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High Voltage - Developers writing off Wii as non next-gen may have caused software support issues
A portion of an MTV interview with Kerry Ganofsky, CEO High Voltage Software, and Rob Nicholls, lead designer…
MTV Multiplayer: Why do you think that there aren’t many games aimed at hardcore gamers on the Wii?
Ganofsky: I think some developers and publishers were scared by the initial batch of games that were released on the Wii. It was hard to convince anyone that there even was a core market, let alone one that would support original games. Early on we asked ourselves, “What kind of game do we want to play on the Wii?” and “What do we think other Wii gamers really want?” The answer to those questions and many more was “The Conduit.”
Nicholls: Initially, we think it was because publishers and developers didn’t really consider the Wii to be a “next-gen” platform. It doesn’t possess the same memory and processing power of an Xbox 360 or PS3, so it was written off as not being able to handle the type of games that hardcore gamers would want. Then the Wii’s motion controls turned out to be surprisingly popular with casual gamers and folk who typically didn’t play video games, such as grandparents. Publishers latched onto this new market and were able to put out a number of inexpensive casual games that made them money. But all of this left the hardcore market behind and by the tremendous online response we’ve had to “The Conduit,” a hardcore market exists.
MTV Multiplayer: Why do you think third-party “hardcore” games haven’t sold that well on the Wii so far?
Ganofsky: The majority of these games are ports of previously released games. The market that these games are intended for recognizes a port and has shown that they just won’t support the port. Instead people throw their hands up and say “core” games won’t sell on the Wii. We and our partners at Sega believe differently. We believe in providing the market what it wants. That is why we read every e-mail and consider every fan request.
Nicholls: Publishers point to [low sales] as more evidence of why such games shouldn’t be on the Wii. However, we here at High Voltage don’t agree. We think these games haven’t sold well because they were ports of games designed for other platforms and thus didn’t quite fit on the Wii.