Topic: Wii market is 'concerning' - Aussie Distributor

Today I interviewed a distributor for both Sony and Nintendo on his E3 experiences.

In a nutshell he was very positive of both Nintendo and Sony - the 3DS and Move respectively, but he did mention to me the Wii market is a bit flat, and essentially relying on Nintendo's own games at the moment to prop it up - like Zelda.

This got me to thinking - Is the Wii now losing its grip somewhat and ending up in a similar situation to what the Gamecube was - running on Nintendo's fumes, but limited third party support? I pulled out the release schedule for the Wii from Ubisoft (who also represents Square Enix in Australia), and these are the Wii games listed for release at this stage:

Dance on Broadway - 24 June
Shaun White Skateboarding - Q3
Just Dance 2 - Q3
Tom Clancy's HAWX2 - Q3
Rabbids: Travel in Time - 2010
Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs - 2010
Michael Jackson Video Game - 2010
Driver: San Francisco - 2010

With the possible exception of Driver, there's not a single real A-list game in there, from two of the world's biggest publishers.

It makes sense - the 3DS is exciting, and everyone wants to get on board with that, and both the PS3 and Xbox have need hardware attachements and growing market shares. Companies like EA have downsided their Wii development staff.

The Wii is starting to look quite vunerable, despite its massive install base. I'm not sure there are any non-Nintendo Wii games I'll be buying into the future (though I might have forgotten some from other publishers).

Thoughts?

I tend to agree, but given the bredth of genre coverage from Nintendo I don't feel it's necessarily that big a problem. It is worth noting that E3 won't have everything on display; even Nintendo is probably holding stuff back for the Tokyo Game Show. Given the amount of money I spent on games in the past year, I'm actually happy to have a break, and if the well seems dry then it increases the odds we'll see Excite Bots get a release in PAL territories (or Japan - I'm not choosy) - I can dream, can't I?

More concerning to me is that WiiWare seems to be greatly slowing down (in Japan anyway) and suggests they need to make changes to the Wii's online situation if they want the Wii's lifespan to be longer than the DS, which appears to be the case. I think Nintendo can carry the system on their own in the retail space, but they really need 3rd party support if they're going to keep the download business thriving which is key to the future of game distribution.

Whats wrong with you? Though I am excited for Rabbids.

It was a very dissapointing E3 for the wii if you ask me and it seems obvious they are shifting focus to the 3DS.

Only another zelda game where you save hyrule again and a team ninja metroid game.

Its safe to say the wii has definately shifted to gamecube mode

The Zelda game I'm curious about and Donkey Kong Country Returns - though really the only way I'd "for sure" buy the latter is if it included the emulated arcade games as a bonus.

Otherwise the only confirmed titles I can think of that have my interest (which I haven't already pre-ordered) is Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Conduit 2 and Flingsmash (and this one I'm on the fence about as it's not really pinball, is it?). Of course if Arc Rise Fantasia shows up on our shores I'm keen to check that out as well.

I'm mostly hoping that Williams Pinball will finally be released by System 3 this year, but it sounds like they may have moved too slowly to release and are having to re-sort rights issues despite game being finished and ready for release. So close!

I'm fine with Nintendo keeping the Wii going with their first-party stuff like Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby's Epic Yarn, and Zelda Wii. In truth, it's really the only reason I own a Wii anyway. And I have a feeling Nintendo are readying the next console anyway for an E3 2011 announcement.

All of this, plus, when you are unveiling a new handheld, you can't focus on the Wii aswell.

Arc Rise Fantasia, Sin & Punishment, Goldeneye, Rabbids, Driver. Seems like a good bit to me. A number other games on Ubisoft's list sound like they'd appeal to different crowds, too, though I think they sound boring, like the snowboarding game or the Michael Jackson game.

Another factor might be the upcoming releases of Playstation Move and Kinect. I wouldn't be surprised if several publishers put some concepts for Wii games on hold until they know how the market reacts. Will there be a new boom of motion control games? A tide of casual gamers abandoning the Wii for it's rivals? Or will the lack of success of the new gadgets cause the publishers to reevaluate the Wii market an conclude it's more stable than expected? No matter how likely or unlikely, the publishers might decide to play it safe for now and adopt a wait-and-see-policy.

Definitely a good point Wesbert, and given the development cycle for games that could be the case. I would have thought it likely that we'd see some games developed cross-platform though rather that putting Wii development on hold. After all The Wii has a proven userbase unlike either of Sony or Microsoft's new offerings - unless they're feeling gunshy about releasing on the Wii after lacklustre sales?

I personally don't see a problem with fewer releases assuming those releases are of good quality, though if I was Nintendo and had fewer WiiWare/DSiWare titles coming in for submission I'd be concerned.

Two reactions:
(1) Is it possible that some developers - especially some of the bigger ones, like you've mentioned - are already shifting focus to development for Nintendo's next console? I know it hasn't been announced yet, but Nintendo would be crazy not to have something in the works for either next year or early 2012.
(2) Third parties have complained about the Wii market being flat for a long time now, but have no choice but to lie in the bed they've made. Ubisoft is a prime example: despite releasing some excellent Wii titles, they have also pushed out a TON of garbage. Even when they did release good games, the software usually wasn't marketed heavily. Compare that to Nintendo who is more consistent and much better at marketing and advertising, and it's easy to see why one company has continued success while the other struggles.

Ubisoft are actually doing very good business on the Wii. From a quick peek at VGChartz, they've had nine games that have sold more than a million units, plus another seven that have sold over 500,000. EA, Sega, and Activision are doing even better; it's a myth that third party games on the Wii don't sell.

The problem, if there is one, is that the games that sold well have frequently been the quirky and rather casual affairs, and that attempts at producing expensive blockbusters aimed predominantly at experienced gamers have tended to fall rather flat. I suspect that what it comes down to is that the Wii has a very different user base to previous consoles and publishers are still trying to learn what they want to play.

At the same time, the 360 is relying on 3rd party games. There aren't many first party games out on the 360 tbh. Most Wii owners have a Wii for Nintendo games, not to play "Dance on Broadway."