And Shuyin, you seem to be mixing arguments by bringing in 1st party games like Motorstorm (which only reached 3m thanks to EU bundles) and Halo 3. But, singling out 1st party games is pretty arbitrary anyway, especially if you’re looking at the overall userbase demand for “core” games.

The best selling games for 2008 so far are (in order, US only) Smash Brawl, GTA4 360, Mario Kart Wii, GTA4 PS3 and Wii Fit… 4 out of 5 are easily classed as traditional “core” games and half those are on Wii even. Now while it’s true 3rd party games haven’t been performing on level with Nintendo’s top efforts, there’s also been a lack of real AAA level 3rd party efforts on the machine too. Wii frankly hasn’t gotten anything on level with GTA4 or MGS4, so why should it’s comparable second stringer 3rd party efforts be expected to perform as if they were? When you compare like with like (ie: multiplatform games) many are now performing best on Wii (like Guitar Hero, Lego Star Wars, Tiger Woods, etc) though obviously not all (Madden sticks out).

No More Heroes… sure it sold 50k in Japan (and No More Heroes 2 aparently won’t get a japanese release), but it’s still Suda’s 51 fastest selling title over there, that’s faster than Killer 7 on both GC and PS2 to boot… who combined had a way bigger userbase at the time. Of course it’s still little, but even the release week managed to top killer7’s sales. The guy deserves to sell more and all that… but it’s not a platform thing at all.

Now Wii has more million sellers than PS3 (I remember hearing 28 million sellers already), and while motorstorm is first/second party you have plenty nintendo games on the 3 million mark, MGS4… right, and where’s the third party game with half the budget and half the marketing?

Also, we didn’t have CoD4, but we had CoD3 and it has been said that it sold more on the Wii than PS3, specially in Europe where the demand for it was really big.

But yeah, Wii has more million sellers this year alone than PS3 has (mario kart and Smash bros to boot, released in 2008), laugh all you want, it’s true. And weren’t we talking about total sales? now you’re trying to shift it to the biggest sellers? hey, hello? Wii sold more total units of software than X360, next to that; in fact, next to X360, PS3 is like holding a candle in the back really. So what’s the point?

As for the “oh Motorstorm 1 is third party” who published it? Sony Computer Entertainment, who paid it’s development? Sony. Going by that you could say Insomniac is not Sony’s (and thus their games are third party, which they aren’t), and it actually isn’t owned by sony to this day (look it up ) They just chose to be exclusive to Sony platforms, and get funding for it (hence second party because they want to and not because Sony owns the majority of the company), it’s sony’s just the same, just like motorstorm.

However, i wasn’t talking about J-only sales. It’s hard for games that aren’t Dragon Quest or Zelda or Final Fantasy to sell over 1 million copies in Japan.
I meant worldwide sales and i totally disagree that WII has the most 3rd party million sellers. Even the PS3 has some million sellers: MGS4 (4 millions) and Motorstorm 1* (3 millions – february 200), while other multiplatform games (like CoD 4 to name one) have reached the million mark on all consoles iirc. And i’m not even talking about the X360 which destroys N’s WII when it comes to 3rd party million sellers.

On the other hand, i didn’t know about RE4WII and the other 3rd party WII games that managed to sell 1 million copies. So color me surprised. If those games really reached the 1 million mark, i admit i was wrong. I wasn’t aware of those figures, so i guess hardcore games can sell great on WII too.

Nevertheless, i still find the “Wii sold more software this year in US than X360 did” argument very out of place, because i’m sure most of those numbers consist of WII Fit and other casual games. If you’re telling me that de blob, boom blox and trauma center (and whatever other 3rd party WII games youi want) sold more copies than GTA 4, Halo 3 and CoD4 (which both belong to the 2008 fiscal yearn), then i’m simply going to laugh. Really now, you can’t be serious about that.

*when they made the 1st Motorstorm, Evolution were a 3rd party development studio. They were acquired by Sony later.

Wii sold more software this year in US than X360 did, total units, games, retail software; full stop. And this is not an exageration, full stop.

Will GoW2 outsell all that? obviously not. And the sooner we’re over that the better. This is not a “Oh I think X game will sell more, in fact, that game alone will outsell everything!” it’s total sales, and reality, not opinion, preference or whatever, otherwise there’s no point in doing a discussion, if we’re just gonna make up “our” facts based on our perception alone.

As for million seller games from third party’s? Resident Evil, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Sonic and The Secret Rings (really great game actually), red steel (crap ubisoft game, but isn’t it aimed at “hardcore”?) and we could go on. All this third party, if you wanted Nintendo you’d have way more.

And even then, so the argument now is “hey hardcore games don’t sell like GoW2 will sell, or GTA4, or Silent Hill, or…”? Because if that’s it… First off, GoW2 is published by Microsoft Game Studios right? and certainly Nintendo is a worthy competitor to that, with good hardcore games at that.

And if we’re going at third party’s… where’s the GoW2 equivalent in appeal for instance? Where is that effort in third party’s as of now? And despite that… Wii sold more software this year than a platform with lots of third party’s going all out, total software sales, full stop.

It’s not just the machine that’s selling, the games are too, and third party ones at that. If they’d put their heart into it they could sell even more.

Really flawed logic you have going there, really, just give it up; no one is murdering X360 or anything here, we’re stating facts, not comparing what can’t be compared, there have been bigger high profile games at X360, and bigger marketing around them, so of course Wii doesn’t have a third party game rivaling the sales of GTA4… But isn’t that because there’s no GTA4 for the Wii? what’s the solution?

What about instead of always backtracking to the “it won’t sell” because software is selling and all that, going for “do such game on the Wii and see?”. Hell, Dragon Quest Swords a crappy on-rails spin-off of an RPG sold 710.000 units, that’s as much as Blue Dragon that came out first and is a full fledged, high budget RPG; and second party microsoft published at that.

Let’s stop being self centered and look at the facts like they are. Hardcore games don’t sell on the Wii? Bullcrap, and how about actually doing them? Because if x developer won’t… Another developer might try to capitalize on that, this is the case actually, a small publisher like marvelous with a previously handheld-only developer doing a killer RPG because Square-Enix is too busy mindless blasting money under Nomura.

This could cost them in the long run too, because the market has shifted and there’s a big userbase here, do you think when FF7 took off most gamers were familiar with it? no, hence it was the first RPG for them, and the reason why a lot of them still remember it as one hell of a game. And… was PSone regarded as hardcore? hell no, I even remember in Japan it was the oposite, Saturn was the hardcore one, and when in multiplatform releases Saturn used to sell more despite having a lower userbase (and this is not even appltable to the Wii, the Wii is hands down selling more), but it was regarded a “casual platform” (no such thing as casual); but was it? I’ll let story tell the rest.

If some developers don’t swallow that, and journalists at this point, instead of going for the surface standard and already proven wrong “stereotype” over and over again… It’s like they’re living a “groundhog day” made into a console generation, but where they’re the only ones for whoom the actual situation isn’t changing; so get on with the times.

One million units is a pretty high benchmark, a figure which no PS3 or 360 games have managed to make in Japan, 3rd party or otherwise. Looking at worldwide figures though, quite a few 3rd party Wii games have managed it (Red Steel, Resident Evil 4, Sonic & the Secret Rings, RE Umbrella Chronicles, Lego Star Wars, etc). Wii actually has more 3rd party million sellers than PS3.

But really now, can anyone say a 3rd party hardcore game sold great (great = 1 million copies or better) on the WII? Of course N games (Mario, Zelda) sell well… However, i think they’re the only games that sell well on the WII.

As things are, with only few games selling millions of copies(and those games being 1st party), the fact the ’some core games’ (if not most core games) don’t sell well on the WII is a truism.
note: it really depends on what everyone understands by selling well, as everything is of course subject to relativism.

I was kinda sad with the trailer music actually knowing it was yasumi mitsuda (or his studio, after luminous arc… we dunno) since they often use theme musics in those and it just seemed… uninspired for mitsuda.

Thankfully everything else in the vid rocked though

Yet and despite games selling and selling more than X360 does with killer apps and moneyhats we still have a lot of people ignoring that data and going “games have a problem selling on the Wii” yet most core games sold pretty well and some without any advertising, or without sufficient advertising when compared to other platforms to boot.

Thus, really… Journalists should stop making such a huge fuzz around “wii games don’t sell” it’s not true, been there done that, move on. The question wether this game will sell or not is of course valid, and the developers are right to not expect big sales rivaling those of a established IP… but they’d be wise to expect that in any platform… and it’s the way the question was done, that’s not a Wii fault at all, and shouldn’t be implied as so, like it is… SYSTEMATICALLY.

For one Wii is cheaper to develop and these guys are starting, why going for HD consoles, that, don’t sell in japan, and neither have managed to sell 1 million units even with RPG’s rivaling a HD final fantasy in development costs? not to mention a lower userbase. yet… if that was the case no one would question that and it’s fine really, but then why having to say in every interview for a Wii game “aren’t you worried, you know… this is the Wii”, it’s sort of a selective idea, that always falls on the Wii, but somehow doesn’t aflict any other platform, despite them selling less hardware, less software and having higher development costs and often bigger advertising campaigns and effort in the third party software altogether.