SineSwiper wrote:Zeus wrote:All I'm saying is let's get over the childish mentality of system bashing and discuss what truly matters (and the only thing that has ever mattered), the games themselves. But you actually have to know what's out there to have that discussion
Then let's talk about the games themselves. There is this claim out there that third parties has been the most successful on this console. So, which ones? Which third party is the most successful? Why the sudden shift?
Is it because every two bit developer jumped on the "waggle my dick" controller and produced whatever shit they thought the "casual gamer" masses want?
Again with the system bashing. The Wiimote is not inherently a bad thing, it's just different. I will give you that the majority of games toss it in and it sucks, but there are some games that use it incredibly well. Don't slam the system itself but rather the laziness of the developers who refuse to use it properly. Slam them and their stupid decisions and trying to shoehorn the waggle into something that it doesn't belong with and not the hardware itself. Even Nintendo was smart enough to realize when it shouldn't be there (Smash Bros and Mario Kart support GC controller and it's the only way to play them) and they're the ones who are supposed to be pushing it.
I was actually surprised by Seek's claim myself. I always though that it was the Nintendo-developed games that were the only ones that hit the million mark with an exception here and there. So let's do a breakdown and look at the titles. And we'll be talking about worldwide sales right now.
I'm also going to assume that selling a million copies worldwide is what we consider a "success" considering that represents $50 million in revenue at an average price of $50 each. It could be less or more but only the really big budget titles will reach that budget and very likely not too many for the GameCube 1.5 and for the types of games that are released on the system. I would be comfortable in saying that not a single one of those titles, save for maybe Smash Bros if you include the cost of the studio they built for him, would even come close. I hope you don't want to argue against the fact that a million copies is considered a success. We could probably even argue that sales of 500,000 is considered a "success" for all but a few select titles a year on the Wii but let's just stick with the sexy million figure for now since it's practically indisputable.
If you take a look at Flip's list, you have a Sega game at #7 (they both developed and published it), Guitar Heroes at #11 and #15, Lego Star Wars at #17, and EA Sports Active at #20. So, 75% or 15 of the top 20, all of which sold over 2 million copies worldwide, are Nintendo-developed titles (including Wii Sports, which is a bit of a misnomer since it was bundled everywhere but Japan; but I'll throw you that bone). That's what you would expect and what the stereotype is. But between #20 and #50 (I don't think those are the only million sellers and there may be a couple more, but we'll only consider these for now) the only Nintendo-developed titles are Mario Strikers at #22, Prime Corruption at #27, Pokemon Battle at #31, and Mario Superstar Sluggers at #45. That's only 4 of 30. Do all the math and you have 19 Nintendo-developed titles and 31 third-party titles that have sold more than a million copies. So 62% right there. Again, there may be a few others (this is only the top 50) and there's a solid chance they're third party based on the trend in the top 50, so Seek's numbers seem reasonable.
So have third parties been successful on the Wii unlike what the popular stereotype seems to be pushing? It certainly seems so with nearly 2/3rds of the top 50 games, all of which have sold over a million copies, are third-party developed and published games. It's even moreso considering that titles on this system will often have a far smaller budget than titles on the HD systems. Based on the information provided by Flip, the other Nintendo-basher, it would seem that the stereotype that third party games die on the Wii is completely and utterly busted.
Let's go one step further and analyze the top 50 for what are considered "hardcore" games since the other big stereotype is that there's only "casual" games on the system. Basically, we're going to put the titles into categories that the WiiFit crowd (casual) will play and ones they won't play (hardcore). We're also going to ignore whether or not they are "good" to eliminate subjectivity but rather focus on the target audience.
The titles that, to me, are indisputably "hardcore" (let's not get into a conversation of what that means since we all have a pretty similar conception of the term) and that the WiiFit crowd will certainly not play are:
Smash Bros, Zelda, Super Paper Mario, RE4, Prime 3, Force Unleashed, RE Umbrella, CoD: WaW, CoD3, Red Steel, House of the Dead 2 and 3
That's 11 of 50 or 22%. Super Paper Mario is one that you may think is not but look at what the game is. It's definitely for old-school platform / RPG fans only and a game that appeals more to the Super Mario RPG or Paper Mario crowd as opposed to the WiiFit crowd that you use as a lightning rod for your bitching.
Titles that will appeal to a good chunk of "gamers" and will be played by both sides (either equally or more by the "hardcore") are:
Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero 3, 4, and Aerosmith, Animal Crossing, Lego Star Wars, Wario Ware, Sonic Rings and Unleashed, Tiger Woods 8, Rock Band, Shawn White, Super Monkey Ball, Lego Indiana Jones, Tiger Woods 09, Lego Batman, PES 2008
That's another 16 or 32%. Coupled with the hardcore-only titles, you have over 50%. We could be a few percentage points more or less if we argue a couple games here or there, but it's certainly in and around 50%. So even the types or genres of games being geared mostly towards the WiiFit crowd appears to be close to being busted too based on the top sellers only (not the entire population of games).
We can argue all day as to what is good or what games you may or may not play (personally, I wouldn't play any sports games but a lot of gamers do) but based on the top 50 million selling games, a lot of these stereotypes just don't hold much water. It's only when you include personal bias and subjectivity do the stereotypes hold true.
