Topic: If Wii Games Undersell, Why is Quality Improving?

Boy, First Person Shooters sound like dicks, only thinking about themselves.

Hawker, might be Im a hardcore gamer, might be not, might be a mix. That doesnt matter really, but graphics matter, sound matters, control matters in any game (probably you would be quite happy if the gaming world would still be moving around NES only?).
Everytime you get a Wii game with good enough visuals it is at the cost of continuous load operations (case of Metroid where you walk 20 meters, and there is another blue door that will not open till next room or small area is loaded). So, you may have quite simple scenaries with average graphics, or nice graphics in pretty small escenaries. And this is IMO the main problem of the Wii, probably due to its exteme lack of memory as well as storage space. This forces any game developer to break his brain trying to use all and every trick in the hat to achieve an averagely good final result, while for systems plenty of memory/cpu/etc they can just go, use the raw power of the console and develop the desired game in much less time and with much less problems than for the Wii.

Except for the PS3 which has famously poor development tools and a new, unfamiliar hardware platform, unlike Wii and Xbox which are both using IBM PPC architecture that many devs know. I've played enough first and 3rd person shooters on the Wii to know that your arguments ring false. It's no less possible to create a compelling game experience on the Wii than it was on the Gamecube or the PS2; it just takes the will and the interest.

The big issue with the Wii is the broader owner demographic means publishers and developers cannot predict how well the current crop of big budget games will sell on the platform and in a saturated market during an economic downturn they probably feel the risk is too high. Unless Nintendo leads the way and sells similar titles in large numbers, thereby proving a core title that isn't an established Nintendo franchise can sell, I expect many of these to drop off except for smaller publishers/developers who are happy to carve out their own niche and don't have an army of shareholders to satisfy. Nintendo had their chance with a new action IP in the form of Disaster: Day of Crisis and they put zero marketing behind it and it failed to sell in significant numbers and was lucky to get release outside of Japan at all. The next "new" Nintendo IP with core appeal looks like Sin & Punishment, but by then it might be too late to woo EA back if they've decided to scale back their Wii releases. I'm surprised Activision hasn't made a statement yet, frankly. Maybe they're not hurting as bad financially as EA?

To be honest EA isn't a big loss to me; if big Japanese publishers stop making games for the Wii then I'd be concerned about 3rd party support for the platform. EA can always do WiiWare; I expect if they have some really talented game designers they can turn out some quality product for a lot cheaper that way!

Edited to remove reference to Ubisoft, since they weren't actually complaining about the Wii at all. Bad Kotaku! Bad!

We will see in next Wii Zelda and next Metroid. If we get nice visuals but at the cost of loading sequences every two steps, then I would not be so wrong.

Mario Galaxy has already proven Nintendo can do "nice visuals" without "the cost of loading sequences every two steps."

I'm one of the biggest Nintendo fans there is and I really like FPSes. The GOOD ones anyway, though they are few and far between.

The flaw in this statement is that high quality visuals come at a cost as well. If Wii had the same dedicated user base that a 360 had, well, regardless of what's under the hood, everyone would flock to Wii. Half the tech, half the cost. So if you're an artist, you'd want to hope on the 360 train, if your short on cash (Deep Silver, High Voltage) the Wii is the best bet. The biggest problem is in fact it's low sells numbers as nothing is free.

I am a fan of first person shooters, and I play games that are rated E. Mario, (most of the games) Zelda, F-Zero, StarFox, Pokemon, all great franchises, all rated E. You speak lies.

@geek master - Dawt dawt dawt

I think it's worth noting that Distaster: Day of Crisis was a pretty awful game--marketing would've have made it any more playable. I agree though--it's a matter of what's comfortable. PS2 and Xbox have always been very heavy on FPSes and people that buy them have already shown, through what games they buy, that making a well-crafted, polished FPS is a pretty sure thing in terms of sales. Unfortunately, minigame collections seem to be the Wii's shoe-in...

Wii owners just don't buy good games I guess. I thought Deadly Creatures was great, as was Deadspace: Extraction, but I saw nary a commercial for either one and they didn't sell even remotely as well as I assumed they would. I know we all go out and buy the new Mario or Zelda, but those aren't the series at any sort of risk...I for one am glad I paid 50 for Extraction. If for nothing else, to send a message that I appreciate new, different content that doesn't involve me Wiimote-bating to perform some disconnected task on-screen.

I hate that third party developers continue to make games that suck and then complain that they don't sell and blame it on the Wii.

@Swerd..... yep your dead-on there my friend. Its a shame they dont sell, though me selling my Wii doesn't help things for the company as I would have bought the games, but nearly a two year hiatus with barely any content to keep me playing games and the Wii as a only system, I had no choice and didn't have the cash to drop on a PS3 unless I sold the Wii so I did what I had to do, and It does suck for the 3rd Party guys because I know a Lot of guys just like me that are like crap I still wish I had a Wii but I was just left craving a new game to play and it barely ever came.

@Sean Aaron...... just to add a tidbit to your post, Sony intentionally went with the Core Processor as they new it was going to be a VERY Slow start for games to be developed on the system and it was, most 3rd Party support games were terrible broken ports as nobody new how to develop on the system, but now two years later look at what is happening on the system. Uncharted 2 though its first party, is mind blowing, and Naught Dog went public stating that they Will be sharing their developing tools to help out others. Sometimes newer is better.

Second party. It was made by Rare.

I really think it's odd. In my opinion, there are plenty of good games for Wii but nothing that really stands out from a 3rd party perspective aside from several titles I've played that include Zack and Wiki and Little King's Story. When I look at the library as a whole, I honestly don't see to many games worth selling like gangbusters. I guess I feel this way because not too many devs think outside the box when it comes to motion controls, nor do they think to reach the WHOLE Wii demographic with their games like Nintendo does.

That's why I like games like Z&W, LKS, Rabbids Go Home, Boom Blox and even de Blob. They don't seem to be just for the kiddies or just for the soccer moms. They tend to have that Nintendo like appeal. Too bad that's not reflected in sells.

It was a gamble and cost them a lot; they're lucky they had strong sales in Japan and Europe to fall back on. The fact that their online is free also gave them some good marketing against Microsoft; it's only way I'd even consider getting one, but frankly I find their software lineup totally uninspiring.

The Cell was pitched as the future be-all do-all processor and clearly that's not going to happen. If Sony continues to use it in their future hardware I'd be amazed.

I agree with the comments about marketing. Serious lack of good marketing. I think the 3rd party devs' problem is that they see the Wiis' sales in general as a sign that it's a quick cash in and guaranteed sales for any game they pump out. This is a sad misconception on their part and only gets us the ol' "shovelware" that none of us buys; not even less informed consumers. The console itself was enough to sell people since it came with arguably the best mass appeal Wii game of all (Wii sports, now Resort), so probably half of Wii owners have that and maybe one or two other 1st party games (ones that they saw painted on busses or on TV like Wiifit or Resort). So CONSOLE sales figures don't translate to good software sales alone if you don't market properly.
"cars" was one of the dumber disney movies and "spider man 3" was no gem either, but how many of us saw them anyway? Why? Because we had no choice! They chased us down, beat us up, and forced us to watch them with massive advertising campaigns. And thats just to get us to watch a 10 dollar movie once or buy a cheap DVD. Big games are $50 each. If you put in the Marketing muscle they will come. The only thing I've seen advertised for Wii lately is that stupid excersize game with the camera with Jenny McCarthy, that'll probably sell like hotcakes.
Lets wait and see what happens to Red Steel 2. If Ubisoft doesn't drop at least a couple million on marketing in each territory I'm betting sales will be horrible no matter how good or bad the game is, and I'm sure they'll whine about it like every one else. If they do it could be a big hit. The Wii has lots of life left even if it's just in new Zelda and Mario games. It would be nice, though if 3rd parties would get the idea and put some marketing dollars behind their better games so they can justify more small releases of the odd ones that are what make the Wii so interesting. So far the WiiWare service is best for that, and we all know how invisible that is in marketing terms.

Even in-store marketing could do wonders at places like GameStop, where the "new release" section is actually paid advertisement space and not really used for "new" releases at all. This results in many awesome games being shoved right into the sidefaced selection of games from release, where most browsing customers won't even notice them. Not that this is the ONLY problem (Dead Space: Extraction was in the new release section for a while, and that obviously didn't do it much good), but it can't be helping.

@Sean Aaron...... I dont know, maybe they want but everything Ive heard is that now that the Cell is being cracked on development its actually pretty easy to develop for and the new Cell Processor in in the Slim added quite a bit to fix some problems of the original, not to mention the Firmware Updates that hit quite frequently (1 every two months or so) are Sony finding new ways of using it and it was developed to be able to be upgraded through updates throughout the consoles lifetime. Wich is pretty impressive in my book. Im really curious to see where Nintendo goes with their new console when it ineveitably come out. Im betting it will have a standard controller as well as the Wiimote, honestly Im hoping for a Standard Controller as I really dislike the motion controls with exceptions to Wii Sports, Resort style games. Twilight Princess was nearly a carpel tunnel waiting to happen I like the precision of a controller, but the Wii was a perfect decision for Nintendo and got tons of new kids into gaming, Im just hoping that the next console isn't Wii 2.

@slapshot

Maybe the next Nintendo console can include the best of both. Like you said, including a standard controller along with a motion controller. But, we'll see. I'm still enjoyin' the games I have. =) I'm not bothered by all the bad games since I don't buy any of 'em anyway.
Motion controls are fine by me, though. In fact, if there is a review on the net that talks about how unresponsive and slow the motion controls are and that there is a better alternative (Punch-Out!! (I think it was IGN's review)) I make a point to intentionally use the motion controls. I've found that the Punch-Out!! game is very fun with motion controls, and I plan to use it together with the Balance Board soon.

EDIT: I don't really understand the quick cash-in concept. A bad game will always be a bad game and be seen that way. A good game will always be a good game, and will eventually or immediately seen as such. While there's no accounting for taste (I don't like every big budget game that comes out, but I can still see the time and effort that went into them and appreciate that) and there are obvious exceptions to the rule (Okami it seems), it seems to me that taking the time to make a quality game, and then marketing the game properly, which will in turn make people spread news about the game via word of mouth, will ensure a game gets at least decent sales. Enough sales to warrant a sequel, make the company money, or something or another.

@Trevor..... yeah Punch Out is on my list of games to buy when I buy another Wii lol. My brother rented it and loved it. He said the same thing about the motion controls workin very well on that game....... Prob with the cash in is that its not the Educated Gamers that play games daily that buy the cash ins its the parents buying for their children. Okami wasn't a Wii release, it was actually ported to the Wii after it ran its course on the PS2 and the motion controls were had critics raving that they hurt the gameplay if I remember correctly. I played it on the PS2 and it was fantastic and makes a great entry in the Wii AAA titles category. Im still wanting to play Muramasa like crazy as well though.

The motion controls in Punch-Out!! are nice, but those who want to complete all the more difficult challenges will most likely find it necessary to switch to "classic" mode for the extra precision it offers. I did, and it helped IMMENSELY!