Momentum

Obviously, Nintendo must be surprised that the Wii momentum stopped as soon as it began. Why was this? Was it solely due to lack of games? I think it is something much more.

I get the impression that Nintendo was operating with the Wii as if it were the DS. The DS launched pretty well but also, at earlier points, had the PSP begin to outsell it. Games like Nintendogs began to increase the DS momentum considerably. Brain Age, Mario Kart DS, and Animal Crossing DS just upped it even more. At the end of 2005, the DS just went bonkers in Japan. The entire country ran out of DS systems because Nintendo was phasing it for the DS Lite.

One of the reasons the DS never had any significant drop in momentum was due to consistent selling software such as Mario Kart DS and New Super Mario Brothers DS. Even today, four years after it came out in Japan, NSMB DS is still appearing in the top games. Not in the top ten, of course, but it still is selling. It is the best selling DS game and is over five million, alone, in Japan.

I think one of the biggest moments for the DS came with Final Fantasy III. Square-Enix got stunned as FF3 sold out, along with all the bundled DS systems, almost immediately. There was a voracious appetite for RPGs on the DS. Square-Enix complied. Dragon Quest 4, 5, and 6 were to be made on the DS. Other DS RPGs got green lit. Dragon Quest 9 was announced to be made on DS. It was due to that success of FF 3 that the DS became the RPG system for Japan.

It seems as if Nintendo approached Wii’s momentum the same way it did for DS with the exception of giving Wii a much stronger launch. Wii Sports was to take the place of Nintendogs, more or less, as the Tough Generation game. Mario Kart Wii was to take the place of Mario Kart DS, of course. The strongest selling Gamecube games got their Wii sequels such as Smash Brothers Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy.

Once the DS momentum got going, aside from nationwide sell-outs (such as occurred in Japan and the Wii in America), the DS momentum never significantly slowed down or vanished. But the Wii momentum did. Publicly, Nintendo is saying the lack of games for the Wii was the reason why momentum died. This is true, but not true in spirit. DS had lack of games at points as well. But momentum did not die. And one cannot point to the beginning of the year’s lack of games because the beginning of the year always lacks games.

The secret to the Wii Momentum is motion controls and content. By motion controls, I mean the type of control a player faces in Wii Sports, I am not referring to the ‘tacked on’ motion controls. And by content, I am not meaning content as in the number of games as a console company defines content. I define content as how the customer defines it, as the freshness and scope of a game.

The reason why the Wii momentum was so fierce at the beginning was not just because people loved Wii Sports. Customers believed this was going to be the start of a new type of gaming. They believed motion controls would pioneer new ways to not just play games, but to explore content within the game. Wii Sports, for all its greatness, was very shy on the content. But this was OK. It was a launch game. Content would come later, right?

At E3 2007, Nintendo showed off Wii Fit. Again, this was motion controls in a new type of way and people thought it would revolutionize how we explore games. And Wii Fit sold and kept Wii momentum going. The end of 2007, the Nintendo games to round out the holidays were Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3, both essentially sequels to Gamecube games. Both of these would not sell in Japan (Galaxy performed pathetically for a Mario game). These core games appealed to Western audiences, but not to Japan audiences. So this is the reason why I suspect the momentum collapsed in Japan first (not because of the “Oh, Japan is the forerunner in all trends, hail Japan!” type thinking).

After E3 2008, Nintendo faced not a disappointed audience, but a hostile audience. This is different from the typical ‘hardcore’ audience that was hostile about everything Wii from the beginning. This was the Nintendo faithful and even expanded audience becoming hostile. Just like Japan, months after the 08 holidays, Wii momentum collapsed in America. (And you can’t blame the recession for it as Wii was designed to be an anti-recession console.)

So what happened?

Motion Plus and Wii Sports Resort were announced because, of course, to pre-empt any motion controller made by Sony or Microsoft. But the actual games Nintendo put out were two: Animal Crossing City Folk and Wii Music. Since customers do not articulate their motives correctly (or else all companies would succeed by ‘listening to the customer’), the customers latched onto anything to laser their hostility. They focused on new Nintendo VP Cammie Dunaway. They focused on the ‘casual’ stereotype. They were so pissed off, Iwata announced an apology, and Miyamoto ‘announced’ Pikmin 3 which apparently had zero work done it at the time. The Wii momentum, riding the holidays, would just collapse soon afterward into 2009.

Since the Wii momentum depended on motion controls and content, chiefly using motion controls to explore content in new ways, the momentum’s collapse as well as the sheer hostility becomes clearer. Both Wii Music and Animal Crossing Wii broke the reasons for buying a Wii. Wii Music had motion controls, yes, but it had no content. The game was designed to have user generated content which, as game history shows, NO GAME ever sells whose primary content is user generated content. Animal Crossing Wii used no motion controls and made it clear that Nintendo did not view the Wii as the customers viewed it. Let’s look at these a little closer.

When the Wii came out, the customers imagined the old Nintendo franchises reborn with motion controls. Animal Crossing was one, in particular, that received much imagination. People imagined fishing with motion controls, picking apples with motion controls, catching insects in the net with motion controls, and a game reborn with the new interface. Instead, Nintendo gave a game that had nothing done to it with motion controls. It was practically a Gamecube edition with some more added on. This was a clear indicator to the customers that Nintendo did not believe in its mission of revolution. Imagine customer disappointment if Zelda Wii was put out and no motion controls were put in. Even the TGS 2005 teaser showed sword fighting and all which all the customers imagined being a reborn Zelda game.

Wii Music was far more harming due to its reliance on user generated content. I blame Will Wright for whispering poison in Miyamoto’s ear (or whoever at Nintendo believed this). Will Wright believed user generated content was why everyone bought Sims. So he made a game based on user generated content called ‘Spore’ which, also, came out in the latter 2008. However, Spore was considered severely disappointing. Production quality of the game was fantastic. The problem? No content. User generated content wasn’t doing its job. For some reason, in 2008, developers and the games industry all thought user generated content was the next big thing. Amazingly, there were no game sales to indicate this. Bandwagons are bad enough. Bandwagons based on ideas that have not proven themselves in the market are worse. Iwata, being from the developer mindset, probably got taken in with all the other developers who thought ‘user generated content’ was the wave of the future. User generated content works in information but not in entertainment. If it did, we would have user generated content somehow in movies, television, and books by now.

Ultimately, the DS and Wii reasons for momentum parallel. Both depend on content, not in the number of games but in the scope of the player experience. This is why RPGs sell so well on the DS. They have significant content. NSMB DS sells because it is considered excellent content… translated to customer speak that means customers want to replay it again and again or, at least, keep it in their library just as a book with good content is kept in the library. 2d Mario, like Mario Kart, is a staple to the gaming diet.

Like the DS and Wii, the touch screen controls failed utterly unless they were used to connect to the game’s content. It would have been very difficult to have the content of Nintendogs and Brain Age without the touch screen controls. Games could only get by with having low content if they were exploring touch screen controls in new ways. However, games poor in content were rejected by the market. With the Wii, this parallels exactly. Mario Kart Wii sells because it has some serious content in it. Wii Music sells at the same rate as Little Big Planet, despite both being the flagship game for their consoles at the holidays and both receiving massive marketing. In other words, their sales are disappointments considering the expectations and marketing put into them. The reason why is because these games feel hollow. User Generated Content, to the customer, is like no content at all.

Look at the games that gather excitement around the Wii. They always have motion controls with content. Always. Something like NSMB Wii isn’t creating excitement because there are no motion controls and the content is unknown… for now. The game will sell depending on the quality of its content (which is why customers are so excited about the Koopa Kids being in it). Conduit, which uses the new controls in a way not really done for gaming before, is receiving excitement even if the content of the game isn’t spectacular.

Can momentum be turned around? Not easily. Nintendo has a second chance with Motion Plus and that doesn’t seem to be pushed too well… or at all. Games that use motion-plus are exciting customers, because it uses motion controls in new ways. (which we must not see in a vacuum for the excitement about motion controls is directly aimed at the excitement of experiencing game content in new ways. In other words, golf content is more exciting with motion controls than without. But without quality content, motion controls won’t matter).

Nintendo E3 2009 was not a victory of substance. It was a pass. Nintendo sneaked by with trailers for games that are not coming out for over a year (something they used to mock their rivals for), a new 2d Mario game, and sequels such as to Wii Sports and Wii Fit. Nintendo is taking the easy way out. It will work for E3 2009, but not E3 2010.

Here are the problems. Nintendo is still, for some God knows why reason, pursuing user-generated-content but are now doing it with the DS games. They will all fail, or they will be mistaken as successes for games where people buy them for the content (like the March of the Minis game).

Hardcore are pretty dumb to get excited about trailers for games that are over a year to come out. However, hardcore do this all the time. It pacified these folks. Yet, it has yet to satisfy them. Mario Galaxy 2 will not perform better than the first Galaxy, that is a given. It will not use motion controls any better than Galaxy 1. Metroid Other M seems more concerned with style than the content as apparently cutscenes are more important than saying whether the game is in 2d or 3d. Other M will not be motion plus which shows that Nintendo has not yet realized that it must connect motion controls to content.

Captain Iwata has landed his Nintendo ship across the Blue Ocean and set foot on a new continent of motion controls. Games like Mario Kart Wii were successful not because they were ‘bridge’ games but because they combined motion controls (somewhat) with considerable content. Games like Animal Crossing City Folk were not successful because it felt like a relic from the old continent. Years pass and Wii Sports still, to everyone’s severe disappointment, remains the best motion controller game to show off the system.

Customers wonder why Nintendo keeps sitting on the shore of this new continent either reliving relics (games from the old Gamecube continent) or skipping around on the shore (sequels to Wii Sports and Wii Fit). Why doesn’t Nintendo explore the interior of this new continent? Ships of Microsoft and Sony are already on their way to the new continent. If Nintendo doesn’t explore the interior, their competitors will and they will gain the gold awaiting inside.

There is one ray of hope: Explorer Miyamoto has announced he wants Zelda Wii to use motion plus controls as found in Wii Sports Resort. This would be exploring the interior of the continent. This would be combining motion controls and content. Nintendo needs to realize this just isn’t just what people want…

It is why people bought the Wii in the first place.