The State of the Wii

[Bells]

PLEASE AVOID WII JOKES

Just saw this http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?op...=9066&Itemid=2

Tagline: "What's With Wii's Low Review Scores?"

and Full Report (WITH images)

While doing some data trawling through GameRankings recently, I ran across a phenomenon on the Wii that I hadn't really seen quantified before.



The average of all Xbox 360 reviews cataloged on GameRankings turns out to be almost 70%. The same number for the PlayStation 3 is over 73% and for the Nintendo Wii ... a dismal 64%. A picture says it best:

Normally, I'd be inclined to dismiss discrepancies in review scores, but a 9-point gap between the PlayStation 3 and the Wii is hard to ignore. Even the Xbox 360 has a nearly 6-point advantage over the Wii. (The standard deviation for these data sets is around 12-14 points, for comparison. However, that alone doesn't tell the whole story. Rather, one should observe that a subset of data -- the roughly 150 Wii games in the whole data set -- has an aggregate review score 6 points below the mean for the entire data set. That is the anomaly.)

While I think that the above data is pretty significant all on its own, I can imagine people raising various objections. For example, the Xbox 360 has been out a year longer than the other two systems, so maybe it has more good games bringing its average up. And the PlayStation 3 has 33% fewer games than the Nintendo Wii, so perhaps a lack of shovelware is keeping the PS3 average higher. If we attempt to level the playing field and only look at the top 10% of all games on each system, the picture evens out a bit for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but the Wii is still significantly behind:







There is more info in the site above, but it think this is enough for a quick start.

Although, it piles up with my recent reason to sell my Wii and get a PS3

[Mad Jack the Pirate]

the problem is that wii has the same number of good games as the other consoles, but instead of meh games they have incredibly shitty gimmick crap. it's not that the wii is bad, its just that it has only awesome and shitty instead of awesome and average.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I think the problem is it's so different that people don't know how to utilise it properly yet.
Other systems are pretty standard that people know how to make games for them. With the Wii no one quite knows yet so what gets produced are little waggle games and things.

[Lord of Joshelplex]

Its simply becasue the PS3 and 360 are traditional gaming consoles (though the Sixaxis games for PS3 are terrible, but the regular stuff is good) and rather then make real games, its all ports and minigame compilations. Very few Devs are using the Wii to its full potential (Hell, Brawl is the most anticipated Nintendo game ever, and its barely using any of the Wiis motion capabilities) Its easy to develope for, so we get a lot of crap.

Also, how the hell does the PS3 have a 5 point advantage over 360?

[Bells]

Originally Posted by Lord of Joshelplex

Also, how the hell does the PS3 have a 5 point advantage over 360?

The 360 is 1 year older than the PS3, and on the recent year it took a "Nose dive" in review averages... probably because that 12 months more than the PS3, the novelty fell off and more crappy things were developed, bring it down.

The ps3 is on the verge of rise, and the Wii too... the problem is that everybody is using the Wii for shovelware and the 100% of good games are either ports or Nintendo Games.

[Sithdarth]

I'd bet there is a bit of a bias in general on the part of the researchers. Most game reviewers would probably describe themselves as "hard core" gamers. As demonstrated previous to the launch of both the Wii and the DS most "hard core" gamers expressed decidedly biased views of the system that seemed primarily based on little or no evidence. Its hard to believe that this simply vanished from their subconscious and is having absolutely no effect on their objectivity.

Aside from that I trust basically no reviews unless the evidence presented in the review is fairly clear. The reviewers are not me and they don't know me. They don't like what I like and generally have a totally different aesthetic. It makes no sense to let someone I know almost nothing about to tell me what I should or should not like. I can do that just fine myself its not like its going to kill me to waste some money renting a game I find out I hate. Heck, even buying a bad game isn't really all that bad in that you can usually resell it or trade it in at game stores for at least a partial return. In short, for me its better to discover for myself and risk a bad experience than miss a potentially great one because of some person I don't know.

[Aerozord]

each system has several dozen titles, each with less then a dozen A games, and only a hand full of S ranked games. These S ranked games cancel each other out since they all score 9 or better by all that review them. The A ranked aren't enough to cover top 10%. So your gonna get sub-par games like movie tie-in games and remakes. Wii has tons of sub-par games because they have no regulating system in place to control it. 360 and PS3 games need to be approved by Microsoft and Sony respectively before the game can be made. Nintendo green lights everything, and although that allows for unique but great games to be made, it still means the system is full of crap.

[Raiden]

No More Heroes.

Seriously. No More Heroes.

And yes, the Wii has a lot of crappy games, but that's because people do buy it for the family, and guess what? The people that love the "crappy games" are kids that simply adore them. I know my little brother plays the HELL out of Classic Carnival Games for the Wii, while I really don't find it all that entertaining. The part of this is, it's adults saying that the Wii is getting bad reviews because a game wasn't made for them. The Adults get Twilight Princess, No More Heroes, Fire Emblem, and so on. The kids get Carnival Games, Ben 10, and so on.

Also, looking over that review...I can't help but think this is another one of Sony's attempts at making the Wii look bad. I wouldn't put it past them ever since their "viral" campaigns.

And if anyone wants to see who's really winning this console war, if we're checking? Go into a Best Buy, and look for a PS3. I'm willing to bet they'll have a few. Now, try and find a Wii. Go ahead. I'll wait.

[Bells]

Well.. true, but not reaaaaaaally true Aero.

Yeah, Nintendo Greets everybody in, but they have their "Checklists" that need to be met to greenlight a game

It's just that their checklist is really really really really mellow

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Raiden

And if anyone wants to see who's really winning this console war, if we're checking? Go into a Best Buy, and look for a PS3. I'm willing to bet they'll have a few. Now, try and find a Wii. Go ahead. I'll wait.

I was curious, so at Game Crazy I asked about the Wii, they said if I pre-ordered it now (back in december) we would get it at about March. But we weren't there for a Wii, we were there to buy my brother a PS3. We managed to get their last 60 gig model, and they were even nice enough to wipe off the dust for us.

For the record they litterally did