Fishing Resort's official Nintendo Channel debut data. Hours spent fishing in a virtual paradise...

Coffee Beans
Do you like fishing, virtually or in real life?

Fishing Resort was released for the Wii in the U.S. on November 22, 2011, with two SKUs available for purchase. There was a standalone software version with a MSRP of $19.99, or Wii owners could also buy the game bundled with a fishing rod accessory for $29.99.

Fishing Resort was developed by PROPE, which is the studio formed by Yuji Naka (previous head of Sonic Team) and who is also said to be "The Creator of Sonic" in a portion of the game's description on Amazon.com. The game was published by XSEED Games for its U.S. release, and received an ESRB rating of "EVERYONE" with no content listed for parents or gamers to be aware of.

The Nintendo Channel description for the game reads, "Fishing Resort is a fishing game that takes place on a large tropical paradise and uses the Wii Remote to mimic the action of casting and the Nunchuk for reeling. This paradise offers lakes, streams, and even ice fishing in addition to the deep and shallow sea fishing with more than 200 varieties of fish available."

About how many U.S. Wii owners have reported fishing in the virtual paradise found in Fishing Resort since it released? Grab your fishing gear, grab your coffee, and let's take a look!

Fishing, more replay value than Sonic?

The Brew
Fishing Resort has approximately 1,659 U.S. Wii owners that have gameplay data reported through the Nintendo Channel. The game just crossed the minimum 50,000 Total Hours that is required before data shows up on the Nintendo Channel, this week with 496 days possibly reported.

The game's average reported play-time "Per person" is 30 Hours 9 Minutes, as the image above shows, which makes Fishing Resort the Wii's most played fishing game "Per person" in the U.S., at least according to this data. When U.S. Wii owners play Fishing Resort, they are fishing in its virtual paradise for about 2 Hours 35 Minutes each time (or day) reported.

First, you're probably thinking, "Coffee, what other Wii fishing games did you compare the hours 'Per person' with?"

Glad you asked! Here are the other Wii fishing games I compared the data with: Bass Pro Shops' The Strike, Big Bass Arcade, Cocoto Fishing Master, Fish'em All, Fishing Master, FISHING MASTER WORLD TOUR, Rapala Fishing Frenzy, Rapala We Fish, Reel Fishing Challenge, Reel Fishing Challenge II, and Reel Fishing Ocean Challenge. While there are perhaps other Wii games with a fishing element, these were the Wii games where fishing was the main aspect from my research.

Calm enough waters to be enjoying a cup of coffee in the boat!

As for the statement in parenthesis in the data image, "Also, played more 'Per person' than any Sonic Wii game!?", here are the Sonic games I compared the hours "Per person" with: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic and the Black Knight, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic Colors, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, Sonic Spinball, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I, SONIC UNLEASHED, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing. If you think there is another Sonic Wii game to compare hours with that might have been missed, please leave a comment below!

Now, you may be wondering how Fishing Resort was received by critics and customers? Well, the game has a "professional" review score average of 72.50%, based on 10 reviews on GameRankings.com. Like many other Wii titles I have done data reports on though, the game has a higher customer review score average of 91.34%, between both versions, based on 97 customer reviews from Amazon.com.

Caffeinated Thoughts
While I have not played Fishing Resort, or any of the other Wii fishing games I listed above, I do think it looks/sounds like it could be fun (and I think the data confirms that). If you haven't seen what Fishing Resort is like, here are two videos that will hopefully give you an idea:

Last year, I received an email that asked me to do a data report on Fishing Resort. The email was from gamerace, who is associated with WiiWareWave, and he mentioned how the forum activity on WiiWareWave for Fishing Resort was pretty active, with some users "playing it into the hundreds of hours". The Fishing Resort forum thread is still active, with the most recent post being just 2 days ago, on April 3rd. I responded to his email that while I was tracking the game then, it didn't have any data showing up. I said, "these type of games can take a while to show up (if at all) due to lack of advertising and name recognition".

Apparently though, the lack of advertising and name recognition for Fishing Resort has not prevented the game from being enjoyed by those that have played it!

So, what does having a higher reported average "Per person" than the other games I listed above likely mean? Well, if you owned all of the games listed, it's likely that you would get the most hours of gameplay out of Fishing Resort. In short, you could probably expect the best replay value from Fishing Resort, out of all the Wii games listed above.

I'm glad to see another XSEED published Wii game have gameplay data show up, and hopefully they will also have success with Pandora's Tower, which is releasing later this month, in the gameplay hours and sales departments!

Questions
Have any of you played Fishing Resort, and if so, what'd you think about the game? Is it a game you would recommend to Wii owners, or even Wii U owners, that are perhaps looking for a good fishing game? If you haven't played Fishing Resort, is there perhaps another Wii fishing game that you have played and enjoyed that you would recommend?

Also, are any of you surprised that a Wii fishing game, not released even 2 years ago, has more hours averaged "Per person" than all the Sonic games on the Wii?


You can purchase either version of Fishing Resort from Amazon.com, which are linked below, but watch the prices! You can also find some XSEED published games in the publisher's store, HERE.