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Everyone knows it's hugely successful, everyone understands it has brought a new audience to games (or at least to game consoles - handheld platforms and online casual gaming have been pulling in families, old people and middle-aged women for years),but there still seems to be a bit of confusion around about what Wii isand how to create a strong software market for Nintendo's oddity.
The New York Times ran a pieceyesterday about how Wii gamers don't buy that many games. Sure, hardlygroundbreaking stuff - we know that the console basically survives onits big in-house titles, and we know that third-party devs have hadtrouble producing compelling games (see here for the latest article on the subject).
However, the writer points out that even the big-hitters aren'tpulling in the numbers. Super Smash Brothers, shifted 1.4 millioncopies in its first week in the States, but then sales dropped 90% overthe following month. Zack & Wiki and No More Heroes have alsofailed to make much of a dent on the charts.
Partly this isabout 'casual' gamers not having the same urgent need to keep buyinggames. Lazard Capital analyst, Colin Sebastian, told the NYT:
Quote:
You don't see a lot of titles that reach 30 to 40percent of the installed base. My in-laws in Texas have a Wii sittingon their living-room floor next to the TV, which to me is kind ofamazing. They have Wii Sports, a Brain Age game, Wii Play. That's aboutit.
But pundits are also placing some of the blame on poorly focused marketing:
Quote:
Game makers have yet to embrace unconventionaladvertising methods that can reach this broader audience. Nintendo didit by promoting its memory game Brain Age on the radio.
It's funny, but now that the games industry has made contact withthis strange alien race of non-hardcore gamers, they're not really surehow to talk to them. Not everyone can afford to hire Nicole Kidman topretend to enjoy their games on prime time TV slots - indeed, thatapproach might be too sophisticated for a lot of the new user base.
I mean, why is it always assumed that you must go super upmarketto capture a non-specialist audience? As a freelancer, I accidentallywatch quite a bit of daytime TV, yet during ad breaks, I rarely see Wiigames touting for business amid the stream of debt consolidationshysters. Why not? Not all Wii owners read Vogue.
Of course, it's debatable whether filling the airwaves with adswould make much difference - the underlying problem is, Wii owners justdon't buy that many games, and probably never will. I liked what MikeCapps, president of Epic Games, recently said about the popularity of the console. He referred to it as a viral phenomenon:
Quote:
It's a virus where you buy it and you play it with yourfriends. So you stop playing it after two months, but they buy it andthey stop playing it after two months but they've showed it to someoneelse who then go out and buy it and so on.
Your friend Reggie invites you over for a Wii Party.It's awesome. You and your friends partake in whatever beverages arelegally appropriate for your age group. The next day everyone who wentto the party rushes out and buys a Wii.A week later Reggie hosts another Wii Party. This time only half thegroup comes. It's still fun, but there isn't quite as much shoving toget at the Wiimote.
The next week Reggie hosts another Wii Party. You tell him you have bird flu.
Of course, both Brian and Mike are from the US school of hardcoregritty shooters, and Brian's insistence that Wii was a fad is nowlooking extremely dated. But they may have a point about the console'stransitory appeal - plus, their ambivalence speaks volumes about howthe industry is confused and factional in its relationship to themachine.
Almost everyone wants to love Wii, they're just not sure how. Andthis industry isn't geared up for complicated love affairs - at leastnot in the west, where development infrastructures are very much tunedtoward working on advanced 3D engines and then exploiting them withvarious boys own adventures.
I may be partisan, but I reckon mobile developers are going to riseup and steal the Wii third-party market away. They're used to dealingwith an entirely unpredictable audience, they're used to creating thesort of bizarre lifestyle/puzzle franchises that casual gamers gulp upin their millions; and mobile companies don't have any qualms aboutadvertising in 'low brow' places like the backs of magazines alongsideadult chat lines (heck, most of them write adult games).
That's my prediction. And that's probably why I'm not a highly paidmarketing analyst, dishing out stat-packed reports on the nature of Wii.
So why are retailers having so much trouble selling Wii games?
TakeSuper Smash Bros. Brawl. It was one the most hotly anticipated videogames of the year; it sold more than 1.4 million copies during thefirst week of its release, in early March, and broke records forNintendo of America.
“We certainly have a built-in fan base forSmash,” said Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America’s vice president forcorporate affairs. “I’m hoping that we can continue to generate successand awareness of the game.”
But sales dropped more than 90percent over the first four weeks, according to estimates from VGChartz, a team of analysts who study video-game sales.
Some major retail chains — including Wal-Martand Toys “R” Us — have already begun bundling the Smash Bros. game withWii machines for sales online, a sign that the base of hard-core gamerswho went looking for the game has been depleted.
Retailersconfirm the sharp drop. “We sold a couple thousand copies in the firstweek,” said Xavier Pervez, assistant manager at a GameStop in Fairfield, Conn. “It’s dropped off significantly now, maybe 100 in each of the last couple weeks.”
Quote:
Toys“R” Us has instructed its sales staff to warn customers that some Wiiscannot read the Smash Bros. disc, and to refuse to exchange the game ifcustomers later claim it is defective. Some parents who receive thatwarning are just as happy to buy a different game instead. But Nintendoclaims few Wiis are subject to the malfunction, and Toys “R” Us salesstaff said few customers have been dissuaded from buying or keeping thegame.
Quote:
“The number we got back for return was pretty minimal,” asaleswoman, Christina Giori, said. “Maybe eight copies out of 500. It’ssomething Nintendo’s really trying to crack down on.”
A number ofgames that garnered critical acclaim in recent months, notably thecartoonish action-adventure game Zack & Wiki and the off-kilteraction-adventure No More Heroes, have yielded disappointing sales.
Overthe first three months of the year, only three other Wii titles brokethe list of top 10 best-selling games compiled by the NPD Group, amarket research firm: Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero III and Wii Play,a sports game that comes with the purchase of a much-needed additionalgame controller. The Wii may not be behind the success of all thosetitles, though; Guitar Hero, for example, sold 2.2 million copies forthe Wii, but 2.8 million copies for the Xbox 360 and almost 5 millionfor two versions of the PlayStation.
The problem is that, inmarketing the Wii, Nintendo cast a wide net and caught more than thebig fish. The Wii’s innovative motion-sensitive controller and a pricelower than the rival machines appeal to a broader audience than thetraditional market of young male hard-core gamers. Younger children,women and older consumers, who historically have not been sought by thevideo-game industry, have discovered video games through the Wii — justnot that many of them.
These new gamers are content with thegames they have, often going no further than the Wii Sports game thatcomes with the machine. They don’t buy new games with the fervor of atraditional gamer who is constantly seeking new stimulation.
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Theaverage Wii owner buys only 3.7 games a year, compared with 4.7 forXbox 360 owners and 4.6 for PlayStation 3 owners, said a Wedbush Morgananalyst, Michael Pachter. “It reflects the broadening of thedemographic,” he said. “Nintendo’s market doesn’t feel the same senseof urgency to buy every game that’s coming out.”
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“You don’t see alot of titles that reach 30 to 40 percent of the installed base,” saida Lazard Capital analyst, Colin Sebastian. “My in-laws in Texas have aWii sitting on their living-room floor next to the TV, which to me iskind of amazing. They have Wii Sports, a Brain Age game, Wii Play.That’s about it.”
Part of the problem, analysts say, is thatother game makers have yet to embrace unconventional advertisingmethods that can reach this broader audience. Nintendo did it bypromoting its memory game Brain Age on the radio.
Quote:
“Advertising on GameInformer and 1up.comjust isn’t reaching this audience,” Mr. Pachter said. “When you make agame like Zack & Wiki or Boogie, which turns the hard core off anddoesn’t reach the masses, then you’re in trouble.”
Still, not allthird-party publishers have found the Wii market difficult to crack.Multiplatform games like Ubisoft’s Rayman: Raving Rabbids, a cartoonaction-adventure, have found receptive audiences.
Hudson Soft has had success with titles including Sudoku, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles and fishing games.
Quote:
“Thekind of person that buys a Wii is not the same kind of person that buysa PS3 or an Xbox,” said John Greiner, the chief executive of HudsonEntertainment, the North American arm of Hudson Soft. “You have to bevery specific when you design a game and target not only the gameplaymechanics for that user, but also the marketing for that kind of aproduct launch.”
Hudson has also benefited from an especiallyclose relationship with Nintendo. Hudson developed Mario Party 8,consistently one of the Wii’s top sellers, and has been one of thegreatest beneficiaries of the Wii Virtual Console, which charges usersto play classic video games.
Nintendo itself seems primarilyfocused on expanding this casual audience, while continuing to deliversequels to its most beloved franchises including Mario Kart Wii, thelatest incarnation of its popular driving simulator, which will bereleased next week.
Ms. Kaigler, the Nintendo spokeswoman, saysthe company hopes Mario Kart will serve as a “bridge title” betweencasual gamers and core fans, with the help of a steering wheel deviceinto which a Wii controller can fit.
Wii Fit, an exercise gamedue next month, is expected to receive more marketing dollars than anygame in Nintendo’s history, Mr. Pachter said — and the money will notbe spent wooing young men. “Wii Fit is just not aimed at hard-coregamers,” Mr. Pachter said. “It’s definitely aimed at the Oprah crowd. I bet they sell a million units a week for every pound that Oprah says she lost on it.”
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