14 DAY TRIAL // Last week we saw the NPD Group, which specializes in market research, release their monthly charts showcasing the sales of gaming hardware and software in the United States of America. The results were, as always, pretty much the same as any other month, with Nintendo's Wii and related games dominating their opponents.
But, alongside the charts, the analysts at NPD also mentioned an extremely interesting fact, as Nintendo's Wii Fit title, which is a fitness game designed to be used with a new peripheral for the Wii, has managed to reach the 6 million unit mark, thus overtaking one of the greatest and most popular games ever released on the Xbox 360, Halo 3.
That's right, you read it right, Halo 3, a shooter that has broken records and is still being played at a high rate on the Xbox Live multiplayer service, has been beaten by Wii Fit, a game largely aimed at casual players, who use it in their free time to get into better shape.
Let's not forget that Wii Fit has been available since May 21, 2008, while Bungie's shooter title was released on September 25 in 2007. In all this time, the Xbox 360 exclusive managed to move “only” 5.9 million units, and has now been overtaken by the sports title.
With casual gamers slowly becoming more important for developers and publishers, and with such sales results, it is getting increasingly more likely that hardcore titles will become somewhat of a niche market for companies, which will only focus on titles that everybody can enjoy. Big corporations such as Electronic Arts or Activision have both said that the Wii is a platform they cannot afford to forget, and that more games will be made for it. Hopefully hardcore users will still have their gaming needs met in the future.