Ubisoft's core-focused Wii sequel Red Steel 2 has made an underwhelming start in the US, shifting just 50,000 copies in its first 12 days on the market.
While it's still early days, the game's performance looks set to continue the slow sales trend experienced by numerous action-oriented Wii titles aimed at older gamers, including MadWorld, The Conduit and Dead Space Extraction.
An Ubisoft spokesperson told Kotaku that it was too soon to label the game a success or failure: "Considering that the NPD sales only accounted for 12 days on the store shelves and that NPD doesn't include all retailers we are looking forward to a complete month of sales data to see where we stand."
March's bestselling game in the US was Sony's PS3 exclusive God Of War III, which moved 1.1 million copies in 19 days of availability.
Red Steel 2 debuted at number 34 on the UK all formats chart last month. Enjoying better fortunes are the company's casual-focused Just Dance, which recently became the third bestselling third party Wii game ever in the UK, and core-focused Xbox 360 game Splinter Cell Conviction, which topped the latest UK chart.
It's just too little too late. The core audience has long since lost interest in the Wii, and no single title is going to bring people back. They've tried to appeal to that audience a few times, with MadWorld, The Conduit and now Red Steel 2, but it's just too late. Peoples' perception of the Wii is not going to be changed by any single game.
Back when they were reeling in the cash from the casual, they let their game slip because they thought they wouldn't need the core audience anymore. But now sales have slowed, the fickle casual audience has had it's fill, and Nintendo needs the gamers back... but it's too late.
I do and i bought Red steel 2 as well. Its bloody brilliant as well.
The problem with all the games mentioned above, not that they were on the wii, but that they got absolutley no advertising and very little press exposure.
How can devs expect sales if they don't give the games the backing they need.
The wii is definately home to many amazing games that no bugger played, which is a great shame.
Come back in 12 months when the game has broke a million with it's legs like the first game, best people understand sales on the console before theypost their views, the port of modern warfare sold 30k in the US in it's first week and 60k ww in it's first week back in December and is now at 1m. RS2 has shifted 50k in the US and 110k ww in it's first week, Wii games continue to sell at the rate of 20-30k a week instead of front loaded.
For a reference look up the sales of the touched up PS3/360 ports of NMH for those saying certain games would sell better on HD consoles as they just shoot that logic down with force.
I thought it was a pretty good game... some issues... the load times, and the constant going back and forth to get missions... but the controls were sweet.
I don't think Wii owners like these types of games that only last for 6 hours... although this one has more return value than a lot of others. Most of the big Wii games have tons of replay value... Kart, NSMBWii, Sports Resort, SSBB... although Tatsunok v. Capcom didn't fare so well.
It's hard to say why something sells/doesn't sell on the Wii. I don't think it has anything to do with hardcore/casual... it's something different that even Nintendo don't understand sometimes IMHO.
i'll be interested to read Ninendo's take on these sales figures.
There simply isn't a large enough active core audience on the Wii to justify development of such titles. I can't blame the developers for abandoning ship, especially if they're losing money.
I think Mark's comment summed it up really, but it's a bloody shame.
Having an underpowered machine compared to 360,PS3 really hurts it as does the woeful online strategy.
It says a lot that all i'm playing on my Wii right now is Super Mario Kart (SNES). But then again it is utterly fantastic
Your sort of missing the Great thing about developing for the wii though, from a sales perspective.
Devs can make games for significantly less money than thier HD counterparts. On average a core game on the wii such as red steel 2 will cost half as much to develop which in turn means it needs half the sales before breaking even.
What might be considered poor sales on the likes of the 360 and the PS3 are perfectly acceptable on the wii because of this.
As for 3rd party devs jumping ship i'm yet to see any sign of this happening. All you have to do is be assulted by this sites latest pop up add to be shown this. Monster Hunter 3 last time i checked was made by Capcom, Sega have just announced The conduit 2, Mystwalker are set to release the last story exclusively on the console and Dragon Quest X has already been announced as a wii exclusive.
Sorry guys just becasue you want it to happen doesn't make it so.
The only people who apparently have abandoned the wii are guys that never owned one or didn't bother playing on it in the first place.
We've been here before 'x game flopped' based on looking at first week sales or something equally dumb. Fast forward 12 months and every single time the things a million seller or has surpassed developer expectations enough to warrant a sequel.
The classic case being when some website compared the sales of a game on Wii in week 1 in France vs the worldwide lifetime sales of a game on two platforms with their sales added together. I think that was for Silent Hill or one of the other lightgun games...
...although Tatsunok v. Capcom didn't fare so well.
Well, none of the last 'Vs' games have sold that well either. Only SF IV sold well and that's not because it was on the PS3 and 360. The 'Vs' games tend not to sell so well and that's a shame as some of them are good.
As for the sales of games like Red Steel 2, well, its harder to crack a console that is more casually orientated. You have to put more into marketing so these people who don't see the ads on sites like this will see the game. I have seen TV ads for this game but only at really late in the hour. I've seen more ads for Monster Hunter Tri and that's cos Nintendo are marketing it here and really want to push the game. Having said that, I'd only probably pay £10 for this game since its only six hours long or whatever...
Oh, and what Monkey said. Wii games do cost less to develop after all, so breaking even should be easier for devs
Your sort of missing the Great thing about developing for the wii though, from a sales perspective.
Devs can make games for significantly less money than thier HD counterparts. On average a core game on the wii such as red steel 2 will cost half as much to develop which in turn means it needs half the sales before breaking even.
What might be considered poor sales on the likes of the 360 and the PS3 are perfectly acceptable on the wii because of this.
As for 3rd party devs jumping ship i'm yet to see any sign of this happening. All you have to do is be assulted by this sites latest pop up add to be shown this. Monster Hunter 3 last time i checked was made by Capcom, Sega have just announced The conduit 2, Mystwalker are set to release the last story exclusively on the console and Dragon Quest X has already been announced as a wii exclusive.
Sorry guys just becasue you want it to happen doesn't make it so.
The only people who apparently have abandoned the wii are guys that never owned one or didn't bother playing on it in the first place.
I am a massive Nintendo fan since the NES and while i have had some great gaming experiences on my Wii, i feel let down by Nintendo. Yes they have produced some of the best games this generation (SMG), but they have focussed so much on the casual market that they have lost the core market by not releasing the type of game that made them great. To be fair 3rd party support has never been a nintendo consoles strong point over the years. I think they have created a sustainable casual market, but they have lost so much in their own creativity. I wish that Nintendo could see this and work closer with the 3rd party support to get the best out of their system. i feel that Nintendo will lose people like me in the next generation. This is esp annoying as the Wii has so much to offer and there are some games that you can only get the best out of on the Wii. Having said that i am a gaming freak, i have all the consoles and will say that i still play my Wii about the same as the others, i have bought many of the core games mentioned and have loved them, it just a problem that alot of people have another console and that would appear that is where their money is spent. I hope that Ninty can remedy the situation but i am not hopeful. Phew that was hard for me to admit.
Your sort of missing the Great thing about developing for the wii though, from a sales perspective.
Devs can make games for significantly less money than thier HD counterparts. On average a core game on the wii such as red steel 2 will cost half as much to develop which in turn means it needs half the sales before breaking even.
What might be considered poor sales on the likes of the 360 and the PS3 are perfectly acceptable on the wii because of this.
As for 3rd party devs jumping ship i'm yet to see any sign of this happening. All you have to do is be assulted by this sites latest pop up add to be shown this. Monster Hunter 3 last time i checked was made by Capcom, Sega have just announced The conduit 2, Mystwalker are set to release the last story exclusively on the console and Dragon Quest X has already been announced as a wii exclusive.
Sorry guys just becasue you want it to happen doesn't make it so.
The only people who apparently have abandoned the wii are guys that never owned one or didn't bother playing on it in the first place.
Rubbish. You only have to take a look at a finance statements at the end of each year to see just how much money the likes of EA and Take Two make from the Wii. It's significantly less than the HD consoles.
Show us these statements Voodoo, on top of that I can only think of two games from Take Two on the Wii one was the terrible Manhunt 2 and the other is Carnival games which shifted around 3m. EA release a few sports titles which sell the same as other versions but other then that their best effort on Wii is a on rails shooter.
Rather then dismiss what he said as rubbish it's best you look at common sense which tells you most of their games aren't on Wii and outside sports titles all they release is rubbish so of course you'll get less returns with this approach it's not rocket science. It just make them look foolish if they complain.
The main problem with mature games is that a lot of adults know how to hack their Wii's in order to play illegal back ups. Nintendo should take note of the PS3's constant firmware upgrades as a form of anti piracy. I think they would then see a dramatic rise in their sales figures.
Your sort of missing the Great thing about developing for the wii though, from a sales perspective.
Devs can make games for significantly less money than thier HD counterparts. On average a core game on the wii such as red steel 2 will cost half as much to develop which in turn means it needs half the sales before breaking even.
What might be considered poor sales on the likes of the 360 and the PS3 are perfectly acceptable on the wii because of this.
As for 3rd party devs jumping ship i'm yet to see any sign of this happening. All you have to do is be assulted by this sites latest pop up add to be shown this. Monster Hunter 3 last time i checked was made by Capcom, Sega have just announced The conduit 2, Mystwalker are set to release the last story exclusively on the console and Dragon Quest X has already been announced as a wii exclusive.
Sorry guys just becasue you want it to happen doesn't make it so.
The only people who apparently have abandoned the wii are guys that never owned one or didn't bother playing on it in the first place.
Rubbish. You only have to take a look at a finance statements at the end of each year to see just how much money the likes of EA and Take Two make from the Wii. It's significantly less than the HD consoles.
They might have made more money on paper, but i have a feeling that they also cost a lot more to make, i'd refer to my earlier point.
Just dance says hi by the way, as does EA sports active and the guitar hero and call of duty series.
all million plus sellers on the wii that more than likely cost a lot less to make for it than they do on the 360/ps3 (although just dance is an exclusive if you think that cost the same as a ps3 game to develop i think you should seek help with maths and common sense)
The main problem with mature games is that a lot of adults know how to hack their Wii's in order to play illegal back ups. Nintendo should take note of the PS3's constant firmware upgrades as a form of anti piracy. I think they would then see a dramatic rise in their sales figures.
The wii's firmware is upgraded quite often, It doesn't make a bit of difference as when a console is hacked it can be made to play any game regardless of what firmware it is.
If you take a look at a wii hacking forums most people are running the console on firmware 4.0 or lower.
No Sony's masterstroke was to not make the machine a target to hackers and therefore the filthy pirates that cling to them by making it fairly open. The other OS function took the fun out of it and using blu rays for stored media made the machine far less tempting for pirates.
Sony recently removing the other os function, has reversed this though. It's turned it into the biggest target in hacking and then shortly afterwards piracy around.
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
