Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, Violence Edition

Insult Swordfighting notes that Sega is one of the few publishers willing to take a risk on violent, edgy material for the Wii - which isn’t selling very well.  Unfortunately, I don’t think much of Sega’s strategy at this point, because the basic rationale underlying it isn’t holding up at this point… a function of timing as much as fundamentals.

Point 1: The Wii has sold a lot of consoles.  This is indubitably true, but often stated with the same misguided authority as some CPG marketing executive noting that China has a lot of people, and if you could each sell just one of them a single Coke, you’d be a billionaire!  This sort of reductionist nonsense manages to elide the risks, challenges, and costs of such a venture with the precision of a back-of-the-envelope calculation made on a Chili’s tablecloth at lunch.  As Nintendo has so often pointed out, they’ve expanded the gaming pie; but the pie is clearly no longer the same as it once was.  The market for outre, artistically violent conceptual shooters isn’t much larger than it ever was, and that’s what Sega is targeting - not some nebulous conception of “gamers.”

Point 2: Substitution is no longer the challenge it once was.  Back when the consoles first started emerging, I was rooting hard for the Wii to emerge as a dominant platform - and it did.  Unfortunately, my vision of the Wii as a dominant platform was different from the reality; I had imagined a single monolith producing hardcore games and Wii Fits with equal savoir faire.  What I got was a highly-targeted console with little, if any, interest in scratching the hardcore itch with regularity.  The difference here is that I, like many gamers, adjusted.  We bought a 360 (and potentially a PS3) as well, many of us years ago.  As a result, there’s no real need for developers to move through the Wii to reach a desired audience that is almost always on multiple consoles.  And although I might consider taking a chance on a new Wii game that I thought was in my demographic, it’s hard enough to follow 3-6 consoles that it’s equally likely that it will fall through the cracks.  Especially given the plethora of multiplatform alternatives.

So while I agree that it’s nice to see someone taking a chance, I am less optimistic about its chances for success.  It seems to me like Capcom is pursuing an early-generation strategy in a mid-generation timeframe.