Eurogamer's Virtual Console Roundup
Majora's Mask Mutherfucking 10/10 and some other games
Iga_Bobovic
Ubisoft: Rabbids Go Home for the hardcore
Influenced by Mario Galaxy/kart
nintendodpad.com
gamingeek
Marvel vs Capcom 2 XBLA Achievements Leaked
Finally confirmed. Time to go for a ride.
xbox360achievements.org
darthhomer
Gamers Should Be Blamed
For The Pathetic Sales Of 'Chinatown Wars' And 'MadWorld'
g4tv.com
Iga_Bobovic
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robio (3m)
Sounds like every other government, but more desperate.![Nyaa](/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Hello America! If you want Patapon 2, here's what you'll be getting:
The testes are covered by a fibrous capsule formed by the:
Fixed it!
There are two fixes!
___
Listen to Wu-Tang and watch Kung-Fu
Those are my balls. Sorry about that.
Interesting.
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2009/04/17/nintendo-chinatown-wars-sales-will-prove-m-rated-content-belongs-on-ds/
Nintendo took the unusual step today of making representatives available to discuss the sales of a third-party game. The occasion was the widely-covered seeming flop of “Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars,” the highly-rated “GTA” debut on Nintendo’s DS that sold just 89,000 copies in the U.S. in its first 18 days of sales.
The game’s publisher and retail chain GameStop already told me earlier today that there’s no reason to count the game out yet. Later in the afternoon, Nintendo said the game thing.
“‘Chinatown Wars’ is performing in line with AAA titles that have come to our platform like ‘Spore‘ or ‘Lego Star Wars,” Steve Singer, vice president of licensing and the man who manages third party relations for Nintendo of America, told me in a phone interview. “Those games went on to have very different life-to-date sales numbers.” A Nintendo rep pointed to sales of “Call of Duty 4” on the DS, which had sales of 36,000 units in its first month and went on to sell more than 500,000 copies.
Singer attributed the sales of “GTA” in the first month as “the result of having only a limited number of M-rated games on the platform.” The DS has only had seven.
But it is word of mouth that he believes will help the game in the long run. He expects the conversation around the game’s sales may be very different five months to a year from now.
He noted that DS games have a history of “non-traditional sales curves” that don’t start high and drop but instead grow for a long time. He said consumers are responding to the quality of this game, even if “maybe they’re responding slower than others would expect.”
When pressed, Singer did not provide any figures for what Nintendo’s own sales expectations were for the game.
The release of “Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned” in February saw a lot of promotional support by Microsoft, which had the new “GTA” episode exclusive to its platform. The Xbox 360 dashboard was taken over with promos for the content. By contrast, Nintendo has offered no demo for “Chinatown Wars” on its Nintendo Channel — the Wii online channel that offers downloadable DS demos for top DS games — and seemed to offer no visible promotional boost through its hits platforms or ad campaigns for the game. Could Nintendo have done more to ensure a stronger start for Take Two and Rockstar’s game? Singer said he preferred to keep the arrangements between Nintendo and its publishers private, but did say that, for “Chinatown Wars,” Nintendo has ” worked with them on a marketing plan, a communications plan, [and] television advertising” in both the U.S. and Canada.
In the end, Singer said Nintendo hopes that the sales story of “Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars” will be an encouraging one for game publishers. “I think strategically, this is a very important game because it helps send the message that great M-rated content can come to the platform and will find a home.”
And if that’s not the message coming through today, he said, give it time. “I think all it’s going to take is time.”
This is interesting:
High-Profile Wii Bomb Fuels "Nintendo Crash" Chatter In Japan Deca Sporta moves two million units; sequel's launch day sales total 2,500.By Nick Des Barres, 04/18/2009
Hudson announced just last week that its Wii game Deca Sporta (Deca Sports in the West) has sold through two million copies -- unarguably, one of the most successful Wii third party titles worldwide. Accordingly, the company shipped some 85,000 copies of the sequel for its launch day this Thursday in Japan, going as far as to employ multi-platinum boy band superstars Hey! Say! JUMP in its frequently run television commercials.
According to reliable, respected salesblogger Sinobi, however, Deca Sporta moved just 2,500 copies its first day -- 3% of the total shipment. While no game's sales should be judged by day one alone, it is worth noting that the original's launch day sales in Japan were a solid 30,000, with 50% sell-through.
This is just the latest grim Nintendo-related news item in April -- Nintendo DSi's Western launch may have done very well, but the company's stock is down 7.5% today following its first NPD sales dip post-supply constraints. In Japan, PS3 outsold the Wii last month, prompting Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata to state the console was "experiencing the most unhealthy condition since it hit the Japan market."
The situation is so disturbing that major Japanese tech news site Impress Watch was moved to post an opinion piece about a speculative "Nintendo crash". While somewhat alarmist, the article does raise one important question: What if Nintendo sales begin to slow worldwide, as they have in Japan since January? The author, Hiroshige Goto, pinpoints a crippling lack of software for Wii in 2009, along with the allure of high-profile PS3 releases like Resident Evil 5 and Yakuza 3. With no clear must-have Wii titles on the horizon save Wii Sports Resort, the prospect of a worldwide Nintendo slump becomes a plausible notion. Clearly, all eyes will be on Nintendo this E3.
Anyone get the feeling that the press and analysts have been just sitting on the button here, just waiting to pop this one off?
GTA sales prove that third party games cant perform on Nintendo platforms right? And yet where were those analysts crowing to the media about how various games have topped a million, including the mature Resident Evil games, COD5 or Red Steel etc?
Deca Sports 2 bombs? Well fuck me, of course it bombed. No one wants a sequel to that shit, they were lucky to sell the first on the appearance of being a Wii Sports rip. It's more likely that people bought the first, saw how utterly shite it was and decided not to throw down on a sequel. Who would?
I personally don't even want Wii Sports resort.
That analyst is right though, there is a "crippling lack of software" because the third parties still aren't there with their A game. They've been sitting around too, half heartedly waiting for a bubble of some sort to burst and now it's become some sort of self fufilling prophecy.
And yet Wii NPD sales fall 17% and so Nintendo shares go down, lets forget that their sales are over 600'000 right? More than the competition combined (again). It's all doom and gloom. Meanwhile the xbox 360 has like a 30% NPD boost and still comes out at just over half of what the Wii is selling and it all smells of roses?
Madworld flops (perhaps) so mature content doesn't sell on the system? Let's forget that it's a cel-shaded black and white, uber violent game. Let's concentrate on this ultra niche games sales and just pretend like other hardcore third party games haven't sold over a million right?
Boom Blox was considered a flop when it sold 65'000 in its first month, now its at a million with a sequel on the way, same for Endless Ocean. Hell, same for World at War. You'd think by now they would have learnt to leave the corpse for a little while before picking at it like vultures.
Look at this:
While no game's sales should be judged by day one alone, it is worth noting that the original's launch day sales in Japan were a solid 30,000, with 50% sell-through.
They even contradict themselves. Don't judge a game on first day sales, oh but it sold poorly. This is as bad as EDGE online declaring Madworld a flop after 3 days (one day being a religious day with restricted trading hours.) The point isn't whether a game is a flop or not, it's about not jumping on it within micro-seconds of its release with excessive zeal.
Again look at this reporting:
Kinks in the system's shiny white armor starting showing last month. Despite steady success in Japan, the Wii fell into second place in March as the underdog Playstation 3 clambered atop the region's sales charts for the first time in 16 months. That was enough to garner some uncharacteristically somber comments from Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, who deemed the climate in Japan "unhealthy" for the Wii.
So for a month and a half, PS3 has outsold Wii. Not by a huge amount, but for 16 months straight Wii has outsold PS3 and has an install base roughly double or more in the region. So a couple of months of sales means teh doom and teh gloom. Japan is a small territory, yes the UK is a larger market now and is handheld focused and is probably saturated with Wii's by now.
And yet with the lack of Japanese support (where was RE5, SFIV, MGS4 or Yakuza 3 on Wii?) how can we be suprised at all about hardware boosts when sequels in big name franchises launch? The fifth resident evil, the third Yakuza, the fifty billionth Street Fighter. These are all long established brands with cache, we should all be suprised when FFXIII comes out in winter and the PS3 sales rocket too right?
How can the industry or publishers expect a system to indefinetly sustain sales if they don't support it with great games? If they want it to die then they are doing a great job right now of trying to make it happen.
I would just have to quote a GAFfer from a few months back:
"I love how third parties expect me to buy another system, by deliberately not making games for the market leading platform"
It's disgusting. What does the Wii have in the months ahead? Punchout. Anything else?
Muramasa
Little King's Story
Wii Sport Resort
Sin and Punishment 2
Arc Rise Fantasia
Grandslam Tennis
Virtua Tennis
Tigerwoods
Wiiware
Night
Cave Story
Icarian
Explodemon
More like they are making games on the system that allows them to make the game they want to make and not be stuck with old hardware. Nintendo is the one that wanted to be different, its never been a surprise that they are getting odd 3rd party support. I wish there would be better effort put into it but the Wii was never going to be a system to get the major third party franchises, we all knew this.
That said these doom and gloom articles are hilarious, nothing is slowing down, the wii will be fine.
I will not be watching them live, hopefully I can find some videos before they are taken away!
So how do you explain all the cancelled Wii games then?
That is a separate issue, i am talking about peple complaing about games like RE5 and other major third party games not coming out for the wii, we know why its not coming out for the wii. If the Wii was on the same level as the other consoles guess what, it would have those games too.
So how do you explain all the major 3rd party games that never appeared on the Gamecube?