Recent News Spells Trouble for the Wii

In the three years since it first launched, the Nintendo Wii has sailed past competing systems from Sony and Microsoft to consistently claim the top spot in the console war.

But if a recent rash of troubling stories about the Wii is a vision of things to come, the tide might be turning for the seemingly unbeatable machine.

Kinks in the system’s shiny white armor starting showing last month. Despite steady success in Japan, the Wii fell into second place in March as the underdog Playstation 3 clambered atop the region’s sales charts for the first time in 16 months. That was enough to garner some uncharacteristically somber comments from Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, who deemed the climate in Japan “unhealthy” for the Wii.

But to Cowan & Company analyst Doug Creutz, the U.S. market isn’t necessarily any healthier, at least if you’re thinking of investing in a console game. In an interview with Gamasutra, Creutz called the Wii “fool’s gold” for third-party game developers.

“The choice here is really between investing for the Xbox 360 and PS3 — since their capabilities are fairly similar — or the Wii,” he said. “I would caution investors and developers that the larger installed base of the Wii is really a bit of a red herring.”

Crueutz goes on to point out that while the 19 million Wiis in North America trounce competing consoles individually, combined sales of the 360 and PS3 actually top 22 million. That represents a larger chunk of the pie for game developers who can more easily port games back and forth from the two systems. Additionally, Creutz notes that Nintendo’s first-party games and the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises account for nearly one-half of all Wii software sales, a far larger percentage than what’s found on the other consoles. Comparatively, the Wii is simply a tougher nut to crack for third-party developers.

Peter Moore, president of enormous third-party game maker EA Sports, echoed Creutz’s concerns while speaking at a recent conference.

“You simply can’t take what you’re doing on the PS3 and Xbox and port – that’s a dirty word – down to the Wii,” he said, insisting that instead you have to build Wii games “from the ground up.”

He’s not the only one at EA with issues. Earlier in the month, an EA producer confessed to having trouble incorporating Nintendo’s upcoming Wii MotionPlus control attachment into its Grand Slam Tennis game, raising questions about when the tech would be ready for consumers. Nintendo answered that by officially announcing a release date only to curiously push back the release of the game they’ve repeatedly used to show off the new technology, surefire smash sequel Wii Sports: Resort.

Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom. NPD Group reports that the Wii again led the way in March 2009, outselling both the 360 and PS3 by a wide margin. Nintendo is also enjoying strong numbers for its newly released DSi handheld, with the company reporting first-week sales of over 600,000 units in the U.S. and Europe. Mario’s checking account won’t run out of funds any time soon.

The question is, will gamers run out of interest? The last two major first-party Wii games, Wii Music and Animal Crossing: City Folk, failed to generate the kind of excitement (and, in turn, sales) that Nintendo is accustomed to, a fact that analyst Ed Barton of Screen Digest believes is a big reason why the Wii is struggling. While older blockbusters like Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii are still selling well, Barton points out that the company needs new experiences to drive new sales.

Nintendo hopes to deliver exactly that with upcoming high-profile games like the aforementioned Wii Sports sequel and a remake of classic boxing game Punch Out!, but that still leaves plenty of wiggle room for the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 to continue closing the gap. And if Japan is any indication (and it usually is), that gap can disappear in a heartbeat.

So what do you think? Is the Wii destined for a downfall, or is this just a mid-life crisis?

by Ben Silverman

Critics Say the Wii has a Major Flaw

There are too many crappy games on the Wii.

So says the global boss of 2K Games, Christoph Hartmann, and at least in the opinion of video game critics, he’s on to something. Using figures from review aggregation site Metacritic.com, almost half of Wii games released since the console launched in 2006 have scored below 65%, compared with about a third of Xbox 360 and PS3 titles. And 65% is a pretty crappy aggregate score, considering that many game review sites rarely score below 50%.

Raise the bar to 85%, and the difference is even more pronounced: 360 owners can play twice as many games rated above 85% as Wii owners, while the PS3 nearly triples Nintendo’s numbers.

Broadly, this problem isn’t Nintendo’s fault. In fact, without sterling first-party games like Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the Wii’s situation would be far worse. Nintendo-developed games, with the possible exception of Wii Music, are a beacon of quality in a sea of, as Hartmann so indelicately puts it, crap.

Fortunately, this situation isn’t lost on most consumers. According to game sales authority NPD Group, the top ten best-selling Wii games — titles like Mario Kart, Wii Fit, and last year’s number one game, Wii Play — accounted for about 44% of all Wii game purchases in 2008. The remaining 56% spanned over 400 other titles.

That’s not the worst of it. Sales of Wii games that reviewed poorly (including 2K Games’ own Carnival Games, which aggregated a dismal 56%) eclipse those of many of the Wii’s real gems, including the breathtaking Okami, the superb Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and even the lighthearted, family-friendly Steven Spielberg project Boom Blox, which should have been a perfect fit for the Wii’s unprecedentedly broad audience. The Wii has a curious ability to make big hits out of low-scoring games.

Perhaps it’s the critics’ fault. Do video game reviewers, who typically boast decades of gaming experience and a deep affinity for the integrity of video games as a serious pursuit, miss the point of casual-friendly Wii sales hits like Carnival Games? Perhaps, but the connection isn’t as tempting as it might appear. Because Roger Ebert lists La Dolce Vita and Aguirre: Wrath of God among his top-ten films, should we assume, when he slams Bride Wars, he’s doing it because he’s elitist and doesn’t understand movie consumers? Or maybe he just knows what makes a crap movie.

By and large, consumers do, too. Who, once burnt by a tempting but terrible Wii game like Ford Racing Off-Road or Jenga: World Tour, would not be hesitant to take a chance on a genuinely outstanding title like Zack & Wiki or Boom Blox? If they buy games at all, consumers will limit their picks to reliable names, while the delightful upstart games to which the Wii is so suited will sink beneath the tide of crap. At worst, they’ll be so disgruntled that they’ll shelve the Wii altogether, relegated to a dust-gathering embarrassment that’s pulled out for a token Wii Sports or Wii Fit session once every few months.

So what can you do about it? Get educated. Without good resources, your odds of dodging bad games are not favorable. Sites like metacritic.com and gamerankings.com both provide great jumping-off points for research. Best of all, take a web-enabled phone with you to the store and you can look them up right before you buy. Although it’s true that some reviewers miss the point of broad-appeal titles like Tetris Party or Monopoly, the majority will at least help you dodge the crap.

By Mike Smith