Decmeber 15th, 2008

Monkeytown was awesome!
Now, finally, my last post forever! It's been fun! (Yes I'm obsessed with Video Games)

What's going on? As the continued dominant sales of the Wii (capped by a phenomenal 2 million units last month amidst a recession) demonstrates, Nintendo buyers are a whole different class than the traditional gamers who, by and large, are still buying the 360 and PS3.

Millions of people are buying the Wii and when they do, they're buying "Mario Kart" and "Wii Fit." Which makes sense, since those are well branded games that almost anybody can play (if that word even applies to "Wii Fit") and they're also endlessly replayable, which is probably why there's not a healthy used market for them (used copies on Amazon.com, in fact, are all well over the standard prices). It doesn't even seem to matter that "Wii Fit" costs $90, way more than your typical videogame.

The core gamer audience is still eager for the right titles, of course, as the huge launch for "Gears of War 2" shows. But what any media company, be it a film studio or videogame publisher, wants is legs. A big launch takes a big marketing budget, but when a game is still performing six months after debut, it's mostly selling itself.