Following the January NPD sales data, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich has weighed in with some thoughts on the Wii marketplace. The Wii was the top selling console for the month, and 5 of the top 10 games were for the Nintendo platform, but as usual third-party software is having difficulty finding a home on the Wii - especially core gaming efforts like No More Heroes 2.
"No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle has scored top reviews averaging a 90 (out of 100) since its release. However, sales came to less than 30,000 units for its first week (January 26, 2010 release). Given that the game is more targeted to the traditional core gamers (who tend to be more attached to the Xbox 360 and PS3) this is yet another sign that the Wii is a difficult device for third-party publishers to succeed on with M-rated titles," said Divnich. "Other titles that have failed to perform despite strong review scores on the Wii include Dead Space: Extraction (ERTS) and MadWorld (Sega). Of course, all three titles did have low marketing budgets, which is likely the wrong strategy to use when attempting to target the Wii consumer, even if you are targeting the 'core' market."
Divnich also pointed out that one of the big reasons for January's sales decline was the slump in the music and fitness categories. Around 90% of the decline can be attributed to these two genres, EEDAR found. Although casual gamers seem to be buying and playing fewer titles (one reason for 2009's overall decline), Divnich noted that the current January decline has more to do with fitness fads in general.
"...the failure in the fitness category has little to do with the recent exodus of many casual and non-traditional gamers and everything to do with the common trends in the Health & Fitness markets. From Abs Roller to Atkins, the Health & Fitness markets are riddled with fads and last year's success of the Wii Fit and other similar fitness games are prime examples of these fads in action," Divnich stated. "Of course, this is not an indication that the Fitness genre is 'dead', as these markets tend to be sporadic. What was 'hot' in 2009 may not be in 2010, only to see resurgence in its popularity in 2011. EEDAR believes that it is possible that the Natal and Arc will spark some life (and sales) back into the fitness category in late 2010 and early 2011. Additionally, Wii Fit did manage to sell 555,000 units this year, the third best-selling game for the month, which is an incredible accomplishment. Unfortunately, it failed to reach the 785,000 units it sold last year."
6 Comments
February 12, 2010
No More Heroes 2 wasn't done any favors by launching alongside Mass Effect 2; I commented to James at the time it was all the more likely to get lost in the shuffle of a busy Q1. Its very telling that Just Dance (which surely didn't recieve more promotion than NMH 2 by Ubisoft) moved nearly 200k, simply because it was hitting the right demographic for Wii.
February 12, 2010
Just dance is all over the tv in ads...i have yet to see a no more heroes ad except in print... that is quite telling of who Ubisoft wants buying their games...unfortunately they along with many others assume that the core will just go and buy these games..givin that the Wii is hugely popular with a more mainstream audience companies need to rethink their marketing... so that more than just the core are reached.
February 12, 2010
There was a pretty strong web presence for NMH 2; some nice splash banners on major gaming sites like Kotaku. The Conduit and MadWorld had more extensive campaigns and they did barely better, so its probably up to whatever Ubisoft's expectations were for the title (which is so “indie” in tone, I'm not sure it'd ever be a huge hit).
Didn't see Just Dance on TV – must not be suited for my sort of programs. ;)
February 12, 2010
I don't care if Nintendo continues with the casual games, some of them are pretty good (some even great), but focusing on the casual games at a game convention is just stupid, especially when there are much more anticipated titles. What casual gamer would give E3 a second look? Only hardcore gamers pay attention to gaming news. There's no reason to be ignoring all of the great "hardcore" titles Nintendo has planned. I was extremely annoyed at how much attention WiiFit got when there were so many good games they could have talked about (such as the ones listed in the article).
nintendo ds r4 revolution
May 8, 2010
I think this article makes a good point. People who buy Wii fit aren't likely to be interested in playing video games. The Wii is more of a family oriented console. Maybe have more games like Lego Star Wars.
Tongkat Ali Extract
May 24, 2010
EEDAR is always looking for strategic opportunities and is selling a service to try and optimise the design and production of games, so it’s in its interest to produce scare stories like this. Through the delivery of more accurate, actionable and accessible data, EEDAR is increasing the efficiency, profitability and creativity of the video game industry. Games which achieved a Metacritic score above 90 grossed sales up to 531% more than the industry average, but were less than 2% of all titles released. Leveraging a proprietary database of over ten thousand game titles and more than 12 million game features, EEDAR provides products and services to many of the largest publishers, including Audio Books on CDs along with developers, brand managers, creative agencies and financial bodies in the industry. Through the delivery of more accurate, actionable and accessible data, it is increasing the efficiency, profitability and creativity of the video game industry in my view.