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Is the holiday cupboard bare for the Nintendo Wii?
Matt Peckham at PC World has poked around a few websites and concluded that it's going to be a high-and-dry holiday season for the Nintendo Wii. He also notes from the latest sales figures:
[Are the July sales figures] setting the company up for a saturation crash, when the demographic lode it's cracked wide open eventually taps out?I don't pretend to know the answer, but what does it say that the only Wii titles on the list are several months old? It says a lot. Peckham has accidentally made the point that Nintendo games don't just sell well, but they sell well for a very long time. That's certainly not a claim the 360 or PS3 can make.
Besides, based on their showing at E3, it's clear that Nintendo is going after its own demographic. Which is pretty much what they've been doing all along. They "get" different kinds of gamers, and they make for them the kinds of games that guys like me and Matt Peckham and probably you might not be interested in.
The holiday list extends much further than Peckham implies when he mentions the new Wario, Cooking Mama, and Wii Music games as if those are the only notable upcoming titles. There are plenty of other candidates for big sellers: MySims Kingdoms, SimCity Creator, Animal Crossing, Raving Rabbids, the Clone Wars fighting game, and a new Carnival Games title. Then there are Crash Bandicoot, Naruto, Avatar, Neopets, Ben 10, and SpongeBob games due out soon. There are huge licenses like High School Musical and Dancing with the Stars, and slightly less huge licenses like Hell's Kitchen and Iron Chef coming to the Wii. There's a tie-in to Madagascar 2 and the new James Bond movie. There are ports of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Lego Batman, and Tomb Raider likely to sell well. There are even a couple of dark horses like the Jillian Michaels fitness game and the monster building/battling game, Monster Lab.
As for slightly more obscure games that might cause gamers like us to prick up our ears, there's a new Lost in Blue, a retro Mega Man game, and, last but certainly not least, MadWorld (pictured above, in a rare moment of bloodlessness).
I'd say Nintendo is on its way to a pretty healthy holiday season.
By Halibut Barn at 11:27 AM ON 09/03/08
There's also a Tales of Symphonia sequel for the RPG crowd. That and Animal Crossing: City Folk are about all that interest me though, and even that'll depend on what else is revealed about AC (it still sounds like there's too little new over AC:WW so far, but Nintendo doesn't always reveal absolutely everything in advance either).
By Greg at 10:13 AM ON 09/04/08
I've noticed that Wii games tend to fill up the bargain bins at a greater rate than PS3 games (not sure about that other what-do-you-call-it system). And McDonald's probably sells better than your local steak joint. The only lesson here is that mediocrity sells, but that's nothing new.
By Matt Peckham at 4:48 PM ON 10/31/08
Actually Tom Chick concluded that Matt Peckham concluded it would be a high and dry season for the Wii. The way the article parses, Matt Peckham was simply lamenting the lack of compelling reasons for him to do any Wii gaming this holiday season. ;-)
Matt Peckham:
Actually Tom Chick concluded that Matt Peckham concluded it would be a high and dry season for the Wii. The way the...More »