Wii Market Not 'Worthwhile' for Epic Games

With more than 50 million units sold around the globe, the Wii has an installed base significantly larger than any other platform this generation. It's pretty hard to ignore that market, and most companies have been scrambling to figure out just how to get a piece of the Wii action. Not Epic Games, though.

In speaking with IndustryGamers recently, they asked Epic VP Mark Rein if his company would make an effort to modify its popular Unreal Engine technology to fit the Wii or even handhelds at some point. Rein just doesn't believe the market is there on Wii, and he doesn't want to waste Epic's resources in custom designing an engine for the platform.

"If you stretch something too thin, it becomes very thin. How do you support that? We don't make games for that platform because we don't see a market for the kinds of games we make – let's be honest," he said.

[Homicide]

He's absolutely correct. Look at the sales for MadWorld and The Conduit. Compare it to casual mini-games like Carnival Games.

[SinnedNogara]

The sales for Metroid Prime 3, Red Steel, and Call of Duty: WaW say that hardcore games can sell well. And most Wii games have "long tales" meaning that they sell slowly, but hit 1 million over time.

Something tells me that The Conduit will start to sell well over time. MadWorld sold worse, and is going to become a franchise.

I think all the bias reviews (GamePro, which a lot of people trust) might have killed a sales-streak.

[asdr3wsfas]

We could also compare it to Resident Evil 4 or Call of Duty. RE4 for wii is considered the definitive version and sold over a million. RE Umbrella Chronicles sold over a million. Call of Duty went platinum for wii. No More Heroes is Suda's best selling game on any console and a wii exclusive. According to Sega House of the Dead: Overkill turned a profit a little bit ago. When I bought today on Amazon they had lowered the price to 20 dollars - it was ranked third in wii sales at that time.

I bought Madworld. It was 6 hours of gameplay and not worth more than a rental. Very nice style and humor, but 6 hours is not worth 50 dollars.

Call of Duty World at War had initial sales in the US of:

Week 1: 44,468
Week 2: 29,994
Total: 74,462

This is a mature franchise with name recognition. It was released Nov 11th, in time for the holidays. The game eventually went platinum.

The Conduit was released June 23rd. The NDP period tracking US sales ended July 4th. The Conduit was tracked for 11 days. It sold just shy of 72k copies in that time in the US. The exact same June NPD report shows that the video game market has slumped considerably. Again, compare:

Call of Duty Waw: 74,462 in 14 days, released around Christmas
The Conduit: 72,000 in 11 days, released during June and during a significant slump in the video game industry

The former went to reach platinum. I'm sorry, I honestly don't understand how you can conclude that it bombed at this point. Maybe after next month we'll see that it's more of a failure. But the evidence you're looking at now suggests that it may become a tremendous seller. If you look at most wii third party games that end up selling very well, these initial sales classify it as a success.

I play FPS games on PC. It's not like I just went out and bought the cute little game system to match my ipod. I started on Doom and have played the original Unreal to UT2004, each Quake up to 3, and others. And I honestly don't understand why people have to predict failure for everything on the wii so soon. Didn't that just blow up in people's faces like 3 years ago?

And from playing those PC games, you wanna know a secret? The Conduit is better than any Unreal game I played (original Unreal, UT, UT2003, UT2004). I was damn good at a couple of them. Now The Conduit won't dethrone quake because quake defined what deathmatch was, but I enjoy The Conduit just as much as Q3A or Action Quake 2, and God I loved those games.

Wanna know something? If there's one thing I've learned about Epic playing all that UT, it's that they're better at making game engines than actually making a game. You're listening to the opinion of someone who failed making "hardcore" FPS games for the discriminating PC market. If he can't understand the hardcore FPS market on PC, what makes you think he knows anything about it on the wii?

Honestly dude, just wait a couple months and if you're right I'll gladly admit it. But if you're making predictions and unwilling to do analysis, you should just concede that it's a totally uneducated guess.

[Mr.Mister]

here is an example of a lazy developper and hungry for money
i could get a disagree for saying that but remember the difference between unreal 3 and gears of war?

[N4g_null]

oobob that is what I'm talking about Hell I was on crom 1 last night man am I rusty. Yeah, but UT3 no one plays that game at all. Epic had to give it away a few months ago so people would play it.

The movements are too jerky and every thing has too much detail so players get lost in the over design. Quake was fast accurate and the special moves where natural instead of some double left left to jump out of the way. The whole cover thing on gears of war is lame also.

Believe me I've tried to like their games and I can use their engine but I hate doing it... there is always some nagging problem or error because you are trying to be creative in a engine that is just a hack it seems.

You would think an real FPS maker would step up and say well we can out do these other guys on the Wii. Instead they are saying we are not good enough to make a game that will sell on the Wii. I hope they are not hoping that nintendo pays them money to make some thing when the same thing did not even work out for SONY.

UT3 bombed on the only system that did not have pirates. The funny thing about epic was they even claimed that people where pirating this game yet I found no one playing it on the day I bought it and almost a few weeks after that. Yet I got my copy of conduit early and found people playing it, and I still have no problem finding a match. The same thing goes for quake 3.

If I want to play a FPS that is new I play quake wars they got vehicle controls and physic right and they have tanks that don't get stuck on twigs.

[asdr3wsfas]

While the figures are from wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wik... I didn't consider that. My apologies. Keep in mind the same applies to RE4, though.

At this site ( http://kotaku.com/5215424/k... we see the quote:

""An official statement from the company gloats that "the hit game has garnered the biggest initial success at retail of any first-party PS3 title to date, and will continue to drive incentive for hardware sales throughout the year."

Sony Computer Entertainment's Scott Steinberg said earlier this month that the Guerilla Games developed Killzone 2 has "exceeded our expectations." The title sold more than 500,000 copies in the U.S. in its first two months on the market.""

When wii games sell slow at first it's taken as a sign of failure (The Conduit) despite overwhelming evidence that wii games sell slower for longer. So your point for PS3 is correct - particularly as more people have adopted the system - but I just wanna point out that no one accepts that in an argument about wii ;)

My comment isn't a knock on the PS3, I empathize with you guys. It's just saying that companies like epic should consider all platforms. Just like the wii is underpowered because of lazy developers, the ps3 has 9 cores, and they could be put to better use (I'm really interested in ray tracing on the system but don't know if that's feasible for modern gaming). Even if ray tracing isn't, there are plenty of other things those cores could be doing if they designed a given game for the ps3 from the ground up. Same problem with the wii - the launch game Rogue Squadron for Gamecube looks better than whole lot of wii games because Factor5 knew how to program for the system. They have some insane technical specs on that game. They apparently tried to port it to original xbox and the system couldn't even run the game, which shows that when people compared original xbox to the wii that even the GC had advantages over it.

You can best see this with Oblivion for the PS3 (I don't like that style of game but all my friends do so I know a lot about it). It runs at a higher frame rate on PS3 and IIRC a higher native resolution than on xbox. So I sympathize with you, and I'm not knocking PS3. It has stuff the wii could technically never accomplish. But I like my new controls, and I don't like how the console industry I've been into since NES and bailed on after PS1 treats me like I'm somehow less core than kids who grew up without cartridges.

[asdr3wsfas]

Oh man, crom 1! I wasn't as good at the indoor levels as the outdoor but my brother rocked crom 1 - first time I ever heard flak monkey. He'd get it with the secondary fire killing people with direct grenade lobs, not the splash damage. He was a god of UT, regular and instajib. We'd play rankin together in ut2004 and sometimes I'd win, but my kills wouldn't be too far above my deaths. I'm the spaz who runs in to grab the frag cannon or rockets and dies over and over till he gets em and sprees to make up for it (or even shock rifle). My brother would win Rankin with 25 kills 7 deaths....he could wall and dodge jump across the entire map in about 4 seconds.

The level is perfectly designed for it and the last thing Epic ever did right. I'd watch him get shot in the flak cannon room, dodge jump off the metal siding against the wall to the second level, grab the stimpack on his way to the 3 level area with the rocket launcher in the middle, come around from the shock rifle side and kill the dude who hit him. It was insane. I could hold my own but I was best with the minigun at long distances - I use an optical trackball with sensitivity maxed and you can keep steady way easy with it.

Did you ever play Malex? He went by that a lot and was pretty insane in instajib and arena. Later in his play he'd name himself Ricky after Trailer Park Boys and people would get furious cause they thought he was a n00b. He'd get kicked from games he was winning.

Forget UT3, even ut2004 was in serious trouble. People only played the demo maps except for some vehicle levels. There was almost no point in actually buying the game. If you wanted DM you pretty much had to play Rankin, and while it's my favorite FPS map ever, even it gets old.

You didn't like dodge jumping? Man, after ut2003, that was the only thing the game had left for me.

I'll check out quake wars. I'd heard about it but was sick of FPS games back then. Of course, I'm going to get The Conduit out of me first.

[YoungKingDoran]

okay epic, we get it. you hate wii more than most fanboys.

[UncleJaysus]

While the Wii has the biggest install base, most of that is casual, rather than core gamers. The games that sell big numbers are games that appeal to mums, girlfriends, kids etc - games that appeal to the casual audience who, let's face it, bought thier Wii so they could excercise and bowl, not play FPS games.

The odd well-known franchise may do OK on Wii, but generally Nintendo is the only company who can say they've done as well as they'd like. Software - especially third-party - sells better on PS3 and Xbox 360.

Epic's games appeal to an older, core-gamer audience who on average spend more money on games and care about how games look. No-one wants to see Unreal Tournament on Wii.

[Nihilism]

epic games appeal to people who think cliffy b is 'cool'...not core gamers...which is sick because only in a world this messed up would people respect a douche like him, core gamers care about the games, not obsess over kojima etc......there are fanboys and core gamers, the fanboys are usually new to the gaming scene and will defend their console of choice at all costs, and the core gamers miss the days of megadrive vs ns....when games like alex the kid and old skool shizzle ruled the world, and yes battletoads ruled

[asdr3wsfas]

I bought the wii for Punchout and the Conduit. So someone bought it for an FPS game. I've played Unreal, UT, UT2003, UT2004. I started with Doom, moved through Quake 3, then went to Unreal. I'm that older, core audience.

Here are statistics showing that what you're saying is demonstrably false. Wii may have more casual gamers, but the core market is there. This is taken from the list of best selling xbox360, ps3 and wii games on wikipedia.

Four of the best selling wii games:

Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition: 1.5 million

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: 1.31 million

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles: 1.15 million

Red Steel: 1 million

Let's start with the idea that only Nintendo makes money on the wii games. A *rerelease* of RE4 beat Metroid Prime in sales by around 200,000k. So the hardcore RE4 reliably bested a first party game by Nintendo. Maybe if we had other third-party AAA titles we'd see that more. If a port of a last generation game and a rail shooter do that well, can you imagine how a new release AAA title might sell even more? Even Umbrella Chronicles and Red Steel are comparable to Metroid!

The following are the 7th-11th top selling PS3 games.

7. Resident Evil 5: 1.21 million approximately
8. Heavenly Sword: 1 million
9. Killzone 2: 1 million
10. MotorStorm: Pacific Rift: 1 million
11. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction 1 million

A ***rerelease*** of RE4 on wii outsold the premier of RE5 on PS3. The rail shooter Umbrella Chronicles is 50,000k short of meeting that. When you consider the producer's crack that the wii couldn't play the title screen from RE5 - total BS as that's rendered beforehand - it makes you realize how out of touch the publishers are. Red Steel even matched sales with Killzone 2.

Xbox360 starts a little lower to match the sales. Here we start at 13th or so. But once you see these titles, you'll realize my point:

14. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 1.762 million approximately
16. Mass Effect 1.60 million
19. Call of Duty 3 1.534 million approximately
21. BioShock 1.5 million
25. Resident Evil 5 1.417 million approximately
28. Call of Duty 2 1.4 million
30. Fight Night Round 3 1.25 million approximately
32. Left 4 Dead (over 1 million)
33. The Orange Box (at least 1 million)
34. Dead or Alive 4 (1 million)
35. Halo Wars (1 million)
36. Ninja Gaiden II (1 million)

A rerelease of RE4 is 250k short of matching Oblivion on xbox360. It's important to stress the rerelease part as most people have played the game. And it also beats RE5 on Xbox360 alone. So RE5 has sold worse on either PS or 360 taken individually than a rereleased RE4 on wii. How is there no market for RE5 on wii?

RE4 beat Fight Night, Ghost Recon, Call of Duty, Left 4 Dead, and Halo Wars. It tied Bioshock on 360 and was 100k less than Mass Effect. RE Umbrella Chronicles beat Ghost Recon, Dead or Alive 4, Left 4 Dead, Ninja Gaiden II, and Halo Wars. A rail shooter on the wii outsold a Halo IP and Left 4 Dead on 360. I love rail shooters, but that is not a wildly popular format.

What's sadder is development costs are remarkably low on the wii. The profit for a rerelease of RE4 is insane when you consider they just ported the Gamecube version and added motion controls. While the sales figures above shows the argument is false at face value, considering the development costs shows it is rather detached from reality. If I held stock in all these companies that didn't call the wii would succeed and I found these figures out, there would be serious problems.

The fact a released RE4 outsells Xbox and PS3 AAA titles destroys any argument that there's no market on the wii for them. The problem is the developers are lazy, justifying why they didn't have wii games ready for launch, and covering for poor workmanship when they tried to mindlessly port them to make up for their delay. I have a degree in CS, trust me, it's obvious.

A new IP like No More Heroes on wii is Suda's most successful game ever. An rereleased old IP like RE4 and a rail shooter based on RE outsell 360 and PS3 exclusive AAA titles. And there's no market?

Honestly, I don't know how people in the industry aren't fired for dragging out this trope without a cursory look at these numbers.

[starvinbull]

Your figures are BS! Killzone 2 has sold over 2 million and sold over a million in just over a week. The pre-orders alone were above 1 million. I'm calling BS on your figures.

here's a link that puts Killzone 2 at 1.7 million after 10 weeks http://www.vgchartz.com/gam...

Your whole point (as far as KZ2 is concerned) is based on the assumption that once the game had launched and sales slowed to a crawl that it stayed on the numbers it held at that moment.

Your point is good but get the figures right.

EDIT: don't use Wikipedia figures which have gone out of date and never get updated if you are having a debate about sales figures of games still in their first 6 months on the shelf.

[N4g_null]

It's clear to see that hardcore gaming is shrinking because gamers are getting tired of sequels that did not work all that great in the first place yet traditional game type are no longer being made. If a console game doesn't try it's best to be a PC game then it is looked down on.

fighter, brawlers, action adventure, exploration and RPGs are barely on these list. What you have are PC orientated games now on the HD systems. This is not good for gaming and it is actually making console gamers PC gamers since traditional games are not even really being pushed on those consoles.

Blazblue sold 120k on the PS3 and 90k on the 360 now tell me the hardcore gamers love a stylish game like madworld. Infamous is hyped and only got to 640k. Valkyria chronicles is at 500k. Killzone is at 1.74m
http://digg.com/playstation...

Scott Steinberg tells Gamedaily Killzone 2 "set the record as the most pre-ordered SCEA PS3 title to-date." On top of that, Steinberg says, the game is also "the fastest SCEA PS3 title to break the 500,000 unit mark and it's also the highest selling SCEA PS3 title for the first 30 days out of launch."

Yet it is only at 1.74m and they were happy with 500k being sold so quickly.

Mario Kart Wii (15.4 million) WOW and the hardcore complained about the blue shell yet millions of gamer have no problem with it…
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (8.43 million) man it doesn’t get more hardcore than this game.
Super Mario Galaxy (8.02 million) seriously it may be easy to some but it is not easy at the end LOL.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (4.52 million) How many grandmothers even know what this is?
Link's Crossbow Training (3.76 million) LOL why would casuals even buy this?
Super Paper Mario 2.28 millio
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock 2 million

Resistance 2 is at 1.57 it would not even place on the Wii.
Killzone is lower than that game LOL.

Now lets look at the games that could fit on this list of Nintendo sales.
On the PS3
Grand Theft Auto IV 5.68m
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 4.42m
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots 4.08
Resistance: Fall of Man 3.61m
MotorStorm 3.49m
Assassin's Creed 3.40m
Call of Duty: World at War 3.38m
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue 2.93m
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 2.48m

On the Xbox 360
Halo 3 9.92m
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 7.60m
Grand Theft Auto IV 7.15m
Gears of War 5.90m
Call of Duty: World at War 5.69m
Gears of War 2 4.99m
Assassin's Creed 4.52m
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock 4.24m
Forza Motorsport 2 4.00m
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures 3.39m LOL
Kung Fu Panda 2.99m
Fable II 2.91m
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 2.73m

I posted the highest seller to show you what these gamers like…
Wii owners like more traditional games that are fun that is easiest to see.
360 has all of the heavily ad driven games that people don’t care about.
Ps3 has the same as the xbox 360 with some remains of their PS2 fanbase.
All of those games that NG4 and other sites with fanboy HD guys hyped the hell out of way more games than this. Where are those sales? WTF the HD systems are hardcore why are you not buying these games? Yet these are the games the represent your consoles. It’s sad but I have way more fun with the Wii list and the HD list is mighty mediocre too me. If I want to show off normal map I flash up a HD game but do I let people play them hell no! J/K Most people don’t even like to watch HD games being played.
If you look at the trend then you see a hardcore game only sells around 1-2 million at most and there is only really a core of about 1-3 million hardcore gamers then there is an avg of 100k niche true hardcore gamers. The rest are lead by ads mostly and hype.

Now the Wii gets anti hype all the time yet still manages to sell their games and even out do similar games on the HD systems.

What you have to ask yourself is where are the games that are like Mad world and NMH on the HD gaming list? Is there any thing to compare them to on the HD systems?

Bullet Witch sold 100k weird style
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger sold 90k great style and art and old school game play IE traditional gaming.
Overlord II sold 90k yes this did come out on the Wii also . no one bought it either.
Project Sylpheed - Arc of Deception sold 80k the hardcore don’t even play these games any more.
Final Fantasy XI All In One Pack sold 20k LOL come on!

The hardcore as of right now are dead to every one else except the huge publishers. As of right now hardly any one is making money on any of these systems simply because gaming has become some thing that it wasn’t meant to be.

The Wii is side stepping this mess. If you want to be mad at some one be mad at your fellow hardcore gamers. They are not showing up to your party or ours. That is the truth.

[Suga Shane]

I am about to either lose bubbles or recieve disagrees but here I go. I am first and foremost a gamer but I must be honest, Because of my age and time spent in the gaming world, I am partial to Nintendo but I do not let that blind me. Anyway, I am aware of the hatred that "new gamers" have towards the Wii as well as this engine creator epic. In my opinion, and what I read into this article is that epic simply does not have that talent required to create a game for the Wii. Sure, they can make things pretty, a pile of horse manure can turn into a flower garden, but they lack imagination. I am not knocking any console as I own a Wii,360, and soon a PS3,so a rebuttle should be carefully thought out.I will stop there simply because once the HD gamers stumble across this article and begin to shred it with their so called "logic" my words will fade like the credits after a movie.

[nightmareluffy1]

That made sense in a poetic sort of way. Have a bubble.

[N4g_null]

You are so right Shane. On top of this epic works best in a market of graphical gimmicks because they don't really have the talent to create really nice looking art. I will admit I was impressed at what they got in a live engine at first yet no one felt like their art was creative. One of the things that made console gaming so much fun was the fact that the games where so creative and actually fun to play. The fun in HD gaming is all visual... it's not unlike mortal kombat when it first came out. People loved the realism yet people played SF2 and countless other games with better art.

Epic can polish certain things but they just do not push them selves creatively. Epic has gotten the most back lash for their engine and the look of it. This is the only time I've actually seen people hate a developer because their engine helps people make bad art choices and designs LOL. Gears is suppose to be their best work... it is detailed but just lack creativeness. Metal gear sold just off it's creativity even if I didn't like the cut scenes. Most nintendo games sell because they are creative and functional thus fun while offering a challenge.

The industry does need a reset but if you just look at even Saturday morning cartoons and even adult cartons it is no longer about creativity and fun but maybe shock humor.

[schlanz]

50 million people is quite a big number, even if many of them are casuals. There is no denying that with a number that size, there are also millions upon millions of core gamers that own a Wii. I don't think its right to assume there isn't a market for core games- and I think this thread has already proven they can sell.

Rein is wrong to think that the Wii is any different from the PS3 or 360 when it comes to 3rd party success; there have been massive financial failures on both systems.

If Epic only wants to develop the best looking games, thats their business, and they don't need to look for excuses not to make games for the Wii. But if Epic is so well-known for their ability to create excellent game engines, why don't they build one for the Wii and then give other devs a license to use it?

Also, there is no telling what Motion Plus will do for 3rd party games. Will more accurate motion control be enough to captivate the attention spans of more core gamers? As long as the game built around it is actually good, I think there could be tons of 3rd party success. And that's where Epic could come in and provide an excellent engine.

[EvilTwin]

If Epic doesn't want to take part in making any games for Wii, fine.

But I'm tired about hearing the arguments that "core games don't sell on Wii." Ones with effort put in do. There's a reason Nintendo's own core titles (Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Smash Bros, Kart, Punch Out, Wario) sell well -- they're polished, and almost always AAA-level.

Tiger Woods 10 is selling well now. RE4 sold well (as did RE:UC). Boom Blox sold well enough to spawn a sequel. So did No More Heroes (and ditto Trauma Center). The best versions of Pro Evo Soccer and Shaun White are on Wii, and they do alright. COD:WAW sold over a million. HotD:Overkill turned a profit, and Conduit most likely will, too (and MadWorld's numbers aren't THAT bad).

You aren't going to get Halo 3 numbers with every game. The Wii library is filled with games that were "failures," because people looked at the first month of sales without considering the legs games have on Wii (and DS, too).

If Epic doesn't want any part of that, no skin off my back. It's not like Wii is hurting for good developers -- Team Ninja is working on Metroid, Retro has something in the works, Grasshopper has No More Heroes 2, Climax is working on a great looking Silent Hill, Vanillaware has Muramasa, Nintendo has both teams hard at work on a Galaxy sequel and a new Zelda. And HVS looks promising after Conduit -- Gladiator A.D. and Grinder look sharp.

[Gameswire]

"But I'm tired about hearing the arguments that "core games don't sell on Wii." Ones with effort put in do. There's a reason Nintendo's own core titles (Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Smash Bros, Kart, Punch Out, Wario) sell well -- they're polished, and almost always AAA-level."

These are big-name franchises and in many cases are 'kiddy' in appearance, so have a much higher chance of crossing over into the Wii's main, casual userbase than, say, Unreal Tournament.

As for Tiger Woods, it's a golf game. Sports titles do well on Wii because of the opportunity for natural interaction.

[EvilTwin]

Gameswire -- I've never understood the "kid look" equaling "not for core gamers" point of view. SMG had some devilishly challenging stuff. Adventure games like Wind Waker and Okami don't have photo realistic graphics, but they're for core gamers. Eye-candy rich FPS games aren't the only "hardcore" games out there.

I think it has more to do with established IP's. Mario, Zelda, Metroid...all established.

Resident Evil and Call of Duty? Established IP's. Even HotD has its own cult following.

Heck, I bet if RockStar decided to do a "San Andreas Stories" or something, it would sell at least decently on the Wii (at least 1 or 2 million copies).

But I could be wrong. Certainly wouldn't be the first or last time.

[Gameswire]

"I've never understood the "kid look" equaling "not for core gamers" point of view."

That's not really what I said, and if I gave that impression I really didn't mean to. Core Nintendo gamers (not to be confused with core Wii owners) love Nintendo franchises, so in that sense 'kiddy' looks don't come into it.

What I meant was that the bright and colourful nature of most of Nintendo's games, has the benfit of appealing to the new-breed of casual gamers that make up the majority of the Wii audience, in a way that the dark and gruesome games from Epic wouldn't be able to.

[EvilTwin]

My apologies, Gameswire. I get what you mean. Someone who is newer to gaming, and is a more "casual" gamer, will probably get drawn to certain Nintendo franchises. Mario isn't going to intimidate people picking up the game in a store to think, "this will be way too hard for me."

(The gameplay challenges are there, but the game's mechanics make it a pick up and play experience, and the visuals mirror that.)

OTOH, someone who is new to console gaming, but wants to get into gritty, core-FPS games is going to look where the bulk of those games currently are...and that isn't the Wii.

The weird thing is, with a game like Zelda, I know plenty of "core" players who don't bother finishing it (I hear "Twilight Princess is great, but I haven't finished it" nearly every time I go into Gamestop). And I'm sure a new, "casual" gamer isn't going to sink 40 or 50 hours into it, either.

[N4g_null]

Gameswire bright and colorful has nothing to do with it. These games are fun to play. Xbox has all the games by rare and what did those sales look like... those games are way more colorful than most stuff on the Wii. You have a game where nintendo characters beat the living crap out of each other and a race that lets you set traps and out race people. They you have the almost neutral color wii sports games that are not really all that colorful. The emphasis is on the game play.

People bough most games on the Wii because they are fun to play not because they are colorful. Hell if a game has great game play then I will put up with almost any thing. I mean really I play quake with out any textures almost and run it at 400 FPS some times LOL. The point is always game play.

Bloom blox could have been dark and stormy and browns and the flicker of torches and people would have bough it for it's game play.

The funny thing is hardcore gamers now don't play games unless they are 3d, fps, or realistic looking. If you look back that is not the reasons why gamers played games on even the PS2... a lot of niche games sold the same amount of games and where not ridiculed. Okami keeps coming up along with god hand from the makers of madworld. Yet when these games come out they do just as good as they did not the PS2.

Name one game that was truly made all out for the Wii and treated like a AAA effort with lots of money thrown behind it.

If you do name any they will be nintendo made games and they will have huge sales.

@Arius Dion this is the main reason why the game media sucks. They them selves don't even know how to handle the wii since each game copy does not come with perk money... The hardcore HD gamer base is actualy pretty small the rest are blu ray watchers and casual "i want to sit on the couch and press button gamers that scream please don't give me a challenge".

before long gamers are going to run out of reason to even try to play HD games.

What is also funny is Epic knows they have one more chance at the big time just to show off the new API before the next gen hits. I think this is why I actually like the guys at HVS they actually listen to what gamers wanted. Just look at the grinder it is almost in direct response to the fans.

[Gr81]

Quoted for truth Scissor. I was going to largely ignore all the nonsense Rein has been spouting, mainly because I really have no interest in Epic games, but some of the posts here try to give this guy more validity than he is worth.

I also love how everyone is so quick to dismiss Nintendo First party success and try to flip it into a weakness. Its baffling, bogus, and ignorant. "Oh its Mario/Zelda its supposed to sell" Quality sells, Nintendo games are almost synonomous with Quality, that is why the games sell. And lets look on the flip side here; The big franchises from third parties are the only ones selling on the HD consoles, and many of them still can't save their company from either going under or stay out of the red.

You want to know which market isnt worthwhile? The so called "hardcore" market. Its throwing money down a black hole. As soon as another software company comes up with a better solution or disruptive game engine to Epics one dimensional unreal engine they will see just how thin this market that they are supposedly champions of, really is.

[Gameswire]

"Quality sells"

Hmm, not always. And it's a bit naive to think so.

(Although it depends on how you, or anyone pondering this, definies 'quality', really. It's quite a subjective term if you think about it.)

To sell, all you need to do is connect with an audience - any audience - and you'll sell to that audience.

Wii games that do well are generally (notice I say generally?) the sort of bright, colourful, fun, simple, instant-gratification and not-in-any-way-intimidating games that have the ability to charm the Wii's audience with the 'quality' on offer. Quality meaning (in this case), substance with which to hook an intended userbase, rather than artistic merit or depth.

[Gameswire]

You can all rattle off your own reasons and anecdotal evidence as to why the Wii is a viable platform, but the simple fact is, that on paper, the Wii doesn't provide the return for third-party devs that 360 and PS3 do.

It doesn't matter if one or a hundred people on here (a videogame website) who own a Wii also say they want FPS games, because the truth is that as far as the Wii market is concerned, you people are in the minority.

Epic is a business at the end of the day. The company has a clear focus and knows what it does best. Why should Epic risk investment to chase a market that doesn't care for the current crop of games it releases? It's understandable that those of you who love the Wii will natually speak out against a company saying it's not a viable platform for them, but c'mon, look at it logically - some publishers have something to offer Wii and have something to gain, Epic doesn't.

[asdr3wsfas]

"You can all rattle off your own reasons and anecdotal evidence as to why the Wii is a viable platform, but the simple fact is, that on paper, the Wii doesn't provide the return for third-party devs that 360 and PS3 do."

Development costs are much lower on the wii. You need much less art direction for non-HD games, in the tune of millions. House of the Dead: Overkill has already made Sega a profit and it is not a wildly popular title.

Clearly in the case of Capcom, Umbrella Chronicles has provided that return. No More Heroes is Suda's most successful game on any console ever. Both have earned sequels. This is not anecdotal.

"It doesn't matter if one or a hundred people on here (a videogame website) who own a Wii also say they want FPS games, because the truth is that as far as the Wii market is concerned, you people are in the minority."

If there are 50m wii gamers and if anything less than 25m are into these types of games, that's a minority, but potentially a large group in their own right. Minority is a relative comparison to the larger install base of the wii and doesn't matter for profit purposes; as long as a sufficient number of wii gamers are into these games, they will sell well. See Resident Evil 4.

[Gameswire]

You're completely right when you say that the cost of development on Wii is less, but Epic has already invested in tech that cannot be used on that console. And who's to say how much money Epic would have to invest in order to create something that could cater to a Wii audience.

Epic games sell on that tech, which would be redundent on Wii. The point remains, that Epic really doesn't have anything to offer the Wii, as much as the Wii isn't a platform where Epic can continue to push the boundaries of what it currently excells at.

The problem here is that Wii fans are taking Mark Rein's comments to heart and seeing them as a slight against the Wii overall. It's just not that personal. Sure, Rein may or may not like the Wii, but his comments reflect what works for Epic on a business level, it's not an attack on the Wii.

[asdr3wsfas]

Your point is pretty valid. However, it's not the one this guy made. He eventually made that point but I was responding to his initial comments. Keep in mind I played the original Unreal to UT2004, so I know a lot about Epic engines. Here it is:

"'If you stretch something too thin, it becomes very thin. How do you support that? We don't make games for that platform because we don't see a market for the kinds of games we make – let's be honest,' he said.

We noted that more third parties are trying to push hardcore games on the Wii, but Rein countered, “And they've been huge financial flops... It's just not where the market is. Look at EA. Do you see the same Madden game on Wii? Of course not – it's a dumbed down game.'"

He's not saying that we can't invest this tech on the wii. He's saying there's no market for that style of game. He's basing very few of his comments on facts and instead looking for the hardcore games that don't sell to make his point. But people just talk about Madworld having never purchased the game and beating it in 6 hours, or realizing that it was an extremely niche title.

Have you seen Call of Duty for wii? The launch title Star Wars Rogue Squadron for Gamecube puts those graphics to shame. Yet he isn't ready to admit the obvious fact that the wii's success caught these developers off guard and they had hasty ports to make up for it. That the lack of polish in these products shows in both the gameplay and the graphics - like Madden. Then these ports are used to prove how weak the system is when anyone who played Gamecube would realize that it's total BS. I earned a degree in CS and the lack of effort from the publishers is painfully obvious.

Look at this quote:

"It's more likely the platform will rise up to meet us than we'll go down [to customize our technology for it]."

Rogue Squadron for Gamecube had 20 million polygons in the Hoth battle without framerate drops. It was a launch title and frankly graphically murders most wii games ported over by big publishers. Compare this to what people say about the wii and the crap effort 3rd party publishers put into graphics for the console. As a programmer this is a tacit admission that they don't have the flexibility to program the system.

I could care less if they don't write a wii engine from personal preference That would be a business choice that reflects their values as a company. What he said is that there is no market for these games, and that even Madden has to be dumbed down for wii. Have you ever played UT? It's not mentally challenging. Click to shoot, right click to shoot differently, double tap a direction to dodge jump. It is the essence of reflexive, twitchy FPS games.

Yet timing when to swing the wiimote in Mario Power tennis to control where to send your shot while syncing it with a certain motion to use a given type of swing while hitting the button to lunge for the ball is dumbed down? That's many times more physically and mentally stimulating than get rockets/frag cannon/shock rifle and point, click, shoot. Tiger Woods golf with wiimotion plus takes into account how you hold the racket and whether you slice with it when you swing. Swordfighting on wii sports resort works in a similar manner. How is hitting a button to swing a sword not a dumbed down version of the complex physical tasks people have to do on wii?

Consider punchout - I started to box cause I loved this game as a kid, I bought the wii the day it was released, and people don't even try the motion controls. Hitting a dpad and 3 buttons pales in complexity to swinging the Nunchuck and wiimote to emulate a punch (you can do so in boxing form rather well but it won't map it specifically) while using the wiifit board to dodge and duck. It's the same rhythm game but this time you have to have those insane reaction times synced between your hands and your feet, with different motions corresponding to each. As you tire you start missing the tells and get hit far more. It requires 3x the reaction time and 3x the kinesthetic intelligence while not sacrificing any of the rhythm challenge elements.

Is this game dumbed down for a casual audience, or is his concept of how to interface with a controller so limited that he doesn't understand the real skill involved in playing this way? Or how hard it is to keep Punchout reaction time as you tire - it's hard enough on a controller! Or when you're on a hard guy with a killer special, and you twitch instinctively out of reflex. It happens a lot with the controller (I beat Mike Tyson in the original). Do you know how much more challenging it is to recover from that in motion controls?

Most gamers tried them for a couple minutes and said the reaction time necessary was impossible to achieve or that they weren't as responsive. We spent years learning controllers! As a kid I thought Tyson was impossible, and now I can beat Super Punchout in hotel rooms without losing a match in 52 minutes - special circuit included. None of these people realize the challenge involved in learning a new, precise motion and coordinating it with several others in the quirky rhythms required by punchout. They shun and blame of motion controls for their poor playing because they're not the best immediately. At the same time they say the games are dumbed down or that Punchout was too short and easy. It was short and easy because of the way they chose to play it! They almost uniformly fail to ask if it was the controls unresponsiveness or their lack of skill that caused the problem. Two hours attempting to resolve it or any reasonable degree of physical coordination would convince them of the latter.

Personally, hitting a dpad and button in a rhythm/puzzle game like Punchout is like playing DDR on a controller. The real skill and ability comes in high-level coordination and mastery of disparate body movements in the same environment, subject to fatigue and slower recovery from errors - you have to correct your entire body, not just move your finger. Sure, Punchout isn't really like boxing cause you stay stationary, and in boxing you circle 360 degrees to create openings and keep defense. For that reason no boxing game can emulate it perfectly. But to ignore the closest emulation yet accomplished, abandon motion controls with complex movements for button mashing, and then calling the system dumbed down is absurd.

The fact a lot of "core" gamers are scared to stick with something they're not as practiced with because that means they're not the best immediately says something. It says that maybe they want the challenges they're used to, which is fine and I understand completely. But if they aren't willing to learn and appreciate how complex motion control Punchout becomes, it makes me wonder who plays the dumbed down games and who really deserves the label hardcore.

[Mahr]

"You can all rattle off your own reasons and anecdotal evidence as to why the Wii is a viable platform"

I'm not a particular fan of anecdotal evidence myself, but given that the case against there being a market for certain types of games on the Wii essentially boils down to Game X or Game Y being 'a huge financial flop', the standard for evidence being used by anyone isn't exactly high.

"on paper, the Wii doesn't provide the return for third-party devs that 360 and PS3 do."

By any chance, is there a link to this paper handy?

"It doesn't matter if one or a hundred people on here (a videogame website) who own a Wii also say they want FPS games, because the truth is that as far as the Wii market is concerned, you people are in the minority."

Well, that's a slightly dubious argument to make, as very very few games ever sell to what could be the 'majority' of any system, barring pack-ins. How many games have sold in the excess of fifteen million units on the 360? Ten million on the PS3? Seventy million on the PS2?

[Gr81]

Lets not try to be too logical here, remember, this is N4G after all ;).

Also @oobob, great posts.

[Enigma_2099]

No big loss.

[N4g_null]

Gameswire this is not personal and if you are Mark then just know it is not personal. We are only saying how we feel about epic as a company and why they have no say so in any thing that goes on with nintendo. If any thing he should stay neutral just to show respect.

It is not really about Mark liking nintendo they are basically a PC company and seriously do not understand the console business. This is what we are saying. Inexperienced gamers or gamers that think they are experience enough to speak on this will get every thing wrong.

It not that Mark doesn't like the Wii he is trying marginalize it so that another UT3 effect doesn't happens. Any thing beyond him saying they are the market leader for console gaming is a put down or an attack. Yet it is ok for him to say our style of game play does not work on lower powered systems... gameplay meaning graphical gimmicks and the same control systems, physics, art that we hated before.

You will not see many HD gamer come in here and defend epic either because they have sucked on the PS3 for a long time now. The main games that made them rich have fallen pretty far from grace. They are almost not welcomed in the industry, yet they have MS backing them.

So gamers in general have a problem with epic not just wii gamers... The main cry would be some thing like stop the hype and put some thing in our hands that we want to play... basic STFU epic and get your sh!t str8. The only people on their side are the frigging game media which we are a little pi$$ at also for being douche bags.

Hey but other wise I'm having a good day! I hope that was helpful! Good game Gameswire

[UncleJaysus]

"they are basically a PC company and seriously do not understand the console business"

That is an amazingly ridiculous thing to say.

Epic's recent success is a direct result of how well the company has understood and milked the console market. The Unreal Engine has taken the console market by storm. Say what you want about the games that use it, that's irrelevant - the fact is, Epic has not only understood, but has shaped the console market.

[Shnazzyone]

Of course wii development isn't worth it for them Nintendo wont pay them millions to keep them first party while giving them hand jobs on the side like M$ does. Seriously,their a first party publisher for microsoft why would they ever say anything other then that. That's like Bungie saying they don't think it's worth it for them to develop halo for ps3... it's kindof a duh statement.

In the meantime... the lead of Epic has stated before he loves using wii for his family time at home. I think this is just more crap from wii hating Online "journalists" who will dig for days for a single quote that they can misinterpret to an anti-wii headline then post that flamebait as soon as they can.

Also.. If i was biasing this story I would headline it... "Epic says it wants to develop for Wii HD". He does say that he would certainly develop for a nintendo HD console. So it appears it has more to do with hardware then the audience as this writer would have you believe.

[SinnedNogara]

It seems that Epic cares a lot about if a system has HD then if it would be great to work with and if the game could return profit. If they do make a really good game, it could turn profit for them.

Personally I don't really care. The Wii already has HVS, Retro, Nintendo, Monolith Soft (the Disaster developer, not the F.E.A.R developer), Project Sora, etc. Hell, even Bethesda is trying.

At least they aren't making party games for the Wii like three certain developers (*cough* EA, Activision, Ubisoft).

[Thoreau]

most of these post are going to fall on "deaf ears". i am not defending epic but could they enjoy working on the ps3 and 360 more than the wii? if epic does then what is the problem? if you want to play the games that epic create, then buy the system of the game you want to play.

[na-no-nai]

so what does it make me. i been gaming since the nes. and about some of the games old or new i never finish it. take for example breath of fire 3, twilight princess. but i never liked epic for some reason. they never fancy me. but heck from what i read, they could not make a good wii game even if they tried. Dont get me wrong i played games like COD, starcraft, dead or alive, ghost recon.
hell i try to buy as much games that i think are good but being broke and having to pay bills and worrying about college i dont have time to spend on games.