Console Wars II

[DrSpike]

That's quite a big turnaround though - the Wii has been spanking the Xbox in hardware sales for a while now.

[Adrian Hon]

There's the price drop as well, which I forgot to mention, so it's certainly possible the 360 will keep it up. I'm probably going to get a 360 this Christmas (in addition to my Wii) because it's cheaper now, and due to the decent number of good games.

[asleepathewheel]

/stalker

Kuciwalker-

How do you like Eternal Sonata? I found the demo to be boring, same enemy over and over, is the real game different?

edit: this is one genre that the 360 is sorely lacking in, so I'm sure I'll pick this up eventually.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Wasn't it already $179?

And downloadable movies over Live >> paying for an HD-DVD player and then for HD-DVD's.

The HD DVD quality and selection and features are better. I get all kinds of movies from zip.ca on HD DVD.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Adrian Hon
I would be interested in seeing these stats for other months as well; has the 360 dominated as much in the past, and will it continue to do so in the future, or is September largely due to Halo 3? To be honest, I'm surprised th 360 hardware sales weren't higher for Sept - they were only a little higher than the Wii.

The Wii and the 360 are not in the same markets. I thought this was rather well established by now.

That said, Wii sales were down 2% from last month while 360 sales were up 52%. The people buying the Wii at this point (when there's no games available) are clearly not the same people buying 360s (for games). They're elderly people, housewives, and cruise boats buying Wii Sports adapters.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Adrian Hon
There's the price drop as well, which I forgot to mention, so it's certainly possible the 360 will keep it up. I'm probably going to get a 360 this Christmas (in addition to my Wii) because it's cheaper now, and due to the decent number of good games.

Why is it just "possible"? Even last holiday season the 360 vastly outsold the Wii. I think one of the months it sold over a million units in a month (November or December?)

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Asher

The HD DVD quality and selection and features are better. I get all kinds of movies from zip.ca on HD DVD.

What is the max resolution of the 360 hddvd drive? 1080p? 1080i? The downloads that I've seen are at most 720p...

[Asher]

100% of HD DVDs are 1920x1080p. Not only this, but the bitrates are significantly higher, the audio is higher quality -- not to mention the extra interactivity features on HD DVDs.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Asher


The Wii and the 360 are not in the same markets. I thought this was rather well established by now.

That said, Wii sales were down 2% from last month while 360 sales were up 52%. The people buying the Wii at this point (when there's no games available) are clearly not the same people buying 360s (for games). They're elderly people, housewives, and cruise boats buying Wii Sports adapters.

On software:

The 360 still enjoys a considerable console # lead in the US, over 2 million, I believe, so its not really surprising that it would sell more software. And it shouldn't be surprising that in the month (11 or 12 npd days) the flagship franchise is released, the number would skew to the extreme, software-wise. And when your top new release is carnival games (which sold I believe 110k), not exactly a high profile game, the ratio is exacerbated.

In addition to that skewing, that pie chart showed software in terms of revenue. 360 and ps3 games start at 60, wii at 50. And I believe many hundreds of thousands of those halo 3 sales were of the various collectors editions.

[Asher]

Yes, but let's focus on what is important to everyone in the end: games revenue. Wii titles tend to be overpriced at $50, FWIW, seeing as how cheap they are to make and a clear lack of effort put into them.

[DrSpike]

What's important to the companies involved is the bottom line - and (unless someone can provide facts to contrary) I bet Nintendo has made more money off of the Wii than MS has off of the Xbox, or Sony from the PS3.

[Asher]

Originally posted by DrSpike
What's important to the companies involved is the bottom line - and (unless someone can provide facts to contrary) I bet Nintendo has made more money off of the Wii than MS has off of the Xbox, or Sony from the PS3.

Very likely, but that's not the big picture.

I bet every other publisher in the world has made more money off Xbox 360 games than Wii games. And that's huge, unless you're content for yet another Nintendo-platform=Nintendo-games only platform, in which case best of luck to them, but that's not very interesting to me and a huge waste of a platform.

What's important is not one single company's initial bottom line, it's the industry's long-term bottom line. Yes, Nintendo is making a killing on Wii hardware sales -- but you only sell the hardware once. It's the software you make your money on down the road, and Nintendo's in a lot of trouble there if even THEIR best and finest software sells like a 3rd rate Xbox 360 game. Additionally, other publishers currently enamoured with the Wii due to its HW sales will not continue publishing games for the platform if no one buys them.

Even Xbox(1)'s Madden outsold Wii's Madden. And that platform is literally dead, has been for two years. How long will EA keep wasting money on Wii Madden ports? Think big picture, this is a big problem for people who actually would like games on their Wiis.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Asher
Wii titles tend to be overpriced at $50, FWIW, seeing as how cheap they are to make and a clear lack of effort put into them.

Definitely.

Lately and in the near future, games are being released at less than 50 for the wii, mercury madness, table tennis, zack and wiki. Which is much more reasonable for the efforts. I hope Okami is at $30, like re4.

I guess it took resident evil 4 to make them come to that conclusion. Just look at Big Brain Academy. VGchartz (yes, lol) has it at .83m, which I doubt, due to dubious Europe numbers. I'm amazed that it sold that many at full price. It would probably be well over a million if it started at $40, and hence more profitable.

I'm not sure why the wii pricing scheme was flawed for so long, considering the DS used a more appropriate software scale.

Some games are worth the 50$ (zelda, metroid, spm) some are not. Not disimilar from the 360 of course, except the low end wii games are vastly worse than low end 360 games.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Asher
What's important is not one single company's initial bottom line, it's the industry's long-term bottom line. Yes, Nintendo is making a killing on Wii hardware sales -- but you only sell the hardware once. It's the software you make your money on down the road, and Nintendo's in a lot of trouble there if even THEIR best and finest software sells like a 3rd rate Xbox 360 game.

Well the attach rate should increase slightly over time (homework for those with too much time - compare Xbox attach rates from now to those a year after release) and they do have a lot of dross to pick up some slack.

Essentially Nintendo seem to have convinced a wide range of people to buy their console (which must have the biggest mark-up of the big 3) and sell a few copies of a lot of games, probably also with high mark-ups. Sounds like score to Nintendo to me.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Asher

Very likely, but that's not the big picture.

I bet every other publisher in the world has made more money off Xbox 360 games than Wii games. And that's huge, unless you're content for yet another Nintendo-platform=Nintendo-games only platform, in which case best of luck to them, but that's not very interesting to me and a huge waste of a platform.

What's important is not one single company's initial bottom line, it's the industry's long-term bottom line. Yes, Nintendo is making a killing on Wii hardware sales -- but you only sell the hardware once. It's the software you make your money on down the road, and Nintendo's in a lot of trouble there if even THEIR best and finest software sells like a 3rd rate Xbox 360 game. Additionally, other publishers currently enamoured with the Wii due to its HW sales will not continue publishing games for the platform if no one buys them.

I've posted this before, and I'll repost here.

re4 has blow way past expectations for CapCom
I've heard that capcom's stock was up 5% after the mh3 announcement
Majesco was saved in large part to Cooking Mama (haha)
Trauma Center is one of Atlus' best selling games.
Square Enix: Dragon Quest Swords sold well in Japan for a DQ spin off, will probably hit a million when it is released in na and pal.
Take 2 had the highest 3rd party wii game this month, Carnival games, which doesn't appear to have been expensive to produce We'll see what manhunt 2 does
Sega-Sonic outsold its 360 counterpart, Mario and Sonic Olympics should sell quite well.
Ubisoft had Red steel and rayman, both sold very well
activision: gh3 should be quite well off for the wii

Who does that leave?
Konami-Flops in Dewey, elebits sold alright, not much effort put into its wii games thus far.
EA-Tiger woods 07 sold really well, 08 not so much, Madden, horribly. Mixed bag, we'll see what EA playground does. My Sims, boogie, SSX all flops.

Who else am I forgetting here?


Are 3rd parties doing that poorly, really? Especially considering the lower production costs. A game can sell 100-200k copies on the wii and be successful, not so much on the 360 or ps3.