Well someone should give EA a big I F**KEN TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=amWmy6_JG16U&refer=home

EAs profits have dropped apparently due to them being unable to take advantage of the runaway success of the Wii & putting all there eggs in the ' ps3 basket' -

``Those companies are backtracking,' ' said Anthony Gikas, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. in Minneapolis. ``They' re going to need to get their best-branded product on that platform. That will take a good nine to 12 months.' '

Ahh so that explains the Wii games drought!!! But even that hasn' t stopped the Wii.

U.S. and Japanese sales of Wii players totaled 1.47 million in January and February, said market researchers NPD Group Inc. and Enterbrain. PlayStation 3 tallied 604,331, while stores sold 584,329 of Microsoft Corp.' s Xbox 360 consoles. Wii is also leading in Europe, said London-based researcher Screen Digest.

Wii games, all produced by Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo, took three of the top 10 sales spots in the U.S. in February, said NPD, based in Port Washington, New York. Not a single U.S. publisher had a Wii game in the top 20 in February.

Nintendo' s lead will widen, pressuring companies even more. Researcher IDC predicts Nintendo will ship 16.1 million players this year, outpacing Microsoft' s 9.87 million Xbox 360s and Sony' s 9.1 million PlayStation 3s. Wii game sales will total $2.2 billion, trailing only Xbox 360, said IDC, based in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Electronic Arts wasn' t the only publisher slow to see Wii' s appeal. New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., maker of ``Grand Theft Auto' ' games, had no Wii titles when the player was released and now plans to have three this year, said spokesman Jim Ankner.

Activision Inc., based in Santa Monica, California, plans to release six Wii games this year, giving the second-largest publisher a total of 11, said spokeswoman Maryanne Lataif.

Also this point is interesting -

The Wii may prove to be a windfall, since games cost just $2 million to $5 million to create, a fraction of the $20 million to $30 million spent on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 titles, analyst Taylor said. In addition, Wii appears to be expanding the market, rather than stealing sales from rivals, he said.

With the Wii still selling strongly Worldwide, Excellent software sales second only to the 360 (due to its one year head start) and cheaper development costs i think Nintendo have created the perfect environment for developers.



With that aside i must say i really enjoyed The Godfather on Wii which despite its average (ps2) graphics was an awesome game thanks to excellent use of the Wiimote.

Ahh so that explains the Wii games drought!!! But even that hasn' t stopped the Wii.

A lack of EA games = A lack of good games?

Sorry, they' re like the Wal-Mart of the industry, can' t help myself.

What was The Godfather like? A mini-review perhaps?

ORIGINAL: Eddie_the_Hated

Ahh so that explains the Wii games drought!!! But even that hasn' t stopped the Wii.

A lack of EA games = A lack of good games?

Sorry, they' re like the Wal-Mart of the industry, can' t help myself.

What was The Godfather like? A mini-review perhaps?

Ok if you can move past the ps2 graphics this game is awesome. I haven' t played the original games on other platforms so i can' t tell you exactly how much content has been added, so if you played this game already i am not suggesting you buy it unless you loved the game and are intersted in how much different it would play with the Wiimote.

All i can really comment on are the controls which i think are the only thing that seperate it from the other Godfather games.

Shooting can be done in 2 ways, Auto lock or free aim. Auto lock means that your target recticle will aim at the nearest enemy and is activated by pressing the Z button. But it only aims at the targets body, if you wish to aim at other parts like the head (instant kill), arms (to shoot weapon out of hand) or legs (to stop target from running) you can move the target recticle aroundto aim for these specific areas.

Free Aim mode is activated with the + button and allows you to control you character mouse and keyboard style. It is a little over sensitive so i usually used the Auto lock, but its good should you need to aim for stuff the Auto Lock doesn' t target like exploding barrels, cars etc.

HTH combat is where things get interesting, theres a whole menu section that guides you through all the motion inputs, i ignored this section until very late in the game so i missed out on so many different moves!

Anyway basically the when you Auto Lock a target without a firearm your Wiimote becomes your right fist, and the nunchuk your left fist. It actually works better then Wiiboxing though i didn' t tryout to many different boxing moves, it would have been nice if they added a dummy to practice (though you could practice on a poor unsuspecting passerby). Doing a punching action with the Wiimote makes your right fist punch, doing so with the nunchuk performs a left hand punch. Its note exactly 1 to 1 but its pretty close. You can also do other moves like the over head smash, uppercuts, dodges etc but like i said i missed this part so i have to go back and give it a try some time.

When you have a baseball bat you swing it exactly the way you swing your Wiimote. Swing your Wiimote left to right your character swings the bat left to right, swing the Wiimote up and down, your character swings the bat up & down etc. ITs not perfect one to one but its damn well close enough.

Finally you have grab moves. When you hold both Z & B buttons you grab your target. Not only can you still do punches and hits with the baseball bat like i explained above there are a whole slew of moves. If your close enough to the wall do a pushing motion with both the Nunchuk and the Wiimote and you slam the poor sucker on the wall, you can also release the B Button while doing this to throw them forward. Close to a table, make a sideways motion with both controls slams the targets head on the table, release the B button while doing this move throws the target sideways. Moving the two controls close to your face headbutts the target. You can choke the target by moving the controls apart. When equipped with the Garrote you do the same (when behind target) but you move the controls side to side as you do this to increase the effectiveness of the strangulation, which is closesly mimiced by your character on screen.

There are a lot of controls and execution moves i haven' t tried, so i have to go back and try them, unfortunately i got my Brother hooked on the game and he hasn' t been interested in any Wiigame so far except for Wiisports. 40 hours of gaming and wanting to go back for more thats pretty good value especially from an EA game. I think IGNs review score of 80/100 is fair, it should lose marks for not much graphical improvement over the ps2 game (the menus are not Wiimote friendly). But for excellent use of the the Wiimote EA deserves praise.

If a company known for its constant sequels can pull off a quick port with Wii controls this good imagine if they actually did something specifically for the Wii.

Rename the title to " EA pays the price for underestimating the Gimp"

I' m on board with Agent Ghosts naming of it. It even sounds more grown up than " Wii"

You are making the assumption that Nintendo could not make a console with similar power to the ps3 which is why it is as graphically limited as it is Hence you refering to the Wii as ' Gimp' . Fact is Nintendo could easily have made a more powerful console, look at the N64 and GC being arguably more powerful then ps1 and ps2 respectively. Nintendo CHOSE to make the Wii the way it is, because as past experience has shown better graphics alone has never equaled console market dominance, as the DS has so recently proven.

Besides the ' gimped' graphics of the Wii has done nothing to gimp its sales which as the article proves are still strong depite the lack of ANY serious Thirdparty support, which is only now trickling on the system. If anything can be called ' gimped' its the ps3, the ps3' s high price has gimped its sales which you and i know is the most important factor for a console.

Anyway you can insult the Wii till ' the cows come' home. It doesn' t change the fact that Nintendo did its homework this time round. This article reinforces what i have been saying for a while. Thirdparties ignored the Wii due to the failure of the GC, but now cannot ignore it. Ubisoft benefited for their forsight, EA suffer for its lack of it (and its belief in the ps3s success). Its only a matter of time till the Wii gets flooded by games - ala ps2 style (hopefully).

so far i haven' t been impressed by the wii at all, where are the good games? besides zelda which is basicaly a gamecube game, show me the rest? not a single game will make me go and buy a wii so far, but what' s really looking to be sad is that normaly at this point of a console' s life, there should be at least a couple high profile previews (ps3 and 360 had a dozen) , and they are almost non existant from third parties... the only upcoming big games are Metrois 3, and mario galaxy and " your" mario smash bros .. and that' s not third party. So is that another n64 ? or gamecube ??

Abasoufiane the Wii is selling out without AAA titles - If they released the AAA titles then the demand for the Wii would be almost catastrophic!! It would make no sense to release ' console selling games' with demand still high worldwide. When Wii sales drop you will see the AAA titles being launch to keep demand for the Wii up. Besides i would imagine that there are millions of hardcore fans like yourself still waiting for a good reason to buy a Wii, but has this slowed down Wii sales? Hell No!! Imagine if there was a reason to buy a Wii (AAA Exclusives) the sales of Wii would be amazing.

THe article from Bloomberg explains why Third party support has been mediocre. They thought like many that ps2 success automatically = ps3 success and GC failure automatically = Wii failure. Oh how the tables have turned.

I will post a more in depth reply later when I have time, but let me say this.

Just because something sells well, doesn' t mean its a great product.

Gimp is selling because it' s relatively cheap, not because it has any real merit. Paying 300$ just to play GameCube games with a dopey controller is asinine. Games on the Gimp won' t get much better either (assuming it ever gets any games), we' ve already seen the best on what can be done on such hardware.

Only four types of people bought a Gimp so far:
-Die hard Nintendo fans,
-people who have all the other consoles,
-people who can' t afford anything else,
-and people who don' t know its mearly an overclocked Gamecube with only 88mb RAM.

ORIGINAL: Dagashi

I will post a more in depth reply later when I have time, but let me say this.

Just because something sells well, doesn' t mean its a great product.

i could say the same thing about the ps2. But you don' t always need a great product to be successful. Fact is the console that sells the most wins.

i could say the same thing about the ps2. But you don' t always need a great product to be successful. Fact is the console that sells the most wins.

Sony had publishers by the balls with the PS2, PS1 was so successful that Sony was able to get Publishers make exclusivity deals like they were nothing, before Sony, Nintendo had that same advantage. Things don' t work that way anymore. For a number of reason most games will be multiplatform. The problem is, Wii can' t handle games on the PS3 or 360 without them being sereriously downgraded. Wii exclusive games won' t be much better either.

PS2, Xbox and GamCube had pretty different hardware but they were all at the same level hardware wise. At least close enough. This is the first generation where we have a console that' s not even in the same ballpark as the rest. When you buy a console you' re not just investing in a platform but you' re also buying the physical hardware. Gimp is a rip off in that way. Even the original Xbox beats Wii in some areas technologically.

ORIGINAL: Agent Ghost

Gimp is selling because it' s relatively cheap, not because it has any real merit. Paying 300$ just to play GameCube games with a dopey controller is asinine. Games on the Gimp won' t get much better either (assuming it ever gets any games), we' ve already seen the best on what can be done on such hardware.

Only four types of people bought a Gimp so far:
-Die hard Nintendo fans,
-people who have all the other consoles,
-people who can' t afford anything else,
-and people who don' t know its mearly an overclocked Gamecube with only 88mb RAM.

Nope the Wii is only US$250 not US$300. Its cheaper, yes but not by much, a core xbox360 goes for only US$300, thats only US$50 for HD graphics, best online and biggest selection of games and AAA titles so far. Unfortunately having all these advantages and being only US$50 more has done nothing to move 360s as fast as Wiis. Doopey control? Well thats what is selling the system, its what i would expect an xboxfanboy to say.

Games won' t get any better? Weve seen the best from the Wii? Turned into an analsyt now have we? What else do you see in your xbox branded crystal ball? I suppose believing this makes the truth pill easier to swallow.

I love your reason for who buys a Wii, i guess if you believe them enough its true right?

I think the Article pretty much explained much of why the quality and quantity of Wii games are at its current level. You can choose to ignore the facts if you wish. Thats your choice.

ORIGINAL: Agent Ghost

i could say the same thing about the ps2. But you don' t always need a great product to be successful. Fact is the console that sells the most wins.

Sony had publishers by the balls with the PS2, PS1 was so successful that Sony was able to get Publishers make exclusivity deals like they were nothing, before Sony, Nintendo had that same advantage. Things don' t work that way anymore. For a number of reason most games will be multiplatform. The problem is, Wii can' t handle games on the PS3 or 360 without them being sereriously downgraded. Wii exclusive games won' t be much better either.

PS2, Xbox and GamCube had pretty different hardware but they were all at the same level hardware wise. At least close enough. This is the first generation where we have a console that' s not even in the same ballpark as the rest. When you buy a console you' re not just investing in a platform but you' re also buying the physical hardware. Gimp is a rip off in that way. Even the original Xbox beats Wii in some areas technologically.

Problem is you look at it from a hardcore gamer perspective and not a business perpective. And in all counts the business perspective wins out. You can talk about having better graphics as much as you want but looking at what the Wii offers from a business standpoint your arguement is null and void.

The Wii is outselling all consoles (except the DS) WW without any AAA exclusives
The Wii has proven to be profitable for games developers/publishers (Ubisoft)
THe Wii has the cheapest development costs of all 3.

From a business standpoint the Wii offers excellent opportunities and frankly thats all that counts.

If the Wii turns out to be the most succesful and gets the most dev support then I as a gamer will be truly sad and dissapointed. I didn' t wait 6 years from the last gen of consoles only to have a slightly updated console with a nifty controler. I waited for amazing environments, massive fights, great physics, huge RPG' s and amazing racing games.

I' m Canadian,
a Wii here is 280$, with tax it' s about $320.

A 360 Premium costs $499 with tax, it' s about $575. No one buys the core anymore, I can' t even find them.

A 60GB PS3 is (I think) $659.99cnd which brings it up to about $759 with tax, again I have yet to find the cheaper model.

" I love your reason for who buys a Wii, i guess if you believe them enough its true right?"

Everyone fits in at least one of those categories. Also for the record, if I' m a fanboy I would be a PC fanboy not an Xbox fanboy. Wii is recycled " last gen" what do you expect from harcore gamers to think about it? You don' t buy " new" hardware to get nearly the same performance. It' s like throwing away your computer to buy a new one with factory overclocked parts and a new keyboard and mouse.

Like I said before, Wii is cheap, which is why I' ll get one eventually. However, my point still stands that nintendo is doing a serious disservice to their fans. MS and Sony espcially are investing millions into R&D while nintendo serves hardware cheaper then a Cracker Jack toy for it' s platform. Buisness wise it' s smart and safe. From a consumer point of view, from someone who' s first consoles was a NES, it' s kind of sad.

Most gamers are between 18 and 35. Once the prices of the 360 and PS3 drop, sales will pick up dramatically. How long do you think Wii will last without games? By the time Wii has any games, Halo 3 and MGS4 will be out.

I believe the 360 core (any US gamers confirm this?) is still available in the US and that is figures i use. In Japan the ps3 and xbox 360 are heavily discounted and the 360 even almost the same price as a Wii (can some one tell me the actual Jap 360 prices).

If all consumers wanted was a cheap system then ps2 is half the price and already has hundreds of games, hell some of the Wii games have only slightly enhanced ps2 graphics (as you like pointing out). Your point about it being cheaper as the only reason to Wiis success is ridiculous. The controller is why it sells. Deal with it.

It' s like throwing away your computer to buy a new one with factory overclocked parts and a new keyboard and mouse.

No the Wiimote is not like anything we have had before. It may not be new tech but its the way the technologies have been implemented into one compact package (Wiimote). Saying the the upgrade to Wiimote is like upgrading a mouse keyboard is sheer fanboy nonsense.

However, my point still stands that nintendo is doing a serious disservice to their fans

Nintendo doing a Disservice to fans? I don' t think so. They would have done a disservice if they simply came out with a GC2 with the similar graphics capabilities as the 360 or ps3 and nothing else. They have done us a service by saying we don' t want PC prices (or close to PC prices) for our consoles. The have done fans a service by providing a new means to interact with games. They have done us a service by giving consumers some real choices in console gaming (graphics or new control method).

MS and Sony espcially are investing millions into R&D while nintendo serves hardware cheaper then a Cracker Jack toy for it' s platform

I couldn' t give 2 $#!ts how much they spent on R&D because they do that so they can make more money. Its a risk, if it pays off they can earn billions, if the fail what now we got to have sympathy for them? No f**king way. I would feel the same if Nintendo suffered (like they did during the GC era). They are not spending on R&D for altruistic/charitable purposes they are doing it for profit. Thats business, and as a business you do what you can to sell your product. And that is exactly what Nintendo has done with the Wii.

Most gamers are between 18 and 35. Once the prices of the 360 and PS3 drop, sales will pick up dramatically. How long do you think Wii will last without games? By the time Wii has any games, Halo 3 and MGS4 will be out.

The Wii has appealed to many more age groups then that which is why it is so successful. Wii too will have its AAA titles ready by then as well as there own possible price drops so your predictions are not that clear cut at this stage. Hey it could happen but lets not forget -

The Wii has no AAA exclusives
The Wii has no HD graphics
The Wii Currently has no online
The Wii has the least multimedia fucntionality

And its outsells all consoles with those features. Imagine if it had AAA exclusives (SSB:B SMG etc), Imagine if it had better graphics then it does now (not HD but better then the ps2 port graphics), imagine when it goes online (not the best but adequate free service) and IMO it too will sell well. No the ps3 and the 360 aren' t the only one with legs, as even a 7 year old console (ps2) can still outsell these graphical beasts.

Abasoufiane the Wii is selling out without AAA titles

Technically is the wii really what you would say, " selling out" ? I mean if nintendo is holding back the wii' s, then the stores arent really getting the amounts they could get. My walmart only gets shipments of around 3 or 4 at a time. And if you can make anything cheap enough than what its brands usually cost(as in video games, consoles usually go for around $400) its going to sell. If the 360 and ps3 were $250 they would sell much faster.

When Metroid Prime 3 is released you anti-Wiiners will shut up!

Many of you should stop bitching and being so over ridiculous fanboys.

The Wii is outselling 360 and ps3 deal with it and all that without AAA titles and without online gaming so far.

Graphics will get better once developers get their heads out of their asses and really start trying to make good Wii games. Just look at the teaser for RE umbrella chronicles that' s looking rather promising already from a graphical standpoint.

Kojima is only finishing up MGS4 just to get started on Wii games instead of 360 or ps3 because it' s costs to much. He doesn' t like the way the ps3 is build but is very interested in the Wii. And as for MGS stopping the sales of Wii that won' t happen cause since the first MGS the popularity of the series has gone down.

Halo 3 only appeals to shooter fans and mostly xbox fans so that isn' t going to slow down the sales of the Wii either.

I know a lot of people who are going to get a Wii once NiGHTS is released. I know a lot of people who are going to buy it for the RE exclusive. And a whole other bunch who are going to buy it for SSBB, Metroid 3, paper mario (once it hits europe) some for pokemon as well.

Hell I know a bunch of people who only bought the Wii so far for the Virtual Console games alone.

And all those people aren' t interested in a PS3 or 360.


The Wii is just doing very well and once the good titles are going to hit stores it will even do better since people are more likely to go and buy a Wii for some games they want instead of spending a huge amount for a 360 or ps3 for only a few games.

Nintendo played it smart with the Wii they earn money on each console sold. Something that can' t be said from Microsoft or Sony. And when all is said and done all that matters is how much profit you made.

I know a lot of people who are going to get a Wii once NiGHTS is released. I know a lot of people who are going to buy it for the RE exclusive. And a whole other bunch who are going to buy it for SSBB, Metroid 3, paper mario (once it hits europe) some for pokemon as well.

Hell I know a bunch of people who only bought the Wii so far for the Virtual Console games alone.

The " I know these people" method is not a good one when trying to prove a point. You either have real statistics done with approved measuring methods, or you have nothing at all.
Not saying you' re wrong or anything, it' s just that I hate the " I know these people" method.