Wii Bias
Apparently Japan likes the Wii.
Umm... Duh?
I mean, Japan tends to be more pro-Nintendo that here in America. I don't think that it's much of a surprise that the Wii is the most anticipated system there.
What I wonder about is how anticipated it is here. If you read the internet, you would think that come october the Wii will rule the earth and no one will ever by a PS3 or a 360 again. However, I think that the games community on the internet (blogs, forums, IRC, etc) and even the community that likes to post and talk about their games tends to have a "Nintendo bias," meaning that they are more pro-Nintendo than the general gaming population.
Because of this, any survey results in a selection bias with a slant towards Nintendo, simply because the people that are most enthusiastic and willing to answers such surveys will also tend to be more enthusiastic about Nintendo.
For example, I think the base of games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Madden tends to get underestimated in the face of games like Zelda and Mario. Obviously (according to sales) the majority of the US population supports Microsoft and Sony a lot, even more so than Nintendo.
I'm not sure we have taken the non-rabid gamers into account. So I can't but help thinking that maybe the Wii hype has been a bit overblown. We just need to put it in perspective that the enthusiastic gaming community that writes, thinks, posts, talks, and interacts about their games is a very small part of the larger gaming community that buys and plays games, and it stops there.
Umm... Duh?
I mean, Japan tends to be more pro-Nintendo that here in America. I don't think that it's much of a surprise that the Wii is the most anticipated system there.
What I wonder about is how anticipated it is here. If you read the internet, you would think that come october the Wii will rule the earth and no one will ever by a PS3 or a 360 again. However, I think that the games community on the internet (blogs, forums, IRC, etc) and even the community that likes to post and talk about their games tends to have a "Nintendo bias," meaning that they are more pro-Nintendo than the general gaming population.
Because of this, any survey results in a selection bias with a slant towards Nintendo, simply because the people that are most enthusiastic and willing to answers such surveys will also tend to be more enthusiastic about Nintendo.
For example, I think the base of games like Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and Madden tends to get underestimated in the face of games like Zelda and Mario. Obviously (according to sales) the majority of the US population supports Microsoft and Sony a lot, even more so than Nintendo.
I'm not sure we have taken the non-rabid gamers into account. So I can't but help thinking that maybe the Wii hype has been a bit overblown. We just need to put it in perspective that the enthusiastic gaming community that writes, thinks, posts, talks, and interacts about their games is a very small part of the larger gaming community that buys and plays games, and it stops there.
posted by jon at 10:55 PM
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