Nintendo's Wii has already overcome its rivals Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and it is the most popular video game console. Now analytics are trying to predict how long Wii will stay the first in the market.
2.5 million Wii consoles are sold since their release in November. But the amount of sold devices is not the only criteria for measuring success, and the consumers of the devices must have a wide choice of new interesting games to keep playing. This is why Nintendo unveiled new games such as "Mario Strikers Charged" and "Big Brain Academy" last week.
Some analytics think, that people will soon stop buying new games for Wii because it is not as powerful in graphics as its rivals, but this factor is an advantage at the same time: Wii games take less time and effort to develop, so the programmers are concentrated on creativity more than on code complexity, this is why the games are funny and easy to develop. They also take less time to be ready for the gamers, so they can enjoy new games often.
"Coding for the PS3 and the 360 is a daunting challenge," said Kevin Ray, chief technology officer for Majesco Entertainment, that found the Wii business model so attractive that last year it decided to make games exclusively for that console. "With the Wii, we can afford to get creative and develop something really fun and bizarre."
One more advantage of Wii games is the sensitive controller which transfers player's hand motion into the game, for example, into the player's hand playing tennis. This is very important to those who are not heavy gamers. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 players, who are mostly teenagers, are well skilled in huge amount of buttons to control the game, but the older players don't have much time to get used to the buttons and combinations, they just need some fun after hard working day, they don't want to learn anything and to play lots of hours.
The Wii console is being used also at Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton, Canada, to help physical therapy patients improve movement and balance.
The other important factor is Wii's price: it is $249, compared to PlayStation 3 at $599 and Xbox 360 from $299 to $479.
Wii games cost from $1 million to $7 million and take about a year to make it, at the same time PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games cost about $20 million and take more than a year to make it. And so the Wii players don't have to wait a lot for a new game to enjoy.
In April U.S. consumers bought 360,000 Wii systems, 174,000 Xbox 360s and 82,000 PlayStation 3s. This is very good, but how long its players will enjoy it? According to a survey in March by Frank N. Magid Associates, a media consulting firm 31% of Wii owners said they will play it more often a year from now, compared to 21% of Xbox 360 owners. This is really promising.
"The console with the greatest momentum now is the Wii," said Brian Farrell, chief executive of THQ Inc., the Calabasas-based game publisher. "The controller is highly innovative. The price point is attractive. The demographics are broad. And the cost to develop games on the system is relatively low. There's a lot to like about the Wii."
So Wii has advantages which are to guarantee its long life and popularity among gamers: it is oriented not only on teenagers, but also grownups, who want to forget about daily routine just for a short while, its price is attractive, its games take less time to be released and are more oriented on creativity and fun, rather than on complex graphics.
By Ruzan Harutyunyan for HULIQ
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