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[lowlylowlycook]

Given that it's a sales-age thread, it primarily has to do with how well these games sell on the Wii so more will be made. It's interesting you mention Zack & Wiki, because I'm pretty sure even the lowest selling Babyzzzz game on the Wii sold more copies.

So, nobody is saying don't buy and enjoy games like Zack & Wiki. What I AM saying, though, is that you aren't going to see that type of game on the Wii regularly, if ever. They simply do not sell.

Where do games like Zach & Wiki sell?

 

[Sadist]

So on which console would Zack & Wikki sell?

Edit: beaten by Lowlylowlycook

 

[AniHawk]

Given that it's a sales-age thread, it primarily has to do with how well these games sell on the Wii so more will be made. It's interesting you mention Zack & Wiki, because I'm pretty sure even the lowest selling Babyzzzz game on the Wii sold more copies.

So, nobody is saying don't buy and enjoy games like Zack & Wiki. What I AM saying, though, is that you aren't going to see that type of game on the Wii regularly, if ever. They simply do not sell.

I wish LucasArts would get off their ass and do an adventure compilation game for the Wii or DS. The Indiana Jones thing is a step in the right direction, but they have a lot more great stuff they ignore. The fact that the adventure game series on a system with a point-and-click control method stands at four games (Zack & Wiki, Broken Sword, Sam & Max, and Indiana Jones: The Fate of Atlantis (with free Staff of Kings pack-in)), is kinda sad.

Where do games like Zach & Wiki sell?

Coulda probably done all right on the DS. Wouldn't have cost as much, at least.

 

[Jokeropia]

It's interesting you mention Zack & Wiki, because I'm pretty sure even the lowest selling Babyzzzz game on the Wii sold more copies.

Actually, the only thing we know about the Babyzzzz line and such games on Wii is that Ubisoft have publicly stated to have trouble finding success with them.

 

[Cheech]

Notice I was saying Nintendo has a hardcore base that they're not ignoring, not that they're going for the Xbox 360's and PS3's hardcore base. They please their base with games like Mario Kart and Smash Bros. The 360's and PS3's hardcore base might like something more along the lines of Sin & Punishment 2, but it's also something their hardcore base is more familiar with and will probably buy because it's what it is.

Good post, but I disagree that the "traditional" Nintendo customer is going to be happy with Mario Kart and Smash Bros. for an entire year's worth of Wii gaming. Neither game is as deep or compelling as SMG or Zelda.

My point is that Nintendo is simply not the factory of accessible but deep games they used to be. They're going for as broad a brush as possible, and their traditional customers who bought the Zeldas and Metroids by the gross are the highest hanging fruit in the scenario that is currently going down.

I'm sure their Zelda and Mario teams are hard at work, which is great if you're happy with one traditional Nintendo game every two years. I also have a feeling that they're going to be grossly simplified versions of their prior selves, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

 

[Cheech]

Actually, the only thing we know about the Babyzzzz line and such games on Wii is that Ubisoft have publicly stated to have trouble finding success with them.

Right, and Zack and Wiki STILL undersold those games.

Also, that game in particular would have sold decently as a downloadable XBLA title or a DS game.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I don't understand this whole mentality that people have to separate a "casual" gamer from a "hardcore" one. I mean, I get that there are people out there that only play Wii Sports, and the game is so replayable they may not need another game for a long time, but there are plenty of people out there like myself that just play games to enjoy themselves. I have all three consoles and I enjoy games like De Blob and Zack & Wiki just as much as I enjoy World at War on my 360. There's no barrier in my mind telling me I can't play them all. How can people think this way?

It's a natural thing for people to see themselves on "teams". It's like...America kind of always needs an enemy, right? We band together best when we have a common hatred. With automotive fanatics, a lot of them have their favorite manufacturers and like it when they do well and don't like it when they don't. Hell, there are even vacuum message boards that make some of the console war talk look sane.

One of the emergent teams is hardcore vs. casual. Well, I say emergent, but this has been going on for as long as we've been gamers. I remember distinctly gamers that played Atari games snubbing the people starting on the NES as trying to play it the easy way, arcade gamers disdaining it as changing their favorite games, using D-Pads instead of sticks, holding the controller in their hands instead of laying it on the ground or table. Do you remember the whinging at gaming becoming "mainstream" in the PS1 era? The fact that people were complaining left and right over mainstreamers entering their hobby? The harbinger of this doom, if I recall correctly, was even Square.

Then in the PS2 era, it was phrased as kiddy vs. mature. Wind Waker is kiddy! Well, was, because now it's considered an amazing if incomplete Zelda milestone. Melee was kiddy! Before it was considered "complex" and "way better than the casualized Brawl". They weren't mature like Devil May Cry and Halo. People made camps, they were on teams. People liked being mature.

This is just another form of those teams. People delineate between casual and hardcore, because the thought is if you're hardcore, you're better. Had fun playing Wii Sports? You're a casual! Hate the Wii? You're hardcore! Love buttons? You're hardcore! Hate most games before you play them? You're a GAFer!

People need to feel good about themselves by creating that blocker in their minds. I just wonder if the enjoyment of knowing you're better than everyone else is greater than the enjoyment of enjoying games.

 

[Jokeropia]

Right, and Zack and Wiki STILL undersold those games.

Prove it.

Also, if Zelda and Mario are the only games that can satisfy the customer you're referring to (which is false, but whatever) I feel obligated to point out that they have never released these games in a particularly frequent manner. It's part of the reason they can maintain a consistent quality.

 

[d[-_-]b]

Given that it's a sales-age thread, it primarily has to do with how well these games sell on the Wii so more will be made. It's interesting you mention Zack & Wiki, because I'm pretty sure even the lowest selling Babyzzzz game on the Wii sold more copies.

So, nobody is saying don't buy and enjoy games like Zack & Wiki. What I AM saying, though, is that you aren't going to see that type of game on the Wii regularly, if ever. They simply do not sell.

Fake Edit 2
Lulz and you expect to see niche games to sell on the HD twins?! Really??

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Smash Brothers and Mario Kart are not the "hardcore" Wii games Anihawk was referring to.

My five year old considers them "hardcore", but again, he is not part of the fanbase in question.

This is debatable. On various levels.

 

[AniHawk]

Good post, but I disagree that the "traditional" Nintendo customer is going to be happy with Mario Kart and Smash Bros. for an entire year's worth of Wii gaming. Neither game is as deep or compelling as SMG or Zelda.

My point is that Nintendo is simply not the factory of accessible but deep games they used to be. They're going for as broad a brush as possible, and their traditional customers who bought the Zeldas and Metroids by the gross are the highest hanging fruit in the scenario that is currently going down.

I'm sure their Zelda and Mario teams are hard at work, which is great if you're happy with one traditional Nintendo game every two years. I also have a feeling that they're going to be grossly simplified versions of their prior selves, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I'm a little worried about Zelda, because I thought Phantom Hourglass was pretty shitty for a lot of reasons, but Aonuma's a pretty ambitious guy, and I think he likes designing crazy levels and shit. As long as those stay, I'll continue to be a fan.

I think the Super Mario Galaxy team gets to do whatever the hell they want after SMG's success. They were all set on making their own game prior to it anyway. I would be surprised to see a SMG 2 this generation.

 

[AniHawk]

Right, and Zack and Wiki STILL undersold those games.

Also, that game in particular would have sold decently as a downloadable XBLA title or a DS game.

I think it might have a hard time as an XBLA title. It'd have to sell more at a lower price (has there been anything more expensive than $15?), and the game might have a hard time selling as a point and click, old school adventure-like game where there's no point and click involved. Zack & Wiki didn't sell well, but it did break 100k in the US.

 

[wackojackosnose]

I can see Zack and Wiki working as a WiiWare type game, especially because of its level like structure. It might have sold more if it was released in bite sized chapters like Strong Bad.

 

[gofreak]

My recollection of the PlayStation/Saturn launch in Japan and Europe was that both regions had huge expectations from Goliath, which was in this case, Sony. The brand was VERY powerful in the living room and entertainment space. Challenger is not how I saw them positioning themselves at all - they seemed to come in and say, out of the way toys, this is how you do it.

That was precisely the challenge they brought though. They were challenging the existing players on how the industry could or should be. Casting yourself as a challenger doesn't necessarily mean casting yourself as unpopular, or meek, either..what it means to be a challenger depends on the context..the whole point of the approach is to win sympathy and support fast by standing up to the establishment, which was at the time Nintendo (and Sega).

Yes, they had the enormous brand trust of 'Sony' behind them. But from its very origins it was something of a rogue project.

It took Nintendo a couple of generations to re-find their own ability to challenge the 'establishment' Sony built..Sony could dawdle and take a similar length of time to revise their relationship with the market and with their consumers, but there is the opportunity to shortcut that process if they are very conscious of the opportunity. Their market position right now could give them the room to start assuming that role in a credible way..as much to benefit their next system as PS3.

 

[Rlan]

swell for one, Zack and Wiki was out before WiiWare began. The WiiWare's 40MB limit also would have hindered it a lot. Re Anihawk: The highest has been $20USD.

Really though... there is absolutely no reason why Zack and Wiki shouldn't have worked at retail given the demographic, characters designs and the muscle behind it.

 

[RadarScope1]

I think it might have a hard time as an XBLA title. It'd have to sell more at a lower price (has there been anything more expensive than $15?), and the game might have a hard time selling as a point and click, old school adventure-like game where there's no point and click involved. Zack & Wiki didn't sell well, but it did break 100k in the US.

There have been a handful of $20 games - Puzzle Quest, Penny Arcade, Watchmen, maybe one or two more.

 

[charlequin]

The idea that devs will just give up on success on the Wii and go back to focusing entirely on the HD consoles doesn't fly with me. I mean, the financials just don't work. Everyone's losing money like crazy.

The problem is how the payoff matrix works out: if people keep doing nothing but poorly thought-out "tests" on the Wii, no one will buy one with the intention of playing normal, core games on it; if no one buys one for normal, core games, then publishers won't see success on the system, which means...

You're basically looking at an elaborate prisoner's dilemma playing out -- if three or more big publishers pulled together to put fully conceptualized, high-budget games in a variety of genres on the Wii, it would basically be guaranteed to greatly boost core software sales (even if only half of Wii owners are "real" gamers, that's still enough to sell way more core software than seems to sell right now), but no one wants to be the first mover and risk getting completely hung out to dry with expensive products that no one will buy; the end result is that everyone is leaving money on the table and watching their profitability go into the tank but no one has the incentive or the power to fix it on their own.*




*Well, Nintendo did and possibly still does have the power to fix it on their own, but they're ludicrously incompetent at managing their platform so fuck 'em.

How would Nintendo "caring about the state of third party developers" help their sales? Does that mean paying for exclusives or paying for their advertisement?

Nintendo should have been incentivizing a couple carefully chosen third parties to develop AAA games for Wii by covering their downside: pay for development and marketing but take a slightly higher cut of top-end profits to recoup (if the game is a success). Three or four really solid efforts like this in 2007 would have, I think, totally changed the perception of the Wii, and probably given core games enough momentum that Nintendo wouldn't have to keep paying for exclusives at the same rate.

 

[schuelma]

Really though... there is absolutely no reason why Zack and Wiki shouldn't have worked at retail given the demographic, characters designs and the muscle behind it.

Really? A long dead genre, a kiddy asthetic, horrible name, combined with challenging gameplay...Not to mention its not like Capcom gave it a RE5 type push. No TV ads, no nothing.

 

[charlequin]

Nintendo isn't ignoring their hardcore base.

I think you could better state this as "Nintendo doesn't intend to ignore their hardcore base in the future." They pretty clearly are ignoring them today, presumably as a result of (apparently) totally sucking at managing their internal development and therefore having no Wii software to release for this market over a span of 18+ months.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Nintendo should have been incentivizing a couple carefully chosen third parties to develop AAA games for Wii by covering their downside: pay for development and marketing but take a slightly higher cut of top-end profits to recoup (if the game is a success). Three or four really solid efforts like this in 2007 would have, I think, totally changed the perception of the Wii, and probably given core games enough momentum that Nintendo wouldn't have to keep paying for exclusives at the same rate.

Did you purposely describe the N64 Dream Team or was this a mistake

 

[frankie_baby]

Really? A long dead genre, a kiddy asthetic, horrible name, combined with challenging gameplay...Not to mention its not like Capcom gave it a RE5 type push. No TV ads, no nothing.

it actually got tv ads here in the uk (where it was published by nintendo) and at least seemed to sell a bit better

 

[billy.sea]

Actually, the only thing we know about the Babyzzzz line and such games on Wii is that Ubisoft have publicly stated to have trouble finding success with them.

Really? Then why would they crank out 5 games in the series per month?

 

[Scrubking]

The idea that Nintendo isn't doing anything to get 3rd parties is laughably stupid. Beside the fact that anyone has the nerve to claim to know the inside dealings of the most secretive company in the industry, I mean, how do you think they got MH3, DQ10 and GTA CW?? Magic? Kindness of 3rd parties hearts?

I'm not surprised though as this thread is nothing but the same old baseless, debunked arguments that get regurgitated in every monthly NPD thread.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Really? Then why would they crank out 5 games in the series per month?

They're cheap to make and pretty much guaranteed profit even if they fail to break 25k.

 

[BishopLamont]

His 5 year old considers MK and Smash Bros hardcore guys, how can you even begin to refute that.

 

[grandjedi6]

Those Madworld sales are actually pretty good. Its about the same as the No More Heroes opening and I doubt Madworld has a larger budget than NMH. Its a 5 hour game. It will probably have legs too.

Are you fucking kidding me? ::facepalm::

 

[AniHawk]

Are you fucking kidding me? ::facepalm::

Yeah. NMH is about the same length when you cut out the GTA lite bullshit. The reason why NMH was considered a success in the first place was because it did as well as it did despite no major push from UbiSoft. Sega advertised the hell out of MadWorld.

 

[charlequin]

Did you purposely describe the N64 Dream Team or was this a mistake

The problem with the N64 Dream Team isn't with the broad concept itself, it's with the execution. The cartridge format (between its drastically higher costs and its itty-bitty storage space) was basically so terrible that no one wanted to dev for the system; the "Dream Team" itself was underwhelming (even from the perspective of 1996, did a team consisting of LucasArts, Midway, Acclaim, Virgin, Angel Studios, and Sierra really strike anyone as fitting the moniker?) -- and it focused on bringing in developers rather than games.

Taking the same strategy with the actual top-shelf developers (start with Square-Enix and Capcom in the East, and probably an EA subsidiary in the West, then don't bring in anyone else who can't at least meaningfully threaten to compete on the same level) putting the focus on individual titles that Nintendo would promote as major exclusives for the system at exactly the same level that they promote their own first-party titles, and then offering sweetheart (but not full-funding) deals either to the same developers when they want to come back to the well, or to devs who've converted over to the Wii line of thinking after seeing the previous games do well, that's a lot less like the N64 Dream Team in execution and more -- wait, I just described the Xbox 360 third-party strategy.

 

[charlequin]

The idea that Nintendo isn't doing anything to get 3rd parties is laughably stupid. Beside the fact that anyone has the nerve to claim to know the inside dealings of the most secretive company in the industry, I mean, how do you think they got MH3, DQ10 and GTA CW?? Magic?

Dragon Quest is always developed for the winning system in the current market; the only place it could have gone besides Wii was to DS again. Monster Hunter 3 is another mass-market game that also has the added "benefit" of being able to reuse the same assets for the inevitable PSP port if they release it on Wii -- it's very conceivable that Nintendo didn't actually produce this particular change.

GTA:CW is almost unquestionably a Nintendo pickup, and I'll happily credit them for that, but that's one game, and not on the system that actually needs the attention.

 

[schuelma]

Dragon Quest is always developed for the winning system in the current market; the only place it could have gone besides Wii was to DS again. Monster Hunter 3 is another mass-market game that also has the added "benefit" of being able to reuse the same assets for the inevitable PSP port if they release it on Wii -- it's very conceivable that Nintendo didn't actually produce this particular change.
.

I'm curious to see the level of support Nintendo gives MH3 this summer. If it was anyone else I would fully expect massive advertising support, console bundles,etc. Who knows with Nintendo.

 

[Sadist]

Really? Then why would they crank out 5 games in the series per month?

Low budget needed.

 

[ksamedi]

Are you fucking kidding me? ::facepalm::

The game is as low budget as a full price retail game can get.

 

[grandjedi6]

Yeah. NMH is about the same length when you cut out the GTA lite bullshit. The reason why NMH was considered a success in the first place was because it did as well as it did despite no major push from UbiSoft. Sega advertised the hell out of MadWorld.

+ There is no way NMH had a budget anywhere near Madworld's
+ The idea that game budget is directly correlated with game length is absurd.

The game is as low budget as a full price retail game can get.

You are crazy

 

[ksamedi]

+ There is no way NMH had a budget anywhere near Madworld's
+ The idea that game budget is directly correlated with game length is absurd.


You are crazy

Ok, black and white game with pretty dumb AI. All it has going for it is are the different kills for all the different weapons and environments. Not to mention its only 5 hours long. People in here are asking for Madworld on PSN and Xbox live arcade and I can't say this wouldn't fit right in with all the other budget games on those services.

 

[BishopLamont]

Given that it's a sales-age thread, it primarily has to do with how well these games sell on the Wii so more will be made. It's interesting you mention Zack & Wiki, because I'm pretty sure even the lowest selling Babyzzzz game on the Wii sold more copies.

So, nobody is saying don't buy and enjoy games like Zack & Wiki. What I AM saying, though, is that you aren't going to see that type of game on the Wii regularly, if ever. They simply do not sell.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Babyzz series on the Wii has/will sold/sell a decent amount in the end, it's done great on the DS and I'm sure some of the buyers will end up liking it enough to buy it on the Wii. The Wii is also compromised of new type of gamers and some will be foolish enough to buy it without knowing its quality, but to come to conclusion that it's the only games third parties will make on the Wii is pretty far-fetched. You really think third parties will sit still on their hands? You gotta think long term, this generation and beyond, they're not going to be left behind next-gen. They will need to support all consoles from the get-go, or risk losing out on profits should the console they bank on doesn't become market leader. They need to start building their brand on the Wii this generation and that includes all type of games.

 

[Sadist]

Ok, black and white game with pretty dumb AI. All it has going for it is are the different kills for all the different weapons and environments. Not to mention its only 5 hours long. People in here are asking for Madworld on PSN and Xbox live arcade and I can't say this wouldn't fit right in with all the other budget games on those services.

... ... ...

You're batshit insane man.

 

[grandjedi6]

Ok, black and white game with pretty dumb AI. All it has going for it is are the different kills for all the different weapons and environments. Not to mention its only 5 hours long. People in here are asking for Madworld on PSN and Xbox live arcade and I can't say this wouldn't fit right in with all the other budget games on those services.

- Black and White has nothing to do with the size of the game's budget
- The game's AI has little to do with the game's budget
- Game length has nothing to do with a game's budget
- Madworld has a much larger budget than most PSN and XBLA games

None of things you've mentioned correlate at all with a game's budget. Please stop saying stupid things, k?

 

[ksamedi]

- Black and White has nothing to do with the size of the game's budget
- The game's AI has little to do with the game's budget
- Game length has nothing to do with a game's budget
- Madworld has a much larger budget than most PSN and XBLA games

None of things you've mentioned correlate at all with a game's budget. Please stop saying stupid things, k?

Then why don't you explain your argument instead of facepalming all the time. You say all those things don't matter. Then might I ask, what does?

 

[charlequin]

Then why don't you explain your argument instead of facepalming all the time.

Because your argument is so dumb that everyone who read it was rendered into a stupor.

(Also because you seem to have flipflopped on the game after citing it several times as one of the major 2009 exclusives to be excited about.)

 

[ksamedi]

Because your argument is so dumb that everyone who read it was rendered into a stupor.

(Also because you seem to have flipflopped on the game after citing it several times as one of the major 2009 exclusives to be excited about.)

Oh, because I used to be excited (and I happen to like the game), my argument doesn't stand? I didn't expect that from you to be honest.

Game length is a major factor for a gaming budgets, animations and graphics are major factors for gaming budgets, AI is a factor in gaming budgets. All of which is minimal in Madworld.

Have you even played the game? Please say you did. If you did I want to know what you think makes the game big budget.

 

[Wii Will Rock U]

Yeah. NMH is about the same length when you cut out the GTA lite bullshit. The reason why NMH was considered a success in the first place was because it did as well as it did despite no major push from UbiSoft. Sega advertised the hell out of MadWorld.

Exactly! Great to see someone else bring up that point.

People have no excuse for saying that MadWorld wasn't advertised well because I saw it everywhere for a good two weeks. I live in Downtown Chicago and I saw billboards, flyers in the subway, signs in the subway, commercials on G4, Adult Swim, and Spike (all the major networks for the game's audience), and the Gamestop near me even threw a midnight opening.

P.S.: I sold MadWorld because I beat it twice and realized there was nothing more to do after that.

 

[Dascu]

Game length is a major factor for a gaming budgets, animations and graphics are major factors for gaming budgets, AI is a factor in gaming budgets. All of which is minimal in Madworld.

1) Game length a major factor? It's the amount and the diversity of the content in a game that drives up costs. If you can re-use assets, it's easier to keep the budget low. MadWorld may be short, but it did have distinct levels each with their own assets.
2) The animations in MadWorld were pretty good. I don't see how they're "cheaper" than other games.
3) Graphics aren't suddenly cheaper because it's all black and white. Contrarily, the artists probably had a lot more work to create such stylized visuals.
4) Didn't you claim that this game had a lower budget than No More Heroes? And then you mention AI as an argument? Reaaaaally?

 

[grandjedi6]

Then why don't you explain your argument instead of facepalming all the time. You say all those things don't matter. Then might I ask, what does?

Lots of things: the marketing budget, the employee wages, equipement, etc.

You though act as if developers go to the supermarket to pick up better AI or better graphics. "Oh hey guys, I think the AI is a little weak so lets spend an extra thousand at Develop-o-mart to upgrade it!"

 

[ksamedi]

1) Game length a major factor? It's the amount and the diversity of the content in a game that drives up costs. If you can re-use assets, it's easier to keep the budget low. MadWorld may be short, but it did have distinct levels each with their own assets.
2) The animations in MadWorld were pretty good. I don't see how they're "cheaper" than other games.
3) Graphics aren't suddenly cheaper because it's all black and white. Contrarily, the artists probably had a lot more work to create such stylized visuals.
4) Didn't you claim that this game had a lower budget than No More Heroes? And then you mention AI as an argument? Reaaaaally?

1) diversity is not a factor here because the game is pretty short and a lot of assats were reused actually. Every level introduced something new yeah, but it used old assets as well.

2) The animations were pretty cheap. There is almost no animation at all actually :lol The characters pretty much use the same animations when they die.

3) Black and white, pretty simple character art. Except for the bosses. The enemies were pretty much the same all aeound. Again, minimal assets.

4) Compared to NMH yeah, the AI's are compareble but I NMH was a low budget game as well.

 

[ksamedi]

Lots of things: the marketing budget, the employee wages, equipement, etc.

You though act as if developers go to the supermarket to pick up better AI or better graphics. "Oh hey guys, I think the AI is a little weak so lets spend an extra thousand at Develop-o-mart to upgrade it!"

Naah, AI is program code. And good AI is pretty hard to make. It takes expensive developers to program good AI. It wasn't needed for this gameat all.

Same goes with graphics, the shorter the amount of time spent on the graphics, the smaller the budget. Well, Madworld certainly didn't have a lot of people working on the graohics engine.

Game length is important as well, as long as you introduce new stuff evertime the player progresses further into the game. Madworld sort of did that but it reused assets as well. Even then it was 5 hours max.


I actually never mentioned the marketing budget. I have no idea which game had a bigger marketing push.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

- Black and White has nothing to do with the size of the game's budget
- The game's AI has little to do with the game's budget
- Game length has nothing to do with a game's budget
- Madworld has a much larger budget than most PSN and XBLA games

None of things you've mentioned correlate at all with a game's budget. Please stop saying stupid things, k?

- The black and white style probably reduced the amount of texture work significantly.
- The game's AI seems like a fairly generic beat'em up AI. I'd assume that it was programmed in a fairly uneventful and straightforward manner, possibly by someone who had programmed the AI for a beat'em up before.
- The number of unique and detailed environments will reflect into the games budget. I haven't finished the game yet, but most of the areas seemed pretty unique with little in the way of cookie-cutter geometry. The counter-point is that the use of flat black-and-white texturing may have reduced the cost of unique texturing.
- I have no knowledge of the budget for this game, nor for the majority of XBLA and PSN games. Most of what I've heard about budget is conjecture.

Additional points -
- The use of a couple of D-List celebrities for the in-game commentary may have cost them some money, but it's not a number that I could quantify.
- The inclusion of some A-List game developers may have caused some budgetary increase, but the counter-point is that those developers had formed platinum games as an opportunity break away from Capcom, and are probably working a fairly reduced salary until their studio has some games under it's belt.

Unless Platinum or Sega releases some data regarding their budget we won't know, and we should take our own inferences about the budget of this game as just that - inferences. What will be more telling is if Sega or Platinum announce more games for the Wii with the same target demographic. Additionally statements about meeting expectations should be fairly interesting.

Personally, I want Profit and Loss statements, but I know I'll never see them.

 

[ViperVisor]

Really though... there is absolutely no reason why Zack and Wiki shouldn't have worked at retail given the demographic, characters designs and the muscle behind it.

Don't pretend ignorance on this level just to shit on Wii. I got out my copy to try and put myself in the avg consumer at a store.
Cover is cute. Maybe the somewhat young would pick it up for a look. Sorta Naruto vibe. Looks like a pirate but has no weapons. So those most likely to pick it up are the kids of the main product target.

If a person did pick it up they don't see a multi-player game. Back has no indication of action in this "PUZZLING ADVENTURE". So there is little chance to get a foot in the door with the non target group.

"Puzzle-solving has never been so fun!"
"challenging brain teasers and puzzle-based battles!"
"Shake the Wiimote to transform objects!"

Doesn't exactly say to people 'yo fucker! buy this shit or steal it if you must.'

There isn't even a Puzzle section @ amazon you have to go to Classic Games section then the sub genre Puzzle is there.

 

[Rolf NB]

Yes, but that's irrelevant for Soul Calibur, which is what this string of replies was regarding.

Don't make me do that again please.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Nintendo knows they have a hardcore fanbase, and they're not going to stop making games for them.

Well, I wish I had your certitudes. How can you be so sure? After all, Wii's casual games sell more and are much less expensive to develop. And I have the feeling that the hardcore base who bought the system in the early days started to vanish after Galaxy and Smash. Why should this fanbase return only for Zelda?

 

[charlequin]

Oh, because I used to be excited (and I happen to like the game), my argument doesn't stand? I didn't expect that from you to be honest.

I've been getting that a lot recently! People must have a higher opinion of me than I would have thought. :lol

The reason I cite your previous statements here is that what you are engaged in is spinning MadWorld's lousy sales as good based on its presumed low budget -- but you can't really claim that the game sold badly becaus it looks low-budget (since, clearly, you thought it looked like a top-3-of-the-year exclusive just a few months ago) -- absolutely nobody was saying "lol, looks like a trashy low-budget title" in the game's lead-up, so it can't have been actively hurt by that.

Which leaves the lesser "well, it underperformed but it's okay because they can't have spent much on it" defense, which also doesn't stand to scrutiny: the game features fairly elaborate and detailed art assets with a reasonable amount of variety, large amounts of voice acting from the higher end of the voice acting talent pool (John DiMaggio is, I'm guessing, too expensive for most of the B-list JRPGs to hire him), and what I understand was a non-zero marketing push. Just being short doesn't prove that the game was cheap to make, any more than all of the 6-hour-campaign shooters on 360 were.

(Haven't gotten to play the game yet myself, although I did watch probably about an hour of total videos -- which means I've seen 1/5 the game lololololol)