BA8 CS Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Wii_video_games

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-11-20-wii-u-launch-reactions-mixed-software-on-sale

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/06/12/nintendos-e3-2013-tearing-up-the-rulebook

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS_sales

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_sales

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2014/01/29/wii-u-sales-suffer-as-ps4-xbox-one-dominate/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/17/nintendo-wii-u-failure-sales-flop_n_4618218.html

http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/29/5356812/nintendo-boss-satoru-iwata-will-cut-pay-in-half-after-poor-fiscal

http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/29/5356772/nintendo-falls-short-of-hardware-and-software-sales-forecasts

http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/111028qa/02.html

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-01-nintendo-wii-wasnt-intended-as-a-casual-console

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/346121/nintendo-plans-to-attract-core-gamers-before-casual-with-wii-u/

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/31/wii-u-mobile-nintendo-video-game

 http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/100929qa/03.html#notesLink

"Another idea is for us to further intensify our collaborations with the software developers and the third-party publishers. When we launched the Nintendo DS and the Wii, Nintendo made some very unique proposals which were not in alliance with the mainstream concepts held in the video game industry at that time. As a result, there was no choice but for us to invigorate these platforms through Nintendo’s own efforts so that they could be up and running. And, the initial purchasers of the products were mainly Nintendo fans. Particularly in Japan, for the Wii, we struggled to create the circumstance early on where third-party Wii titles sold in huge volumes. Because we could not show a good sales record for third-party Wii titles, third-party developers did not sustain their passion to create software for the Wii. In the overseas markets, there have been a number of third-party hit titles on the Wii. However, there was also a challenge that the Wii was not fully capable of catering to the needs of, for example, first person shooter games, the users of which prefer platforms compatible with HD TVs. For these challenges, we will be able to improve the situation with the Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS."

wRPG weapons.

wRPG weapons tend to toe the line of the conventional; guns, swords, boards, axes and all the rest. Decorations for these do tend to be fairly varied. Many are based off of real life weaponry.

Borderlands

Hair!

jRPGs are pretty interesting for hair choices and favour very distinct looks. Final Fantasy games are notable in particular for lovingly rendered, unrealistic hairstyles. One of the most famous and cited characters for a gravity defying, unnatural hairstyle is Cloud Strife from FFVII.

While a lot of hairstyles are based on something 'realistic', they're often exaggerated and manipulated into something unique and eyecatching. The Tales of series follows this sort of trend, but their method for portraying hair is much more simplified. Hair is drawn in clumps, rather than individual strands.

This simplified/clump drawn hairstyle rendering is very common in all forms of media, and Japanese video games are no exception.

Colours are also fairly non standard. Like clothing, these hairstyles seem to have taken some kind of inspiration from Japanese popular culture. Outside of manga and anime, fashion once again provides a point of reference. Visual kei, a movement started in the 80s, emphasizes elaborate hair styles, flamboyant costumes and androgenous looks.

Like Japanese street fashion and 'medieval fantasy' armour, visual kei and games seem to influence each other in turn, with games taking inspiration from the visual kei look which then seems to find ideas and inspiration in games in turn. Thus, it's quite difficult to tell which medium did what first.

wRPGs, like jRPGs, take inspiration from popular culture and conventional Western hairstyles. In some games, character hairstyles are just designed on their facial models.

In situations where hair isn't realistically rendered, games seem to take a cue from comic art.

Observations on shared clothing influences.

In regards to faces and character appearance, many modern Western RPGs are shooting to be as realitic as possible. While many jRPGs seem to take inspiration from anime and manga for character features, art style and traits, wRPGs allow character customization while shooting for facial features and proportions close to real life. wRPGs focus on setting, which are inspired by a number of things. Medieval Fantasy is a good standby for RPGs, and the Fallout series focuses a lot on post-apocalyptic scenarios.

Clothing in any RPG (Japanese & Western) set in a certain time period draws a lot of inspiration from European Medieval dress -- particularly Anglo-Saxon period stuff. Tunics and big leather boots are popular. Most time periods are included in some shape and form, be it in their colours, cloth cut or general look and feel.

Tunics are actually based on Roman and Greek wear, and remained popular through the middle ages. In video games, many different characters wear some kind of tunic. Most famously, perhaps, is Link from the Legend of Zelda franchise. Whether or not LoZ is an RPG series seems to depend on who you ask, but I've included it all the same.

Dragon Quest

Legend of Zelda

LoZ - Young Link

When it comes to armor and clothing from different time periods, there's a lot of crossover between the two sub genres of RPG. This is especially apparent in recent games like Dark Souls, which marries a Western player character and environment aesthetic with Japanese monster designs and game difficulty. This combination, which was done extremely well, won it several awards and unanimous praise.

Armor is generally dark, heavy, and in muted colours. The designs feel like a combination of Western plate amour and Japanese laminar/lamellar armour. Lighter armour classes consist of robes and leather outfits.

Outside of Dark Souls, a lot of jRPGs don't actually change a character's outfit to match what they actually have equipped and their actual equipment isn't always very suitable for combat.

It's actually quite difficult to pinpoint what kinds of armours are based on something from history, and what is based on a popular fantasy standard. Lots of LARPers (live action roleplayers) seem to use leather armour very similar to the kind of stuff that appears in video games, but it's difficult to tell what came first; the LARPers or the games. Are the games basing themselves on what appears in popular LARP/fantasy culture or are those people basing their outfits on video games? The genre seems to influence/inspire itself in Western games at least. In any case, there are lots of similar looks. Visual documentation of leather armor in the middle ages is understandably sparse due to material deterioration.

As stated previously, a lot of RPGs are inspired by high fantasy works like Tolkien's books. The LOTR film adaptation, which came out in 2001, set the tone for a lot of modern fantasy based character armour. The Witcher seems to draw from this style.

http://www.renaissancefestival.com/forums/index.php?topic=7777.0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerkin_%28garment%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunic