Punk Rebel Ecks said:

Foolz said:

Punk Rebel Ecks said:

First to comment! YES! So yeah "Sh15ya" is just really...unique?

I mean you can easily tell how it inspired TWEWY but I think when people say it "plagiarized it" they are going too far.

If it's a lot like TWEWY then it isn't unique.

It came out BEFORE TWEWY though

That's some japanese TV show right?

Just did the updates:

http://www.edge-online.com/features/has-wii-bubble-burst

Has the Wii Bubble Burst?

Nintendo’s runaway success may be entering its most difficult period yet.

As speculation circulates on how UK retailers will respond to the raised Wii trade price, one analyst is pondering how much appeal the Wii will have over the coming set of months.

“We are looking very closely at all the platforms for any signs of slowdown,” says Ed Barton, games analyst at Screen Digest. “We’ve made a number of channel-checks and had many conversations with platform manufacturers, and our research shows us that in North America the demand/supply ratio for the Wii has balanced out since the beginning of the year.”

Demand heavily outweighing supply has become a trait of Nintendo’s home console ever since its 2006 launch, though there are several factors which suggest that the Wii boom may soon go bust.

Sale performance for the console is already in steep decline in Japan; falling at a greater rate than the average console during the dry post-Christmas period. More importantly, the system also is showing little sign of recovery as its competitors begin to pick up the pace.

Barton believes that the Wii’s current software line-up could be a decisive factor in the Wii’s outlook: “There’s a real absence of a major games release from Nintendo in the next few months. MadWorld has obvious appeal for hardcore gamers, but this is way outside the kind of software which has typically succeeded on Wii. This isn’t going to help Nintendo.”

“If we look at the software line-up, as well as recent supply/demand data, and add to it the chance that the price of the console may have to go up in a key market, you have in front of you a number of things which will not help Nintendo succeed with the Wii in the way that it has for two years.”

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I was actually thinking of doing a blog or thread recentely about this issue before I read this article.

I think it's premature to talk about the UK or to indicate that it means anything. The reason the price of the Wii is rising (to retailers) not RRP (yet).... is because our government has f***** up the economy with their crappy response to the the recession. The UK Pound is in the godamn dumps at the moment, dvds which used to cost £10 to import, now cost £13. Across the board you've seen japanese consumer, electrical goods warning that they have to rise in price.

I dont want, or agree with this price hike, but truthfully its more a damning inditement of our useless goverment, more than anything else.

Anyway, UK out of the way, US sales dont seem to be affected that much recentely.

So at the moment its all about Japanese sales. As the guy who posts the weekly sales along with Iga, I see the recent decline. Sure it's not long term, sales are weekly and not monthly or quartely like NPD, but you are seeing Wii dropping in Japan and PS3 periodically rising.

Japan is affected by big releases, PS3 got a big boost with MGS4, and recently the one two punch of Yakuza 3 and Resident Evil 5 boosted it to 31'000-ish which was twice that of Wii sales.

360 gets the odd boost when a Star Ocean launches or some other inexplicably exclusive JRPG launches.

So what about the Wii? It begs the question, where are all the big games? Especially for the Japanese market? The only one I can think of are games that have been long in development yet show little sign of actually releasing.

All I can name is Monster Hunter Tri out this Summer, a new Tales game for god knows when and FFCC which is not a main game in the series.

Where are the big franchises on their 5th sequel like RE5 or 4th sequel like MGS4 to boost the systems sales? Where are the blockbuster games?

So has the Wii bubble burst and can it be repeated across the world? Well......... yeah it (can) happen and it's because publishers are waiting for and wanting the system to die. Where are the main games in blockbuster series?

This has been the attitude since the system launched, they would prefer that it didn't exist, that it didn't throw a wrench in their well oiled machine.

And it's pissing me off to be frank, to be seeing spin offs and a half hearted attitude still there after the PS2 like mass market success, years in now. If the bubble does burst it's because publishers have been sitting around wanting it to burst, because you can't have a foundation with no supports. And the attitude stinks to hell IMO.

bugsonglass said:

GG the HOTD swearword record hotlink also links to the PS3 pricedrop article

Ooops, I will fix now.

robio said:

In regards to the Wii's sale's drying up in Japan it's definitely related to software.  You're still typically seeing the same half dozen Wii games on the Japanese charts.  Wii Fit, Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii, etc.  

As far as America the software drought is over.  I'm happier than ever with the selection of games that have been released over the past month and will continued to be released over the next few weeks.  Frankly I'm drowning.  But in Japan the big titles they want are still a long time coming.  

The other thing to consider is the saturation point.  Wii certainly hasn't hit that point, but the fact is it's been selling like wildfire for over 2 years and the console market is not as big as the handheld.  So a slowdown was inevitable.  

Sure you are seeing titles release, good titles and original titles even.

But where are the major franchises that aren't spin offs? Fuck, how long as Splinter Cell 5 been in development? As if they couldn't have done a Wii version by now. Or a version of the cel shaded Prince of Persia? It seems like every major franchise apart from MH3, Tales and FFCC are either missing the system completely or spinning off into crap that nobody wants.

So it's not really suprising to me as the years go by that the latest release of blockbuster game X boosts sales of other platforms. It's more suprising that despite a humongous 3rd party shafting that the Wii has managed to spit in their faces for most of the 2 and a half years its been out.

gamingeek said:

Punk Rebel Ecks said:

Foolz said:

Punk Rebel Ecks said:

First to comment! YES! So yeah "Sh15ya" is just really...unique?

I mean you can easily tell how it inspired TWEWY but I think when people say it "plagiarized it" they are going too far.

If it's a lot like TWEWY then it isn't unique.

It came out BEFORE TWEWY though

That's some japanese TV show right?

Yes.

gamingeek said:

It's more suprising that despite a humongous 3rd party shafting that the Wii has managed to spit in their faces for most of the 2 and a half years its been out.

3rd Parties don't go to the Wii not because they won't work for Nintendo but more so that Nintnedo won't work for them.

Punk Rebel Ecks said:

In terms of the Wii's demand meeting supply well that's kind of obvious being that well that overtime the people who wanted the Wii got it. I mean yeah supply and demand are meeting parallel, but you have to keep in mind that Nintendo is shipping more Wii's then ever. I agree that Nintendo needs to get their game on gear but I'm not too worried about the Wii in North America and Europe.

3rd Parties don't go to the Wii not because they won't work for Nintendo but more so that Nintnedo won't work for them.

Can you elaborate on that last point?

robio said:

I suppose I could get upset about all of that too, but I don't.  The reality is part of the reason I almost quit gaming last gen was because I was sick of all the mainstream series.  Sure there are times when I miss some of them.  I've made no bones about how upset I've been about missing out on Street Fighter IV and RE5 does look good.

But the fact remains for me that I am and have been sick of all the old franchises.  They don't do much for me.  Sure I'd like to see the Wii receive a few of them, but by and large I just don't need another Final Fantasy or Devil May Cry or anything else that ends with a number 5 or higher.  

I'm the same as you, to be honest, despite having a machine that will play most of these titles a lot of the time I'm just not interested. But it's the derelection of duty and the hypocrisy that gets me. As well as the lack of creative thinking. Doing the Capcom thread, I noticed a few things, firstly they said they would cater to all platforms equally according to install base. That hasn't been true of them or more broadly in the industry. Then they said that it was their and all 3rd parties duty to put out great, creative games on the system. Well they failed there in general (industry wise), then I read quote from Takuechi "Financially we should have made RE5 for the Wii" or Ono "There is no reason we aren't doing SFIV for the Wii, we just aren't" or even Mikami before he left Capcom: "If you are looking for visual fidelity it's 360 otherwise Wii." He was talking about where games should be made, basically summing it up as, graphics are all that counts to most developers. Only we see that graphics aren't all that counts as far as consumers go. Otherwise DS and Wii would be in last place.

But it's not like they are forgetting about sequels and instead funneling the same amount of resources bold original titles. Instead 3rd parties are spinning off, contracting out and half assing most of their efforts.