How Many Hours Have Wii Owners Exercised Using the EA Sports Active Games?

Coffee Beans:
     EA Sports Active was released on May 19, 2009; and an expansion of sorts, EA Sports Active: More Workouts, was released on November 17, 2009.  Just yesterday, November 16, 2010, Electronic Arts released a full sequel to the original, EA Sports Active 2.

     EA Sports Active has had 546 days of game-play data reported, while EA Sports Active: More Workouts has had 364 days of game-play data reported, through the Wii's Nintendo Channel.
     How many hours have American Wii owners exercised using the EA Sporst Active games?  Let's take a look...

Approx. Number of Players Reporting Data:
     EA Sports Active has 114,450 players reporting their game-play hours, through the Wii's Nintendo Channel.
     EA Sports Active: More Workouts has 9,971 Wii owners reporting their game-play data.

Average Hours & Total Game-Play Hours Reported:
     EA Sports Active has 979,179 Total Hours of game-play reported, and the average play session for EA Sports Active is just over 55 Minutes.
     EA Sports Active: More Workouts has 117,864 Total Hours of game-play reported, and the average play session for EA Sports Active: More Workouts is just over 53 Minutes.

Sale Rank & Advertised Price:
     EA Sports Active's Amazon.com sale rank is #614, and it's currently selling for $44.99.
     EA Sports Active: More Workouts' Amazon.com sale rank is #584, and it's currently selling for $19.96.

     For comparision, EA Sports Active 2's Amazon.com sale rank is #149, and is selling for $99.95.

Review Score Averages:
     EA Sports Active's GameRankings.com review score average is 81.85%, based on 20 reviews.
     EA Sports Active: More Workouts' GameRankings.com review score average is 81.07%, based on 15 reviews.

Thoughts:
     The EA Sports Active games were Electronic Arts' effort to tap into the gold rush of fitness games, created by Nintendo's Wii Fit.
     EA's effort worked extremely well, as the original EA Sports Active has sold more than three million copies since it released, and the expansion More Workouts saw sales success as well.
     The total game-play hours for both games are 1,097,043 hours, that is a little more than 125 years of active game-play!
     I have not played any of the EA Sports Active games, but I think it will be interesting to see EA can get a significant portion of the original EA Sports Active owners, to purchase EA Sports Active 2.  As I stated in the "Coffee Beans" section, EA Sports Active 2 was just released, but its MSRP is significantly higher than the original's was when it released.  EA Sports Active 2 has a MSRP of $99.99, and while it does come with more features and technology, like a heart rate monitor, I wonder if the the price point will be more than what people are willing to spend?

Questions:
     Did you play EA Sports Active, or the expansion More Workouts?  If so, did the games help you become more active overall, and perhaps lose weight if that was your goal?
     If you didn't purchase the original EA Sporst Active, are you interested in EA Sports Active 2?

     While I do need to get on a regular exercise routine, I don't think I would purchase another video game to attempt to fulfill that need.

If anybody is interested in any of the EA Sports Active games, you can see them priced on Amazon.com linked below:
  

The Wii's Nintendo Channel Data: EA Sports Active, Punch-Out!!, The Conduit, Wii Sports Resort

Wii Nintendo Channel Data for Week Starting Monday, November 30:

Nintendo Channel Data Breakdown

Player Numbers:

43,403 players reported data for EA Sports Active on the Nintendo Channel this week, an increase of 1,122 players reporting data.

68,820 players reported data for Punch-Out!!, an increase of 1,731 players.

42,436 players reported data for The Conduit, an increase 1,223 players.

151,348 players reported data for Wii Sports Resort, an increase of 7,658 players.

Sales Rank:

EA Sports Active was the only game of the four this week, to see it's Amazon.com sales rank decrease.

Last week, EA Sports Active was ranked #6 in video games, and when I captured the data this week it was ranked #50.

The Conduit increased to #586, from #645 last week, on Amazon.com's video game sales rank.

Punch-Out!! increased from #219 last week, to #187 this week.

Wii Sports Resort increased on Amazon.com's sales rank from #9 last week, to #4 this week.

Thoughts:

Wii Sports Resort, as well as other Nintendo titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board are continuously ranking in the Top 10 on Amazon.com's overall video game sales rank page. Take a look at Amazon.com's Top 10 sales in the video game category, at the time of posting this:

 

(click photo to enlarge)

Something New:

This should be the last week for these games to be compared directly, I'm doing a "reorganization" of sorts and it should start fresh next week!  Until then, are there any games you've picked up recently on the Wii(or other consoles) that you've been enjoying and putting many game-play hours into?  Are you playing any of the four games compared in this article?  If so, leave a comment and let me know what you think of them!

Wii's Nintendo Channel Game Data: EA Sports Active, Punch-Out!!, The Conduit, Wii Sports Resort

Wii's Nintendo Channel Game Data for EA Sports Active, Punch-Out!!, The Conduit,Wii Sports Resort:

Nintendo Channel Updated on Monday, November 23, 2009 

(Click photo to enlarge)

Numbers:

EA Sports Active had 42,281 players report data on the Nintendo Channel, an increase of 918 players from the previous week.

Punch-Out!! had 67,089 players report data on the Nintendo Channel this week, an increase of 1,493 players from last week.

The Conduit had 41,213 players report data on the Nintendo Channel this week, an increase of 938 players from last week.

Wii Sports Resort had 143,690 players report data on the Nintendo Channel this week, an increase of 6,346 players from last week.

As the picture shows, Wii Sports Resort crossed 2.5 million total game-play hours reported on the Nintendo Channel and The Conduit crossed 900,000 total game-play hours reported on the Nintendo Channel.

Thoughts:

I was surprised that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare [Reflex] that was released on November 10, didn't debut this week on the Nintendo Channel.  The Conduit and Wii Sports Resort both had data show up on the Nintendo Channel within about two weeks of their releases, but so far, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare [Reflex] is a no show.

Also, New Super Mario Bros. Wii debuted this week with data on the Nintendo Channel, and it looks like it'll move up quickly, but I don't think it'll be a long burner with data, due to the short length of the game.

Questions:

Is anybody still playing Wii Sports Resort that bought it on release day?  If anybody that has played or is still playing The Conduit, do you think it will cross 1 million total game-play hours before the end of the year?

Wii Nintendo Channel Game Data: EA Sports Active, Punch-Out!!, The Conduit, Wii Sports Resort

Nintendo Channel Game Data for Week Starting November 15, 2009:

Numbers:

EA Sports Active had 41,363 players reporting data, an increase this week of 894 players reporting data.

Punch-Out!! had 65,596 players reporting data, an increase this week of 1,490 players reporting data.

The Conduit had 40,275 players reporting data, an increase this week of 992 players reporting data.

Wii Sports Resort had 137,344 players reporting data, an increase this week of 6,277 players reporting data.

Thoughts:

I think The Conduit is going to see a pretty significant decrease in the average number of hours reported each week, now with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare [Reflex] being released.  I'll keep an eye on both, and see if it looks like The Conduit has been affected by Call of Duty's release.

EA Sports Active will be interesting to watch, because of the release of EA Sports Active: More Workouts this week.

Wii Sports Resort and Punch-Out!! both seem to be in their own little world, increasing steadily each week and have more of an increase in players reporting data each week.

Questions:

Did you buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare [Reflex], or do you own The Conduit and are sticking with it instead?

For anybody that has played EA Sports Active, do you want to purchase EA Sports Active: More Workouts and do you think the price of $39.99 is good for the sequel?

Wii Nintendo Channel Data: EA Sports Active, Punch-Out!!, The Conduit, and Wii Sports Resort

Nintendo Channel Data for the Week Starting November 8, 2009:

Numbers:

EA Sports Active had 40,469 players reporting data.

Punch-Out!! had 64,106 players reporting data.

The Conduit had 39,283 players reporting data.

Wii Sports Resort had 131,067 players reporting data.

Thoughts:

The Conduit saw a significant price drop in the past week.  The Conduit had a MSRP of $49.99.  Amazon.com, GameStop.com and BestBuy.com all dropped the game last week to a MSRP of $29.99 last week.  Amazon.com put The Conduit on sale this afternoon for $18, and it's sale's rank jumped all the way to #76 at the time I'm writing this.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare[Reflex] was released yesterday, and I think it's in direct competition with The Conduit, and I'll be watching to see when it debuts, and how quickly it moves up in hours.

EA Sports Active has a direct sequel coming out next week, EA Sports Active: More Workouts and I'll also be watching to see when it debuts.

Question:

If you haven't bought The Conduit before now, will you buy it at the new MSRP of $29.99?

I bought The Conduit in June, on it's release day, and it has became my 4th most played Wii game.  If you haven't played The Conduit and are interested in it, the multi-player is definitely a buggy/glitchy game, but can be fun if you have patience with it.  The single player campaign was good fun and provided many hours of game play, so if you've been holding out on purchasing it, now is probably the right time.

Wii Nintendo Channel Game Data: Casual vs. Core vs. Casual/Core

Nintendo Channel Data

Casual vs. Core vs. Casual/Core for the week starting November 1:

(click photo to enlarge)

According To The Numbers:

EA Sports Active has 39,546 players reporting data.

Punch-Out!! has 62,640 players reporting data.

The Conduit has 38,380 players reporting data.

Wii Sports Resort has 125,186 players reporting data.

A Thought:

The Conduit has the fewest players reporting data, and is behind in sales rank on Amazon.com, but The Conduit shows that the number of games sold, doesn't equal number of hours played.  Punch-Out!! and EA Sports Active are outselling The Conduit on Amazon.com on a regular basis, but The Conduit is being played more, even with fewer gamers reporting data...at least according to the Nintendo Channel numbers.

Do you think Punch-Out!! or EA Sports Active will catch The Conduit in game play hours, once another online multi-player FPS, such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare [Reflex Edition] is released?  Or do you think The Conduit will continue to get game play hours like it has been and won't be affected by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare [Reflex Edition]?

Interesting fact:

It was reported on November 2, that Wii Sports Resort has crossed 7 million units sold world-wide, since its release.

The Nintendo Channel Update, Finally Updates!

Six weeks ago Nintendo released the Nintendo Channel update, and for 6 weeks, the game play data wasn't updated.  The great news is that the game play data has been updated and hopefully that will continue on a weekly basis.  Because there was a six week gap with no reporting, some assumptions will be taken.

The Casual/Core games that were being tracked are back and updated, but now also with Amazon.com's sales rank to go along with it:

Compared to the hours from 6 weeks ago:

Number of hours increased from September 14 through October 26:
EA Sports Active increased of 64,739 hours during the past 6 weeks.
Punch-Out!! increased 120,904 hours during the past 6 weeks.
The Conduit increased 211,123 hours during the past 6 weeks.
Wii Sports Resort increased 917,043 hours during the past 6 weeks.

Being that the data wasn't reported for 6 weeks, I've just done a simple average of increases per week for the games shown:
EA Sports Active had an average increase of 10,790 hours per week.
Punch-Out!! had an average increase of 20,151 hours per week.
The Conduit had an average increase of 35,187 hours per week.
Wii Sports Resort had an average increase of 152,841 hours per week.

Things of interest:
The Conduit is still second in game play hours reported, but as shown on Amazon.com's sales rank, The Conduit is in last place in sales.
Wii Sports Resort crossed the 2 million hours played mark and is still selling extremely well on Amazon.com.
I think EA Sports Active is a great example of a game marketed almost entirely toward the new "casual" market on the Wii.  EA Sports Active has sold more than The Conduit and Punch-Out!!, from the numbers available, and the sales rank on Amazon.com reflects that, but still EA Sports Active has the fewest number of game play hours reported, I think reflecting the "casual" user base that is buying the game.

Are you still contributing any of the hours of game play associated with these games?

Wii Casual vs. Core vs. CasualCore: Nintendo Channel Data for Week Beginning Sept. 13

Another week has passed and this week Wii Sports Resort has crossed one million total hours reported playing since it's July 26th release!
I'm keeping the data reported more simple and streamlined this week.

Wii Sports Resort increased by 14%, or 153,928 hours, in total play time hours.
The Conduit increased by 5%, or 31,252 hours, in total play time hours.
EA Sports Active increased 5%, or 10,102 hours, in total play time hours.
Punch-Out!! increased the least percentage in play time hours, increasing only 4%, or 19,652 hours, in total play time hours.
(All percentages rounded to the nearest whole number.)

Are you playing Wii Sports Resort still or have you moved onto other games?

Wii Casual vs. Core vs. CasualCore: Nintendo Channel Data for Week Beginning Sept. 6

Wii Sports Resort Approaching One Million!

Another week has passed, and more hours have been logged into games by the casual and core gaming crowd.

Last week we looked at EA Sports Active, Punch-Out!!, The Conduit, and Wii Sports Resort, and we will continue this week with the same games.

EA Sports Active remains the lowest of the games in total play times reported, while Wii Sports Resort continues it's climb up with total play time approaching one million hours!

Punch-Out!! and The Conduit are still in the middle.

Here are the numbers and the data breakdown.

I'll start with the game that has the most "Total:" hours reported playing, it was last week and again this week, Wii Sports Resort.

Wii Sports Resort: 

973,588 TOTAL HOURS reported playing. 

439,794 total play time sessions recorded.  

Wii Sports Resort saw the number of people game play data was received from increase from 54,942 last week, to 67,453 this week.  A difference of 12,511, nearly a 23% increase from last weeks number of users data was received from.

The Conduit:  

556,338 TOTAL HOURS play time.  

255,199 play time sessions recorded.

The Conduit saw the number of people game play data was received increase from 26,693 last week, to 28,546 this week.  A difference of 1,853, an increase of just over 6% in users game play data received.

Punch-Out!!: 

460,894 TOTAL HOURS play time.

289,334 play time sessions recorded.

Punch-Out!! saw the number of people game play data was received increase from 46,134 last week, to 48,792 this week.  A difference of 2,658, an increase of just over 5% of users data received.

Last but not least(definitely not least in sales),

EA Sports Active: 

206,148 TOTAL HOURS play time.

210,124 play time sessions recorded.

EA Sports Active saw the number of people game play data was received increase from 29,015 last week, to 30,855 this week.  From the numbers, 1,840 more users submitted data this week, an increase of almost 6% of users submitting data for EA Sports Active.

EA Sports Active, Punch-Out!!, and The Conduit all saw total play time increase, between 5-7.5%.

Wii Sports Resort saw total play time increase 202,759 hours, nearly a 21% increase in total play time!

Wii Casual vs. Core vs. CasualCore: Nintendo Channel Data for Week Beginning Aug. 30

SUGGESTION: Drinking a cup of coffee before, during, and after reading this article may help with understanding it...maybe not.

Over the last several weeks, I've been collecting the play time data on certain games off of the Nintendo Channel.

I've been following games I consider to be targeted toward the 'casual' and 'core' gaming audiences.

On the picture, EA Sports Active is the first one shown, which I place in the 'casual' category as I think the game is geared toward the new casual gamers. While looking at the data, remember that Electronic Art's has reported that EA Sports Active has sold more 1.8 million copies.

The next two games I've collected data on, are Punch-Out!!, developed by Next Level Games and published by Nintendo, and The Conduit, developed by High Voltage Software and published by Sega. I consider both of these games to be more 'core' oriented and focused, especially The Conduit being that it is a FPS.

I was having a bit of trouble finding the Punch-Out!! sales number, if anybody can provide a link, that would be greatly appreciated.

As of now, I'll assume that VGChartz.com is close to the right numbers for Punch-Out!!'s sales. Punch-Out!! is listed as selling 420,000 units in North America.

The Conduit is reported to have sold/shipped around 150,000 units since it's release.

Another game I've been collecting data on is Wii Sports Resort. I consider Wii Sports Resort a 'casual/core' game, that can appeal to the casual Wii owners, as well as the core Wii owners. Wii Sports Resort has been out for only a short time in North America, but has already sold more than one million units.

Now for the play time data:

Based on the numbers shown and units reported sold, EA Sporst Active has the least amount of play time, which I would suspect from a casual title, but it also currently has the most in sales out of the four games.

I find really it interesting how The Conduit has the least amount of sales, but it has the second highest amount of play time.

Wii Sports Resort has only been out only since July 26th and it currently ranks second in sales reported of these games, but it currently has the most play time out of these games.

If you're wondering how these numbers are collected by Nintendo, I did contact Nintendo and asked them that question myself.

The response I received was, "The data for the Nintendo Channel is collected from players in North, Central, and South America. Basically, if you look at the list of countries in the Country settings in the Wii Menu, those countries are the ones who would be participating. The totals from each player are reported when they access the Nintendo Channel if they've opted in to sharing their information). Note that if a player doesn't connect online or never opens the Nintendo Channel, their playing stats are never uploaded to us. - Nintendo customer service rep"

Based on the response and some quick math, we can see approximately how many users of these games have reported the data, and the approximate percentage reporting from the overall sales:

EA Sports Active 195,271 ÷ 6.73 = 29,015*

29,015 is the number of people that have bought EA Sports Active and actually signed into the Nintendo Channel and allowed Nintendo to collect their play time data from games.

Assuming the 1.8 million units sold is correct, less than 2% of owners of EA Sports Active are reporting their play time data.

Punch-Out!! 272,649 ÷ 5.91 = 46,134*

Based on the VGChartz.com's sales numbers, Punch-Out!! has sold approximately 420,000 units in North America. Based on that, it seems that between 10-11% of Punch-Out!! owners are signed up and are having their play time data collected.

The Conduit 234,100 ÷ 8.77 = 26,693*

Based on VGChartz.com's sales number for The Conduit in North America being at 170,000 units sold, between 15-16% of The Conduit owners are having their play time data collected.

Wii Sports Resort 340,088 ÷ 6.19 = 54,942*

Based on Nintendo's PR email about the sales of Wii Sports Resort, I'm assuming the game has sold close to 1,075,000 units in North America, so between 5-6% of Wii Sports Resort owners have their play time data collected.

Based off these numbers, it would seem that certain games like EA Sports Active are bought by the now famous 'casual' gamers of this generation, while games like a first-person shooter, The Conduit, are still being bought by 'core' gamers.

Nintendo of Japan has announced a new program they will be starting in October to encourage more Wii owners to get online. I'm glad to see Nintendo of Japan taking some steps to encourage Wii owners to use their systems for online purposes.

*rounded to the nearest whole number