Nintendo Console | Analyst: Madden 10 Wii Didn't Sell Because Of Madden 09 Wii

September 24, 2009 – 10:05 am

by Randy Nelson { Sep 11th 2009 at 5:40PM }

Yesterday, Electronic Arts CEO John Ricitiello pointed to a downward turn in game sales this summer as a prime culprit in what he called a “discouraging” August kickoff for one of the “highest-rated and best-marketed Madden titles in years.” Still, that didn’t explain the 42 percent decline in sales for the franchise on Nintendo’s console. So, we spoke with Jesse Divnich, games market analyst at EEDAR, to get his thoughts on the fairly “oh, wow”-worthy revelation.

More than anything, Divnich believes that gamers’ experience with last year’s game on Wii influenced their decision to not give the franchise a second shot on the system. “I believe many diehard Madden fans, who transitioned from the PS2 to the Wii, made their yearly Madden purchase in 2008 and realized that the Wii could not offer the same experience they have grown accustom to (online play, realistic graphics, in-depth team management),” he told Joystiq.

The game’s motion control gameplay features — versus the familiar DualShock 2 — might also have been a turn-off, Divnich said, likening it to the slow acceptance of console controllers for use in first-person shooters. “Anyone introduced to the FPS category through the keyboard/mouse combination even still today refuses to accept the analog controllers as a legitimate FPS controller,” he remarked.

Ultimately, though, Divnich came back to the PS2-to-Wii user’s experience with last year’s Madden. “Avid Madden fans have the curse of knowledge … and they know that Madden cannot offer the same experience on the Wii as it did for the PS2.”

Tags: analyst, ea, ea-sports, eedar, electronic-arts, madden-10, madden-nfl-10, npd, sales

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Lawl Analysts…

Lawlalists

They could have made it with realistic graphics and made it use the virtual controller, but they did not. I am getting really tired of my Wii having to sit in my closet because everyone is so damn lazy. Wish SMG2 was out already, or a new Zelda. Damn you madden! Also madden cursed my favorite player so fuck you again! lol

Nintendo has an uncanny knack of not spreading out their blockbuster titles, hence the drought they’ve been in since . . . damn – SSBB? (Unless you count 3rd party, weakly sold yet good titles, like MadWorld.)

And I am damn tired of players not bothering to look for the 3rd party title games. There are a lot of good ones, you just need to stop being lazy and look for them.

I am not at all lazy to go look for good Wii 3rd party games, but there are not very many. I love the house of the dead games and Umbrella Chronicles was nice as well. My favorite 3rd party was by far No More Heroes. Not really a big fan of MadWorld and stuff like that though, announcers are annoying.

Yes players are lazy and don’t search for good titles, got Rune Factory Frontier yet? Little king’s story? Trauma center? Muramasa (though I don’t have this yet)? They don’t have guns or realistic, HDgraphics but they’re great, better than lots of games on other consoles.

Also, I bought Madden 08 on the Wii and I really enjoyed the controls. So that’s not the issue to me anyway.

This just goes back to PS2 > Wii again. That system’s got some legs, eh?

While the Wii has some really good games, I’d be a fool to challenege that the PS2 is better than Wii. Hell, the PS2 video game library, IMO, stands up to the current consoles.

Right on man. Honestly I have the original ps3 so I got backwards compatibility and I still buy shit for the PS2. I think its a great system. The only reason I keep my Wii is for the 1st party titles. Which they havent had any good ones in quite awhile. I definitely like my ps3 and 360 a lot better though because I just cant make myself play non first party Wii games except No More Heroes, which rules.

while there are definately more ps2 games that i play today than i play on the wii, I don’t know that it’s because the wii “can’t” do it. he gives the example of online play. can the wii not do that too?

“and they know that Madden cannot offer the same experience on the Wii as it did for the PS2″

Huh? I know it’s not very powerful, but I’m pretty sure it’s more powerful than a ps2.

“(online play, realistic graphics, in-depth team management),”

Someone please explain to me why the Wii can’t do any of that better than the PS2. I’ll give hiim the controller argument, hell I remember the last time I played a Wii and how foreign the controller felt. Everything else smells like bullshit though.

It can but some developers just dont bother. For example Pro Evolution 2008 was really good on the Wii, the controls really helped the expierience.

Because it takes effort to make an actual good looking game.

And we all know how lazy some developers can be when it comes to developing games on the Wii.

There is no reason to make the game any different, except for controls, and that is a field where the Wii game actually saw a neat improvement (Call your shots is pretty good from what i’ve heard. Never played Madden before at all). You can’t even say online will be any worse, since EA is using their own servers for Madden Wii, so they can make it as good as they please

No, the only reason why the Wii version hasn’t been up to par with the PS2 version is the reason why a lot of Wii games haven’t been up to par on PS2: the publisher assumes they need to dumb the game down.

So we all agree it’s laziness then? Good

It’s EA, as usual. Back to their old, dirty tricks.

Is it down to friend codes messing up the online experience? I know devs have started to implement good online interfaces on wii now, but i don’t know how madden 09 was.

I remember the first madden game on the wii getting great reviews for it’s controls…. (better than many other launch games), but there is a big difference between “good controls” and “accepted controls”.

The cartoon appearance was a dumb idea too… who was that meant to appeal to?

Or it could be that the majority of Football gamers, being older than 12, also have access to another system that has a version of the game that does not suck Donkey Balls so that bought it for PS3 or 360 instead. Or, it being a recession, they decided to skip it since Football is the same game it was last year and the franchise passed the “good enough” stage years ago and people are not so flush with cash they’re willing to spend $60 for a new roster.

Wait, you’re telling me there’s a debate between controller vs. keyboard/mouse?

It’s more like controller vs waving your arms around like an idiot.

Not saying ALL Wii owners are idiots, but some are pretty funny to watch.

No offense but if you went from a PS2 to a Wii, and are an adult male, you may be an idiot.

*eats a prawn arm to guard against downvotes*

Not really. Casual gamers existed before Wii (distinct from the Blue Ocean casual gamers that Nintendo’s tapping), and it’s those casual gamers that made the PS2 what it really was. It would probably be natural for them to make that move, though 360 and PS3 are equally good choices for those sorts of gamers.

^I know but the move from PS2 to 360 seems a lot more reasonable to me.

Now yes, but when the Wii came out, the 360 wasn’t as ‘casual’ as the Wii; in other words, the amount of games that were on the 360 were probably not enough to warrant a purchase by many who already owned a PS2.

I did exactly that. Got a ps2 pretty late in life, and a wii in early 08. I had pc gaming to satisfy just about any HD experience i wanted between the two and even though i don’t use my wii at the moment at all, i still played a lot of great games on it. Its just the lack of hardcore side scrollers is what i want, that new murasama demon blade looks like my next choice though. When i traded in my ps2 and its massive library earlier this summer, i had more than enough cash in store credit to get a PS3 and i wish i woulda done it sooner but then again i wish i would have done it later and gotten a better deal now that its also cheaper. people buy wiis for just about every reason

What a terrible analysis.

Front-loaded sales too, remember that. We’re talking about the platform where Call of Duty: World at War started with week one sales of just 44,000 in the USA, and went on to sell over 860k in the same region. Though i agree these results aren’t encouraging, let’s not jump the gun like y’all did with, uhh, every single Wii game that started out slow and ended up doing fine

Though i agree with the consensus that EA dug their own grave with this. Their persistent screw ups with Wii madden stand at an odd contrast with the fact that their other Wii sports efforts have been generally amazing, or at least competent when compared to competing versions.

It’s true that the Wii seems to have much less of a “launch day effect” than the 360/PS3. (other than nintendo peripherals for some reason).

I guess that “hardcore” gamers are much more likely to know about upcoming games and rush out to buy them.
“softcore” gamers probably don’t read gaming magazines and blogs, and don’t have the compulsion to grab/pre-order every game in the first 24 hours.

I think many wii owners shop in a much more casual way, either picking up things they happen to see in stores, or that they see mentioned in mainstream press reviews, or that their friends recommend.

Wii games sure do seem to have a much longer tail than 360/PS3 games… it’d be interesting to graph that and see.

Highest rate Madden game? That’s not saying much.

So is the real version of Madden 10 worth upgrading from Madden 07 for? I’ve heard it’s pretty good, but…

Who cares…it was shit on Wii anyways….

Thats why they didnt even bother to make it on DS cause they knew it wouldnt sell….

and b4 U assess downvote me again for saying its NOT on DS…

Check the OFFICIAL SITE…

http://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl-10

See DS there??

I believe you that it’s not on DS, I just don’t like being called an ass.

lol…sorry for taking that one to far…fact is I said the shit wasnt on DS on that last thread and people didnt wanna believe me instead of actually looking

Yeah, the game being redundant has nothing to do with it.

Well…probably not since it sells well every year.

It didn’t sell because Wii Madden sucks… and is not sim.

It sickens me when these companies create lazy ports for the wii. Yes, they are lazy ports because the automatically assume the wii “isn’t powerful enough” to produce nice graphics. Sure they’re not HD, but heck, Metroid Prime Corruption and the Conduit are good examples of what the hardware is capable of. I and thought the PC port of Final Fantasy VIII was bad (remember? Filtering bugs, weird controls and the pathetic excuse of a PSF to crappy MIDI soundtrack?). Whoever the geniuses are behind the “dumbing down” processes should either be fired or at least, you know, be emasculated…How about “they shouldn’t have been hired by these companies in the first place”?

Make Madden on the Wii that uses the Classic Controller for a control scheme and I’ll even forgive the cartoonish graphics.

It’s not that developers are lazy on the Wii, it’s just that it takes a lot more money to make a “AAA” title for any console and most 3rd party develpers do not make very good return on investment from the Wii. The 1st party titles make the huge killing on the system.

Except that Madden ’09 also sucked donkey balls on the 360/PS3, yet Madden ’10 managed to sell fine on those consoles.

GF analyst.

I really liked Madden 07 and Madden 08. But Madden 09 was a total step in the wrong direction. They abandoned features like particles in weather to make room for 5-on-5 and that retarded “Celebration” thing after touchdowns.

Now they completely got rid of weather and Franchise Mode. This is the first year I didn’t buy Madden. Madden 09 made me realize that I needed to look into Madden 10 before buying it and thank God I did! It’s not even worth the $5 to rent the piece of crap.

Next year, I suspect that they’ll eliminate the passing feature in games. After all, passing is a luxury in football and EA will argue that Nintendo’s processors can’t handle their passing engine.

Everybody knows the truth here is that EA’s Wii developers have their heads up their butts and have no clue what they are doing up there.

I dont like little kings story or rune factory. Marumasa however looks damn near excellent and I will be damned if I am not getting that game.

I’m just dandy with using an analog controller, I even started with mouse/keyboard. Well..when I got serious, there was the Genesis long ago..

I was about to say pretty much the same thing.

“Anyone introduced to the FPS category through the keyboard/mouse combination even still today refuses to accept the analog controllers as a legitimate FPS controller,”

He’s really wrong about a lot of people. Did he completely miss the massive number of people playing COD4 on Xbox Live?

This guy’s opinion is insane. The Wii can’t produce realistic graphics compared to the PS2?!? THE WII IS A PS2!!!!

Let’s call a spade a spade. Most Wii owners got the Wii because its different and unique, everything Madden is not. I’m not shocked that Wii Sports Resort would kil most of the Madden SKUs at all.

Hopefully in Madden 11 they will have this feature:

When you are scoring a field goal, you kick the wiimote into the wii, it explodes, and then pirates take you hostage then you are saved by MacGyver.

The real story should be the 300,000 unit DROP of the PS2 version compared to last year.

Considering that the PS3 and 360′s numbers were relatively the same year over year, and the Wii version of Madden historically selling at a slower pace than other SKUs, the larger problem for EA seems to be the economy. “Mainstream” gamers who typically buy every yearly version likely tightened their wallets in light of the fiscally worrisome era we are currently in.

Of course, not EVERYTHING can be attributed to the economy. But, how else do you explain such a sudden loss of PS2 buyers that apparently did NOT migrate to ANY OTHER console?

Dusty Rhodes had it right. These are hard times.

Well, it should be noted that the “ALL-Play” initiative was introduced last year and was a “New” feature to the Madden franchise. Trying to make the game more accessible may be the reason.

My neighbor traded in his PS2 for a Wii last year and Madden was the first game he got for it. He HATED IT and this year he traded in his Wii for a 360 and is addicted to the latest version of Madden.

Lack of online didn’t factor in with him because he doesn’t have internet but I am sure it has alot to do with the drop in sales.. Nintendo needs to do something better for Online gameplay.

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