Nintendo's Fils-Aime: 'effectively marketed' third-party titles can sell on Wii
by Ben Gilbert 
{ Nov 17th 2009 at 12:30PM } 
When questioned as to why major titles like Grand Theft Auto IV and Assassin's Creed 2 aren't headed to his company's console, he explains it as a measure of long lead times rather than technological inability. "Typically decisions are being made two years prior ... and so the decisions two years ago were that those types of games would not be effective on the platform." And though the subject isn't directly broached, Fils-Aime remains steadfast that third-party titles can be successful on the Wii ... with the right marketing. "High-quality, effectively marketed against our installed base, will sell. Period. End of story."
It would appear then that Boom Blox, The Conduit, No More Heroes, and a mess of other third-party titles, had some truly ineffective marketing by Reggie's standards.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Slam Vanderhuge @ Nov 17th 2009 12:35PM
and Dead Space: Extraction. Poor, poor Dead Space: Extraction...
Toasty Toaster Man @ Nov 17th 2009 2:03PM
DS:E had terrible marketing. We read gaming blogs, we're gonna know about these games. The general public knows dick about No More Heroes and The Conduit. I can't explain MadWorld, though.
tmacairjordan87 @ Nov 17th 2009 12:37PM
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=18418938&postcount=57
Sums up the problem here. No amount of marketing or whining will solve the problem that Nintendo has had since the end of the SNES era.
Granger @ Nov 17th 2009 12:48PM
Pretty much, but it isn't like Microsoft and Sony don't put themselves in that same situation. The only difference is that while they may have huge first party games coming out, they also back third party games. Not so much so that these third party games will sell, mind, but more so that they can steal a bit of marketshare from their competition. It's interesting to see Microsoft fully back Modern Warfare 2 despite launching Halo 3 ODST just two months ago, same can be said for Sony and Assassin's Creed II.
JXCgunrunna @ Nov 17th 2009 12:55PM
What that Nintendo has some of the best dev studios in the world? I agree with that. We are not seeing enough AAA devs working on the Wii. Almost every publisher out there has said put the best devs on the 360 and PS3 and let the second or third string devs work on what used to be high selling franchises.
Third party games on the Wii are pretty much a perfect storm of failure because:
System marketed to the young and the old
Use of unnecessary use of motion controls
Poor marketing
Lack of good devs
Poor to nonexistent online support
johnnynumber5 @ Nov 17th 2009 2:13PM
Maybe at some point it's not all on the developers. There has to be a time where people don't deny that the 3rd party games simply don't sell as well on the Wii. Still, I think that Monster Hunter ... the first big budget 3rd party Wii exclusive with a brand identity ... is going to buck that trend and sell like gangbusters.
johnnynumber5 @ Nov 17th 2009 2:33PM
3rd parties don't have the same type of market resistance on the PS3 & 360 that they do on the Wii. On the Wii most people that buy it typically buy it simply for the Nintendo properties ... Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Punch out and anything with "Wii" in the title like Wii Fit, Wii Play etc ... whatever the reason is be it demographics of the user base, marketing, niche genre the fact still remains that there hasn't really been a runaway success on the Wii from 3rd parties. It's not like there haven't been efforts on this front and anyone who says it's only about marketing is being defensive. You'll more than likely never see a 3rd party game on a Nintendo platform that is the highest selling title.
Here are the top 10 pieces of software lifetime for the three current generation consoles:
Wii top 10 software sales of all time
1. Wii Sports
2. Wii Play
3. Wii Fit
4. Mario Kart Wii
5. Super Smash Bros Brawl
6. Super Mario Galaxy
7. Mario & Sonic at the Olympics
8. Mario party 8
9. Wii Sports Resort
10. The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess
360 Top 10 of all time
1. Halo 3
2. COD Modern Warfare
3. GTA IV
4. COD World At War
5. Gears Of War
6. Gears Of War 2
7. Assassins Creed
8. Guitar Hero 3: Legends Of Rock
9. Forza Motorsports 2
10. Lego Indiana Jones
PS3 Top 10 of all time
1. GTA IV
2. COD Modern Warfare
3. Metal Gear Solid 4
4. COD World At War
5. Resistance Fall Of Man
6. Motorstorm
7. Assassins Creed
8. Gran Turismo Prologue
9. Uncharted Drakes Fortune
10. Resident Evil 5
Notice a pattern?
The prosecution rests your honor.
samfish [wants to know: do midgets have night vision?] @ Nov 17th 2009 2:41PM
"The only difference is that while they may have huge first party games coming out, they also back third party games. "
The reason why MS and sony back certain third party games is because they know that whatever costs they put in to help promote those games, they're going to make back and then some from the game's sales.
If, for example, they take 30% from the game's sales, than that 30% they bring in has to be more than enough to spend on marketing and promotion while ultimately increasing their bottom line.
So why do MS and Sony do this? Because they get the big, AAA marquee games. Nintendo DOESN'T. Sony will gladly advertise a game like, say, MGS4, because they know that the cut they make is going to cover the costs they spent on promotion and whatever else.
In the few instances where Nintendo DOES get that kind of third party support (RE4, MH3, DQIX, for example), they actually HAVE supported it in that way.
But if Capcom or someone comes to Nintendo and say, "Here's our game, we expect it to sell about 300,000 copies. Help us with advertising, Nintendo!"...Nintendo is going to laugh at them; there is no way that the profits from 30% of those 300,000 copies is going to cover a promotional campaign, furthermore a significant one that would make a difference.
aristokrat @ Nov 17th 2009 3:28PM
I've never seen Nintendo ads for any non-Nintendo games on TV. I've seen Microsoft ads for MW2 (I've even seen Walmart ads for MW2 and 360). I've seen Sony ads for AC2 (though I've never seen a Ubisoft ad for AC2). Maybe it's because I don't watch the right channels, but then again, I'd say that most of the channels I watch are the ones you want to be advertising on as I'm a pretty average 18-35 year old male, and all my friends watch the same things. Hell, South Park has been the biggest video game hyper this year, with a special "sneak peaks" every week of a new PS3 or 360 game. If you want 3rd party devs, you have to be willing to work for them, as the best devs know that they can command that kind of commitment.
I also wonder to what extent the AAA PS3/360 developers would even want to work on the Wii. People like Carmack, Brezinksi, etc are huge into graphics and I can't see them wanting to not continue pushing the envelope graphically.
Jerk Face @ Nov 17th 2009 12:38PM
No, they can't.
You left behind the people who want to play these games. Now those of 'us' that still even HAVE a Wii make up such a minority that making a profitable game that appeals to the more hardcore audience is a near impossibility.
Soccer moms and eight year olds don't care about Dead Space.
Jerk Face @ Nov 17th 2009 12:41PM
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Nintendo should just acknowledge that they made a great console for the audience they aimed for - and stop trying to pretend you have anything but nostalgia to offer the more hardcore gaming crowd.
Waiting two years for another Zelda game while playing endless amounts of Smash Brothers and crying into your pillow every night about what they did to the Star Fox franchise is not getting your value out of your console.
Jerk Face @ Nov 17th 2009 12:42PM
You = they. Bad grammar hurts me.
iceykitsune @ Nov 17th 2009 12:42PM
Nintendo didn't abandon the hardcore, the hardcore abandoned nintendo at the announcement of motion controls.
tmacairjordan87 @ Nov 17th 2009 12:44PM
Maybe because you can't make a good core game with current motion controls, so the first statement by jerk face was correct in one way or another.
Sidebuster @ Nov 17th 2009 12:47PM
Nintendo never really was for the "hardcore". It seems to me that their target audience has always been kids and retarded adults. The "hardcore" gamer really came from PC gamers of the past. At least it seemed that way to me because console games were never too complex or story driven. PC games on the other hand always had a better story, controls and game design. Like for instance, Doom, Alone in the Dark, Might and magic, All Sierra games like Police Quest, Kings Quest, Monkey Island and Grim Fandango type games.
Jerk Face @ Nov 17th 2009 12:49PM
No way. I know plenty of gamers who picked up a Wii at launch and raved about how great Metroid Prime 3 was and Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy. And then? Crickets.
Having a 360 (or a PS3, though I don't have one), I wrestle with TOO MANY games to play at almost all times. And that's just the triple A great stuff. And during the short, slow summer season all those great titles get me by.
But if I only had a Wii? Those Zelda and Mario games are pretty far off. I didn't abandon Nintendo - Nintendo abandoned third parties, as always, and now with this latest console generation, third parties have finally given up trying to make the kinds of games I like for Nintendo's console. They lose money every time they do so, so why would they?
TwEE @ Nov 17th 2009 12:56PM
Im agreeing with Sidebuster.. Self titled "hardcore" gamers are just pc lite gamers. I have no idea why they complain about Nintendo.
JXCgunrunna @ Nov 17th 2009 1:00PM
@Sidebuster
Please explain Mario, Zelda, Twisted Metal, Halo, Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted, and many others. They all started on the consoles and are some of the most "hardcore" games of their time. Plus, games can be both hardcore and mainstream. Give someone who has never played a video game CoD or GTA and see if they can play it let alone be good at it. Those games sell millions in a few days and are hardcore. Even SOCOM is pretty mainstream and its about as hardcore as shooters get.
Sidebuster @ Nov 17th 2009 1:06PM
Your exactly right. I'm talking about that point in time when PC type games and Console games played different. Around the time of the Playstation you started getting games that played the same on both PC and Console and even started getting some ports between the two like FF7, MGS, Doom, DN3D. Those were ported back and forth between PC and PSX. Once that started happening, Hardcore games and gamers started emerging (or at least standing out). Once controlers had 8 buttons instead of 2, etc.
Rob S. @ Nov 17th 2009 1:17PM
I think the main problem is that they are not advertising in the right places. Most of the people who have the PS3/360 go to places like Joystiq and other game sites. People who play the Wii go to places like Facebook, Myspace and other non-gaming places and dare I say it, the TV. So they need to start putting ads there, and maybe they will grab some of these people.
Mr Khan @ Nov 17th 2009 1:25PM
Yes. They can. And have. Monster Hunter is, sadly, really the only example. But it stands for itself. World at War i suppose, too. That did rather well (considering the franchise wasn't really a household name until 4, and that only came to Wii this past week)
There has been no other 3rd party effort on Wii that stands up to the effort third parties have made on other platforms, and the sales show it
Cody @ Nov 17th 2009 1:27PM
"Maybe because you can't make a good core game with current motion controls,"
Good luck next console generation with that attitude buddy!
Mr Khan @ Nov 17th 2009 1:32PM
Oh, and they don't "lose money everytime" they develop for Nintendo systems. Far, far from it. Most of the Wii games they make are safe bets financially, even if they are risky ventures from a design standpoint
Most 3rd party publishers make a good deal of their profit from Wii, even if they might get more revenue elsewhere, that other revenue is hard-earned.
Granger @ Nov 17th 2009 1:32PM
@ Cody - You mean next generation when we have next generation motion controls as opposed to "current motion controls?"
Reading comprehension prevents douchebaggery.
Cody @ Nov 17th 2009 1:32PM
Khan,
Yeah, but then again, I'm not too worried about this supposive lack of 3rd party support for Wii.
Day 1 Wii was fighting an uphill battle with everyone (even some Nintendo failthful) and quality, worthwhile games just weren't happening outside on the big N's development teams.
It wil lbe a 180 degree effect next console generation with the surprise success of Wii.
I liken Wii to the NES, what it did and how it came out.
The Wii 2 will be the SNES to the Wii, if Nintendo has any smarts. Don't mess with success.
Jerk Face @ Nov 17th 2009 1:36PM
My inbox and I instantly regret ever posting in this thread.
Markez @ Nov 17th 2009 12:45PM
Boom Blox is a sublime game. Budget priced as well. That is all.
ProfWho @ Nov 17th 2009 12:55PM
The Conduit had poor to mixed reviews, Bloom Blox did sell well last I checked (aren't they close to 1 million), and No More Heroes had no add campaign and really was the most successful Suda51 game (It did well enough for a sequel).
TwEE @ Nov 17th 2009 12:57PM
Exactly, all those games deserved what the got.
Gavin @ Nov 17th 2009 1:15PM
I saw many No More Heroes TV ads -- perhaps not as many as ODST ran recently, but still plenty... So I don't know that you can say it wasnt marketed enough.
ProfWho @ Nov 17th 2009 1:33PM
Where did you see those ads. I watch a good deal of TV and I didn't see a single one. Even on channels like Sci-Fi or Adult Swim. Then again I don't watch wrestling so maybe I missed it there.
David Kearns @ Nov 17th 2009 12:54PM
I would have to agree, Nintendo does market their games much, much better than most if not all 3rd party publishers. And conduit? Frankly it was not a very good game, I was excited, GameFlyed it, and sent it back. I'd rather re-play metroid...
Colin @ Nov 17th 2009 12:54PM
@iceykitsune
No, the hardcore abandoned the Wii after weeks of no exciting games. My friends owned Wiis and were eagerly looking forward to many of the third party games listed in this article, before they realized that the other systems were getting five times as many must have games. Waiting months for The Conduit was a hard sell for them when Xbox 360 has had Halo 3 and other shooters for months.
Still applies now, this very month. NSMBW vs Modern Warfare 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Borderlands, L4D2 and more. From the perspective of a hardcore gamer, the Wii has very little to offer.
I agree with Jerk Face, the Wii is an amazing system for their target audience and Nintendo should be happy. But their target audience no longer includes the hardcore gamers.
Colin @ Nov 17th 2009 12:56PM
Wow, I hate reply fails.
But Jerk Face's reply was pretty much what I was trying to say.
Sigh at the comment system.
Ozzman_79 @ Nov 17th 2009 12:55PM
I agree with Reggie. Other then a few notable standouts, most 3rd party offerings look like they're not even trying.
Sidebuster @ Nov 17th 2009 1:00PM
I'll tell you one hardcore Wii game I'm looking forward to.
Monster Hunter Tri
Mr Khan @ Nov 17th 2009 1:28PM
Exactly. And that's the one that's selling. That was guaranteed to sell. Epic Mickey will probably sell, Crystal Bearers will, Tales of Graces will, Tiger Woods did, Modern Warfare Reflex will put on some good legs
The key is effort. Which you're not seeing otherwise
elmer @ Nov 17th 2009 1:54PM
@Mr Khan
It's more than effort.
As Reggie suggests, you need some combination of effort and marketing, or effort and franchise power, or a combination of all three on Wii.
But then that goes for all systems. I have no clue why 3rd parties expect to sell when providing all three components on HD systems, but whine when they fail to sell with none on the Wii. And even then, the 'failures' are contestable when looking at up to date numbers (not first week sales - using the same metric to compare ODST and Bloom Blox should obviously be retarded!), statistically insignificant compared to sales failures on HD plats, and financially irrelevant when they cost $5million to make.
Katana Master @ Nov 17th 2009 2:03PM
Wait Monster Hunter is coming to the Wii? O_O I have played Monster Hunter on my PSP but Wii?
Sidebuster @ Nov 17th 2009 3:34PM
They have a trailer on ign for tri. I nearly shit my pants with excitement. I still have the monster hunter ps2 beta disc for online play.
Shagittarius @ Nov 17th 2009 5:40PM
I can't believe anyone who has ever played a Monster Hunter would be looking forward to another iteration. Those games are shit yo.
mahouneko @ Nov 18th 2009 4:52AM
@Shagitarius:
Monster Hunter is at its most fun when you can play ad-hoc co-op with your friends. That was certainly the case in Hong Kong where people would literally take up sofa couches in the living room and just play Monster Hunter with each other on the PSP.
redjack @ Nov 17th 2009 1:00PM
HEY, Imagine Petz: My Pony Farm is a GREAT and DEEP gaming experience. You new-style hardcore HD junkie gamers don’t know what good is unless metacritic tells you!
EvoHelix @ Nov 17th 2009 1:01PM
We demand Fatal Frame 4!
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/08/fatal-frame-iv-unlikely-to-scare-up-american-release/
Donald @ Nov 17th 2009 4:38PM
Make sure to demand they fix the glitches while you're at it.
Rob S. @ Nov 17th 2009 1:01PM
I think it's a lack of advertisement that hurts these games more then anything else. Third Parties on the PS3/360 don't have to worry about that because Sony and Microsoft depend on them, thus they highly promote their games. Nintendo does not need them as much, having their own games, thus they are at a lose.
Rob S. @ Nov 17th 2009 1:04PM
Although I think being new IPs hurts them as well. I mean people will go for what they played before, such as the sequel games that come out, other then playing something they don't know.
Ghen @ Nov 17th 2009 1:25PM
That's very true. Microsoft and Sony bear the burden on marketing when they use a game to sell the console. Since Nintendo hasn't needed commercials to sell it's console, 3rd parties lose that huge push from free (or discounted) commercials.
John Z @ Nov 17th 2009 1:03PM
The arguments about Reggie's seeming schizophrenia ("We're gonna beat MW2... but we need 3rd parties") aside, name one single third-party Wii game that's received an advertising blitz on the level of, hell, not even MW2-- let's shoot low and say *any 360 title*. Third parties are not advertising their Wii games nearly as hard as they are their 360/PS3 titles. That could be because of the long lead times he mentions, but it's not like developers haven't been putting out Wii games-- just nothing *worthy* of the ads. The few games that have warranted the hype have gone woefully under-promoted (Conduit, MadWorld, boy and his blob, Dead Space Extraction) and as a direct result, have floundered.
Let's skip the old trolling of "tehy haev abandoden teh hradcoer!!11!" and be reasonable about this.
Rob S. @ Nov 17th 2009 1:06PM
I agree, they need to work a little harder, because unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo does not massively promote their third party people.