Third Party Devs Say No to Wii Bundle

Releasing a new console with a new game sounds like a good deal for customers, but it spells bad news for other game developers. As such, third-party developers are shaking their heads about Nintendo’s move to add Wii Sports with the console when it ships on November this year. “From a third-party standpoint, we’d prefer to have a platform without a bundle,” said Scott Steinberg, Vice President of Marketing at San Francisco game maker Sega. “There’s a vote for ‘no bundle’ from every third party we’ve talked to.”

However, it’s a good thing for Nintendo as consumers get to test-drive the console immediately with the bundled game. Laurent Detoc, president of the North American division of Ubisoft says that. “… it helps (Nintendo) reinforce their ability to launch successfully.” Wii Sports gives users quite an idea of the Wii controller’s features, as it enables players to “play golf” by actually swinging the Wii controller, or mimic baseball players by using it as a bat. With all those options, it seems that Wii Sports is a good game to showcase the Wiimote. However, he agrees that it sure reduces sales for third-party developers.

Of course, the Wii also has other features such as the Wii Channel, which can be used for web browsing, to get updates from various stations, and even to view, edit, and share photos. There’s also the Mii Channel for character face customization, as well as the Wii Shop Channel for shopping classic games from Nintendo and Sega.

Nifty as those features are, most are asking the question, “Will Wii Outsell the Xbox 360 and the PS3?” Nintendo announced that it will ship 4 million units before the year ends, as opposed to 2 million PS3 units. Of course, there’s the Xbox 360, which already had a headstart regarding sales, as it was released way earlier than other next-gen consoles. Sure enough, the next-gen console war is getting more interesting… Stay tuned here at QJ for more updates.

Via Wired News

Releasing a new console with a new game sounds like a good deal for customers, but it spells bad news for other game developers. As such, third-party developers are shaking their heads about Nintendo’s move to add Wii Sports with the console when it ships on November this year. “From a third-party standpoint, we’d prefer to have a platform without a bundle,” said Scott Steinberg, Vice President of Marketing at San Francisco game maker Sega. “There’s a vote for ‘no bundle’ from every third party we’ve talked to.”

However, it’s a good thing for Nintendo as consumers get to test-drive the console immediately with the bundled game. Laurent Detoc, president of the North American division of Ubisoft says that. “… it helps (Nintendo) reinforce their ability to launch successfully.” Wii Sports gives users quite an idea of the Wii controller’s features, as it enables players to “play golf” by actually swinging the Wii controller, or mimic baseball players by using it as a bat. With all those options, it seems that Wii Sports is a good game to showcase the Wiimote. However, he agrees that it sure reduces sales for third-party developers.

Of course, the Wii also has other features such as the Wii Channel, which can be used for web browsing, to get updates from various stations, and even to view, edit, and share photos. There’s also the Mii Channel for character face customization, as well as the Wii Shop Channel for shopping classic games from Nintendo and Sega.

Nifty as those features are, most are asking the question, “Will Wii Outsell the Xbox 360 and the PS3?” Nintendo announced that it will ship 4 million units before the year ends, as opposed to 2 million PS3 units. Of course, there’s the Xbox 360, which already had a headstart regarding sales, as it was released way earlier than other next-gen consoles. Sure enough, the next-gen console war is getting more interesting… Stay tuned here at QJ for more updates.

Via Wired News