Join us again as we reflect upon the year that wasthe years big games and the news that defined Nintendos performance in the second half of 2009. Q3- July to September: The third quarter of the year was marked by some disappointing revelat...
Q3- July to September:
The third quarter of the year was marked by some disappointing revelations. Nintendo’s own ‘Excitebots’ would not be given a local release in Australia, and their other first-party title, ‘Punch Out!’ for Wii, was only picked up by a single retailer.
In the first case, Excitebots represented an excellent evolution of the mechanics established by its predecessor Excite Truck by upping the craziness and introducing a slew of off-the-wall gameplay modes. The title was much anticipated by fans worldwide but ultimately suffered at retail. No explanation was given by Nintendo of Australia Limited as to why we never saw it here, limiting us to importing copies in order to enjoy the game.
The Punch-Out! fiasco was almost as upsetting, as JB HiFi were the only retail outlet who bothered to order copies, with major game retailers and department stores giving it a miss. Fair enough, the RRP of $79.95 was a decent price for the quality game, but the incident reeks of laziness on the part of retailers and Nintendo themselves.
It wasn’t all bad news, however, as Wii Sports Resort was released in Australia on July 23 bundled with the already available MotionPlus attachment. WSR was for many gamers their first experience with MotionPlus and was an instant hit at retail, selling solidly all the way to Christmas. We enjoyed the hell out of WSR and were delighted to see it build upon the essentials of the original Wii Sports whilst making the best of the opportunities provided by the higher fidelity controls enabled by MotionPlus. Sales charts for the quarter were dominated by WSR, Grand Slam Tennis and Tiger Woods 10, a promising sign for the future of MotionPlus capable titles in Australia.
By this time, the DSi had established itself as a mainstay at Aussie retail, selling its 100,000th unit here by late August, only four months after release. Aussies were rewarded for their interest in the DSi with the introduction of red and blue models to join alongside the original black and white. Internationally, the numbers showed that the DSi was selling at a faster rate than the Wii, the original DS, and the DS Lite. The Wii continued to sell reasonably well, clearing the 1.4 million mark in Australia, despite a global slow-down in hardware sales. Nintendo themselves even admitted the sluggish sales were due to a stagnant software release calendar.
On the software front, both the Wii and DS received surprise announcements from third party studios. Warren Spector, famed developer of the Thief, Wing Commander Deus Ex series was revealed to be working on a creative new project with Disney, dubbed ‘Epic Mickey’. The leaked artwork exposed a new artistic direction for the Mickey characters, with strong steam punk influences and a markedly darker than expected tone. But the biggest surprise was that the much-loved but commercially unsuccessful Okami would receive a sequel titled ‘Okamiden’ on the DS. Capcom’s decision to limit the sequel to DS likely stemmed from the poor sales performance of the console original; however, we are not too worried as the stylus controls will likely lend themselves perfectly to the paint-brush controlled combat that characterised Okami.
On the 1st of September, Nintendo announced their ‘Connection Ambassador Program’ for Wii owners. Anyone who helped another Wii owner set up their console for online use would be rewarded with 500 points to spend on the Wii Shop channel, with the new user receiving the points also. Those who were ultra keen and managed to set up a total of 20 people received the coveted title of ‘Wii Connection Master’ and were given an additional 10,000 points to spend on WiiWare as well as access to the entire NES, SNES and N64 catalogue on Virtual Console for free. A very generous promotion indeed, although we’ve learned that only a few people have managed to take advantage of it.
As part of Nintendo’s effort to encourage online use on their home console, the Internet Channel received a much needed Adobe Flash update and was made free to download. Those who had paid for it in the past weren’t left hurt, however, as Nintendo announced a refund promotion. One NES game to the value of 500 points was made available to these customers starting from late October until the end of December.
Later in September, Australians were graced with a welcome visit from Charles Martinet, the man behind the voice of Mario. Charles was a blast to hang out with and was on hand to provide voices for our 45th podcast. Melbourne and Sydney gamers had the opportunity to meet Charles and get all their Nintendo merchandise signed by the actor who has lent his voice to a cast of characters from every Mario game since Super Mario 64.
The quarter ended on a slightly less happy tone. After months of speculation we learned that Australia would not receive a price cut on the Wii any time soon and that we would also miss out on the sexy steelbook edition of Metroid Prime Trilogy when it released here. We also learned that region-locking would indeed limit the playability of DSi-enhanced games, a concern for DSi owners keen to import rare international games.
Q4 – October to December:
In happier news, we celebrated 9 years of running this site, with the site owner and chief editor Vook himself giving readers a run-down of how the site operates behind the scenes. We enjoyed one of the best years ever, which included a complete overhaul of the site, a line-up of new contributors and our heaviest coverage of local and international happenings. Many give-aways were to be had over 2009, too, from the Scribblenauts pack to the Mario and Sonic Winter Games prizes. As such, our 9 year celebration was an opportune moment to reflect on how the site had grown and taken on a new direction.
Back home, the Connection Ambassador program was finally introduced across Australia, along with the free 500 point NES game from the Virtual Console for those who bought the Internet Channel before it was again made free. The refund is still available for those who haven’t redeemed it yet, but you’ll have to be quick as it finishes at the end of the year.
Things were looking pretty grim for the local developers industry, with larger Australian studios like Krome feeling the economic pinch and having to regrettably lay off quality assurance staff. Trying to remain upbeat about the industry’s future, we headed off to the eGames event in Melbourne but were disappointed that our only hands-on time with unreleased Nintendo games was at the Ubisoft booth—Nintendo themselves were a complete no-show. Fortunately, members of the team were able to visit the rad Nintendo office located in the city for some early playtime of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and Style Boutique.
Around this time, we were happy to see the R18+ rating issue gain wider exposure as the Attorney General’s Department finally released a discussion paper on mature gaming, along with increased pressure from industry groups and gaming fans for the introduction of an adults-only rating. It was encouraging to see the issue finally being discussed in mainstream media and given objective coverage by journalists and analysts alike on the evening news and morning television programs like Sunrise. Members of the public were invited to voice their opinions on the matter directly to the government, the start of what many hope will be the inevitable introduction of an R18+ rating. Hopefully more will be put into motion in 2010 as the pressure is put on the politicians to finally be grown-up about the issue and not be held to ransom by minority opinion.
At retail, we rejoiced at the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, with it not only arriving in Australia before the rest of the world, but also only four months after it was unveiled at E3. The game scored perfect marks from the much-respected gaming magazine in Japan, Famitsu, and sold like crazy despite the short amount of time to build hype. Mario held off stiff competition from high-profile games on other platforms like Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin’s Creed 2, and had longer legs at retail. The game still graces the top ten sales charts and will be a likely mainstay on the Aussie charts well into 2010. We certainly like this new trend of shorter announcement-to-release cycles, and hope that Nintendo will keep up the habit so we don’t die from prolonged hype-induced illnesses.
Overseas, our buddies in America were still snatching up the Wii in droves, despite predictions that Wii sales would suffer over the holiday period. Nintendo moved over 1.5 million combined units of Wii and DS systems over Thanksgiving Week alone and continued to enjoy high sales leading up to Christmas, wiping the floor with the competition. Regardless of who sold more consoles, it was delightful to see both hardware and software sales for all companies return to healthy levels in the wake of the economic downturn.
Without a doubt, the year of 2009 belonged to the DS.
We got to enjoy the best iteration of the handheld with the excellent new DSi, and it certainly benefited from one of its best years for new software ever. From Nintendo, we received hot new first-party titles in the form of Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story and the Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. From third party devs we got Scribblenauts, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, a new Professor Layton adventure and the very excellent Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars from Rockstar. The story of GTA on the DS was an interesting one—the game was surprisingly dark and complex, using the same Liberty City featured in the recent and controversial GTAIV. One of the most mature games yet released on DS, the game built on the strengths of the hardware and was one of the most faithful recreations of the GTA experience on the handheld to date. Unfortunately, lower than expected sales came as a disappointment to Nintendo and Rockstar, and the game was eventually ported to the PSP—an ominous sign for the future of the franchise on DS.
With this year’s release of the DSi, we got an peek into Nintendo’s vision for the future of handheld gaming. The introduction of features that managed to broaden the appeal of the device and cement its appeal to the casual audience, whilst still maintaining a healthy output of core-focused games, means the future of Nintendo’s handheld arm has never looked brighter. The availability of download-only games through DSiWare has brought us an excellent range of surprisingly deep and enjoyable games to play on the go and strongly suggests that an increased level of digitally distributed content from Nintendo lies ahead. Already, we can play such fantastic titles as Mighty Flip Champs, Missile Reflect, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Dragon Quest Wars, PicoPict, Boxlife and many more, with the list of games growing month after month.
By comparison, the situation for the Wii was quite the opposite of the DS for 2009. For the Wii, we received more announcements of new first party titles than we did of actual new releases. New Super Mario Bros. Wii was one of the best 2D Mario games ever, but it stood out as an island in a near-empty ocean of new first party games. E3 had some very juicy unveiling, however, so we will just have to wait to get our hands on Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M. There was also a hot-cold relationship between the Zelda development team and their fanbase, with Nintendo initially reluctant to let on any secrets about Link’s next endeavour on Wii before finally discussing the shape of the next console Zelda game. Still, they remain tight-lipped about the nature of the game—with only a single piece of artwork and no title, we only have Aonuma’s comments on a potentially different game progression, MotionPlus usage for fighting, and the hint of flight to guide us on what to expect. MotionPlus is likely to play a big part in other areas of the game, too, leading fans to get a bit jittery as to what kind of experience the next Zelda game will be.
The WiiWare store continued to grow, with NyxQuest and a new Lost Winds adventure being some of the best; whilst the bit.trip collection of games has been a great new franchise for the service. However, the strength of WiiWare has seemingly come as a loss to the Virtual Console. Yes, the VC catalogue was bolstered by the addition of Arcade games, but there simply has not been enough provided for classic Nintendo console games. NSMBWii would have been a perfect time to re-release Super Mario World 2 as a download, and there are still many other first-party classics that are yet to be made available.
Ultimately, the end of the year came with a big sigh of relief for the industry and game enthusiasts. A dark cloud hung over most of 2009 as a slowing economy meant that many in-development projects were put on hold or cancelled completely. The healthy sales figures seen later in the year indicate that the video game market is recovering and that 2010 may yet prove to be a bumper year for new games. Finally, we can be rest assured that there is plenty of life left in the Wii, as 2010 is shaping up to be the best year for new games since the console was released over three years ago.
For the Vooks crew, things have never been better. The site undertook a major facelift and we were strengthened by the addition of some fresh writing talent. 2010 will mark the 10th anniversary of the site and we’re looking to make it one of the best years yet. From all of the Vookians here, we wish you a happy holiday full of gaming and look forward to sharing in the fun that next year is sure to bring.
Japan gets the Game Boy Color version.
Introductory pricing from now until the end of January.