Developers pulling out of Wii development

A recent survey sent to 800 mostly western developers revealed some shocking results. Last year, 42% of developers were making games for the Wii. This year, only 30%. This is a steep drop considering the Xbox and PS3 have maintained at 69% and 61% levels respectively. It also showed a spike in mobile phone game development from 12% to 25%. The DS and PSP get 12%. This looks like a red flag but I see good coming out of this. Less shovelware. Devs that are seriously making games for the Wii are busy making quality games, while the shovelware companies are giving up trying to make a quick buck. On the negative side, this is still far less than the other consoles proving some companies are tired of core games not selling on the Wii and bringing them to consoles that give them a better chance. The Grinder is the most recent example. Once a Wii exclusive, now will be on all three consoles.

I sound like a broken record here, but I can't help but feel that a lot of these third party games not selling is due to lack of marketing. Ubisoft openly admitted that they had little marketing funds for Deadly Creatures, while one of the best games of 2009, sold poorly.

In the end, I would take this research as good news for the Wii. The shovelware will slowly become extinct making it easier for the gems to shine.

good news? Take into consideration the good 3rd party games that were released and sold so poorly that developers are telling the Wii to **** off. Dead space extraction im looking at you.

yea triz i agree it def sucks that so many of the better 3rd party games sell poorly.

Speaking if good games selling like shit on the Wi...

[Wii] Tatsunoko vs. Capcom ~50K according to NPD


Thats just sad. Guess Ill wait till I find it in the $20 bin.

Triz wrote:

Speaking if good games selling like shit on the Wi...

[Wii] Tatsunoko vs. Capcom ~50K according to NPD


Thats just sad. Guess Ill wait till I find it in the $20 bin.

which adds to the game selling like s*** lol :p its official, triz is part of the problem ;P

Heh, to be fair its not a game I was interested in, as I have access to games like Street Fighter 4 on 360 or PS3. But Capcom putting alot of energy into this title and being wii Exclusive just goes to show you they should have just ported it to the 360 or PS3 and it would have sold 5 times as much.

Triz wrote:

Heh, to be fair its not a game I was interested in, as I have access to games like Street Fighter 4 on 360 or PS3. But Capcom putting alot of energy into this title and being wii Exclusive just goes to show you they should have just ported it to the 360 or PS3 and it would have sold 5 times as much.

You said it yourself. 360 and PS3 have Street Fighter 4. Would they have been able to get people to pick up another fighter on those consoles that is somewhat similar?

TvC is now at 140,000 but let's give it some time before we label it dead. It hasn't even been out for a month yet. It is getting great reviews so core gamers shouldn't look at sales and look at review scores to know this is something to check out.

What's really killing game sales on the Wii.  Is Pirating games.  So many prefer to use HomeBrew hacks to download and plau burnt games on the Wii.  
They figure why pay $50 for a crappy gamne, when they can download it for free.  Unfortunaterly, this makes it too easy to not buy Wii games, now, and  has cost the company a great deal.

Well, I wouldn't call TvC a crappy game, but the piracy is part to blame. Nintendo has spent countless dollars to fight it. They made an example of that Aussie that pirated NSMBW. Now they've said they will go after companies that sell devices and cards like the R4 that make it easy for people to download games for free.

AND...today they said they are looking into either shutting down used game sales at places like GameStop or at least find a way to get a percentage of that back to devs.

I'm glad they are doing this and not just for themselves but for all companies. It would be great to see more companies take this stand before it gets out of hand resulting in what could possibly be, another industry crash. Who wants to make AAA games if they aren't getting paid for it?

Or take the measure of protecting your games much like SONY has done. Sure the xbox has been hacked and you can play pirated copies, but the moment you take one online your online access is killed.

I could care less if 3rd party devs are pulling out of Wii development. 9/10 of the games 3rd party for Wii are uncreative wagglefests.

This doesn't mean no 3rd party will touch the console, on the contrary. Only the good, strong ones (Konami, Capcom, etc) will dev. for it now. Like Streex said, less crap to wade through. Although I should point out that shovelshit like Imagine Babyz prolly sells just as much as TvC.

Let's be fair, also, in saying that Capcom took a big risk bringing this fighter stateside because NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TATSUNOKO IS. Well, we all might, but we're nerds!

Triz wrote:

Or take the measure of protecting your games much like SONY has done. Sure the xbox has been hacked and you can play pirated copies, but the moment you take one online your online access is killed.

The PS3 has been hacked also. There's no such thing as hardware that can't be hacked. Eventually, they all get bent over.

Less shovelware means the casual gamers won't be duped to buy them because they are cheaper. They'll start looking at the quality games, enjoy them more, prompting them to buy even more. Going to my wife's boss's house is a sad sight. She has a bunch of shovelware (like Pajama Sam and some Sly Fox game), Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Just Dance. She probably defines the Wii by the quality of those shovelware games.

Not a great collection, although I think we as gamers carry elitism on our shoulders (as do any diehard fans of anything) that hinders us from seeing why OTHERS play games.

IMO none of the 3 consoles offer as much to me as the older systems, strictly because my tastes have, in some respects, both narrowed and broadened.

For me the Wii is taking baby steps into gaming of the future. The 360 obviously trumps all when it comes to online interface, and rightly so I mean it IS M$. But when I used to play (and it was very limited that I did, this console offers almost NO games I'm interested in) I got overwhelmed and underimpressed.

Sure, I have to use friend codes on my Wii, but my friends are who I want to play with anyways. Putting us online against others does add to the fun, but ultimately is not why I bought the game.

I hate software pirates. they Messed up the PC game market with there BS. now the game selection as dried up a lot, and seems ever game as some horrible DRM that hurts legit users. i say KILL'EM ALL "star ship troopers refernce ftw"

It could also be a Metallica reference for the lose. :3

true enough.