Role-Playing Potential On Wii

Stephen Totilo over at MTV has been tracking the usage stats of Wii games religiously for the past few months now. Using data he extracts from the Wii Usage stats obtained from Nintendo’s online service, Stephen has been piecing together just what games Wii owners spend time with (those of them that allow for their stats to be recorded anyway), and what games they enjoy.

This month, he discovered something very interesting. Something that a lot of us Wii owners have known for a while, but apparently, developers had no clue: Wii owners seem to love role-playing games. Says Stephen:

Among the standout trends in the Nintendo Wii usage stats I’ve been tracking here each month has been the dedication that role-playing game fans show to the RPGs on the system. Take the November-released “Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World,” which has garnered an average playing time of more than 31 hours per player among the users of Wii’s Nintendo Channel. “Tales” isn’t alone. “Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn,” released in November of 2007, has an average playing time of over 44 hours. (Maybe it’s a “Dawn” thing?)

 

He goes on:

Few people consider the Wii to be an RPG system. Maybe sales figures bear that out. Nevertheless, the feverishness with which Wii owners play the RPGs that they do get suggests that there’s an appetite there hungry for more.

 

Of course, we’re going to be seeing quite a few RPGs on Wii in the near future. Crystal Bearers, Monster Hunter Tri and Arc Rise Fantasia are a few off the top of my head, but there are more coming. If you look at Stephen’s stat analysis for March (linked to above), you’ll see good playtimes for Okami and Call of Duty as well. Developers might want to keep an eye on his column if they aren’t already. Nintendo’s stat-tracking service is genuinely useful for developers planning their next project.

This post is secretly a hint to Namco that they need to localize Fragile, stat. No, we don’t want an English dub.