Apart from Nintendo, are developers just abusing the Wii?
The Wii is in a world of it’s own in terms of what games work, and what games sell well. But does this mean that apart from Nintendo who continue to push the boundaries of what is capable on the machine, developers are going for the cheap and easy option? In other words rather than care about the product, they are purely seeing the casual gamer dollar signs before their eyes.
An interesting debate has been raging on the Ubisoft forums over the past few days. A poster asked “Do you have anything at all for normal Wii-Gamers?” and the responses were in the main very negative about the effort made by Ubisoft in developing games for the Wii.
The big complaint seemed to be that the developer was concentrating too hard on making games for so called non-gamers, or casual gamers, and ignoring the needs of Wii owners who want to play something mainstream with a bit of substance about it. Basically not yet another Rayman Raving Rabbids.
As Kotaku drew attention too, the Ubisoft moderators didn’t like the general anti-Ubisoft feeling being spread and so issued a bit of a rebuttal to the criticism.
“Parents who are buying a console for their children do not really care about Prince of Persia, Rainbow Six or Far Cry on the box, they want games that are going to be good for their children and not get them in the local newspaper.”
“If you look at the most successful Wii games, they are not amazing new AAA games, they are predominantly family orientated [Sic] games/alternative games.”
So basically, Ubisoft has realised that what sells on the Wii isn’t what sells on the PS3 or Xbox 360. In effect, crappy games which are instantly accessible and pick up and play are always going to do better than classics which have love and devotion paid to them during development.
While it’s no surprise that games developers bottom line is profit, it seems that the Wii, and particularly Wii gamers who want something more than a quick Wii Remote waggling experience, are being left wanting when it comes to the proper third party support they deserve.
There are plenty of games for the system, but the point is that third party developers are just targeting the easy money in place of actually pushing the machine to it’s limits.
I know the Wii is incapable of hosting spectacular big budget games such as Grand Theft Auto 4 and Halo 3, but surely there’s more scope in the product than developers are currently exploiting. Every console needs to be pushed in order to fulfil it’s potential, but unfortunately it looks like in this respect, the Wii is a victim of its own success.
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16 Responses to “Apart from Nintendo, are developers just abusing the Wii?”
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June 1st, 2008
Why the [sic] after orientated? That is the correct English spelling. The Americanised version is oriented. Why would an English person use the American spelling on an English forum?
June 1st, 2008
If I were Ubisoft I’d beg GrassHopper Manufacture (Suda51) to make more games like No More Heroes. Out of all the games I own I say it’s currently the best. Too bad for Ubisoft that Sega beat them to MadWorld coming out next year.
June 1st, 2008
Seriously, I hate you all.
Nintendo touches children on their birthdays, Microsoft slept with my cat and stole my wallet, and Sony raped my brother. You decide which company you would support knowing what they are really about. Do you support child molestation and party-crashing, beastiality and petty theft, or homosexual rape?
If you support any of the above please send a letter to one of the following listed addresses stating your support for the above listed cause:
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20535-0001
or
Europol
P.O. Box 908 50
2509 LW The Hague
The Netherlands
or
INTERPOL
General Secretariat
200, quai Charles de Gaulle
69006 Lyon
France
or
RCMP Public Affairs and Communications Services
Headquarters Bldg.
1200 Vanier Parkway
Ottawa, Ont. K1A 0R2
**Please note, these address are meant to be used for serious inquiries only such as informing your government that you are a criminal and would like to be locked in prison for the rest of your natural born life**
Okay, lets end this debate here and now. You are all fags. You make posts supporting your console of choice, but it doesn’t change anything. Nobody is really going to take what you say seriously, but it’s like none of you care. Furthermore, you’re all boring. No jokes, just insults; thus, you are leading people to think that these posts, forms, blogs, or whatever the fuck it is that you all do, are all full of children.
June 2nd, 2008
They are selling games based on the demand….whats wrong with that? The demand is what the majority of the gamers of that system wants. So they are doing the right thing, by catering to the majority of those gamers, and the positive thing for them is, it’s making them a cra load of money as well.
It makes full sence that they don’t bring out games on the Wii like the 360 or PS3 because if Wii owners wanted games seen on 360 or PS3, they would buy one of those systems instead. People bought the Wii for what it is, and what it is, is not a 360 or PS3.
I am sure if Wii gamer demand turned around and said “we want Rainbow Six, Vegas 2″, they would develop according to gamer demand, why not, tha’s were the dollars are right?.
DAVE PARRACK
June 2nd, 2008
But if there are no games to buy that satisfy said demand, how will Ubisoft know of such a demand?
June 2nd, 2008
Well demand for such games IS there.
Re4 and RE Chronicles have sold well over 1m copies,Red steel(also from Ubisoft)-(a good game shame on the controls though).
Rayman raving rabbid 1 was very good but part 2 wasn´t sooo good.
What about at least a proper Rayman 4+Beyond Good and Evil(totally underated).
COME ON UBISOFT!
June 2nd, 2008
Ubisoft always made Crap-Games for the Wii. But other publisher are willing and able to make AAA-Games. The E3 will be a Wii-Event
June 2nd, 2008
Spideydog
Yeah…I’m sure if the wii owners wanted Rockstar to bring GTA IV to the wii, they’ll just release it tomorrow. It makes sense right?.Cuz that way the devs. make more money.
I mean come on, so wat the wii does not have the power, it can still run GTA, Crysis or MGS4 riiiiight?…The consumers just have to say “We Want these games on the wii”, and they’ll have it delivered right away.
But for some wierd reason, they don’t want good games on the wii..They just want “yoga”
June 2nd, 2008
What point are you trying to make hamburger? Thats pretty much what I was saying ???? They are delivering the games that the majority of Wii gamers are asking for.
June 2nd, 2008
Spideydog
The point I’m trying to make?
U think that the Wii consumers can just demand Gta and they’ll deliver it?
No…They can’t.
You say
“I am sure if Wii gamer demand turned around and said “we want Rainbow Six, Vegas 2″, they would develop according to gamer demand, why not, tha’s were the dollars are right?”
Don’t hav to think abt wat the wii is capable of?
If it can produce the same performance as the ps3 or 360, y in gods name did Sony nd MS invest so much on power.
Face it..The wii can’t give u evrything…Its meant for some games only and thats why only Nintendo can develop some games for it.
You can’t just say that the consumers have to demand nd they’ll get it
THATS WRONG
June 2nd, 2008
Of course they can’t make the high end games for Wii. If they were to attempt those, they would be highly “dumbed” down spin off versions (they have done that with PSP titles)
The point I was making is that the game demand for Wii, is those “dinky dink” simple games and that is what the game developers will cater too. If the Wii gamer demand was for more complex games, they would develop for that instead.
(I’m not talking 1 for 1 conversions of PS3 and 360 high end games – you took me too literally there)
You talk as though I am a super Wii fan… I’m not?? It’s ok for a novelty, for party games and if you got kids, but thats it.
As a side note, where did that comment from “I hate you all” come from ?? I don’t remember it there before ????
June 2nd, 2008
lol I just read that – forgot that fag meant gay in America. Wondered why he was calling us all cigarettes
But yeah, screw him
i got a Wii and i don’t even use it for gaming. In fact, it just sits there. I haven’t used for ages. I hated Mario Kart. Only thing left now is SSBB for Europe. And then off to CEX it is for my little Wii….
June 2nd, 2008
IHateYouAll :: “Nobody is really going to take what you say seriously” – *cough*irony*cough*
(and yes it has crossed my mind that it was an attempt at comedy, but it made my brain slightly numb so probably not.)
So moving on…
The wii has some gems every so often, but the rest is pumped out for the ‘general’ population.
A good example of this would be hollywood where a movie (e.g fantastic 4) can be a piece of crap but appeal enough to certain age groups etc. it turns a profit and so the company decides to fire out a sequal or another POS.
At the end of the day, no one forces you to go out a purchase those games.
June 2nd, 2008
Well the Wii is a crappy console so that’s why they get crap for games. Wii is just way too lame with it has nothing awesome the worst thing is the online service they got if you can call it that plus the controller wiimote wow that sucks took boring and pure geek.
June 4th, 2008
Obviously wii owners are demanding more or they would not be upset with the announcements of what games are coming out from ubisoft. Wii owners may want yoga and other games, but they also want hard core games. The system may not be able to handle some of the AAA PS3 and 360 titles, but it certainly can handle the quality of anything the PS2 had.
What non port and non gimped hard core game hasn’t sold well on the wii? Just because people are not interested in ports from last generation doesn’t mean they don’t want quality games.
June 4th, 2008
The truth is: many mature men bought the wii because they don’t like the last-gen-gamepad of consoles like gamecube, xbox360 or ps3. They played pc-games with mouse and now want to play ego-shooters and other action games with the perfect fitting wiimote. The switch to an gamepad-console like xbox and ps3 is not even an option. Xbox/PS3 are consoles for pubertal boys who think mastering a fiddly gamepad controls are a “skill”.
This year the smaller developers will make the real cash with mature wii-games like mad world, the conduit, deadly creatures etc.
The big publisher has to much analyst that want to imitate Nintendo, but they can not understand the success of the nintendo-games like mario galaxy and think it’s all about casual and a cartonish look. There are to few people in the big companies who really could think about the market. I hope the same analysts will see the success of coming new Nintendo mature games like Day of Crisis and Fatal Frame 4 and copy that style too.