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Nintendo breaks record for 2008


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Nintendo sold record breaking 10.2 million Wiis in US in 2008

 

NPD reports that of all video game consoles sold in the U.S. in 2008, 55% of them were Wiis in 2008

 

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41048/98/

 

Nintendo took the top four slots in game units sold in 2008 as well. At #1) Nintendo sold 5.28 million Wii Play with Wii Remote games, at #2) 5 million Mario Kart Wii, at #3) 4.53 million Wii Fit, and at #4) 4.17 million Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

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Call me a cynic, but all this does is further motivate game developers to make games for the casual crowd, the numbers certainly don't lie. I get the feeling each year that more and more games are being dumbed down to appease the casual crowd instead of the enthusiast crowd.

 

Take Left4Dead for an example, GREAT game, but there are things in the game that annoy me. For one, there is no ping number in the tab menu, only that 'signal strength' lookalike that really tells you nothing on how it's rating. They completely removed the lobby menu, so you have to completely rely on auto-join and friend-join. Not that the auto-join and friend-join are bad concepts, they are great. The trouble is you should not remove a standard of how we choose where we play and replace it with something that is not better. Auto-join by itself is not better than a server menu, together they would be perfect but with no way other than using the console (the only saving grace they have) it is annoying to join a specific server when it should not be.

 

I have to imagine that a lot of these sacrifices were because of the artificial restrictions of the Xbox 360, as L4D was also developed for that in mind.

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Take Left4Dead for an example, GREAT game, but there are things in the game that annoy me. For one, there is no ping number in the tab menu, only that 'signal strength' lookalike that really tells you nothing on how it's rating. They completely removed the lobby menu, so you have to completely rely on auto-join and friend-join. Not that the auto-join and friend-join are bad concepts, they are great. The trouble is you should not remove a standard of how we choose where we play and replace it with something that is not better. Auto-join by itself is not better than a server menu, together they would be perfect but with no way other than using the console (the only saving grace they have) it is annoying to join a specific server when it should not be.

 

I have to imagine that a lot of these sacrifices were because of the artificial restrictions of the Xbox 360, as L4D was also developed for that in mind.

 

:)

 

It is my understanding that they made L4D the way they did as to put less of a lean on dedicated servers and to give the game playable longevity. If you load up a game like TF2 or DoD:S and look at the server list, 90% of the servers are empty and the ones that have ppl on them are modded all to shit. L4D is a co-op, 4 player game at the heart of it. Years from now you will be able to load the game up hit join for a map and be playing with 3 others in a few secs. I still play BF2 now and then and the dedicated servers are slowly disappearing, there play online now feature takes care of some of this, but once the servers are gone it makes it alot harder to find players. In L4D if a server is not found it starts one locally for you and others will join no need for a dedicated if one is not available, this is a big advantage to a co-op game. Ping is also less of an issues now. As in the raw number, as these big dedicated server hosting companies have found you can redirect the ping depending on the person location to a closer gateway. Making your servers look like they have a better ping, at least until the servers start to get full and the routes change.

 

Also have you seen the butcher they did to the TF2 server browser? They might have changed it already as I have not been on for a few day, but if not, I am not sure what they where thinking there.

 

:wub:

 

As far as the Wii and its games, the Wii has brought a whole new crowd of ppl to or back to gaming, they also did it through a new peripheral/new way to interact. When I was in college I remember a professor telling me that the mouse and the GUI was just a fad and would never be in main steam business use.

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As far as the Wii and its games, the Wii has brought a whole new crowd of ppl to or back to gaming, they also did it through a new peripheral/new way to interact. When I was in college I remember a professor telling me that the mouse and the GUI was just a fad and would never be in main steam business use.

 

I can't really take that to heart. Users are very much stuck in their ways (including myself). I still see the mouse and keyboard as a more efficient means to play games. I guarantee that if there is ever an extremely popular game that allows PC's and console users to play on the same servers, you will see complaints quickly about the effectiveness of the mouse and keyboard over any current console controller, including the Wii I don't foresee the keyboard and mouse as going anywhere anytime soon, and it's certainly not a fad. They think touchscreen and movement stuff is fun, but in the business world you're trying to make money.

 

In the gaming world though, I have to say I had a lot of fun with my Wii when it first came out. But since then, unless people are over, it usually does not get any playtime at all.

Edited by Gungen
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Well I don't see my in-laws or grandma gaming on anything other then the Wii. The last console my in-laws bought before the Wii was a Super Nintendo. Mind you they have not had any kids living in thier house for almost a decade now, yet they still bought and play the Wii. These are the ppl that Nintendo was targeting from the get go.

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This is very true, I think Nintendo stuck gold with a previously untapped market in that respect and they are to be commended.

 

The only thing that really worries me is that other companies are going to use this as an excuse, among other things, to dumb down games in general. We already see this happening, and I fear that at this point, nothing is going to stop it short of the enthusiast community just stopping buying new games (bad grammar there).

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The only thing that really worries me is that other companies are going to use this as an excuse, among other things, to dumb down games in general. We already see this happening, and I fear that at this point, nothing is going to stop it short of the enthusiast community just stopping buying new games (bad grammar there).

 

That is a good point; I have always been a PC gamers just for this reason. I think consoles all the way back to the 2600 did exactly this. I finally broke down 5 years ago and bought a OG xBox (first and only console I have ever owned) only to find this to be true, made me not have a desire to buy another console in the near future.

 

Might get a Wii by next year just for the group playability, but it is not top of my priorities.

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  • 1 month later...

I gotta pipe in here...

 

I think I read somewhere that the biggest buyers of the Wii were middle age range women. Not that I would know anything about being middle ag...err umm

 

OK I CONFESS! I HAVE A Wii! I have Wii Fit and DDR.

 

There are a group of us that Wii bowl once a week and we're not the only group that does it.

 

But the most addicting thing about the Wii is playing Super Mario Bros. That stupid retro game that I still cant get to the 8-1 board AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

 

Ok, back to our regularly scheduled program. Oh wait, I have to turn off the Wii first don't I? :)

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