[These Wii Remote-tans are sleeping, just like mine.]
It's been a while since I spent much time with my Wii to play anything besides my usual ritualistic zone-outs to Super Mario World, and I was hoping that this was the game that would renovate my fondness for Cute Little White, after I developed waggle fatigue and a lapse in patience for anything that wouldn't let me just sit still and push buttons.
But I think of Wii a lot, especially since it's become such a watchword to investors in those companies whose business I cover daily at Gamasutra. For example, EA in particular has invested heavily in Wii strategy; if you're an EA investor, wanting the publisher to grow its marketshare on the platform with the largest userbase is a reasonable desire.
And it's been successful; EA announced its EA Sports Active has sold 1.8 million copies since it launched in mid-May (you'll recall I meant to try that one, too, honestly -- but nope, tired of messing with Wii) and that its marketshare on Nintendo's platform is at a new high. In the UK specifically, the publisher's Wii titles like Tiger Woods and Harry Potter had the charts on lock for a while.
The primary complaint against Wii was that only first-party titles were successful on the platform; I'd argue that EA's been the company to prove in the biggest way that this isn't necessarily the case. Other companies are making strides, too -- you can bet Activision's just-announced Call of Duty 4 for Wii will sell well.
Or can you? Is it conceivable that CoD4 on Wii will only do about as well as, say, GTA: Chinatown Wars on DS? Which is to say with surprising modesty, given how those franchises rake it in on other platforms. What kind of games sell very well on Wii? Besides Nintendo's crown franchises, it's fitness and sports games, and that's usually about it.
And, y'know, that makes a ton of sense. It's a console that requires you to
move your body to play, so why shouldn't its bestsellers be those kinds of games? It just means that Wii is not the kind of game console we're used to -- and that it's heavily outsold core market hardware says a lot about our shifting audience.
That's why I polled you guys about how you're feeling towards Wii these days (right hand sidebar, vote vote vote!!) if you're reading this site, you're probably closer to a core gamer than not, even if you enjoy Wii's casual and physical fare too. It's really splintered away from the rest of the market into a product that's no longer "for" us, hasn't it?
You guys know I'm a huge fan of the Harvest Moon games, and the creator of that franchise, Yasuhiro Wada, is now in an exec role at publisher Marvelous. When you look at the games Marvelous does -- Harvest Moon, the upcoming Vanillaware gem Muramasa, and yes, my longed-for Little King's Story, you'd think they had the ideal recipe: family-friendly, universally-appealing themes with enough depth and gameplay sophistication to attract and sustain core players (Nintendo's own Pokemon is such a megafranchise thanks to similar traits).
You'd think if any game could bridge the schism between the Wii and "gamers", it'd be Marvelous'. But I bring this up to point you to an interview we recently did with Wada, wherein he highlights the challenges of being core-oriented on Wii. His thoughts make an interesting read.
How about you guys? Think there's a place for successful core market titles on the Wii (that do not have Mario, Zelda or Metroid in the title)?
So while I procrastinate mucking with re-syncing Wiimotes or lighting pairs of candles or whatever, I've been playing Fat Princess, which might actually be the game that lures me out of my anti-multiplayer cave. WILL THAT REALLY HAPPEN? We shall see...
