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
I agree with you, I just wanted to point that comparison out
By the way, the same people that bought PS2 just for DDR/Guitar Hero are the ones embracing the Wii. But such games took too long to come out on PS2, while for the Wii there are plenty of those, and that is a problem. They will not buy a game just because it is on the market. They will buy it when it stands out of the crowd. When trully unique games with universal appeal appear (like DDR/Guitar Hero), they will sell for the entire Wii user base.
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:13 pm
drew, your always playing the bad guy, not amusing
the fat that you choose not to follow sales threads is your problem, but it doesnt change facts, which is that wii sales are quite good for casual games as well as T+ games. alot of people are buying the system for games other then wii sports or wii play. check out sales around the world. not just the US, though even here mario party 8 has sold very well.
selling well also (in US) are tiger woods 07, harry potter sold best on Wii, many movie franchises did well on Wii. Games that dont only sell to dedicated gamers are doing well around the world, and i watch game data every chance i get. neogaf is full of the info if you ever want to learn how wrong you are.
in fact, putting aside current sales data, looking at trends, which is what analysis is about, the wii is already getting games on the level that ps2 did, that is, where it comes to variety. from budget games (http://gonintendo.com/?p=26273
October 3rd, 2007 at 3:33 pm
“…I’m not convinced (yet) that the Wii-casual gamer is buying anything other than Wii Play.”
“That’s absolutely right! ‘Casual’ gamers buy the Wii as a Wii Sports machine, they usually don’t care about games being released…”
Completely bogus! Just wait until Wii Fit arrives!
That was supposed to be funny, but really isn’t much of a joke. I bet that many soccer moms and older gamers will be interested in a title like Wii Fit… and Nintendo seems to be betting the same thing. If this game gets the same exposure that Wii Sports did, then look for Wii Fit to be a million+ seller without breaking a sweat.
The problem with Nintendo’s “bue ocean” strategy is that traditional games don’t appeal to the mass market. Third party developers will need to take the same approach and truly do something different if they want to tap the huge Wii install base.
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:11 pm
“drew, your always playing the bad guy, not amusing”
I prefer the word realist. I would like to a link to data that confirms that a game meant for the enthusiast audience was released on 360, PS3, PS2, and Wii (or at least 2 or 3 of the above) and it sold best on Wii. I do not consider franchise movie games to be part of this equation. If movie-based games are selling well on the Wii, I don’t think one could consider this a sign that the Wii consumers are buying well-developed content.