Wii Party was released on October 3, 2010, in North America; with a MSRP of $49.99. Wii Party was developed by Nd Cube and Nintendo EAD, and published by Nintendo.
The debut game-play hours below are for the United States of America Wii owners, not world-wide. So, from October 3 through November 1, how many hours did Wii owners party with Wii Party? Let's take a look...
Approx. Number of Players Reporting Data:
Wii Party had 5,475 Wii owners reporting their play-time data, for its debut on the Nintendo Channel 30 days after it released.
Average Hours & Total Game-Play Hours Reported:
Wii Party has 54,046 Total Hours reported for its debut, with an average of 9 Hours 53 Minutes per person reporting data.
The debut average play-time "party" session for Wii Party is just over 2 Hours 18 Minutes.
Sale Rank & Advertised Price:
Wii Party's
Amazon.com sale rank is currently #9, and is selling for $46.99. (recorded around 10:45PM on 11-4-10)Review Score Averages:
Wii Party's review score average on GameRankings.com is 73.33%, based on 21 "professional" reviews.
Amazon.com shows Wii Party having a 4 out of 5 Star rating, based on 20 customer reviews.
You can see the customer review score breakdown in the picture below:
Thoughts:
For data comparison, Wii Party took 14 days longer than Kirby's Epic Yarn did, to have data debut on the Nintendo Channel.
I have not played Wii Party, and I don't plan to play Wii Party. Mrs. CoffeewithGames got us started with the Rayman Raving Rabbids party mini-game games, and we own the first three in that series. I personally don't see what Wii Party offers, to justify spending $50 on it at this point.
I have stated before in a discussion of Wii Party on another site, that I feel like Wii Party is a game Nintendo has had sitting around since 2007 or 2008, just waiting to release it with the "Wii" name hoping it would sell tons.
The reason I think Wii Party is an older game that has been sitting around, is because Wii Party doesn't have online functionality of any sort, doesn't use the Wii Balance Board, and most importantly, it doesn't use Wii MotionPlus in any way. It just seems really odd to me, for Nintendo to release Wii Party this far into the Wii's life cycle, and it not use any peripheral that's been out.
The fact that Kirby's Epic Yarn debuted faster than Wii Party, makes me wonder if perhaps Wii owners aren't really into Wii Party...or perhaps it will end up being a huge Christmas gifted game, and the hours will improve slowly but surely.
Questions:
Have any of you played Wii Party? If so, what do you think of it? Is it worth the $50 if you already own other Wii party games?
If anybody is interested in Wii Party, you can see prices for it on Amazon.com linked below:
Good or bad, Nintendo never tells any of their development studios to support any perpherial so the fact Wii Party doesn't isn't a surprise.
ReplyDeleteOnline on Wii Party would be against the point. It's for house parties and some of the games (hot potato) must be played with other people who are phyiscally able to interact with out.
Balance board support could only be used on mini games that were strickly one person at a time and would be annoying to have to drag it out for the rare mini as they are almost or entire all multiplayer minis.
WM+ would either split the minis into two camps (dos and don'ts) or would have to work with both. As it's unrealistic to expect anyone, let alone everyone to have 4 WM+ controllers, so it makes little sense to include anyway.
Wii Party isn't like RRR. It's like a board game with minigames when you land somewhere. It's intended for longer plays (although can be done in short bursts), more people and is a game you'd normally only play when you have casual company over.
The fact that it's at almost 10hrs on avg already and over 4 times played, in my books means people are playing it every time they have an excuse too (whenever company pops over). These results are highly encouraging and bumps it up in my 'to buy' list
@Anonymous from November 5:
ReplyDeleteWhen I said, online, I didn't necessarily mean online multiplayer, but even some form of online leaderboards.
Balance Board support could have been OPTIONAL, not required...Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party did a good job of giving Wii owners the choice to use the Balance Board, but they didn't have to use if they didn't want to.
Same with WM+, optional play, like what New Carnival Games is offering, where it may help improve accuracy in some games, or open up new options in certain games...not necessarily make it required to have it to play the game.
The results are encouraging, but not as high as I was expecting them.
Thanks for taking the time to comment! I really appreciate it!
Yeah, this is another one I'm keeping an eye out on. My family loves these kinds of games (Rabbits, Mario Party, etc) - and the reviews have been pretty good overall so far, but I'm a bit surprised that the tallies haven't been a bit higher myself.
ReplyDeleteWii Party is really good. I love the RRR games too (especially TV Party) but trust me, I highly recommend you get Wii Party if you're into social gaming/party games.
ReplyDelete@Chalgyr:
ReplyDeleteYea, I can see this being a slow burn game though, as the party type games probably aren't played as often as other games...though I played the original Rayman Raving Rabbids a lot by myself, attempting high scores.
@KnucklesSonic8:
We enjoy the social gaming/party games, I just can't justify spending $50 Wii Party for myself.
I don't know why, I'm sure it's fun, but we already own the three Rabbids games, and they have done us extremely well.
Thanks for the feedback! Sorry it took me so long to reply!