Capcom: Wii is 'a tough market to crack'

You see that title picture? That's a quality game for the Wii.

You know what the problem was? No Wii-owners bought it.

So why bother making quality games for the Wii, when Wii owners are all idiot casual gamers who lap up shit like Imagine Babiez?

I bought Zak and Wiki, and the problem is that it's a quality but niche title from an all-but-abandoned genre that would have done piss-poor sales on any system. Remember how the RE4 port sold like gangbusters? And yet EA couldn't be bothered to do anything more than a Dead Space rail-shooter for Wii owners. If third-parties want to put out high-profile, quality titles on the Wii, I'll be first in line on day one. Nintendo puts out consistently good titles and makes a killing in sales. Notice a pattern?

No advertising, niche genre, odd art style. Fixing one or more of those could have helped, though it would have inevitably altered the game

Such games aren't meant to sell particularly well. Capcom had to have known that going in.

I bought Zack & Wiki when it was full retail price ($40 for this, I believe). I have zero regrets about it. Fantastic title, and worth being in every Wii owner's library.

Yeah, it's a total niche title... but it's a damned good niche.

It just depresses me knowing I'll never get the sequel I want. :(

Great, someone's impersonating me now...

IGN? who still goes there? that site been death for years...

@ The Real Tmac

Should I stop?

Don't count on it. Quality had nothing to do with success or failures of most Wii games, or even the platform itself.

Despite what people say, there are already very high quality 3rd party Wii games. Some have had some success, others have failed hard.

The problem is the Wii consumer, nothing else.

IGN and the likes are not mainstream.

@ Kyammi

that's bullshit and you know it.

@BigFat

Hey, speak for yourself, buddy. I've got around 40-50 Wii games (excluding WiiWare). While I know I'm not the majority, try to refrain from stereotyping an entire market, mm'kay?

Esposch
Member Since Sep 29th, 2009
Capcom: Wii is "a tough market to crack" {Joystiq}
Jan 8th 2010 9:31PM Hey guys, look at me! I enjoy being sodomised by old men!

http://www.joystiq.com/profile/3305374/

Anyone who thinks Zack and Wiki would have sold any better on the PS3 or 360 is kidding themselves.

"They say they have no AAA games when i can name 5 of them off the top of my head theat they didnt buy."

Do it.

Wow @Gennosuke-sama (formerly known as tuunicopapi), you pose a good argument.

A say that there are high quality 3rd party Wii games, and you deny that by saying it's 'bullshit'.

Get your head out of your ass. If there was any chance of a largely successful high quality 3rd party Wii game it would have happened by now. Developers don't hate the Wii, they just hate that part of the market. Quality has no grounds for success.

I hear a lot of Wii-only gamers demanding things out of the Wii that will never come. Wii will never have quality online play as Nintendo doesn't support online play well, Wii will never have 360/PS3 quality graphics as the hardware isn't there. Wii games can and do have good gameplay, and that's all that should matter for sales, but guess what? All that matters is advertising, and that's more true on Wii than any other platform.

@ Kyammi

right, sure. how about you get YOUR head out of your ass and admit that your trolling? you wanna sit here and think that those game's are high quality game's? ok, sure. be my guest. i'm not stopping you. you can think whatever you like. but just because you feel that these game's are high quality doesn't mean that everyone else thinks so as well. if you stop being such a fanboy then you'd see that these game' aren't high quality. but hey whatever. you wanna be in denial? ok fine. your the one being a blind, idiotic fanboy.

"I see you use alot of insulting words to get your close minded point across."

oh and a shit load of people don't do the same bigfat? really? right whatever. as i previously stated, i have no pity for the ignorant. did what i say hurt you bigfat? you didn't like what i said? guess what buddy? your going to be seeing alot of that in today's society. if you let it get to you then guess what? your screwed. if you think that I'm insulting only to get my point across then your ignoring what I'm writing. simple as that. you don't like that i insulted you? too bad buddy. i don't give a shit.

ok. i'll do it because you say so. because your an ignorant self righteous fanboy.

I've long felt the issue with 3rd party Wii sales is 1. the last gen hardware (makes it to where other 3rd party games cant easily be ported) and 2. the wii consumer as a whole isn't all that interested in buying non nintendo and hardcore games.

Let's see what happens with tatsunoko vs capcom (I can already see excuses that people don't know who tatsunoko characters are etc etc) and Monster Hunter Tri (again already seeing excuses about how its a property unknown to wii gamers and made its living on handhelds) ... support of those titles will determine Capcoms future offerings on Wii.

Madworld, Conduit, Zack & Wiki, Crystal Bearers, Little Kings Story, Shattered Memories, Resident Evil 0, Boom Blox, No More Heroes, Dead Space Extraction, de Blob, Muramasa, Boy and his Blob, Rabbids go Home, House of Dead overkill, grand slam tennis, Klonoa, Chocobos Dungeon, Resident evil archives, resident evil umbrella chronicles, Broken Sword, FF Crystal Chronicles my life as a king, mushroom men spore wars, Tales of symphonia ... Don't tell me there haven't been ANY good 3rd party exclusives on the Wii.

@Gennosuke-sama (formerly known as tuunicopapi)

So I see I was indeed correct. You say I am wrong simply because you state I'm wrong instead of bringing up any points as I did.

You call me a fanboy, despite my owner ship of all platforms as opposed to your own blatant and open fanboyism.

Finally you use personal insults over and over to substitute for your lack of reasoning, correctness, or impartiality.

Go ahead and deny reality but it will get you nowhere. Years from now you'll be lambasting developers for never making a great Wii game, and you'll never open your eyes to the games that were right in front of you. It's a foolish self defeating practice.

"Just to be quick and since i dont feel like typing out a list, i'ma just say all the rail shooters, Zack and wiki, and The Conduit should fulfill my obligations"

The only one of those games that comes close to AAA status is The Conduit. And The Conduit sucks, apparently. You don't know what a AAA game is.

"Let's see what happens with tatsunoko vs capcom (I can already see excuses that people don't know who tatsunoko characters are etc etc) and Monster Hunter Tri (again already seeing excuses about how its a property unknown to wii gamers and made its living on handhelds)"

That's ridiculous.

No one in their right mind expects Tatsunoko vs Capcom to sell gangbusters BECAUSE of the unknown Tatsunoko characters. The only Vs Capcom games that sold well were the Marvel ones. Capcom vs SNK didn't do so hot, nor did Namco x Capcom (which didn't even release in the west, actually).
Capcom knows this is a niche release, as does everyone else. They aren't even changing the voice overs to English! They're in Atlus territory here!

As for Monster Hunter, calling it a litmus test for the Wii is equally silly.
Monster Hunter has repeatedly failed to do well in the western territories, even on the PSP.
It would be just as silly of me to say that Yakuza 3 will be a litmus test of the PS3's third party selling abilities. Or that Dragon Quest IX is a litmus test for the DS's third party selling strengths.
Monster Hunter historically has EVERYTHING stacked against it. You aren't going to see (m)any people touting Monster Hunter as the game that will kick sales ass on the Wii. Most of the comments from news sites, blogs and message boards are more about wondering how well it'll do, since it's apparently such a good game.

I think that Wii was the wrong platform for MHT anyway because of its history on Playstation consoles ... with that said Monster Hunter Tri is as close as you are going to get in terms of PS360 type of game on the Wii from Capcom. This is the big budget, large scale and scope release you are saying they should have made from the start. It's coming and it needs to be supported by Wii owners everywhere. Otherwise, we are saying this isn't the type of game that interests us in the least bit. You are basically saying that Capcom can't sell 3rd party games unless they are big budget games with strong branding ala Resident Evil ... thats not a promising proposition either and its why Capcom, Sega and Marvelous have all talked about dropping support of core offerings. Why wouldn't they? Why make an exclusive proper version of Resident Evil than can only be sold on one platform when you could sell it on two console to people that will support it? It goes back to the hardware issue. If Wii had comparable hardware the 3rd party issue would be non-existent. Point me to a single example of a 3rd party exclusive core wii offering that has broken the mold. The only game I even know of is Resident Evil 4 and thats a port of a last gen game largely bought by people that played it on gamecube.

Or maybe they do and we're just now realizing that these loud nintendo people are just that, a very loud minority.

But Zack & Wiki really wasn't that great of a title, and just like Mad World was somewhat of a niche genre/gameplay/style.

because the 99% of Wii owners don't read gaming blogs, and Zack & Wiki didn't get advertisements. One guy said he saw an ad for it, but it's impossible to find on the internet, so that must mean what all the bloggers said at the time... "where are the ads??"

Sadly, Capcom makes a ton of great games but has paid only attention to Megaman, Resident Evil and Street Fighter for decades now.

@ BigFat

because we REFUSE to purchase crappy (poorly developed) game's. as i have said to many of your ilk, i WILL NOT purchase a game that i only will only last me 5-8 hours to finish and bores while trying to finish it. i WILL NOT settle for anything less the a great game. bash me all you want. say whatever you please. fill my emails inbox with nasty, offensive emails all you like. it's not gonna change my opinion. do you know what the problem with people like you is? that you think your right about everything and that your never wrong and when your proven wrong you deny it.

@gennosuke

then i guess you've never bought any nes games like mega man 2 and super mario bros. because they only lasted 3-6 hours.

@ BigFat,

Never said Z&W was a "bad" game at all. It also never "turned" bad when it wasn't moderately successful.

I'd elaborate more past this, but reading your posts here it's clear you are just trollin' trollin' trollin' keep those doggies rollin'!

It seems to me that every time a Wii game gets rave reviews there's always the phrase "Great for a wii game" handed out. I think that's where the trouble lies. Madworld was great compared to the shovelware on the wii, but when you look beyond that console to the overall market it just doesn't hold up. The conduit was competent, but mediocre and shallow when you compare it to shooters on other platforms. The only games I can think of on the wii that really stand on their own in the entire market are first party nintendo games. Super Mario Galaxy is still fun when you compare it to anything on the 360/PS3/PC, but games like the Conduit don't even come close. If third partys put the same kind of care into their wii titles as nintendo does then we might start seeing some higher sales.

@ sony boy (5 years til sony man child!)

actually no your right. i didn't. why? because i never owned a nes. or an snes. i started playing game's just a little bit before the N64 was released. nice attempt at try to bash me though. wait, wait, wait! i don't like liars so let me be honest. that was a pathetic attempt at trying to bash me. keep trying though. you'll get it soon enough.

And Zack & Wiki is an awesome game, if you enjoy an intelligent game that is, if you enjoy shooters this isn't for you. It feels almost like a classic Lucasarts game rather than a Capcom title.

Bought it first day, and sad to see it used as an example of a bad business decision by a gaming company.

As Chris Kramer says, this means more "event" titles or sequels as we gamers translate such things.

@ BigFat

you know, you really should take the time to get to know a person and learn a bit about their history. i own a PS3, 360, Wii and a PC which, for the time being, suits my every needs. also who says the Wii isn't capable of GREAT game's? developers who have made shitty efforts? fanboys such as your self who are self righteous? metacritics who play "follow the leader" (or, in the case of this gen, follow fanboys)? "gwafix" and/or 1000+ enemies on screen don't equal good game(s) and ton's of sales. good development back with a decent marketing effort equal good game's and tons of sales.

"If third partys put the same kind of care into their wii titles as nintendo does then we might start seeing some higher sales."

give this man a medal right now. or a trophy at least. you took the words right out of my mouth.

You are going to see that from Capcom with Tatsunoko vs Capcom and Monster Hunter Tri. Lets see how both games sell then I guess we'll know for sure won't we? That is unless there are excuses given as to why they don't fit with the profile. In my opinion, Monster Hunter Tri is THE hardcore 3rd party wii litmus test.

But who knows Monster Hunter outside of Japan? I think Street Fighter and Gatchaman have a better chance, if they make a big deal about it. It's no Street Fighter 4.

If Capcom puts a marketing campaign behind the game everyone will know about it. It's not like it isn't somewhat popular in the United States on the PSP. Certainly there is some crossover with PSP & Wii owners. Even so you could say the same thing about virtually every 3rd party Wii game thats been released other than Resident Evil & Final Fantasy branded games. This is the high budget masterpiece made exclusively for the Nintendo Wii. If its not supported (assuming its got some kind of a marketing push) then it really says something extremely negative about the ability for 3rd parties to sell their masterpieces. Personally, I think its going to sell close to a 1 MIL copies in North America in it's release quarter.

Oh my god, i'm so sick of this argument. Nobody said that Graphics make a game, That's the Wii Fan's defense.... Like 360 gamers are nothing but graphics whores and 99.9% of the games are Screen savers that have shit control, but pretty pictures.

I'm sorry to admit this,, but I had FUN playing Dead Rising and Nintey Nine Nights. And yes, it was because I was killing or running from 1000s of enemies at once. It was fun to do. I had Fun, I kept playing it, I spent money for it. I also found Mass Effect to be Extremely fun. And the graphics were AMAZING.

Let's be clear about something, The Conduit was NOT an amazing game. Call Of Duty 4 was. THe Conduit was generic, with half way decent controls, and competent graphics. I did not have Fun playing it. And according to Meta-critic.. I fall into the majority there.

Amazing Wii Games are

Madworld
Boom Blox
Bully
House Of The Dead Overkill
Marumasa
Tiger Woods Golf 10

These are games I played and found to be fun and amazing. Not something some fanboys on a gaming blog told me because they looked bright colorful and japanesey.

It's not exactly the same thing, but a commenter on another site looked at the sales figures for Sega's mature titles and saw that they sold better on the Wii than on the 360 and PS3: http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=110163

"Total for Wii games: 2,048,167
Total for PS3 games: 1,581,641
Total for 360 games: 1,860,574

Average for Wii games: 682,722
Average for PS3 games: 225,949
Average for 360 games: 265,796"

So, it IS possible for a publisher to sell something other than casual games on the Wii.

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. I dare you to name one high-quality, high-profile, big-budget game on the Wii from a third-party. They could but they don't and I'm glad it's biting them in the ass. Every single third-party effort on the Wii has been either a port, a quick cash-in, or a new IP that receives no advertising and would have sold poorly on any system. Am I wrong? No.

I say they're better off putting them on the HD systems not just because they're not selling, but playing games on the Wii feels differently from the others, it just feels like the experience isn't nearly as good or fun.

It's probably all of the limitations of the system that make me feel like that, but it really does feel like I'm playing a ps2 and people who know me know I have a hard time going back and playing "old" games. So pretty much I won't be buying too many new wii games because of that, and a ton of other people feel the same or similar to me.

I hate to say it, but I agree with tmac. I have all 3 and just plain don't have the desire to play it. I still say I would have bought a Dead Space game for the Wii if they didn't half ass it.

You know, categorical statements are kinda asinine.

I still find Shadow of the Colossus and Ico better than any game I've played on the 360. Some titles are simply better games on the Wii because they don't rely on the graphics to be good games.

Some games are better in HD. I've played Madden on the 360 and the Wii. And, though I vastly prefer the Wii control scheme, the game is better on the 360 for a variety other reasons where graphics and feature sets come into play.

I've found Muramasa to be just as interesting a game and environment to play as Arkham Asylum.

It reminds me of when studios "colorized" black and white movies, as if that made them better. "Citizen Kane" gains nothing if it were in color. Similarly, some games do not improve by being HD. But some people like the illusion of being better.

We originally arrived at those statistics on VGChartz, picking apart the statement's of that SEGA rep who badmouthed Wii on 4 guys 1up.

Whats the total number of games for each platform?

@guttertalk

It's not just resolution. It's also lighting, environments, physics, character models etc and everything else that goes into the word "graphics."

I still can't believe you guys are trying to say you know better than a SEGA rep about what games are making and losing money for the company. I'll bet that 4/5 of the Sega sales came from Mario & Sonic at the Olympics.