I've always thought that the hype around the Wii's success has been overstated. Sure the Wii sells and sells… 3.8 million units sold last month in the USA alone. To put that into perspective, that's more than the PS3 and 360 combined.
So how can this be overstated?
Well, I concede that this is impressive. No doubt about it. But lets look at things from a different perspective.
Gamers buy consoles to play games, and because of this the industry thrives, publishers make money and more games get made. Not such a leap of logic to understand that. Personally I don't actually care if these companies make a penny, but I accept for them to produce the entertainment I feel so passionate about, that they have to thrive.
The point that everyone misses about the Wii then – and I've maintained this from day one – is that Nintendo isn't courting gamers with this system, the massive 'expanded audience' are not gamers. They are people that buy a Wii, get it in a bundle with Wii Sports or Wii Fit and are quite happy with just that.
These people do not go out and buy 6+ games a year.
Now, don't get me wrong, Wii games are selling, but by what sort of penetration to the userbase? Take a step back, the last console that sold this well was the PS2 and all major publishers supported the system and most of them made a lot of money and great games.
This week Ubisoft, SEGA and CAPCOM have all started to downplay their ongoing support for the Wii – and at the end of last year EA called the Wii market 'confounding'.
So we have this contrast, the Wii sells more than ever and major publishers back away from it. Unthinkable, really.
To have a format where only the platform holder makes money is the worst possible situation for this industry – publishers find themselves fighting for a small slice of the market and the costs of developing a game for the PS3/360 market basically starts at $18 million.
What's the natural outcome to this – well think what you would do if asked to invest $18m of your own money? Would you gamble it on a creative risk? Or would you invest it in something less sexy with a guaranteed return?
Basically we're at a point where publishers have to make surefire hits on the PS3 and 360 just to make a profit… and where they have proven, despite huge investments in Wii games, that there's basically no point going up against Nintendo's brand recognition on the format.
And what's the net outcome for gamers? Less commercial risks, and more cookie cutter predictable games.
I ask you then, the massive 'success' of the Wii… is it anything gamers should be glad about?
