Punch-Out!! is making its long awaited comeback for the Nintendo Wii. Arguably one of the hardest most challenging games of the 8-bit era looks to take the belt in 2009. Is the Nintendo Wii the right console for this game?
Hit the jump to find out...
Is Punch-Out!! going to appeal to the masses, the millions of soccer mom's and retirement homes that have helped propel Nintendo's newest console to unimaginable sales figures? Or will Punch-Out!! hit the mark with the Hardcore Wii audience, one which is probably only a small percentage of the possible Wii owners.
Disregard the Nintendo seal of quality, and pretend that Punch-Out!! could be released on Xbox 360. Blasphemy I know, but for the sake of arguement let's delve.. The 360 has been the home of the Hardcore community. Many AAA titles on 360 have targeted hardcore gamers, from FPS to RPG's the 360 is the hardcore gamers machine. Would a hardcore game reach more success on a machine highly populated by hardcore gamers (with a higher attach rate) or on a machine which is way more family friendly, casual, and gamers who love mini-game titles like Carnival Games?
Does the hardcore market of the Nintendo Wii exceed the hardcore market of the 360? It would be probably pretty tight.
But here is the kicker... Is Nintendo's blue ocean strategy helping or hindering hardcore games?
I believe that Nintendo's blue ocean strategy has been hindering hardcore games from finding an audience on the Nintendo. But the gem is, this hindering I'm talking about is actually making hardcore gamers desperate for some hardcore games!
Is this Nintendo's plan?? Make a machine that tries to cater to carnivores and vegetarians, but then only release a few steaks but a trillion salads.... starving the carnivores for some juicy steak.
Then when the carnivores are so frustratingly hungry, they release the GODFATHER of all steaks! I'm talking the big 76 from the Great Outdoors. The one steak that we only dream of eating.
Will all the carnivores grab this steak? And will this steak be so juicy that the vegetarians will want a taste?? And we all know... once you go Mac, you can't go back.
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As for Punch-Out Wii, I kind of fear for it. With development being handed off to a non-internal Nintendo developer, I wonder how much of a marketing push the game will receive.
I want to point to Wario as an example, but POWii has already seen more of a presence than that game had (announced out of nowhere -> released a few months later).
Wario game had a unique marketing push with the YouTube page, but it hasn't transfered over into sales. I hope Nintendo will get fully behind a marketing drive for Punch-Out!! but when a huge portion of Wii owners are casual games, do hardcore games have the chance to be succesful? Or should developers just scrap making hardcore games on the Wii and opt, to push their hardcore games out on the 360.