wiiwaa- nintendo hates me personally.

[rainnyx4]

The problem isn't that the Wii doesn't have any good games, it does. The problem is that it doesn't have many GREAT games. Look at metacritic and count the number of 85+ scoring games on each system. The Wii is drastically underrepresented. And yes, everyone has opinions and types of games they like, but you cannot simply discount things like metacritic for an objective look. It's really the closest thing you will have to scientifically determining value here and drawing a correlation to sales.

Games like Muramasa, Madworld, Conduit, etc. might be "good" games but according to their objective scores, they're not "great". So, their poor sales are perfectly understandable when a consumer is given multiple options and many of those options included are "great".

[corn619]

The problem isn't that the Wii doesn't have any good games, it does. The problem is that it doesn't have many GREAT games. Look at metacritic and count the number of 85+ scoring games on each system. The Wii is drastically underrepresented. And yes, everyone has opinions and types of games they like, but you cannot simply discount things like metacritic for an objective look. It's really the closest thing you will have to scientifically determining value here and drawing a correlation to sales.

Games like Muramasa, Madworld, Conduit, etc. might be "good" games but according to their objective scores, they're not "great". So, their poor sales are perfectly understandable when a consumer is given multiple options and many of those options included are "great".

Explain the lower than projected sales of high scoring "great" games like World of Goo, Okami, Zack & Wiki, Punchout!, Little King's Story and No More Heroes? All of these games received a very high score and had less than projected sales.

Also I'd like to touch upon something about the Metacritic site. I look at most of the sites they base scores off of and see a lot no name, bias, crap websites that have no business scoring games in the first place. And that goes for any system. I've read reviews from some of these "reviewers" and seen some of them admit they don't like the genre of game there reviewing.

Then they score the game lower than other sites based solely on this fact. If you don't enjoy for example ""2D action," "survival horror" or "FPSs" maybe you shouldn't review one. Its not fair to score a game lower just because you don't like the genre. I hate most FPSs, why the hell would I review a game like Halo or Call Of Duty then? If I had to review them I know I would score it lower than someone who plays and enjoys FPSs.

[rainnyx4]

The problem isn't that the Wii doesn't have any good games, it does. The problem is that it doesn't have many GREAT games. Look at metacritic and count the number of 85+ scoring games on each system. The Wii is drastically underrepresented. And yes, everyone has opinions and types of games they like, but you cannot simply discount things like metacritic for an objective look. It's really the closest thing you will have to scientifically determining value here and drawing a correlation to sales.

Games like Muramasa, Madworld, Conduit, etc. might be "good" games but according to their objective scores, they're not "great". So, their poor sales are perfectly understandable when a consumer is given multiple options and many of those options included are "great".

Explain the lower than projected sales of high scoring "great" games like World of Goo, Okami, Zack & Wiki, Punchout!, Little King's Story and No More Heroes? All of these games received a very high score and had less than projected sales.

Also I'd like to touch upon something about the Metacritic site. I look at most of the sites they base scores off of and see a lot no name, bias, crap websites that have no business scoring games in the first place. And that goes for any system. I've read reviews from some of these "reviewers" and seen some of them admit they don't like the genre of game there reviewing.

Then they score the game lower than other sites based solely on this fact. If you don't enjoy for example ""2D action," "survival horror" or "FPSs" maybe you shouldn't review one. Its not fair to score a game lower just because you don't like the genre. I hate most FPSs, why the hell would I review a game like Halo or Call Of Duty then? If I had to review them I know I would score it lower than someone who plays and enjoys FPSs.

Okami is a port and No More Heroes only gets an 83 so it is not a "great" game. Frankly, I played through No More Heroes and I would have rated it much lower than that. Punch-Out!!! and World of Goo actually sold fairly well. So, that leaves you with Zack and Wiki and Little King's Story. I think your best example should have been the Boom Blox games. Those games rule and they were rated "great" and sold poorly. So, I'll give you 4 "great" games that undersold. Not too bad. But, these aren't the games most people point to when complaining about the Wii. Most people say Madworld, Dead Space, Muramasa, etc. But the fact is, they're just not "great" games.

The whole point of Metacritic is that it is an average. Even if there are a few reviews that you consider discrepancies, it will be averaged out. Maybe they should add a +/- like they do with most surveys, but that still won't make the Conduit, a 69, into a 90.

[corn619]

I fail to see on Metacritic where it says anything under 85 is not a great game. If you look at the "what is a Metascore" page 75 to 89 is generally favorable reviews, and 90 to 100 is universal acclaim. So pretty much its your opinion that a score under 85 is no longer considered to be a great game, not Metacritic.

I don't really see why Okami being a port has to do with anything, RE 4 was a port and sold well. Punchout! considering it was a Nintendo published game sold poorly with only like 150,000 units sold from what I read. Boom Blox sold close to 500,000 units, and I wouldn't really consider that selling poorly. Maybe World Of Goo sold more than I thought as I couldn't get a accurate Wii sales figure on it. I just think people who own a Wii don't play it that much or buy as many games as someone with a PS3 or 360.

Anyways we could go back and fourth with this pointless argument but I don't see the point. All was trying to say was the Wii has some good 3rd party games, you just need to shovel through some shit before finding them. I own 16 great Wii games and I've been playing it more than my other systems lately.

Maybe the 3rd party titles aren't as good when compared to Nintendo published titles, but Nintendo puts most devs to shame all across the board anyways. Very few devs can match Nintendo's skill when it comes to fun, accessable games for all ages. Despite what people say the Wii is a great machine with a lot of quality titles.

[Limewater]

The whole point of Metacritic is that it is an average. Even if there are a few reviews that you consider discrepancies, it will be averaged out.

Averages are actually very susceptible to skew. If nine reviewers give a game a one hundred and one gives it a zero, that one guy who hated the game shaves ten points off of the score.

[RadarScope1]

If you don't think Nintendo are genius at making metric butt-tons of money, I would think you might have to re-evaluate your definition of "making money."

Just think about this. They introduced the DSi this year. Rather than dropping the price of the DS Lite and introducing the DSi at the original top-end price point -- as almost ANY other hardware manufacturer on Earth would do -- Nintendo effectively RAISED THE PRICE of the DS by about $40 for very little in return for the end consumer. And it fucking WORKED. Millions bought the thing.

See also: multi-colored consoles and controllers; controllers that come in three pieces for full operation costing $80 total; re-releasing NES games on the GBA at $20 a pop; charging $5 for ROMs of some rubbish NES games on virtual console such as Urban Champion; ... the list goes on.

Nintendo prints money. Discussion of rankings, scores, core/casual audience are not valid in respect to that one point. "Genius" pretty well describes it, I would say.

[RCBH928]

If you don't think Nintendo are genius at making metric butt-tons of money, I would think you might have to re-evaluate your definition of "making money."

Just think about this. They introduced the DSi this year. Rather than dropping the price of the DS Lite and introducing the DSi at the original top-end price point -- as almost ANY other hardware manufacturer on Earth would do -- Nintendo effectively RAISED THE PRICE of the DS by about $40 for very little in return for the end consumer. And it fucking WORKED. Millions bought the thing.

See also: multi-colored consoles and controllers; controllers that come in three pieces for full operation costing $80 total; re-releasing NES games on the GBA at $20 a pop; charging $5 for ROMs of some rubbish NES games on virtual console such as Urban Champion; ... the list goes on.

Nintendo prints money. Discussion of rankings, scores, core/casual audience are not valid in respect to that one point. "Genius" pretty well describes it, I would say.

Well if you are a genius , you would hardly make slip ups.
If so. then what do you call N64/gamecube ? 10 years of genius?
Not only they scored low Sales and they suffered game drought
Yes, Nintendo was very successful with Wii, Gameboy, DS, NES and I think the SNES was close neck and neck with the Genesis , even though SNES was winning, it didn't burn Sega.

If we want to see sales genius , lets look:
Sony 's first console in a high competitive market : PSX Sales 102m+28m ps one= 130m
Second console to market: ps2 = 138m
ps3=
Total: 268m!

Nintendo: Wii 56m+GC 21.74+N64 33m+SNES 50m+NES 61m
Total: 222m!

Sony sold in 2 generations what Nintendo could not sell in 5 generations!
Of course all numbers are approximate, but how off can they be?(Source: Wikipedia)

So, Who's the genius ?

As far as I am concerned, for the portable market we have not seen any real competition, it was Gameboy/ GameGear short life and then DS/PSP. Nintendo is King of the handheld market I will give that to you, but lets not forget competition is a lot less there.

If Nintendo is genius anywhere, is how it makes people buy 17 Million Nintendogs and 16 million Mario Kart Wii.
Those games are very simple, and as for Mario Kart its been there since the SNES days so its nothing new. I will give them that, its genius how they can make such huge sales on such simple games.

[Dylan]

Your logic is flawed. Going by your same train of thought, Sony wouldn't be geniuses based on the fact that they "slipped up" this generation by generating comparably lower console sales numbers than in the past. You're also not considering any other factors, most notably game sales and their relation to profits, and the status of the economy over time. I would argue that you aren't considering overall profits at all.

As far as there being little competition on the handheld market, again that's an irrelevant point. If Nintendo's handhelds weren't better than every other product out there, people wouldn't buy them either (much less in the exorbitant amounts we've seen), not to mention that this would also further disqualify Sony as geniuses based on the assumption that inferior sales in units invalidates that status.

Then further operating on this logic, based on the continual undulation of success seen for every company thus far, nobody could be considered money making geniuses based on the fact that they generated lower console sales at any point. This too I would assume is incorrect, considering the multi-billion dollar video game industry.

[Limewater]

If we want to see sales genius , lets look:
Sony 's first console in a high competitive market : PSX Sales 102m+28m ps one= 130m
Second console to market: ps2 = 138m
ps3=
Total: 268m!

Nintendo: Wii 56m+GC 21.74+N64 33m+SNES 50m+NES 61m
Total: 222m!

Hmmmm...

Let's say I buy widgets for $3.00 and sell them for $2.00. I sell 1000 widgets.
You buy widgets for $2.50 and sell them for $3.00. You sell only 200.

At the end of the day, I've lost $1,000 and you've made $100.

Am I the sales genius?

[gtmtnbiker]

If we want to see sales genius , lets look:
Sony 's first console in a high competitive market : PSX Sales 102m+28m ps one= 130m

The PS1 numbers are off. The wiki article says 102m which includes 28m PSone consoles.