Wii’s a fad. Or, Sony is getting desperate
Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 10:34am by Jack
Sony’s Jack Tretton is in a difficult position right now. His company has on their hands the most powerful console that nobody knows they really want. It’s the thing people will buy “eventually.” It’s got the most “potential” of any system out there, and developers will realize that “one day.”
Today, the San Jose Mercury News digs into the best system available today that no one really wants in an interview with Jack Tretton. Unfortunately, Tretton remains in the dark, deep money sink hole that is the PS3 after the interview, and proves he has no strategy to combat the meteoric growth and popularity of Nintendo’s Wii.
We have seen it time and time again. Tomb Raider was a revolutionary product on the PlayStation. Everyone tried to do a rip off. By the time they got there, it was too late. When Grand Theft Auto came out, everybody gravitated to Grand Theft Auto. Now the Wii is having success. They are touting casual gaming. Supposedly everybody is going to race over to casual games. The unfortunate thing is the fruits of those labors will show up two years down the road, and if the consumer tastes shift, they will find themselves all dressed up with no place to go.
First, let’s officially stop calling them casual games. That’s spin. They’re games and they can be broken into genres. There are puzzle games and action games and adventure games, and people will play them for various amounts of time throughout the day. When people label the Wii a casual system, they’re probably working for the competition.
And as Wired’s Chris Kohler deftly points out, Tretton’s statement isn’t exactly true. In fact, it’s factually incorrect. “The early imitators, the ones that copied the superficial form, might not have hit the mark. But the underlying concepts — sandbox games with large, free-roaming cities and over-the-top fantasy violence and characters — have come to define consumer tastes,” Kohler said.
It will be the same way with the Wii, if it hasn’t already begun already with publishers like EA and others. The first run games were pale copies of Wii Sports, or were vast collections of haphazard mini-games. These were the superficial crop, easily discarded as chaff, but very important none-the-less. They are the base. E3 saw the beginning of a new era. The second wind, so to speak. And as all that money that’s being shifted by developers into Nintendo projects finds a home and takes shape, you’ll see this holiday and 2008 become the “underlying concepts” phase that will truly define the console.
Tretton’s s smart guy. He knows this. He simply has no answers to offer.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:04 am
The big thing is:
Software sells systems. (point blank)
The PS3 has no software worth the pricetag of the system and $60 per game. For my Wii, I have 15 games (which I consider them ALL worth buying the system for). I don’t see any reason to purchase a system for anything less than 15 games. It may take the PS3 about 3-4 more years to create that many games, and by then, the console price will be cut in half and we will know the winner between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD etc… Then I can see myself purchasing a system, that is until the Wii 2.0 (w/ HD etc.) comes out for $250…in around 2011. HD will be the standard then, it isn’t now. PS3 is proving that. Even the Wii is proving that HD is not needed yet for video games. It is more of a luxury these days. But with the lack of software and everything being one of three genres (sports w/ SWEAT on the players, FPS’s and driving sims), only the Wii really appeals to me, the casual/core gamer.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Wait a minute, why are you quoting “wii is a fad”? Are you sugesting he said that? It is confusing.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I would be very cautious about counting Sony out this early in the game. Yes, the Wii is selling like gangbusters now but with games like GTA4 on the horizon and up-and-coming titles like MGS4 and RE5 for PS3, this is going to be no walk in the park for Nintendo - certainly not where the home console market is concerned.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:32 am
The truth is that the market for video games is changing and expanding. MS and Sony got caught with their pants down. Their tunnel vision for the hardcore gamer and the horsepower race made them miss this fact.
The original group of hardcore gamers are now approaching their 40s (remember that this industry is only about 25 years old) and have kids and mortgages and other responsibilities. But they still want games. And they want to play them with their family as well. Nintendo paid attention to this and created as system that those people can use as well as the new crop of hardcore gamers (they hope.)
New gamers are also flocking to the system. Games are becoming mainstream and accepted by more of the masses. Nintendo saw this as well. (Maybe the DS showed them some things?)
Nintendo is creating systems and games for multiple expanding demographics. They have hit home runs with both the Wii and the DS in this pursuit. It amazes me how a man in Tretton’s position cannot get this. Nintendo is reading the market and selling to it. Sony is focusing on a demographic that is a small segment of the real market and it is showing.
I will not even go into the fact that he is chasing a market that is not even there; the people who want a super-computer, mutlimedia powerhouse in their living room. Apple and MS are testing the waters with this in iTunes/Apple TV and the 360/Live Marketplace. Sony bet the farm on it by letting this pursuit dictate their hardware choices and created the $700 monstrosity that is the PS3.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
[...] source @ infendo [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Let’s make something clear, though: the PS3 IS selling, just not nearly as well as Wii. And Wii is selling, indeed, BECAUSE of its casual games! Also, Sony is still selling the PS2 rather well, and developers keep making great hardcore games for PS2.
What I’d like to see for Wii is that eventually Sony will let go of the PS2, and developers that don’t require a graphics and processing powerhouse will migrate to Wii. The only obstacle for that to happen right now is, in my opinion, and ironically, Wii’s controllers. A developer that creates a deep, 100-hour Strategy RPG will not care to concentrate on having gesture-based controls for it, nor will the gamers that crave those type of games. Eventually, I hope, Wii controls will not be something that has to be forcibly added in every game published for the Wii!
July 27th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
True, invis, but a 100-hour RPG you control with just a pointer and one hand would be great.
And I think strategy games are a genre that make perfect sense for the system. Pointer controls, no-nonsense graphics, and plenty of money to work with due to lower development costs. To me, that translates into story and in-game resource development. Perfect.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
So it seems that Tretton’s comments aren’t factually correct, but if you accept his premise, it means even more bad news for Sony. For example, he said “Tomb Raider was a revolutionary product on the PlayStation. Everyone tried to do a rip off.” And then he compared it to the Wii. So let’s take that same sentence and plug in some Wii details. It could then become “Wii Sports was a revolutionary product on the Wii. Everyone tried to do a rip off.”
Even if those rip offs suck, developers are cranking out games for the Wii which means they likely aren’t developing games for the PS3. An since Sony’s business model involves selling the PS3 at a loss and making up for it on licensing fees from developers, that doesn’t sound very good.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I don’t understand why Tretton is even wasting his breath on the Wii. Hasn’t he said in the past that the two aren’t competing?
Oh wait, that was a rhetorical question on my part.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Over 9 million users (and still growing strong) in less than a year can’t be wrong. If it’s a fad, it’s the biggest fad the gaming world has ever seen.
People still argue that the DS is a fad if only to save face.
July 30th, 2007 at 12:14 am
I guess the “kiddy” jab isn’t working as well anymore (unless of course they mock the elderly with some elitist crap too).
“Fad” is just a snarky remark for “trend.” It could last a long time or it could be over soon enough. Regardless of how things go, I’ve really had it with these kinds of belittling excuses. It’s bad enough when fanboys do it, is it really necessary for CEOs and company reps to be acting like this?
July 30th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Luckily for Sony, the PS3 is NOT selling too well: since they are selling it at a loss, more sales of the hardware mean more loss, and since they don’t have too much software for it, they can’t offset the losses from the console by selling games right now. Or so say Sony’s Financial Officer:
http://www.myarcadeplanet.com/story-378-PS3-Financial-Officer-Optimistic.html
July 30th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
But isn’t the loss already incurred once the PS3 units hit the shelves?
I don’t really understand the retail channel, but I was under the impression that the retailers buy units in bulk for a wholesale price from Sony, and then sell them at a mark up. (for consoles, I’ve heard across the board retailers make very little money on markup, as the whole sale price is already so high to begin with).
Therefore, if not selling PS3s was a GOOD thing, then Sony would have to stop shipping them to stores altogether to save money.