Game Makers Missing Out on Wii

Analyst says publishers probably won't be ready if the Wii becomes a hit. Speculation inside.

Nintendo turned a lot of heads at E3 last week in Los Angeles with its new Wii console. Thousands of gamers lined up for hours to get their hands on the motion-sensing controller and to play with old favourites such as Link and Mario. The console seems poised for success, but one analyst says publishers, Western ones in particular, have missed the Wii boat.

"I didn't think publishers [knew how cool the Wii was] until they got their hands on it," Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, told Next Generation. "I don't know how Ubisoft figured it out. Let's give them a lot of credit. They're ahead of everybody right now."

The game that is putting Ubisoft ahead is Red Steel, a Wii-exclusive game filled with swords, guns and the Japanese Mafia.

The problem is that third party publishers haven't put enough weight behind Nintendo's console, which could end up hurting them if things take off for the Wii.

Apart from Ubisoft, some of the biggest supporters of the console now are THQ (SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab) and Sega (Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz).

"If the Wii sells - I'm just being ridiculous here - 10 million units in the first year, who benefits? Well, clearly Nintendo, and clearly Ubisoft will capture that higher-end mature audience, and clearly Sega will be there and do well, but can I say [THQ] would sell 5 million copies of Spongebob? No way."

Success is, however, far from guaranteed for Nintendo. The Wii represents a radical change in how games are made and like with the DS, it all comes down to whether developers make good games for it.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games