Anybody remember Electroplankton? The DS title released in very limited quantities through the Nintendo Store a few years ago and made up a notable part of Nintendo's E3 2005 press conference. We remember being amused as GameDaily's Chris Buffa put together an entertaining mix using the voice recording "Volvoice" mode involving language that cannot be invoked here.
We mention Electroplankton because some of its elements feel similar to Wii Music. The game encourages a great deal of creativity without a ton of structure. While this freeform structure was all fine and dandy for a small release, could it really lead the way for the Wii during the holiday rush? We examine Wii Music's sales during the past few months.
Wii Music should be going platinum soon
According to the NPD, Wii Music was the sixth best selling Wii game of December, only a slight drop off from the fifth spot it occupied on the Wii charts during the two previous months. The title was the tenth overall best selling game in November and eleventh overall for December. Over the past three months Wii Music has sold over 865,000 units in total.
Since the game was much hyped by Nintendo as one of their biggest new releases for 2008, when it did not make the NPD top 20 its first month, many declared it a flop from the start. That was a premature reaction, however, given the fact that the holiday buying season had only just begun. Indeed, Nintendo's executive vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway was unflinching in her optimistic long term appraisal of the game.
"We're predicting that it's going to be an evergreen title. And if you look at titles like Brain Age, it's about the same as what Brain Age did during it's first few weeks and went on to sell 2.5 million copies," said Dunaway to MTV's Multiplayer. "Wii Fit certainly had a larger launch than that. But I think that people are starting to understand Wii Music."
Wii Music's placement on the charts hasn't changed much month over month, but that actually doesn't tell the full story when it comes to sales performance. In its first month, the game sold just 81,000 copies, in its second month, it sold 297,000 copies and finally in December sales jumped up to 487,000 copies. It's quite clear that sales for the game have been accelerating, along with sales of the Wii console itself during the past holiday season. Positive buzz for Wii Music has been spreading it seems.
Although Wii Music's numbers are solid, they're far less impressive when compared to other Nintendo Wii titles. During that same three-month period, Mario Kart Wii sold 1.906 million copies, Wii Fit sold 2.183 million copies, and Wii Play sold a whopping 2.538 million copies, with total calendar year sales of 5 million, 4.53 million and 5.28 million respectively. Still, with hundreds of thousands in additional international sales, Nintendo has no doubt already made a lot of money on Wii Music. While it's impossible to tell right now if the game will be a hit on the scale of something like Wii Fit or Wii Play, it seems that the game's success so far is comparable to an Eastwood movie – it eventually found its audience.
I give myself a perfect score on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!
Music games have been around in some form or another for many years, having really taken off as a genre in the U.S. with the Guitar Hero series. Like most video games, these titles have particular goals and difficultly settings, and doing better is entirely a matter of skill. Wii Music, on the other hand, is significantly different from any of these titles: it is truly its own beast, for better or worse.
The game certainly sets a new record for number of "playable instruments," ranging from the conventional (like violin, clarinet, or guitar) to the unconventional (beat boxing, hand clapping and dog sounds). Since Wii Music does not ship with the most complicated controller in history, you're left to "play" these instruments by waving the Wii Remote and Nunchuk around in time with the music, pressing buttons if necessary. You can save videos of your performance, unlock new instruments and grade yourself (!) on how you've done.
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