Sales: Who are Wii to Blame?

We all know the score with 3rd party titles that land on Wii; they flop. Some ultimately make a profit, but other titles like The Conduit, No More Heroes, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Dead Space Extraction, Madworld, Little King's Story, and many others don't see the financial salvation they deserve, despite seeing the Wii with its 50 million+ install base. Sure, the Wii's core audience is minute compared to the mountainous numbers of the casual audience, but that doesn't mean games can't get decent sales, can they? They could, if all goes well, that is.

So who are we to blame here for the paltry sales? The casuals? No. The so-called "casuals" have different hobbies because gaming isn't one of them; hence they are non-gamers. So if it's not the non-gamers, can it be the developers? Why yes, because developers should do the following:

Advertise
If there's one thing a developer(s) should do, then it's advertisement because it gets the word across. What manufacturer would be stupid enough to expect sales without developing a couple of marketing tricks to lure a customer? And even if the developers are advertising their product, then they shouldn't just advertise to one audience. Ever wondered why Dead Space Extraction didn't sell, apart from it being a rail-shooter? Because it was only advertised in a handful of gaming cites and a scene in True Blood. Who's going to know what Dead Space was if the viewers watching that doesn't even know that the game was real? Plus, with the way the Wii was advertised - being family friendly and kiddy - it's no wonder that the Wii and it's games isn't taken seriously or advertised properly. These games should have more appearances in magazines as well as a couple of good scoops and previews in gaming sites so that they aren't ignored as much as they are now.

More Effort
I'm only parroting what other Wii owners have said, but for the sake of this blog, I'll input my voice as well. How many good-looking, well-playing, well-recieved Wii titles are there? Take a good guess because you're probably right; there aren't many other than a handful of Nintendo's franchise titles like Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption or the Metroid Prime Trilogy set. Sure, there's No More Heroes, Madworld, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, The Conduit, Dead Space Extraction, and so on and so fourth, but would a community of review-worshiping fandogs really think twice before playing one of these games? The Conduit scored about a 69 on Metacritic, so how on Earth would anybody touch that? Developers should play the current-gen gamers' little game and make better looking titles so they can win them over.

MAKE MORE TRADITIONAL GAMES
Are these games too hard to ask for on Wii?

A) An action-packed game with a very deep combat system, sharp control, brilliant story, believable characters, good music, themes, and a clever script.

B) An RPG with an emotional plot, colorful cast of characters, great-looking weapons, themes, devastating spells and special attacks, unforgettable stages, and awesome musical score.,

C) A racing game with tons of customizable features for cars and tracks, animated backdrops, local and online multiplayer, fast-paced competition, online leaderboards, good music, product placement for actual cars (i don't think this last one's necessary)

D) A shooter with tons of awesome weapons, no-nonsense online multiplayer with mods that strictly handles with hackers, local multiplayer, Wii-Speak support, campaign mode with a clever story, a good amount of unlockables for offline replay-value, and customizable control.

I can go on and on with that list. Notice: Not once did I mention specs, hardware, or friend codes for the online. I wasn't asking for mindblowing graphics either, so making the damn game shouldn't be so awfully difficult since most of the things I asked for were abstract elements.

But enough of that developer hubub. To me, the culpable ones in this situation are the gamers themselves, especially the whiny HD fanboys. Wii owners too are to blame for this mess, but their shame isn't as near as heavy as the other group. So let's get started:

Elitism
Oh boy, this is my favorite one since I see so much of it. Whenever you visit a message board in any gaming network, you WILL see a lot of Wii bashing whenever the thing's mentioned. There, members will say Nintendo has abandoned the gamers, or that all Wii look like trash, or that good looking games on Wii should belong to the HD Twins since the Wii doesn't deserve to have any good games; I love the double-standard these people have because one minute they say the Wii has no games, and then they're up in arms whenever a good looking title appears on Wii. This attitude fanboys have against the Wii makes them REFUSE to buy any game on Wii or the system itself.

Encroachment
For a very long time, I've only owned Nintendo consoles. Even now, I tend to own only Nintendo systems like the Gamecube, the Wii, and the DS, but that's only because my brother took the PS2 when he left for college last year. Before my bro and I owned the PS2, I was pretty loyal to Nintendo despite having envy towards the PS2 owners for all those neat games of theirs. It wasn't until I played on our PS2 that I felt enlightened. It was a huge leap that I took because of all the games I had access to if I only paid up. I still regret not playing some of the titles I should have played like the Metal Gear Solid series or the Zone of Enders games. Ultimately, PS3/360 owners will feel some regret for not picking the great titles that the Wii has to offer because of their refusal to expand themselves to other games and other systems. Perhaps a desire to expand and seek other titles could help sales right? I guess it's about time I owned another console so I won't be to blame for cruddy sales.

Ignorance
Whenever a Wii owner tries to convince the PS3/360 owner that there are good titles on Wii, their words fall on deaf ears because the HD gamers ignore them and continue to believe Wii has no games. And if HD gamers do acknowledge that the Wii has games, they say that the games don't appeal to them. It's their opinion, sure, but if so many people say that same line, it's a lie obviously. How many PS3/360 owners are going to say that no Wii game looks fun for them? If it's all of them, then why are there so many HD gamers that own and Wiis and like them? Wii games look great, PS3 games look great, 360 games look great; deal with it people. And if the money's there, go grab a Wii 'cause it's only 200 bucks now (in the US).



-UPDATE-

Contradiction
I see a lot of PS3/360 owners say that they will never buy a Wii because they think it doesn't have any games that appeal to them. But at the same time, they complain about games that do appeal to them reaching the Wii instead of their console of choice. I find this very odd and amusing because it shows stupidity and contradiction. They say the Wii doesn't have any game they would consider fun, yet a game they consider fun lands on the Wii and they complain about it. This game might have everything they like about a video game, yet they still won't get it. Hmmm... Double-standard right? If you take a gander at games like Monster Hunter 3, Tales of Graces, or Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, you'll see what I mean because there are a lot people who want this game for the HD Twins instead of the Wii and fuss over it. Let me tell you something: I remember wanting to play games like Castlevania Lament of Innocence and Devil May Cry so much that what did I do? Complain? No. Daydream? Sure, but I ultimately got myself a PS2 and a slim one at that. If I got that PS2, I don't see how it's so hard to get a Wii that costs cheaper than it's launch price. You just need to earn/save money.

This is all I have to say for the lack of sales for quality 3rd party titles on the Wii. I hope that this blog will do some good because I spent a long time writing this. Please comment. Thanx!

I only read about a paragraph, but from what i read, it seems as though you know what your talking about and that its reasonable.

nice rant man makes perfect sense all my thoughts on this but organized lol

Nice blog. Very good.

Wait, what about Nintendo's Seal of Quality? Could that have been a cause in the lack of sales as well?

you should make a video of you saying this. if you don't know how, or don't want to, i can make 1 for you.

i can make a video of myself anytime, but i need to take the time to research a few things, make sure that the lighting's right and sound is right, and do my school work

since i'm a filmmaker, i have to make my videos look good both visually and audibly.

thanks for trying to help though

Well DAMMMNNN

and i think to ask for games like that isnt to much because if you picked up cod reflex you know that the game wasn't built for the wii at all. And the game looked good and plays good. Now i am still positive the wii can pull of way better visuals and get a really solid online if a developer actually does something! I've herd people after seeing reflex saying wow if it was MW 2 it would turn out really well but infinity ward claims the wii can't provide the cinimatic effect they want. -_- well i have mw 2 and reflex and personally they both have same cinematic feel despite visuals. MW 2 looks great for a distance get to close and pixelated shadows and jaggies. i noticed a lot of frame rate drops to on the 360. But again reflex was a port of a game eople sad would never get on a wii cuz wii dosn't have the power. Well it does and i would like to see a developer to make a good hard core exclusive for the wii. Something to end up like call of duty. Because if they build it for the wii it will end up great

good blog man... i reckon if these games was advertised i reckon the casual market will buy these because they look cool to them

now THIS is somethin that needs to be posted on every major gamesite, and emailed to every big named third party dev. i couldn'ta said this stuff better myself. you shoulda also said is it too much to ask for said AAA efforts to NOT look like dreamcast/ps2 games visually. the wii has been measured at bein waaay more powerful than the xbox(despite what its wrong specs numbers say). now i'm no graphics whore, but with this info known i see no reason to have to see games with last gen visuals on the wii when its far capable of more. literally every game on the wii shouldn't look any worst than RE4 seein as that was one of the GC's best lookin games, and the wii at its weakest is 2x more capable then that.(in all honesty, no game should look any worst than chronicles of riddick on xbox, seein as the GC outperformed the xbox in graphics)

RollingSliver is dead on with this. He speaks the truth and it's everything that I would say, but he puts it in more words and that's what will make his rant always better then mine.

True dat

Super Smash Bros. Fan wrote:RollingSliver is dead on with this. He speaks the truth and it's everything that I would say, but he puts it in more words and that's what will make his rant always better then mine.

more words isnt always better