Gaming industry moving into the wrong direction???

[Asher]

These numbers are from November 2nd, 2010:

http://gonintendo.com/viewstory.php?id=141217

-year-over-year Wii software sales have dropped 82%
- Wii sales were at $196 million back in Q3 of fiscal 2010 and then in subsequent quarters dropped to $71 million, then $40 million and then the $25 million for the just reported Q2

Who was it that mentioned "sustained" sales?

[Al B. Sure!]

Nothing to do with this topic but I laughed when I saw this (it's a youtube comment to an Atlantic Starr song) and there's no place to put it:

Shut up Cannuck! You are addressing an American. Canada sucks, but so do you! Canadians are usually homosexual and lack ability to reason. They are more like drunk mules. Where I came from, we would ride canadians at county fairs. We would saddle them and allow the children to ride them. But, they are very dumb creatures and would roll around in the dirt begging for cheap whiskey, they're drunks, child molesters, low IQ, smelly and ugly. They like you, are morons.

Where's bc1871 at?

[OzzyKP]

Look at it in a more meaningful way: How many people, after buying the Wii, play it even quasi-regularly? The number is VERY small. The Wii was acquired by many people on the nature of its gimmicky play, but it did not sustain any real interest. Even though the Wii's HW was outselling the 360 2:1, care to guess who moved FAR more games in that time?

Do you know why? Because the Wii was gimmicky. Yes, it sold a lot of HW, but it was HW that collectected dust for the vast majority of people after the gimmick got old.

FAR more games? How about the Wii:

Btw, I really appreciate it when you go out of your way to look up pretty graphs that demolish your own arguments. Makes my life so much easier.

[Asher]

You're right, the correct argument was FAR more games per unit sold.

My argument, as a whole, is the Wii is a gimmick. ALL of these facts demonstrate that's exactly what's happening:
1) People buy a Wii and with it they buy a stack of games which should be NEAT (Brain Age, that operation game, etc)...then they tire of it and stop buying games (which is why the PS3 and 360 have much better tie ratios)
2) Less people are buying the Wii and its games -- and this isn't slightly less, this is a HUGE drop in HW and SW sales. Why? The gimmick got old.

Notice which of the consoles there do not rely on gimmicks. Their growth curves are SUSTAINED and perpetually increasing. The Wii's spiked early and will crashed hard.

What kind of phenomenon could cause that, Ozzy? It starts with 'g'.

[Asher]

Test for Ozzy: If Wii's SW sales are down 83% this year compared to last, and last year sold 72M units -- how many did they sell this year?

Now compare this to the 360/PS3 numbers. In fact, add the numbers to that graph above...

What you will see is evidence of a gimmick. Initial numbers are low due to supply constraint issues, then once supply constraints are eliminated, sales skyrocket. Then once the gimmick gets old, they drop 83% in a single year...

Additionally, once you look at that graph there's NO WAY any sane person would call Wii sales "sustained".

[giblets]

I know this is nitpicking but Brain Age is on the DS.

[DriXnaK]

I thought it was common knowledge that the Wii age had collapsed and the only consoles left battling at this point are Xbox360 and PS3?

[Asher]

Whatever. Brain Age, Big Brain Academy...same gimmick, different name.

[Asher]

I thought it was common knowledge that the Wii age had collapsed and the only consoles left battling at this point are Xbox360 and PS3?

How could the Wii collapse? IT HAS SUSTAINED DOMINANCE!

[giblets]

So gimmicks make a console more appealing to casual gamers. Do you think they're repulsive to more "hardcore" gamers?

[Asher]

Yes. Absolutely.

[Al B. Sure!]

The only gimmicks I want are well-crafted stories and excellent gameplay

[Elok]

I could see 1st person shooters working well with motion control. Point and shoot. Throw grenades, etc. Could be really fun actually.

For ten minutes. After shaking your hands (or whatever motion you assign to "shoot") three thousand times, having a glitch mistake the motion for "reload" about ten times when it REALLY mattered, and throwing grenades willy-nilly by swinging your arm too hard in the heat of the moment, you're going to miss the ol' control pad.

Problem is, the movements can never be perfectly analogous. "Look up," standard controller move in an FPS--the logical counterpart is to tilt your head up, but that leaves you either staring at the ceiling or looking down your nose at the screen like a llama about to spit. Strafing, I guess you wobble your butt to one side, because actually sidestepping would put you all over the place. With the amount of strafing that goes on, you'll be shaking your booty (or something) like you're doing the conga. And ninety percent of play, at least in Black Ops, is RUNNING. If you tried jogging in place you'd burst a lung trying to play long; do you lean forward? You're going to have to replace the non-intuitive but simple movements of the controller with a set of non-intuitive and rapidly fatiguing body movements. No good.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Asher's interest in video game sales is almost as bad as Heraclitus' interest in Ashkenazi Jews and intelligence

Someone on a game website showing interest in video game sales?! How unexpected!

[ColdWizard]

Of course wii sales aren't sustained. Everyone already has one.