Nintendo’s little white box hit fifty million units fast and it is becoming the fastest selling console in history, so what games do we see on it? Answer’s not as simple because it’s completely different than the other systems in nearly every way. The Wii is not as built like the Xbox 360 and PS3: The system’s not nearly as powerful, there’s no high definition and uses a completely different controller. Obviously because of this, game developers use a completely different method to make games for it. Developers either port PS2 and GameCube games to it while some make simple mini-games, and some actually put some decent, original content on it.
Even though there are a ton of games on Wii, the real question is how they do sales-wise. The answer is so complicated that some publishers can not grasp the concept on how to make a game sell well on Wii. What’s funny is that is always something simple. Either it is a misstep in marketing the game, introducing a new franchise that hasn’t truly sold a lot of people or deciding on an art style that was not accepted by the public. A great example of all these points is Sega’s MadWorld with its black and white motif mixed with a questionable marketing campaign that doesn’t show its true, bloody self. Sega’s failure to introduce this new property correctly with some fun commercials and other intensive advertising doomed MadWorld to obscurity.
What can these third-party publishers do to guarantee success on this platform? The answer seems dumb, but it’s simple: Take advantage of the moment with something great. It sounds hard to grasp, but there’s meaning here. Believe it or not, games have sold well on Wii that was not made by Nintendo. These games either took advantage of the Wii’s control scheme or took advantage of the ideology of the platform and created some unforgettable moments on the system.
One great example of making success of Wii is the Guitar Hero franchise. Guitar Hero III and Guitar Hero World Tour are the best selling on Wii because it caters to the demographic for the platform. It is multiplayer-friendly, it is enjoyable to everyone at every age, and it is bundled with stuff. Games like Guitar Hero and Wii Fit are popular on that platform because the basis of the Wii is expansion: The idea of people playing games in a different light. Playing with not only the Wii Remote, but with many different inputs like a guitar or board or even a GameCube controller.
The Wii is probably the biggest console with bringing older games and restyling them with a new control scheme. Many publishers, including Nintendo, have done it and done it with mixed results. One game however took this idea and made a fantastic game even better with a control setup unrivaled by traditional controllers and that was Capcom’s Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. In 2005, Resident Evil 4 was either Game of the Year material or the Game of the Year to most people and Capcom took what worked and redid it with the Wii’s controller in mind. What came out was a version that made the older versions obsolete with a brand new control setup. The Wii’s pointer function made the game faster and less frustrating and went on to be the most popular version, even two years after the original won awards. The success of Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition was so great that Capcom’s next Resident Evil game on Wii, dubbed The Umbrella Chronicles, went on to be another game to ship over a million copies. Due to the popularity of these games, Capcom is far from done and are releasing three more Resident Evil games to Wii.
When Nintendo lit a fire under the video game industry’s posteriors in 2006, publishers were too late to take advantage of the moment. They doubted and insulted the Wii and thus prevented their own gravy train from departing when Nintendo’s did. One publisher was the exception and took direct focus on the Wii’s launch and that was Ubisoft. Though they dumped about seven games on the Wii’s launch window, two are the most memorable: Rayman Raving Rabbids and Red Steel. Rayman was a platformer star that started on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation, but failed to keep up a successful ongoing series soon after the GameCube launch. He was revived on Wii in a hilarious mini-game compilation that showed what the Wii can do. Rayman Raving Rabbids went on to sell over a million copies and spawned a franchise of its own with the little demented Rabbids. Red Steel was known as the first Wii game shown in action when it was revealed in a spring issue of Game Informer. This showed the hardcore gaming audience the Wii’s possibility with first-person shooters and excited them. The game launched when the Wii did and although it was not the best game out there, Ubisoft struck gold twice with a second launch game to sell over a million copies. This could have only happened during the Wii’s launch and most failed to take advantage of it.
Hopefully publishers will start to see what really works on Wii. Future games like Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Dead Space: Extraction and Red Steel 2 seem extremely promising and deserve all the hype and marketing that their respective publishers can dish out. Hardcore gamers are sick of seeing awesome games like Okami, Zack & Wiki and House of the Dead Overkill suffer from crummy sales due to publisher and developer ignorance. The Wii has been out for nearly three years and gamers are getting restless, it’s really time for publishers and developers to open their eyes and step it up a notch.
