Is the Wii's low attach rate due to rubbish games?

[Gaffer]

Look at this chart:

What do you see?
Well, the chart is taken from GameRankings....where someone studiously went and averaged up all the scores of all the games they had, and then divided them into each console.
Did you spot the big white elephant in the room? Yes folks, it's official....the average Wii game is pants.Now, before you go and egg me, I said AVERAGE. Average is a statistical term which doesn't quite mean "they are ALL like....".

It actually means "For as many games that are far better than the 64% shown, there are just as many games that are far worse than 64%....."
(i.e. it's an average)

So the chart doesn't deny the existence of genuine gems like Super Mario Galaxy......it simply shows us that for every gem, there's a bit of dross like Anubis II.


To illustrate this point, we can also subdivide scores of all the games reviewed into a per publisher status (chart made by EA):



From this you can see that there are indeed great titles around ...mainly made by Nintendo themselves.
However, this is outweighed by the cr4p available from the likes of Activision and Ubisoft. In fact, it was a well known joke how Ubisoft just piled out 5hite for the console especially early on.......there's the proof.
The rubbish "weighs down" the good and brings the overall average down to the 64% indicated earlier.



So where am I going with this? .......Attach rates.
Attach rates are an indication of the ratio of software bought for a platform to numbers of console sold.

So if every household with Console A owns on average 3 games for it, but every household with Console B owns on average 12 games for it.....then the Attach Rate for Console B is 4 times better than that of Console A.


Now it has been speculated from as far back as early Spring (when a lot of the data started to emerge long enough to get a rough idea) that the attach rate for the Wii was ludicrously low.
Fair enough, at the time we were getting VERY poor titles like GTPro and FarCry, but even the best games available were merely GameCube ports (Zelda:TP).....we were yet to see any significant "developed from Wii dev kits" from the ground up titles. Even the Summer hit RE4:Wii was a GC port.
You could also argue that most people were happy with WiiSports alone at that time (esp. the traditional "non-gamer" target audience).

However, now we have plenty of great games made on and for the Wii......the aforementioned SMGalaxy, E.O., Mercury, MetPrime3 etc etc..........yet we still get a lot of cr4p on the shelves. Shovelware of the highest order that should never have been made (e.g. Ninjbread Man, Mini Tabletop Racing -- doesn't the Nintendo "Seal of Approval" mean anything any more?).

I personally think that this is why the attach rate is low. Why buy lots of games when the only great ones are a select few?

It's a real shame that the Wii tends to get more shovelware than either the PS3 or the 360....at least on those consoles even if a game's poor, the devs at least tried. You get the impression they're sitting somewhere broken hearted and crying if their "baby" gets panned.
.....but with the Wii, shovelware is truly shovelware. At worst I get the feeling the dev will just shrug his shoulders saying "meh, well it was just to make a quick buck wasn't it? -- shoddy controls slapped onto a rushed 10yo concept so we could "cash in"!".


I wonder when Nintendo will "wake up" to this attitude and start to run a tighter ship.....?

[biddenden_sue]

Great blog, Gaffer! I enjoyed reading that.

Everything has happened so quickly since the Wii was released, that Ninty probably haven't realised yet exactly what is happening.

Let's face it, their main consoles haven't been best-sellers since the days of the SNES. So they haven't had as much shovelware for quite a few years as Sony have had to endure.

It will always be the bestselling console that gets the brunt of it - obviously!

And the PS1 and PS2 certainly had more than their fair share of cr*p titles! I shudder at some of the PS2 "games" I still see on shop shelves, that should NEVER have been made!

But the PS3 is unlikely to get this problem, as the console is a slow seller (may pick up when they lower the spec and drop the price, as with the XBox 360), but the games are also so dear. Therefore they are getting more quality games released, but there is much less choice for the PS3.

I'm surprised you think the PS3 has a higher attach rate! Are there statistics to back this up? With relatively few games on the market and an average price per game of £50, I would expect the PS3 to have a much lower attach rate than the Wii, which has an average price per game of about £20, and a massive selection to choose from.

Since getting my Wii last July, I already have 23 Wii games, and have bought and sold on several others. I wouldn't have managed to accumulate a quarter as many at PS3 prices!

I totally agree though, that it is the poorer third party games that drag that average down. But I'm sure the figures would have shown exactly the same problem for the PS1 and PS2 back in their heyday.

[Ed00wii]

Best blog yet!

I've been thinking about this topic for ages now and you've perfectly put it into words (and nerdy charts) but it blatently shows that between all the filthy 3rd party games, there is a hidden gem.

Even by looking on the Wii's, PS3's and 360's Metacritic 'top 20' page, it shows that the wii still has scores of 70+ in its top 20, whereas the other two is 80+.

I think the wii's average score will only improve over time, I too fell a fool to the initial crappyness of 3rd party games, but I've traded them in for better titles. Out of my 7 wii games, 4 are Nintendo, 2 are EA, 1 is Capcom... For me though it doesn't matter what the average score is - because lets face it, no one's going to buy all the games, just the top 20 or what ever.

[captainff]

Originally Posted by Gaffer

yet we still get a lot of cr4p on the shelves

In many non-gaming specific retailers you are hard pressed to find more than 4 or 5 Wii titles at all and I think this is also affecting the attach rate. Take GW:G (Wii) .. .. .. Hands up everyone that has actually seen this on a shelf of a shop that sells Wii games?

*shades eyes with hand*

Is that one hand at the back?

MOH2?

I've yet to see that on a shelf either and I think that is a big problem. As people fight round their supermarket of choice they see a wall of PS2 games, a wall of Xbox games, and three Wii games. Until good new titles are readily available people will end up picking up the below average ones and being disappointed.

Added to that.. .. .. it would be interesting to compare the Wii game attach rates (and ratings) against xbox figures from the same time period after launch.. .. .. if you can find them!!

[biddenden_sue]

You know, I did spot Geometry Wars somewhere, but I can't remember which shop. It was only once though.

And yet you have no trouble at all picking up the Popcorn games - WHY? I really can't see why these games have had such a huge distribution. I am fed up with looking at Anubis II, Ninjabread Man etc when I browse game shelves!

It's like the retailers want the Wii to fail!

[ynneBenny]

[quote=captainff;122777]In many non-gaming specific retailers you are hard pressed to find more than 4 or 5 Wii titles at all and I think this is also affecting the attach rate. Take GW:G (Wii) .. .. .. Hands up everyone that has actually seen this on a shelf of a shop that sells Wii games?

[quote]

I agree with the captain here: I went to Toys R Us, Tesco, Woolworths, and my local Gamestation for GW:G and ended up getting it from Blockbusters. Blockbusters had one copy in there - I asked the guy how many copies they had in, and he said they had sold two - my one and one other. Not seen it in there since, Toys r us haven't had it, the guy in Woolworths gave me a funny look and said "Sounds like a smart persons type of game". Also, the only place I've seen MOH2 is in blockbusters for £39.99. In all the afore mentioned stores the Xbox, PS2, PS3 etc walls of games are imense compared to the shelf or top 5/10 Wii games. I still know of shops that don't even stock Wii games yet (local hire shops - not blockbusters).

[Ignatius]

Nintendo, prior to the release of the Wii said it wasn’t attempting to capture the hardcore gamer, but was trying to attract those (amongst others!) who didn’t normally play games. I think this could partially explain the attach rate – at one point (I think) that the average Wii owner in Japan had two games and there will be those that find just Wii Sports will keep them amused for six months.

I know people that got a DS Lite largely as a result of Brain Training – although a few have bought other games, most are happy with BT and the odd puzzle-type purchase.

I’ve had my Wii for nearly a month and have seven games, which I suspect wouldn’t be quite the average either.

On the flipside, my flatmate has a PS3 and bought five games and in the space of about 4-5 months has probably played them for about six hours in total – and two of them he hasn’t played at all. I wouldn’t say the machine was a wasted purchase, as he’s used it so much to watch Blu-Ray content – but he bought it more as a fashion thing and the games because they look great and got good reviews

Originally Posted by biddenden_sue

But the PS3 is unlikely to get this problem, as the console is a slow seller (may pick up when they lower the spec and drop the price, as with the XBox 360), but the games are also so dear. Therefore they are getting more quality games.

Figures released today show that the PS3 was the second-biggest selling console in the States last month – although figures for the top four were incredibly tight.

Generally, PS3 sales are picking up (e.g. thanks for Blu-Ray winning the HD format way, 360 high return rate) and it looks far more likely to win the war against the 360.

Although there are some excellent titles on the PS3, but more than a few reviewers have gone a little easy in reviewing PS3 games – I’m not convinced that the ‘average’ PS3 game is remarkably high quality, but feel that the perception is.

Now I’m not going to start claiming there’s an anti-Nintendo conspiracy (and there will be some sites that prefer Nintendo over all others), but some places are a remarkably generous.

Take the Game Informer reviews of Godfather on the 360 and Wii – both of these were released at the same time, had a fair bit of extra content (the only bit that the PS3 had, which the Wii didn’t – I think – you could travel by train) and the Wii had a different control system. Overall, most reviewers thought the Wii was the best version.

To Games Informer, the PS3’s worst crime was:

While this is all fine and good, it still doesn’t solve the problems I have with the game as a whole, which remain largely the same. Although it’s fun to see alternate perspectives on some of the movies’ key events, this title really fails to deliver the complex, emotionally resonant familial saga of the films. This is at least partially due to the absence of Al Pacino, whose portrayal of Michael Corleone was crucial to the success of the films.

The reviewer glossed over the fact that graphically it was identical to the PS2 and gave it 7.5.

A second reviewer gave it 7.75 and said:

The Godfather is one of my all-time favorite novels – and I heard they made a movie some time ago that was moderately popular. Needless to say, when EA announced the video game, I was...completely uninterested. After all, I didn’t need some GTA clone to muck up this legendary IP. Maybe I overreacted. This PS3 game looks like the PS2 version, the lock-on is questionable (why can’t anyone get that right?), and the missions are not very original, but I still had fun extorting businesses and leveling up my character through the Godfather storyline. Does this title live up to the name? Hell no. Is it decent fan fun regardless? Yeah, sure.

However, the Wii got 6.5 and the reviewer said:

The Wii version holds up graphically, but its ailing gameplay makes it the worst entry yet… but the basic design of the game remains painfully dull.

So two games with the same design and gameplay get released at the same time… one is slated for the gameplay and design, the other doesn’t.

[skyman747]

I think that there are 2 issues at fault here.
1) I think that alot of the other consoles get good reviews based on 3rd party games, which the wii is lacking.

2) Then I think something else is that the people who review these are hardcore gamers, and we all know that the wii wasn't made for hardcore gamers.

3) Then there is also a fact that gaffer addressed. Some of the 3rd party people aren't putting alot of effort into games for the wii, so then that also lowers the overall rating of wii games.

[Rompy]

I saw Geometry Wars in asda about an hour ago - along with a fair few other games too. I nearly bought ghost squad for £24 - but the queues were too long! thinking I may return after work

[Ignatius]

Originally Posted by skyman747

2) Then I think something else is that the people who review these are hardcore gamers, and we all know that the wii wasn't made for hardcore gamers.

To the extent that they’re behaving unprofessionally.

The majority of reviewers on sites and in magazines are paid – they might love their job, but they are being paid to perform a service.

It’s not just the writers either.

The Game Informer reviews I cited above is a perfect example of this; the Wii version was marked down for bad gameplay, yet the PS3 version was not, despite having the same gameplay. A half-decent editor or sub-editor should have spotted something was up.

GI also gave the Xbox and PS2 versions 7.5 – so why is the Wii different?