In a recent interview with Gamekult, Antoine Seux, the Director General of Capcom’s French division, had some candid comments about the sales performance of mainstream titles on the Nintendo Wii: citing disappointing sales of otherwise popular properties such as Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles on Nintendo’s console.
In the interview Seux concluded: “One feels that there is a problem very clear on this style of game on the Wii, where gamers are obviously moved on.”
Seux continued to point out that many gamers who were Nintendo loyalists two years ago have moved on to a newer generation of consoles (e.g. the PS3 or Xbox 360). The original interview was in French, but can be read through Google’s translation program.
Clearly Capcom should be concerned that Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles only sold 16,000 units especially when compared with 2007’s Resident Evil 4 sales of 140,000 units. However, Mr. Seux’s comments don’t seem to account for the fact that Resident Evil 4 had previously generated a following, and was already established as a cult classic game (no pun intended). The re-release (or should we say Wii-release) of Resident Evil 4 naturally appealed to people who had previously played the game on the PS2 and also to others who bought the game on word of mouth.
Maybe the sales of RE4 on the Wii were not the standard for games of its type on the platform, but rather were an exception. Combine this with the fact that The Darkside Chronicles is an on-rails shooter rather than a standard Resident Evil style game - which has to account for a big chunk of the difference in sales.
The interview infers that gamers who support the Wii are buying obscure games like Cooking Momma, but not mainstream titles such as Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. From this we could surmise that these purchasing patterns will lead to diminished large publisher support on that system. Of course the comments in the interview could also be construed as hinging heavily on the French market.
On the other hand, much of the trend described by Seux can be observed just by walking in the game aisle at any retailer. Next time you are there, take a look at the large amount of titles from small publishers available — much more vast than the system’s well known licensed properties and publishers. I’d say it’s clear that the Wii is faring better with its low budget games than it is with its licensed, full production, titles.
Yet another interpration is that gamers, in general, have already moved on abandoning the Wii as a platform. The Wii’s Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles sales might be the first quantifiable evidence of a pattern that many gamers have detected for some time now. However, I’d guess that rather than the Wii sinking as a platform, it’s more likely that lower budget titles simply sell better on the Wii than big budget licensed titles do.
What do you think? Can the Wii survive in the hardcore market, or should it just focus on the casual family player who may not support the less “cutesy” titles?
Source: Gamekult via Google Translate
