The Other Half Dozen

Last week's column took a look over six of the key titles which will be pulling in the core gaming audience through the vital months of the Christmas season. As promised, this week I'll be examining the second half of our Christmas dozen - with the focus firmly on games which will appeal to a wider, and arguably more mass-market, audience.

The last two years have seen more focus than ever before on the idea of mass-market gaming - with captains of industry seemingly waking up en masse to the idea that you can build turnover by broadening your target demographic, rather than trying to sell more games, more expensively, to the same basic group of people.

However, it would be disingenuous to suggest that this approach is actually new - because while casual gaming may now be an all-year-round market, it has always had a firm stronghold in the months of Christmas. For many, this is the only time of the year when the whole family is gathered around one television - and there comes a time when even Granny can't stomach any more repeats of It's A Wonderful Life.

Games firms have been quick to capitalise on the family-oriented nature of the Christmas holiday, and there have been a string of hits over the years based on family game-shows as a result, perhaps the most successful being the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire games and the more recent Buzz series.

However, family entertainment goes beyond the boundaries of quiz shows and Wii Sports. There's a strong argument for including titles with large female appeal, such as Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy and even Mario, in this category - they may not exactly be post-Christmas dinner fare, but their broad appeal and acceptability to parents, girlfriends and so on makes them into big sellers in this market.

Unlike almost every title on the first list of six, our "broad appeal" list is filled with platform exclusives (with just one notable exception). That's interesting, because it neatly highlights the fact that both Nintendo and Sony have their eyes on this mass-market sector, while Microsoft is still struggling to break out of the "cars and guns" demographic it has so neatly captured in the past two years.

The Wii is the obvious winner in this sector. It's got a seriously big installed base already, and more acceptance in the mass market than its biggest rival, the Xbox 360. Despite rumblings of discontent from some people about the console's tie ratio, it also has a library of casual gamer software which is hugely impressive for a console only 12 months into its life - and is gradually building up hardcore titles that make its low cost of entry irresistible to more hardcore gamers.

This Christmas, of course, the big focus is Super Mario Galaxy - and rightly so. The critically acclaimed return of Nintendo's favourite son is not only a wonderfully balanced and nuanced game, it's also absolutely perfect for a target market that encompasses both young and old - and both hardcore and casual. The addition of functionality for a second player - turning casual observers into active participants - is a stroke of genius, and one which will make Mario Galaxy into an entertainment staple in many households this holiday season.

Outside of that single, top-rank title, the Wii's line-up is worthy if unremarkable - but a couple of stand-outs look likely to be strong, steady sellers in the coming weeks (and indeed months). Sega's Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is a pick I make with some reservations, but the sales potential of these two character franchises can't be understated - and the appeal to the Wii's target demographic is absolutely spot on. It's the kind of title which burns slowly but brightly at retail, and it will still be selling solidly as a discounted product when the Beijing Olympics roll around.

The other Wii stand-out on the list is Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, which joins the list on the strength of a few factors. Firstly, Resident Evil has joined several other PlayStation-era franchises in becoming a genuine cultural phenomenon - a kitschy, ironic, B-movie phenomenon, but a phenomenon nonetheless, as the release of a trilogy of movies based on the series proves. Umbrella Chronicles, meanwhile, taps into a genre which has been a Christmas staple for years - on-rails light-gun shooters. These games define accessibility; everyone can grasp the essentials of pointing and pulling the trigger, and titles like House of the Dead and Time Crisis have done well at Christmases past for exactly that reason. There's a strong chance that Umbrella Chronicles will do likewise.

Looking past the Wii, our next stop has to be the PlayStation 3 - a console whose status in the past year has been described as embattled, but whose line-up for Christmas 2007 does a great deal to endear it to family buyers. The key title here, of course, is Singstar. Sony's karaoke franchise has been a backbone of strong ongoing sales of the PS2, and its PS3 iteration - embracing the concepts of social networking as well as the idea of a vast online music store rather than regular song-disc updates - is the most appealing yet. Singstar is going to sell PS3 hardware, of that I'm certain; people will go home from karaoke-fuelled Christmas parties and pop into town for a console the following day, just as happened with the PS2's social gaming line-up.

Less socially fuelled, perhaps, but equally important to Sony's ambitions, is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It may seem unusual to include this game on the list of casual titles rather than the hardcore list, but the mass market appeal of the product can't be understated. Just as Indiana Jones films have been a Christmas television staple for years, so too have Lara Croft's adventures taken up residence as a genuine family favourite. Uncharted is, without a doubt, this year's major venture into this genre; it's a gorgeous, cinematic adventure, and while its appeal to a family (and, crucially, female) audience may be non-intuitive to some, there's no question in my mind that it'll be running on a lot of consoles come Boxing Day.

Finally, this list wouldn't be complete without one major cross-platform titles - and that's provided for in the form of Guitar Hero III, a product which may well surpass the success of its predecessors as we roll towards Christmas. Demo pods on major retailers across London last weekend attracted large crowds of spectators, which is always a fantastic sign of sales to come - and with EA's Rock Band delayed to next year in Europe, Guitar Hero III stands almost alone in this particular, Christmas-friendly market segment. Franchise veterans may be feeling the fatigue a little, but there's still a huge market out there which hasn't had enough Guitar Hero - and they'll be getting their dose in the coming weeks.

While the twelve titles I've profiled this week and last are likely to be the winners of Christmas, there will, of course, be losers as well - and as the competition heats up ever more fiercely for December consumer spend, those losers are likely to be losing out worse than ever. The annual balancing act may be improving - but you can still expect to see steep discounts on some titles in early January. The developers and publishers of top titles, however, will be laughing all the way to the bank - because all the signs suggest that this should be the single biggest quarter for software sales in the history of the industry. The winners stand to win very, very big indeed.