Comments on: Investing in games

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:56:04 +0000

Disagree with assessment of the Wii. I doubt that the success of the Wii is related to the adoption rates of the HDTV. The audience for the Wii is a different animal than those who choose a PS3 or Xbox360. Look at the success of the WiiFit. The graphics are crap, but its the accessibility to everyone which is important.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Thu, 15 May 2008 06:45:08 +0000

John Riccitiello, the boss of Electronic Arts, agrees with me about the PC market. All you have to do is look at the All Formats chart to see just how dire it is: http://www.mcvuk.com/news/30553/Riccitiello-Casual-saving-soft-PC-market

By: Dudley

Dudley — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:30:36 +0000

Steam is no more pirate proof than boxed games I’m afraid, they’re cracked just as quick and available in the exact same places.

Steam is winning because the publisher doesn’t have to bother writing or producing a manual, doesn’t have to pay distributors, take a risk on stock or give retailers a cut. Yet still charge the same (or frequently more than) the price you can buy a boxed copy for (Trackmania was £6.99 in game last I checked and £19.99 on steam).

So greed basically.

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:48:43 +0000

Bruce I have to disagree with your comment about the Wii. Whilst it’s technically short of the PS3 & 360 I think it’s lifespan is longer than the end of 2009. By then there will be 70 Million plus worldwide. Those kind of figures dictate that there will not be a quick successor to the Wii, an upgrade probably like the Original GBA to GBA SP, and the DS Fat to DS Lite.

You are right about the amount of crap that is released for the Wii, but until the games companies stop being lazy and do ports of PS2 and PSP games they are going to be shit. Of my collection od 12 Wii games only 4 of them are 3rd party but they are the good games, and Starwars Lego has probably been played the most of all my games. it is a multi-platform game but has a fair amount of attention given to the Wii version.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:33:18 +0000

Thanks for that BC. I agree with you when we are talking about the situation now.
However this article is talking about investing in games that often take years to make. So we have to look at what the situation is likely to be like when a game started now hits the street.

By: BC

BC — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:09:22 +0000

Not meaning to sound fanboy-ish …but surely the Wii is still worth developing for because it’s in so many homes and there is little quality so anything decent shifts units? If companies put more investment into their games rather than some crap spin-off from a franchise then they should do well.

As for HDTV, the other two consoles are barely using it either. Those that do tend to have juddering frame-rates and just use 720p or less as “HD”. Also, the new adopters to videogames don’t care too much about console generations.

The same sentiment goes with the DS. There are just too many people who own one and no competition for it. Piracy just isn’t a major problem for the DS either …the majority of the public just don’t know how to. Even if you could get a special cartridge, they then wouldn’t know where to get the games from to put on it.