Wii sales slipping?

[Utsanomiko]

Well at least Sony made the smart move by making sure the PS3 had such a great launch library compared to the Wii...

Oh.

On a more serious note, anyone recall which must-have 360 games were out in its first 3-6 months? I didn't pay attention to anything in its library for the first year so I only know what's out now.

[Vendetta]

On a more serious note, anyone recall which must-have 360 games were out in its first 3-6 months? I didn't pay attention to anything in its library for the first year so I only know what's out now.

The ones I'd consider must have are Project Gotham 3, Condemned, Dead or Alive 4, Call of Duty 2. Bubbling under as worth buying but not must buy are Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Quake 4, Ridge Racer 6, King Kong, and Fight Night Round 3.

The latest one of those was out in February '06 (FNR3), Most were out by January, and the lowest rated of them has an average 74 score on Metacritic.

The PS3 has about the same number of high rated games as of now, but most of these are also available on the Xbox 360 (and many of them are better there, CoD3, Tony Hawk, FNR3, Need for Speed.)

[LMSx]

Face it, Zelda is nothing more than a Gamecube game with some buttons remapped. But for some reason, people still hail Zelda as 'a traditional game done right'. Bah. Had it not had the strength of the Zelda franchise behind it, Twilight Princess would have been yet another lazy last-generation port.

A little nit-picky, but the Wii version also has 16x9 widescreen support- not exactly re-inventing the wheel but they at least took some advantage of the Wii's superior graphic ability. However, that comes at the cost of free camera control with the C Stick. I'm still weighing the pros and cons of that, because that was one thing Wind Waker did very well.

[Sharp-kun]

Well at least Sony made the smart move by making sure the PS3 had such a great launch library compared to the Wii...

Given that the only Wii game I care about is available for their previous system with no disadvantages, to me the Wii launch library has just as much appeal as the PS3 one - none.

[Stark]

The ones I'd consider must have are Project Gotham 3, Condemned, Dead or Alive 4, Call of Duty 2. Bubbling under as worth buying but not must buy are Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, Quake 4, Ridge Racer 6, King Kong, and Fight Night Round 3.

The latest one of those was out in February '06 (FNR3), Most were out by January, and the lowest rated of them has an average 74 score on Metacritic.

It's so wierd to see a list of such bog-standard games as 'must haves'. Thre are some good games on 360, but none of them were launch titles (in my opinion, the launch array was uninspired and I've never heard anyone say anything good about PDZ). It's worth pointing out that if you're after Fighting Game 87 or Driving Game Victory, the 360 is the obvious choice, and certainly not a Wii.

What's interesting is lately I've seen many bogans with obviously not enough money to blow AU$1000 on a PS3 looking at them and preordering them at EB. As far as I know PS3 has one game worth playing... but people want to buy it anyway, even though they clearly can't just drop cash on it? Retarded.

About review scores (which everyone knows I consider utterly worthless) I read a review of a game I played recently on *snigger* IGN. The reviewer was hostile to the whole concept of the game, contradicted themselves about the controls (condemned it as both 'two-button mashing' and 'very complicated') and criticised the game based on the license it uses, lambasted the graphics, presentation, and overall appeal of the game... and it got 88%. What. The. Fuck. The score alone was completely worthless, and the review text was a pile of bullshit. I love reading reviews for games I've already played.

[Ace Pace]

IGN sucks, this is nothing new.

[Sephirius]

That doesn't make Sephirius any less of an idiot, of course...

what'd I do to deserve that Spanky

protip: buy a ps3. blu-ray will take over anyway.

Just like beta-max.

Beta-max Forever!

Actually, many news networks (City TV in Toronto included) still use Digital Betamax for their field cameras.

And I have a large beta tape collection too...
and laserdisc...

lol.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

That doesn't make Sephirius any less of an idiot, of course...

what'd I do to deserve that Spanky

You said this:

protip: buy a ps3. blu-ray will take over anyway.

[DaveJB]

Actually, many news networks (City TV in Toronto included) still use Digital Betamax for their field cameras.

So? MiniDisc is widely used in the radio industry, but that doesn't alter the fact that it lost out big time to MP3 players in the consumer area.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

Actually, they still use Digital Betacam, not Betamax. Betacam was merely the professional offshoot of Betamax, and had a number of differences from the commercial format (chief among them that it recorded in component rather than composite), but it didn't factor at all in the Beta/VHS format war. So mentioning it is sort of a red herring.

[Utsanomiko]

It's so wierd to see a list of such bog-standard games as 'must haves'. Thre are some good games on 360, but none of them were launch titles (in my opinion, the launch array was uninspired and I've never heard anyone say anything good about PDZ). It's worth pointing out that if you're after Fighting Game 87 or Driving Game Victory, the 360 is the obvious choice, and certainly not a Wii.

That's what I was thinking. I wanted examples of essential games in the first couple months like (Dead Rising and Gears of War are about all that's fully on my radar and future list), but instead got some sort of unrelateble moon-man response that validated my 5-going-on-7 Wii game purchases.

[Vendetta]

It's so wierd to see a list of such bog-standard games as 'must haves'. Thre are some good games on 360, but none of them were launch titles (in my opinion, the launch array was uninspired and I've never heard anyone say anything good about PDZ). It's worth pointing out that if you're after Fighting Game 87 or Driving Game Victory, the 360 is the obvious choice, and certainly not a Wii.

It may seem weird initially, but look at what people actually buy. Really actually innovative titles that are genuinely stunning and great tend to be bought by two guys and a dog. Pokemon Puce and Grand Theft Auto Your Backyard sell ten mil without effort.

This is because the bog standard games are largely ones that can be played by absolutely anyone with pretty much the same expectation of enjoyment from them.

[Stark]

It may seem weird initially, but look at what people actually buy. Really actually innovative titles that are genuinely stunning and great tend to be bought by two guys and a dog. Pokemon Puce and Grand Theft Auto Your Backyard sell ten mil without effort.

This is because the bog standard games are largely ones that can be played by absolutely anyone with pretty much the same expectation of enjoyment from them.

Oh I'm not arguing that their unpopular or unpolished or whatever, simply that it's odd for an array of cutout games (even what, three driving games?) as 'must haves'. But then I'm still slowly creeping towards getting a 360 for a couple of interesting games, rather than the huge pile of uninspired rubbish, so...

At least the next generation will have a PS2-esque library - hundreds, thousands of titles, and maybe forty good ones.

[Sephirius]

That doesn't make Sephirius any less of an idiot, of course...

what'd I do to deserve that Spanky

You said this:

protip: buy a ps3. blu-ray will take over anyway.

but... it's the better format D:
stupid consumers

[Ace Pace]

but... it's the better format D:
stupid consumers

Hasn't this been done to death?

Betamax, look it up.

[Utsanomiko]

but... it's the better format D:
stupid consumers

Hasn't this been done to death?

Betamax, look it up.

Even if blu-ray does win out, his 'recommendation' is like telling people to buy a Action Max because it relies upon a successful media format.

[Shogoki]

That's likely due to it receiving a brief boost from the PS3's launch. If PS3 owners keep buying the discs, then yeah, it'll probably be game over for HD-DVD. If not, then it could still be anyone's game (though whether either side will achieve a victory that's worth bragging about is a different matter entirely...)

The winner will be whichever format gets a player priced at $100 or less first (extra points for backwards compatibility with DVD), that's the only thing that will get the general public to consider either of them over a $50 DVD player sitting right besides them, the PS3 and a few audio and video philes that make up a market probably smaller than what's left of VHS are inconsequential against such a big standard as DVD.

[Shogoki]

but... it's the better format D:
stupid consumers

Technical superiority means shit, look at Beta and Laserdisc, it all boils down to who makes the players more afordable and readily available first.

[Vendetta]

Oh I'm not arguing that their unpopular or unpolished or whatever, simply that it's odd for an array of cutout games (even what, three driving games?) as 'must haves'.

It's not that odd. For the vast majority of people, those are the actual "must have" titles, It doesn't matter that they have played something like them before, in fact, the sense of familiarity is part of what they're buying when they buy those games. Additionally, all the games I listed are good examples of their respective genres.

Interesting games might get a lot of critical acclaim, but the number of people that will buy a console on the strength of them (or even buy the games themselves) can be counted without taking your socks off. Look at the performance of games like Psychonauts. Everyone who's actually played it will tell you it's a stunning game, one of the most original, best written, best balanced games of the last generation. It sold like fresh piss on a warm day.

(By the way, I agree that individual review scores are useless, which is why I look at metacritic and gamerankings, because they present an average of all scores, which filters out individual bullshit and poor editorial control, which creeps in especially in online publications)

[DPDarkPrimus]

(By the way, I agree that individual review scores are useless, which is why I look at metacritic and gamerankings, because they present an average of all scores, which filters out individual bullshit and poor editorial control, which creeps in especially in online publications)

Not necessarily true.

One shit review by an idiot over on IGN brought down the score of the Sonic Wii game from an average of ~95% to 80%.

[Stark]

It's not that odd. For the vast majority of people, those are the actual "must have" titles, It doesn't matter that they have played something like them before, in fact, the sense of familiarity is part of what they're buying when they buy those games. Additionally, all the games I listed are good examples of their respective genres.

While I can agree with familiarity (after all, I once owned Dynasty Warriors 2-5 ) I'm not sure how both Project Gotham and NFS can be in the same 'must have' list. They're racing games - different, but who wants both? *And* Ridge Racer? That's the 'flatness' of the launch titles - piles of very similar games, and you'd have to be strange to buy three separate driving games. Wii's launch set is just as bad, with three meh shooters, three meh driving games, etc etc.

Err, unless they had Dynasty Warriors driving them. In any case, shouldn't we know all about the 'must haves' for PS3 by now? The only PS3 launch title I've heard anything good about is Resistance, and it looks like bog-standard shooter and interests me less than GoW.

[Yogi]

I just checked with a local Wal-Mart and they confirmed that Wii sales are slipping. On Thursday, they got a shipment of 34 Wiis, and it took them all of Thursday and Friday morning for them to sell out. They assured me that the sales are dropping off, so I can come in next Thursday night to get one.

So, "sales are slipping" is a rather relative term.

[LMSx]

(By the way, I agree that individual review scores are useless, which is why I look at metacritic and gamerankings, because they present an average of all scores, which filters out individual bullshit and poor editorial control, which creeps in especially in online publications)

Not necessarily true.

One shit review by an idiot over on IGN brought down the score of the Sonic Wii game from an average of ~95% to 80%.

How is that a problem? *Any* aggregator will be skewed when there are only 2 or 3 reviews counted. If you're talking about Sonic and the Secret Rings, 6 of the 9 reviews are in the 69-76 range, so it's now pretty easy to guess the overall quality.

[Uraniun235]

but... it's the better format D:
stupid consumers

Technical superiority means shit, look at Beta and Laserdisc, it all boils down to who makes the players more afordable and readily available first.

You can't record to a Laserdisc, though. I think even if LD was more affordable, people would have gravitated to buying a tape deck over buying an LD deck, because a lot of people recorded TV shows on tape. Further, while LD was technically superior, although a lot of people didn't have a setup good enough for it to really make a difference.

Similarly, a lot of people still have 480i TV sets, so they're not even getting the full benefit of a lot of DVD titles, let alone being able to notice any difference between DVD and HD-DVD/Blu-ray. Hence why I think either HD-DVD/Blu-Ray is destined to become the next LaserDisc.

[Shogoki]

You can't record to a Laserdisc, though. I think even if LD was more affordable, people would have gravitated to buying a tape deck over buying an LD deck, because a lot of people recorded TV shows on tape. Further, while LD was technically superior, although a lot of people didn't have a setup good enough for it to really make a difference.

Similarly, a lot of people still have 480i TV sets, so they're not even getting the full benefit of a lot of DVD titles, let alone being able to notice any difference between DVD and HD-DVD/Blu-ray. Hence why I think either HD-DVD/Blu-Ray is destined to become the next LaserDisc.

Like i said in my first post, the only way either format can stand a chance of winning the "format war" (more like a small skirmish so far) is if they release a $100 or under, backwards compatible, player, otherwise they don't stand a snowball's chance in hell against DVD.