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Will the Wii Work?
Today BusinessWeek is running an article asking Will Nintendo's Wii Strategy Score? With the Tokyo Game Show this week, they run down the trials facing Nintendo's little-box-that-could both here in the States, and in Japan. From the article: "Few expect truly dedicated gamers to choose the Wii over the PS3 or Xbox. And ultimately, the advantage may go to Sony. Yuta Sakurai, an analyst at Nomura Securities in Tokyo, expects the PS3 to sell 71 million units by 2011, compared with 40 million units for the Wii. Microsoft, meanwhile, is planning a stripped-down version of the Xbox without a hard-disk drive and other accessories that will cost about $250 in Japan, where the U.S. software maker has endured disappointing results."
...yet I've only ever heard bad news about the PS3. The Wii is the first console I've ever been excited about, simply because it's meant for my gaming style: multiplayer, social fun.
Nintendo is a staple of life for many gamers. Mario and Zelda are characters they grew up with. Even if it wasn't for the innovative controller, the low price point alone almost guarantees that many gamers will pick it up somewhere along the line.
The fact that Nintendo's console is selling for a profit also means that they don't have to sell a bunch of game titles to get into the black -- if a person never buys another product from Nintendo after the console purchase, they've already made money.
and more: "Though the Wii doesn't boast all the features and processing firepower of its rivals, Nintendo believes its easy-to-use controller will give it an edge."
And finally: "There's also a danger that the Wii could cannibalize sales of the DS, which has been a smash hit with casual gamers thanks to its user-friendly design and titles..."
Acording to Wikipedia, total sales of the DS and DS Lite are over 26 million world wide. This is equal to their Gamecube sales and that has been out since 01. I'd say we can call the DS and DS Lite both successful. Seeing as sales for the DS Lite are still hot, I don't expcect that comined number to sit under 30 million for long. The author is full of it, or a fanboy. He obviously hasn't done a lot of research. Nintendo is no longer hoping that the DS will appeal to anyone. Now they know.
As far as the Wii goes, I know plenty of people who wouldn't buy a Gamecube because of its lack of 3rd parties. Though I own many games that are frequently requeseted when we get together like Mario Kart and even Robotech Battlecry. Well, ever one of these people is positively raving about how much they want the Wii. We'll see what they (and I) think after release. But I haven't heard one person say they don't want it. Reasons? Cheap, looks like fun, and "My [significant other] actually wants one too."
Nintendo won't have a problem with this gen.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
The Wii has a built in advantage this analyst (as with most) seems to be forgetting, and that is, because the Wii sells at a profit from day 1, **Nintendo does not have to sell as many units to equal or better their competition** in terms of sales and revenue.
The 360 and PS3 may sell more consoles, and those people may buy more games. But you need a lot more more 360/PS3 games sold to compensate and surpass for the profit loss the companies are taking on the consoles.
I mean, look at the books of Nintendo vs. the Microsoft home entertainment division. Microsoft has way more boxes in the field, but is still way in the red. Nintendo is well in the black. And that's all that really matters in the long view.
That's the PS3 controller. Thanks to the sensor bar, the Wii has what's missing from the PS3: absolute positioning in space. Basically, it's a 3D mouse. And the nunchuk also sports a set of accelerometers & gyroscopes, which means that it has all the abilities of the PS3 controller, and all of the abilities of the wiimote bar absolute positioning (no I'm not joking)
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
Wrong. The nunchuk is included with the base system, so everyone will have at least one.
Well Squeenix very recently refocused it's handheld strategy due to FF3/DS: they tried to boss nintendo around so that they'll have a big batch of DS Lites ready fearing that low DS availability would cripple FF3 sales.
They readied themselves for sales of 300.000 on the first week...
FF3 sold 330.000 copies on the first day, the whole japan was out of stock within 4 days (with an initial shipment of 500.000).
The next week or so, squeenix announced 3 games in the making for NDS.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
You mean like Singstar or the host of eyetoy games for the Playstation 2. How do you play those with a standard controller again?
This is entirely inaccurate. They were demonstrating tools at GDC for this, and various vendors have engines already available. Also recall that the PS2 really was bare metal on release; it remains the most difficult of the last generation, and yet it was the top seller with the most games. And the PS3 is said to be very familiar to those who worked on the PS2, so...
Yeah yeah, it's the PS2 all over again.
Are you talking about HDMI? They're under $10. Which cables did you mean?
Well, since the Blu-Ray DURABIS2 can withstand steel wool, you'd really have to be mistreating that disc.
And XBOX Live! was going to kill the PS2.
The 360 is in the realm of FPS's and sports games, just like the original XBOX. Contrary to popular opinion, frat boys who play Halo are not hardcore gamers. They're casual gamers. Hardcore gamers are the ones that play all the games, especially the obscure and oldschool ones. They import the original before it comes out locally. They might have an XBOX, but only because they're completionists, not because having an XBOX makes them hardcore.
That is, you're a closet fanboy who has been waiting all these years to come out. Yeah, I grew up with Nintendo too, and read the magazines, saw the shows and movies, and didn't think much of anything else (Sega what? Sony who?). That said, "QUALITY PRODUCT" is premature, "THIRD PARTY SUPPORT" is hopeful, and "INNOVATIVE" is hype. Do you love your Wii? Is it bad?
Actually, the virtual console launch list is only 26 games. 26 games I've played, too. This is ni
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
There is a little bit of complexity to the profits from game sales, there. Nintendo develops their biggest blockbuster games themselves, which means that they get a LOT more money per game sold -- I'd say they easily make more than double the profit from first-party boxes than third-party. Considering how incredibly popular those first-party games are, that changes a lot.
I remember reading that for third-party N64 games, Nintendo took something like $10 per game sold. I don't know if that was true and I have no idea if things are still like that, but that's a small portion of the total price.
The question nobody seems to be able to answer is, "how is this any better than just coming up with a funky PS2 controller? All the Wii controller does is replace the two thumbsticks of the X-Box with a controller which you can either move or tilt."
It's obvious you're biased against the Wii, but I'll bite. There are many examples of how the controller can be better. The sports games that come with the wii are a nice enough example. People say that bowling actually feels like bowling, I'd like to see someone pull that off with two thumbsticks. The Zelda fishing demo is pretty unique too, and while you could do something like it with the thumbsticks, would it be as fun? A video game about fishing, bowling, tennis, and baseball is something I would stay far away from, but these new controls somehow entice me to try it. This is Nintendo's goal, to get people to play something they wouldn't normally and I think they will succeed at that.
As for how it's better than just coming up with a funky PS2 controller, how many people would use a controller that didn't launch with a system? It has never gone over very well that I can recall. Very few developers are going to use a device unless 100% of their market have it. Besides, would someone want to dish out $100 to do something like this on the PS2, plus the price of a game to play on it? I say $100 because we know the controller is selling for $60, plus you need to add in the cost of the sensor bar (which I don't know the cost of.) If someone wants this kind of control they will buy it on a system that will fully support it, not one that will have a game or two out for it.
The release day allocation for the PS3 is 500,000. 400k will go to the US, 100k will go to Japan. The full year allocation (for 2006) for the PS3 is 2,000,000.
The full year allocation for Wii is 4,000,000. They have not given specific release day numbers, but they are releasing in all 3 regions (+ Australia) within 4 weeks.
Conclusion: Wii will only be slightly less scarce than PS3 by the end of the year. Both will sell out beyond a doubt. 360 will benefit from this with a sales increase from people who could't find either of the other options available.
just some guy
And that stops being true once you get married and have kids. ;)
Random rants about technology: http://technorants.blogspot.com
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It's true, though...
This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,--
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.