Have the Big Three Learned from the Saturn's Mistake?

Has SEGA's failed platform taught Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony anything?
3/8/2008 7:10 PM | 0 Comments | Page 5 of 5

"Everybody is waiting for the title that will wake up the install base of Wii [owners] and get them charged up. It hasn't happened yet."

Interestingly, a study Taylor did for Nintendo showed that Wii software sales and hardware sales match up well against the first year sales of PS2 -- the most successful videogame console of all time. Wii and PS2 had similar hardware sales in the first year and the ratio of software to hardware is surprisingly close.

"Where things start to diverge a little bit is if you compare the average unit sales per SKU," says Taylor. "The unit volume of the average title for the first 12 months is a decent amount lower for the Wii. If you take out Nintendo and look at the third-party experience, the number is quite a bit lower."

In other words, the average Wii owner has purchased 3.4 games over the last year. The grand majority of those games were published by Nintendo. Madden 08 for Wii did not sell especially well, neither has Super Monkey Ball. Wii Play, with its packed-in Wii remote, on the other hand, is a constant bestseller.

"From Nintendo's standpoint and from a macro standpoint, things look pretty hunky-dory. From a third-party profitability or opportunity standpoint, it's a little bit different," Taylor said.

With the exception of Ratchet and Clank Future, Sony doesn't have any first-party games I want to play this holiday season. In fact, I haven't seen any A+ games on PS3 at all.

This year, with the videogame market at its absolute biggest, so much of the success seems like a triumph of marketing instead of game-making.

Editor's note: This article was written at the end of 2007, however the facts have not changed from that time.