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Wii and DS Markets Imploding?
Namco Bandai’s VP of sales, marketing and publishing, Olivier Comte, has stated in an interview that the Wii and DS markets have “collapsed.” He says the biggest reasons for the collapse are low quality games and piracy. He goes on to say that with all of the low quality games out there on DS and Wii, consumers have it in their minds that, “to buy a DS or Wii game is to buy a game that isn’t very good.”
This is definitely more his opinion than anything else, but on the piracy issue he says, “DS is the most successful platform ever, but all my kids’ friends at school have a DS with an R4. They have 100 games for no money. So yes, the market has collapsed for the DS and Wii.”
Piracy is definitely a known issue, but have both markets really collapsed? I don’t think so. What say you?
Source: MCV
Square Enix Announces E3 Titles
Final Fantasy XIV
The 3rd Birthday (PSP)
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (PSP)
Kingdom Hearts: Re:coded (NDS)
Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes Of Light (NDS)
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
The Tales of Bearsworth Manor: Chaotic Conflicts
The Tales of Bearsworth Manor: Puzzling Pages
Front Mission Evolved
Dungeon Siege 3
Source: Inc Gamers
2K Games Lets Their E3 Games List Out of the Bag
Mafia II
Sid Meier’s Civilization V
Spec Ops: The Line
NBA 2K11
NHL 2K11
New Carnival Games
Nickelodeon Fit
Source: Just Push Start
Dues Ex for the win, as the kids say. Also, Square & Disney need to stop puttering around the edges and release the final Kingdom Hearts already, before the novelty wears off. Perhaps it’s an experiment to see how many rehashed interquels the fanbase will accept in lieu of the real thing.
In my experience, a “Nintendo collapse” is synonymous with sliding sales, not a genuine collapse. After several years at the top of the charts, it only takes a few minutes of cooling sales to lead to gloom and doom predictions about Nintendo. Stocks fall and publishers (like Namco-Bandai) get skittish.
Mr. Comte’s criticisms are a bit more fitting for the Wii, since 3rd parties have definitely struggled to really take off on that system. I’m with the laziness camp here, since most publishers seem to think that motion controls are their own selling point. With a few exceptions, Nintendo itself is the only major publisher to really nail motion controls on the system.
Applied to the DS, however, his insight seems a little week. Piracy is indeed a problem, but mainly in markets where Nintendo doesn’t have a big foothold, like China. And the system is six years old now; considering it wasn’t a technical powerhouse to start with, its only natural that it’s showing its age.
And what has Namco-Bandai done recently? Soul Caliber and Tekken are its most stable franchises of late, so far as I can tell, but the basic point is that they’ve never really been able to outlive their arcade glory days. The best part of modern Namco was Monolith Soft, and Nintendo has it now. That’s a far sweeter deal than the disappointing Nintendo-Namco collaborations in the Gamecube era.