Hang on: Wii is owning all, where are the games?

[Calza]

lol, where did you get that info from?

 

I guess you don't know what the word reckon means. And I got it from my friends and people on here as well as a few other sites.

 

Calza,your point makes no sense.

Noone said that Ininity Ward must redo the job and spent another 8-12 months redoing it.Activision is the biggest 3d party developper now(even bigger from EA) and easily can outsource it.Even EA found a way to outsource the Orange Box to another dev house as Valve refused to develop for PS3.You see the pattern?It doesnt matter what the developer wants,the publisher always decides.

I agree that CoD4 is one of the finest FPS of the last years.IW does not have any bias against the Wii.More or less,IW let their opus to run in low-tech PC's with low resolution,almost no lighting and slow framerate.Why did they decide something like that?They did not.The publisher took the decision!

That's the same reason for actually letting CoD5 released on Wii.

Its IW's game and I wouldn't trust anybody else to do a port. Just look at EA's port of The Orange Box for proof why external groups shouldn't do it. No offense but are you comparing scaling to low end pcs to downgrading everything, changing the entire code, developing a new control scheme etc to fit a different console? Sure enough scaling back engine to run on a low spec pc is no easy task but its a walk in the park to porting a game.

 

 

 

This isn't about them is it? They don't like the Wii, too bad for them because its what sells.

 

 

Yeah because 360 and PS3 games don't sell.

[Dante]

Yeah because 360 and PS3 games don't sell.

 

Games on 360 and PS3 do sell but it more of risk to get good sales.

[Hellfire]

As usual it all boils down to the usual arguments, "Wii is a fad", "There are no games, just non-games, etc...".

Most Wii owners leave it in the dust, yet games are still selling, so people buy the games because they like throwing away money? Don't mistake your micro-cosmos for the entire market.

It's obvious people have their mind set and won't change anyway, so what's the point? Does everything need to be seen in black and white?

Also, Wii "quite clearly" isn't easy to develop and whatnot, yep, makes sense.

[Shino]

Games on 360 and PS3 do sell but it more of risk to get good sales.

 

Thank you, Dante.

 

People say games sell on PS3/360, but I bet there's loads of failures, at much higher price for the dev.

[ultrajamie]

Don't mistake your micro-cosmos for the entire market.

.

 

 

This should be written in 72 point bold at the top of every game forum

[Dante]

Some points

• It's the first time when a leader is treatned like the underdog.
  
• The fear of change is leading the industry in this matter. Big players are afraid of the chance of seeing their own domain changing and losing the ropes they have had in control for so long.
  
• They've been offering empty excuses so far. First it was "we weren't ready" Now it's "only Nintendo sells on Nintendo systems". This latest line of thought is cimented on the Nintendo 64 and GameCube era. Arguably their efforts were pretty lacking in those eras, so that's only half truth. The other thing they "forget" is that usually Nintendo leads the charts for every system. They do big numbers, you cannot beat them, but it's hard to see games beating them, even when released on other systems. So it's a stupid line of thought.
  
• Industry motto is focused on core gamers and industry magazines, which are led by core gamers. So the regular motto is "core gamers matter more than anything else and as long as we have them happy, everything will be good". Main problem with this line of thought is that many core gamers deny change and refuse opening the gates to newcomers.
  
• Big companies follow this motto and in fact make this motto come true. As long as things stay the same, they will remain on top.
  
• Potential for new chances are seen as irrelevant. Third parties will offer new products to the newcomers. Low quality proyects hoping some of them will ring the bell like with Carnival Games. Potential loses will remain low and earnings will help feeding their biggest proyects.
  
• Most third parties don't really know what to do with Wii consumers. It's a different setting and they just don0't know how to exploit it.
  
• They don't realise the secret is offering what they're good at since Nintendo won't be offering that. Other smaller players will join the game and offer that something new top costumers.
  
• It's an ill industry the one we see when the biggest third party earns more money with a 8+ years old system than with the hottsts actual system.
  
• Some big players will fall and some small ones will rise under such circumstances.
  
• Disapointed as a Wii owner, but quite excited as an industry watcher.
  
• The paradigm shift will engulf many valid concepts of today, just like happened with the transition from 2D to 3D.
  
• Just a quick look at wiiware makes you realise how good could be Wii games if it wasn't because publishers are fucking it.
  
• No need to be very clever to see the big lie they're telling us.
  

[Calza]

Games on 360 and PS3 do sell but it more of risk to get good sales.

 

How did Zack and Wiki fare then? It is not more of a risk, sure they may be more overheads, but I wonder how much Red Steel cost Ubisoft, but they have got two consoles to sell it on, availability of premium content, much better online infrastructure.

 

As usual it all boils down to the usual arguments, "Wii is a fad", "There are no games, just non-games, etc...".

Most Wii owners leave it in the dust, yet games are still selling, so people buy the games because they like throwing away money? Don't mistake your micro-cosmos for the entire market.

It's obvious people have their mind set and won't change anyway, so what's the point? Does everything need to be seen in black and white?

Also, Wii "quite clearly" isn't easy to develop and whatnot, yep, makes sense.

 

You obviously havn't seen whats been selling? How long has Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games been in the top ten? Wii Play, Game Party all outselling Super Mario Galaxy. Now that is a sad sigh indeed.

[Tellyn]

Thank you, Dante.

 

People say games sell on PS3/360, but I bet there's loads of failures, at much higher price for the dev.

 

Look at Lair, a commercial and critical failure for the usually very good Factor 5. The team are now making a brand new Wii game and have turned to licenses to presumably claim back money gambled on Lair.

 

- Just a quick look at wiiware makes you realise how good could be Wii games if it wasn't because publishers are fucking it.

 

I've been singing WiiWare's praises for months. How many people in here who are complaining have played a WiiWare game, may I ask?

[Shino]

How did Zack and Wiki fare then? It is not more of a risk, sure they may be more overheads, but I wonder how much Red Steel cost Ubisoft, but they have got two consoles to sell it on, availability of premium content, much better online infrastructure.

 

Red Steel was shit, and sold a lot more than it deserved. I doubt it would sell as much on the other two consoles. And for the online part, its obvious Wii gamers don't give half the thought 360 gamers give, so its less costs for them.

 

You obviously havn't seen whats been selling? How long has Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games been in the top ten? Wii Play, Game Party all outselling Super Mario Galaxy. Now that is a sad sigh indeed.

 

Since when is this new? I remember when the Crazy Frog game was on the top of the overall chart in Europe, before we even knew what was the Wii.

[Tellyn]

Red Steel was a million seller.

[Hellfire]

The Wii set out to change the market, it did, things still are a little shaky, but people are so damn defensive about their "hardcore games", HD, "AAA" and epic games that they refuse to see everything else, the Wii, as every Nintendo product gets a big bullseye painted on it by the gaming community and shit starts flying everywhere.

Only now can a dev change its focus after a year of success it's safe® to invest on the Wii, it was a huge risk to do so before as it was with DS, changing a company's focus isn't like choosing what clothes to wear, it takes time. Some developers will start (a lot already did) focusing more on the Wii, others will still go the easy way by releasing PS2/Wii games until PS2 stops selling and this is Wii's major problem, the perceived proximity between it and PS2.

The truth is, with the paradigm shift they had in mind, anyone that didn't see the need for having more than one console to have a "complete" experienve was very near sighted.

A few years back, everyone barked at the mainstream consumers that gobbled football, tits and guns, now that turned into the real gaming, while the new people that Wii and DS are ignored, despite the fact that they're making the industry bigger, giving small companies a chance and by being introduced to gaming with the likes of Eye Toy, Wii Fit and Wii sports, lots will eventually start playing other types of games, thus paving the way for the future of the market.

While the market wasn't that near of being exclusive to a niche of fetishists or whatever that analyst said, there has to be some sort of welcoming mat for new people, developers need to reach out to people with real initiative for gaming to grow, while what we have been seeing since Playstation was kind of the opposite, people just casually became interested in games by themselves.

It's hard not to stray off-topic when discussing this, but the point is, things are getting better, and even so, in this time I've had much more games that I enjoyed than with any other console, so I had no reason to complain, now I wait and see what happens.

 

EDIT: Calza, is it hard to understand these game numbers? Wii has a much broader market than the other consoles, it's obvious that type of games will sell. Not to mention you're ignoring something: games that have legs. We haven't seen that in a while (or we rarely did) and it was one of the industry's biggest problems. Also, Mario & Sonic is a pretty fun game, Wii Sports and Wii Play are cheap (people buy Wii Play because of the remote) and Brawl, Mario Kart and Galaxy are still selling a lot, so why should I care? It's not like the existance of "casual games" forces the "hardcore" gamers not to buy Mario and Metroid. If it isn't selling as much as they wanted, maybe it's because they're not buying it? Also, Red Steel (which I like, it's not great, but it's enjoyable), was a pretty big investement. Zack & Wiki didn't sell a lot, but it sold more than Capcom expected according to them.

[Gizmo]

Ultrajamie,I think that your statements are very critical.

 

A)I agree that the graphics play a major role to the gaming experiense.

But I think you are overacting stating as argument 'grey blocks flying through space'.We know that Wii is a bit more powerfull than Xbox and maybe we all remember some very technical demanding games for this console as Riddick,Half Life 2 and Doom 3.If Xbox 1 can achieve these,then Wii can do a lot better.And certainly not with the kind of graphics you previously described.

Lastly,please remember that this 'weak' graphics perception for Wii's capabilities is happening because of 3d parties games.They dont try,they keep releasing crap and with few exceptions we all have the image that Wii is in par with ps2 graphically.I think that Super Mario Galaxy,Metroid Prime3 prove the opposite.

 

 

Take a look at the PC system specs for Half Life 2 and then look at the system specs for Assassins Creed. Take a look at the specs of the Wii then take a look at the specs of the Xbox 360. The Wii is not as powerful, it never will be. It cannot handle the things the Xbox can. It's alot harder to "downgrade" a game while keeping the game the same than you seem to perceive it. Look at how badly RE4 suffered when it was ported to the PS2 from the GC. The differences between those two are alot smaller than between Wii and PS3/360.

 

B)I own ALL 3 consoles and in my modest opinion I have NOT seen anything so much demanding that can not being achieved in some form in the Wii.

Do you honestly anyone who played Assassin's Creed considers the A.I next-gen?Please,play the game and see with your own eyes how crappy the A.I and the framerate is.

Anyway,this argument is basically subjective and we can keep talking forever so in the end it does not matter.

 

You really think Assassins Creed could achieve that level of detail, draw distance, scale on Wii? You clearly know nothing about the technical aspects of game development.

 

C) I think that I stated pretty detailed the REASONS for the minimum support in my own opinion.If someone believes something else please post it.

 

Can't remember what you posted before and I'm too lazy to check back so I'll leave out this part of your post.

 

Ultrajamie,I thank you for your civilized post.

 

 

Calza,your point makes no sense.

Noone said that Ininity Ward must redo the job and spent another 8-12 months redoing it.Activision is the biggest 3d party developper now(even bigger from EA) and easily can outsource it.Even EA found a way to outsource the Orange Box to another dev house as Valve refused to develop for PS3.You see the pattern?It doesnt matter what the developer wants,the publisher always decides.

 

So it's that easy to outsource a job to a developer who will do a competent job? To find a dev with the time and resources to port a PS3/360 game to Wii without having to be watched over through the whole process isn't going ot be easy nor cheap.

 

Also, Valve outsourced porting Orange Box to EA, not the other way around. Even then, EA did a pretty poor job of it. If that's how the PS3 manages a game that the original Xbox could handle when the port is bad (despite being done by the biggest company in the games industry), do you really think IW would be able to get someone to do CoD4 effectively, efficiently and still have it be profitable/worth their time?

 

I agree that CoD4 is one of the finest FPS of the last years.IW does not have any bias against the Wii.More or less,IW let their opus to run in low-tech PC's with low resolution,almost no lighting and slow framerate.Why did they decide something like that?They did not.The publisher took the decision!

That's the same reason for actually letting CoD5 released on Wii.

 

I have no idea what you're saying here.

 

CoD5 is being developed by a different team than CoD4. Other than the brand name it shares nothing. Just check out the bug ridden shitfest that is CoD3 for an example on the comparing quality. Also, the Wii version is being developed alongside the PS2 version, it is not a port of the 360/PS3/PC version.

 

Dear Gizmo,I have no intentions to keep remember your insults for me and for other members.Please,if you have something important or serious to tell that reflects your superiority and intelligence,do it.

Untill then,it's better to keep quite.

 

k.

 

Frankly I'm bored of saying the same things over and over again to people who can't take the time to type properly. Not just you. There seems to be a direct correlation between poor typing and lack of intelligence.

 

That said, I make alot of typo's.

 

That's not 90% of the userbase though.

 

[anecdotal evidence]Most people I know are in that boat.[/anecdotal evidence]

 

I doubt the actual figure is 90% though I suspect it was said more as a bit of hyperbole than as an accurate figure.

[Hellfire]

Gizmo, the Wii can do what XBox does and more. Unless you're talking about 360.

I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of games on 360/PS3/Wii at the same time, it is indeed hard to scale down certain games, some of them wouldn't even be possible to some extent, but tbh, so far this isn't the case for a lot of them, it wouldn't be hard to see some 360/PS3 on the Wii. I'm curious to see Sonic.

But that's not why I bought the Wii for, on the contrary :P

[Gizmo]

Gizmo, the Wii can do what XBox does and more. Unless you're talking about 360.

I don't think we'll be seeing a lot of games on 360/PS3/Wii at the same time, it is indeed hard to scale down certain games, some of them wouldn't even be possible to some extent, but tbh, so far this isn't the case for a lot of them, it wouldn't be hard to see some 360/PS3 on the Wii. I'm curious to see Sonic.

But that's not why I bought the Wii for, on the contrary :P

 

I know. I'm pointing out the effect a bad port can have, when the PS3 can struggle with what the Xbox managed, and hence how IW would actually have to put a decent amount of time and resources to porting CoD4, despite what people seem to think.

[Ren of Heavens]

Even the sales flop Gamecube had more third party backup in terms of quality and exclusives: Capcom with Resident Evil remake, RE0, the fantastic RE4 and Viewtiful Joe (the latter two was at least exclusive for some time). Sega with Super Monkey Ball, Namco with Tales of Symphonia and Factor 5 with the Rogue Leader games. It also had some fine multiplatform titles like Soul Calibur II, SSX3, Prince of Persia, Timesplitters 2, Burnout 2, Beyond Good And Evil etc.

[Hellfire]

You're comparing a console that had a full cycle and did more of the same with a 1 year old console that was totally different from the rest?

[Emasher]

I really don't understand the Wii has no good games argument. There are tons of games that are of decent enough quality for it. I'm perfectly happy with mine with mostly just first party titles. Its my only current gen system too. Although I do agree that some third parties could be doing a much better job, I probably wouldn't really buy to many of their games anyway. Alot of other people on here are probably in the same boat.

[Zechs Merquise]

I really don't understand the Wii has no good games argument. There are tons of games that are of decent enough quality for it. I'm perfectly happy with mine with mostly just first party titles. Its my only current gen system too. Although I do agree that some third parties could be doing a much better job, I probably wouldn't really buy to many of their games anyway. Alot of other people on here are probably in the same boat.

 

I have loads of Wii games, spend hours on Mario Kart with my mates and haven't had so much fun with a system since the N64 4 player Goldeneye days!

 

Are there that many great exclusives on the PS3? If you want go play Lair and Haze, oh and all the inferior versions of games also on the 360

[darkjak]

I cant help but think this thread is heavily related to ageism.

 

I know LOADS of young people (15 and under) who love the wii and think it's the greatest thing ever. I also know lots of ageing adults who think exactly the same thing. Too many people are looking at the whole situation as a traditional gamer wanting too gorge on AAA games every two months.

 

That is partially correct. We want high quality AAA games. Often and in large quantities.

But like I said, some genres are completely, or at least nearlt completely missing on the Wii.

[panmusic]

Take a look at the PC system specs for Half Life 2 and then look at the system specs for Assassins Creed. Take a look at the specs of the Wii then take a look at the specs of the Xbox 360. The Wii is not as powerful, it never will be. It cannot handle the things the Xbox can. It's alot harder to "downgrade" a game while keeping the game the same than you seem to perceive it. Look at how badly RE4 suffered when it was ported to the PS2 from the GC. The differences between those two are alot smaller than between Wii and PS3/360.

 

 

Look how good RE4 sold on ps2.Even better than the GC version.Yes,the port was difficult for Capcom but in the long term they managed to gain big bucks from this.And this is what matters.Every port is an investion.No matter how much it costs,the profit determines everything.And Wii has by far the biggest userbase.In the end,Capcom didnt screw their loyal Sony audience and also managed to make a HUGE profit.

 

You really think Assassins Creed could achieve that level of detail, draw distance, scale on Wii? You clearly know nothing about the technical aspects of game development.

 

Level of detail,of course not.Noone says that Wii is powerfull enough for this.

But for draw distance and scale I dissagree.Please remember GTA3 SA for ps2 that arguably is more superior in scale than AC.Surely Wii can do a lot better.

 

 

 

So it's that easy to outsource a job to a developer who will do a competent job? To find a dev with the time and resources to port a PS3/360 game to Wii without having to be watched over through the whole process isn't going ot be easy nor cheap. .

 

 

 

We talk about millions of dollars here.If a publisher wants it of course it is easy to find them.

 

 

 

Also, Valve outsourced porting Orange Box to EA, not the other way around. Even then, EA did a pretty poor job of it. If that's how the PS3 manages a game that the original Xbox could handle when the port is bad (despite being done by the biggest company in the games industry), do you really think IW would be able to get someone to do CoD4 effectively, efficiently and still have it be profitable/worth their time?.

 

 

 

Now,I am not sure.CoD4 is already 6 months in the shops and it is pretty difficult now to sell really exceptional.But if the game was released in time alongside the other versions and all the marketing hype,then I am sure that would be easily at least a million seller on Wii.

I am not sure that Valve can force EA to port Orange Box.As they numerous times said,they couldnt even think about a PS3 port because of their dislike about the console.EA actually forced(or persuaded) them to approve a PS3 port for bigger profit.I have said it again.Publihers decide,not developers.

 

 

 

 

CoD5 is being developed by a different team than CoD4. Other than the brand name it shares nothing. Just check out the bug ridden shitfest that is CoD3 for an example on the comparing quality. Also, the Wii version is being developed alongside the PS2 version, it is not a port of the 360/PS3/PC version.

 

 

 

CoD is not the only franchise that is developed by different teams.Splinter Cell is the first to come in mind.SCs were all ported to Nintendo consoles and I may add that these ports were pretty mediocre.But nothing stopped them to decide the port.Nor the quality,neither the development team.

As for CoD3 being a bug ridden shitfest I agree.And I also add Red Steel to this category.But I will add that a lot of HD games are bug ridden shitfests in the begining.In order to rid of the bugs,publishers and developers provide numerus patches for them.Remember how many patches were released for CoD3 and 4 in order to play well.Clearly,this is Nintendo's fault and only.

Soon enough,Nintendo announced that will allow patches for Wii games.

 

k.

 

Frankly I'm bored of saying the same things over and over again to people who can't take the time to type properly. Not just you. There seems to be a direct correlation between poor typing and lack of intelligence.

 

That said, I make alot of typo's.

 

 

 

[anecdotal evidence]Most people I know are in that boat.[/anecdotal evidence]

 

I doubt the actual figure is 90% though I suspect it was said more as a bit of hyperbole than as an accurate figure.

 

Sorry for my grammar,but english is not my native language.

Don't let it influence our conversation.

We can comunicate pretty well.

 

Anyway,thanks for your post Gizmo.

 

 

Calza,with the same logic, Wii Play and Wii Sports outsold not only Mario Galaxy but also Halo3,Gears of War,CoD4 etc.

But let's talk more specifically.I will not compare the sales of a pack-in game and a game that is released alongside a Wiimote to prove any point.

Do you honestly think that Game Party outsold Mario Galaxy?I hope not.If you check the software sales you'll see that Mario Galaxy has sold more than 6 millions worldwide according to Nintendo.

Mario Galaxy outsold Gears of War,CoD4,Assassin's Creed and it is very close to Halo 3 numbers.

When SSBB is released in Europe will pass Mario Galaxy's sales.

The point is that hardcore games still sell on Wii on par or better with the hardcore games in other consoles.

 

 

Finally,I repeat that noone expect Wii ports to be on par graphically with the HD consoles.And of course RE5 and CoD4 will be much inferior.

What I try to say is that Wii can provide similar experiences with a superior control scheme.

The audience is pretty big to actually choose what version of the said game suits better.If someone wants high end graphics with dual analog control has the opportunity to play his game.If someone else prefers inferior but acceptable graphics but with superior control (after RE4 WE it is difficult for a lot of people to return to last-gen controls for a RE),then he has also the right to play the same game.

 

 

BTW,Dante excellent post!

[Goron_3]

Panmusic...

If a game like RE5 and CoD4 was on the Wii, it's not just the graphics that would take a massive fall...you know that right? The AI and number of enemies on screen at once would be COMPLETELY different! This means the set pieces on the games would be so different and lose most of their atmosphere and tension. I mean, would you rather have 20 bad guys on a screen all trying to kill you or simply 4-5? And even if they did increase numbers the graphics and framerate would be dreadful. That's not the only problem either...you have to remember that lighting and online would also be dreadful.

 

Porting from ps3/360 does not work. They are two COMPLETELY different sets of machines.

[Pit-Jr]

Porting from ps3/360 does not work. They are two COMPLETELY different sets of machines.

 

Fortuntely we dont see too many companies attempting this.

 

Unfortunately porting from the PS2 to the Wii DOES work.

 

I leave you with this simple formula

 

Half-assed hardware=half-assed games

[panmusic]

Panmusic...

If a game like RE5 and CoD4 was on the Wii, it's not just the graphics that would take a massive fall...you know that right? The AI and number of enemies on screen at once would be COMPLETELY different! This means the set pieces on the games would be so different and lose most of their atmosphere and tension. I mean, would you rather have 20 bad guys on a screen all trying to kill you or simply 4-5? And even if they did increase numbers the graphics and framerate would be dreadful. That's not the only problem either...you have to remember that lighting and online would also be dreadful.

 

Porting from ps3/360 does not work. They are two COMPLETELY different sets of machines.

 

Goron_3...

I understand your point.Of course the graphics would take amassive hit.

But I am not sure about A.I and the number of enemies on screen.

Honestly,I have not seen anything in terms on A.I in any PS3/360 game that exceeds last-gen games.In AC the A.I is one of the worst I have ever seen.

Please,if you have a game in mind with A.I that's trully revolutionary please infom me.

As for the number of enemies on screen,I remember that in RE4 there were a lot of occasions where the screen was filled with 20 enemies or more with good A.I.

As for CoD4,I dont think that this is a big problem.In CoD3 they managed to have 40+ enemies simultaneously on the screen and this was a launch ugly port.In CoD4,they achieved something like that with the famous respawning trick.I am not sure that anywhere in the game there were 20+ enemies at exactly the same time on screen.

These are tricks than can be easily achieved on the Wii.

 

 

I dont think that the framerate would be dreadfull.The lighting can be pre-rendered as the Alone in the Dark version for the Wii.

Easily,that wasn't a problem for Atari's decision to port the game for Wii.

The same applies for Star Wars The Force Unleashed.

The buying point for these games is not graphics.Is the revolutionary control.

Believe me,there are a lot of people that prefer to play these games with Wiimote rather than having high-end graphics.

They are not morons,they simply have different taste and publishers must show respect.

As DS(ang Gameboy) showed us very clearly is that if a publisher decides for the platform,the developers follow.

[Gizmo]

Assassins Creed is like the worst example you can use. Sure, it wasn't great AI, but the level of detail on the buildings (which is NEEDED to allow climbing), the population crowding every corner of the cities, etc. If you really think AC is possible on the Wii you don't understand what goes into it and it kind of voids the rest of your argument.

[Caris]

I have not seen anything in terms on A.I in any PS3/360 game that exceeds last-gen games.

 

Have you played Halo 3, FEAR, Gears etc?

 

Anyways i don't even know why this topic is here in the first place, people have said whats already been posted multiple times before.