In the competition among the makers of video-game consoles, momentum for the Wii from Nintendo is building among crucial allies: game developers and publishers.
Inspired by the early success of the Wii, the companies that create and distribute games are beginning to shift resources and personnel toward building more Wii games, in some cases at the expense of the competing systems, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and Xbox 360 from Microsoft.
Jon Goldman said developers were spending 25 percent more time on Wii. Nintendo said that titles would be coming from several major developers, like Activision and Ubisoft, that are making an enhanced commitment to the system.
It is early in the current console product cycle, given that these machines are intended to be on the market for more than five years. Industry analysts said they did not expect to declare a victor anytime soon. Unlike Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft lose money selling game consoles, but they are not ready to cede the market. Nevertheless, the trend is clear.
Development time, development costs for the Wii are half to a quarter of those for competitors. In a 5-year product cycle, you can turn games for Microsoft or Sony consoles maybe 3 times tops – while turning your offerings for the Wii 5 times.
It doesn’t take an MBA to comprehend the attractiveness of the Wii for small-to-medium size developers.
What I find interesting about the whole Wii success story is the nature of focus. The 360 came out at a price of $400, and could play DVD (and now HD-DVD) movies, download movies, play music either on its own hard drive or via external connection. And it can play games focused on males 18-30 years of age.
Oh, sure, there are now so-called “casual” games on the 360 as well – if you want to pay $400 to play “Settlers of Catan” instead of the $20 the board game would cost you.
Sony’s device started at $500 (though you’d have to pay $600 to get one that wasn’t half busted – they couldn’t include memory card readers in the 20 GB version?), and can play Blu-Ray movies, play music, has the Home feature, lets you install Linux – and plays games. Games which, so far, have been squarely focused on males 18-30 years of age.
Nintendo designed the Wii to do one thing: play games, for $249 (as much as the most expensive iPod Nano, which still sells rather well). Sure, it can now surf the web, but it’s an afterthought. The first thing you do with it is play a game. The only thing you can download are – games. The other abilities (photo and music) are pretty, uh, lame, and it was clear they didn’t spend time focusing on it. No, the focus is games. Games that are focused on an age group of 8 – 80.
And, as the article mentions, it’s cheap to make games for it – at least compared to the other two consoles. Play games on the Wii is just fun – I’ve been playing through “Resident Evil 4” for the first time, and it’s perfectly natural: you point at the bad guy, and you shoot them in the head.
Now, I’m sure in time that the 360 will fix their hardware problems and be attractive to more people, and the PS3 will hit their stride as games like “Final Fantasy XIII” come out and use the 50 GB of storage space to create the most bishonen characters *ever*. And by then, Nintendo will have laughed some more to the bank while women decide that $70 for the “Wii Fit” exercise board is a great idea to get into shape after the new year.
I have to give Nintendo credit: they kept their focus, they learned from their mistakes, and they have earned their success. Now it’s up to Sony and Microsoft to learn the same lesson and show us how badly they want our money.
Pleople keep forgetting that in the end: the Wii, PS3 and XBOX 360 are toys. Yes, very expensive but toys nevertheless.
The point of a toy is have fun, I just got my Wii and it’s simple to use and very straight-forward, no need to learn how to use a million and a half buttons so my wife can come and enjoy videogames with me, and that it’s what it’s all about having fun.
I do love videogames, had a PS2 and PSX and loved them both. Played the orginal XBOX and enjoyed it. but no game system was as fun yet simple to play for me as the Wii since the atari 2600 era…. hehehe
Building on what #1 said, it’s also important to note that the target audience of the Wii gives it a very interesting selling point for game developers (whether they act on it or not, however is a different matter):
With the large consumer base and a focus on what is often somewhat derisively called “casual gamers,” the Wii gives game producers the ability to create far more oddball games than the standard shooter/RPG/sports fare that is churned out to the other gaming platforms, and allows them to make money on those niche games. A platform that allows your creativeness in gaming go nuts, and still have a fair chance of finding a decent market? What developer would want to miss out on that opportunity?
The last time we saw something like this was (afair) the dancing games for the first Play Station — and the rather quick introduction of the Wii Fit shows that Nintendo is fully aware of how many small oddball uses, particularly when applied to oddball consumers (as in “not your average gamer”) can add up to huge profits.
Development time, development costs for the Wii are half to a quarter of those for competitors.
Turns out the opportunity provided with larger storage mediums and higher graphics resolutions simply can’t be accessed by the average game developer in today’s market.
My response: Too fucking bad. Gaming over the past ten years has been about faster, more complicated games, not fun and creative. They deserve to get bit in the ass.
Hey all you guys can see my nick on the Boom Boom Rocket leader-board!!! Woo hoo, I cracked top 500 (out of more than a million) on one of the songs on hard!
When Rock Band releases it is gonna burn a serious hole in my pocket. When you compare the buzz between that game and any future releases for the wii, it really becomes apparent that even among rhythm gamers the wii really is second best. Although I am certain I will never buy the microphone.
Then there is also the game Crack Down. Wow… running around a fictional city causing mayhem… With a buddy. Who knew how much fun that would be.
And movie downloads… As far as I am concerned the whole HDDVD vs Bluray thing is irrelevant. The winner is XBox(and the statistics supprt that notion).
Here is hoping that microsoft eventually makes money on the xbox, because it has relegated my home pc to web browsing and email. My conspiracy theory is… Microsoft wont release a web browser for the xbox because then they wont sell windows to home users anymore. People would just buy xboxes at that point, and use em as a web browser, an activity that would lose microsoft money.
Uh, #5? Did you know that GH3 is coming to the Wii this fall, and Rock Band sometime after Christmas? Yeah. I don’t get your point.
Oh, that’s right – your 360 rules, everything else sucks, and Microsoft is wonderful, except when you have to return it to get fixed. OK – got it.
Uh, #5? Did you know that GH3 is coming to the Wii this fall, and Rock Band sometime after Christmas? Yeah. I don’t get your point.
Oh, that’s right – your 360 rules, everything else sucks, and Microsoft is wonderful, except when you have to return it to get fixed. OK – got it.
See, the problem is that the statistics *don’t* support your notion that “The winner is Xbox” – the sales trends between the PS3 and the 360 are exactly the same for the first 10 months so far. Save for the 1 year head start, there’s no stastical difference between the sales of the two consoles.
PS3 and 360 will get a lot of the same games over time, though I guess we’ll see what happens in the long run. But right now, I don’t think this is a slam dunk for the 360. As the article mentions, right now developers are seeing far more sales on the Wii than the other two systems – and that will lead to its own dynamic.
I think what both number 5 and to an extent number 6 fail to notice is that the consoles are actually a 3 way split and each is perfect at what it intends to do. By that i mean:
The 360 (which i own so i’m going to be slightly bias) is aimed at the more “serious” gamer. When you sign up to xbox live one of the first things it trys to sort out is what you like and categorise you as a gamer. The games are designed to be very good looking and “grown up” to an extent. The main focus on the 360 as with the xbox was realism with “silly” and “fun” games added in almost as an after thought and as with the xbox the 360 does it main gaming function well.
The PS3 is in a different area to the xbox as it does both “fun” and “silly” games and serious games right from the start and is designed to play both perfectly its the happy medium between the Wii and the 360 if you like. I’ve spent a wee bit of time of the PS3 and i feel that it does seem to manage to do the realism aspect of the 360 (while not quite as good though this maybe as its newer) and the fun side of the Wii equally.
Then we come to the snazzy little Wii the family console design for anyone and this it does well its not a patch on the power of the other two consoles but thats not the point of it the point is for the games themselves to be fun and to an extent crazy. The way the ui works is a sign of this the price tag to is another good indicator that this console is the only one designed for anyone and everone. the games range from grown up to childish to as far as i no educational and further which no other console does. while the grown up games at best will match a ps2 “i belive though i maybe wrong” thats not the point of the thing. its fun (i feel ive repeated mayself).
To me the real battle is going to be between the 360 and the PS3 and its the battle for second place the majority will buy the Wii as it’s sutable for everyone so thats the winner but the second place scrap will be interesting.
My money’s on the 360 though as i recon a sencible and serious gamer would own a 360 and a Wii (the best of both worlds). which if i’ve used the calculator correctly which is £459.59 for the wii and the premium xbox. which is £34 more then a console that does both ok. (the other advantage is that they both mach and arn’t fugly)
thats just me though
Let me consider…
The 360 must be hooked up to the net, for about 1/2 the funtions, including updates.
The PS3, has the same idea…
Neither one BURNS data, if you collected music or a movie OFF the internet.
Both are playing at Gaining Support with PvP games, Multiplayer Shoot-em ups.
Wii, was designed to work out of the box, with No updates. Just for Fun and interaction. Not shooting each other, No over thinking. ANd its hackable, with Little or NO configuration problems.
I’ll wait 6 months more, to give the PS3, and Wii an equal 1 year Startup chance, and see how they are doing.
something to ponder…
Both 360 and PS3 came out Shooting..
yep, with shooting games ready and loaded, and little else to look forward to.
With diff religious groups, and Family’s that DIDNt want there kids Shooting each other… It was a concern for the younger folks.
with those above 30 it was “SAME OLD THING, nothing but killing”.
The Wii jumped up and Just made a Basic machine, that did everything else.. you dont need REALISTIC colors and Backgrounds to play a GAME.
#7,
Oh please. What this article means is that the small software shops will be porting some of their XBox live games to the wii(geometry wars galaxy woo woo). That is all. Software wise, no one is even coming close to the xbox right now. Peripheral wise, the only new thing coming is the Wii fit. Woo woo, in this game you do push ups!
As for when (and if) my xbox breaks… Ohhhh noes!!! I have a three year warranty. And from my anecdotal experience talking to people online, the RRoD is a huge piece of PS3 fanboy hyperbole. I think that microsofts statement that it affects 3-5% of users is closer to the truth than the blog’o’spheres 30% made up from one data point figure.
Also, maybe I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t talking games, I was talking movie formats. The winner of the hddvd movies vs Blueray movies format is the internet. Thats right, the way you are gonna watch your next gen hi def movies is from downloads. The sneaker net formats ALL fail.