Why do bad Wii games sell so well?

Synergized | April 24, 2008 | Blog | Company

Have you ever wondered why those horrible Wii games sell so well like Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games? Well, the straight, flat answer is that the game has Mario and Sonic in it. It's the sad truth, but as long as Nintendo brings out titles with those types of legends then they'll do more than fine. Another example would be Carnival Games. Consumers like the fact of the basic structure and how it looks familiar and they buy it.

On that same token, that same consumer sees No More Heroes or Okami and says, The title is not familiar, the game looks complicated, and I dont know what an Okami is.

Does this imply that publishers and developers should be dumbing down their games to appeal to the mass audience? Of course not, but understand that like any new consumer base, there's an initial learning curve before they are more discerning about how they spend their money on games.

News Story attached to:

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games [DS, Wii]

6 comments | go to source (www.gamasutra.com) | Add to favorites!

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0 thumbs!
chautemoc | April 25, 2008

Opinion piece much?
- 0 thumbs!
  Gothic Girl | April 25, 2008
  
  It's hardly an opinion piece. It's only counted as an opinion piece if the actual poster posts their opinion in the Decription.
  
  And the quote is written as a blog, which is why it's under the "Blog" category.
2 thumbs!
Gothic Girl | April 25, 2008

I don't think it's the developer's faults that their good-quality games don't sell as well as the poor Nintendo games with Mario tacked on the box.
I think it comes back to what was said in this article a few days ago ... Nintendo just isn't trying hard enough to advertise their quality games.
Okami might be better than Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, but how are we supposed to know that? Every game store has giant TVs advertising Mario and posters of Mario splashed around the place, while a little box of Okami is sitting on the bottom shelf where no-one can see it. Nintendo whores the crap out of their own Mario products, then shits in the faces of third-party games.
0 thumbs!
kazad | April 25, 2008

its like metroid prime 3 which is an awesome title and Nintendo didn't try and push it, but crappy games like mario and sonic Olympics nintendo got behind it and it sold like hot cakes
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Final Blade | April 25, 2008

_{One word for the reason "Marketing".
It seems to be the Achilles Heel for Nintendo.}
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kik36 | April 25, 2008

It's hard to change a formula when it works so well. Mario sells them games.....period. One day Mario will peter out.....I kinda thought it would have been a decade ago LOL I agree with Gothic Girl, Nintendo could give a shit less about their 3rd party producers.