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1 Million Wii Units At Launch

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the better-than-average-chance dept.

Ars Technica is reporting on Nintendo's announcement that there will be 1 Million Wii units available at launch in the United States. Not only is that an impressive number of units, it's twice what the 360 launched with, and more than twice what Sony will be offering when it launches in the same month. From the article: "If Nintendo sells that many systems on the first day, and they turn a profit on every system sold, Nintendo is going to have some very rosy financials heading into the holiday season. If they're making money on systems as well as games, and gamers embrace the virtual console, this may be one of the most successful launches in gaming history. We'll see if they are able to deliver the numbers they're talking about here; a launch that large would be a major coup for Nintendo, and would give them a running start towards getting their systems into the homes of as many customers as possible." So, despite some disappointment at the later-than-hoped-for launch date, it looks like Nintendo is making good use of its time.

6 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. It's surprising really by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Considering Nintendo is trying to be the most innovative, it's surprising that they're the only ones sticking to the classic business strategies to actually make money off of a product and to actually make an effort to meet demand.

  2. Re:Virtual Console a Weakness by ElleyKitten · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Depends on if I can save the game to an SD card or not. If I can "keep" the game and play it at someone else's house, then cool, if not, then eh.
    I want to save it to an SD card or whatever and stick it in my DS or the next Game Boy. That would be sweet.
    --
    "What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
  3. Re:of course they are making a profit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    All signs point to Nintendo making a huge profit on each Wii, I wouldn't be surpised with a sub $100 manufacturing cost of the Wii. All of the controllers included probably adds another $50 or so.

    Well ... I highly doubt that ...

    Perrin Kaplin (Nintendo's VP of Marketing) claimed that the Wii would be breaking even on hardware costs and would be a system which was profitable from the start because of game sales. She could be lying but I would assume she would not stretch the truth too much. We know that a year into the development of the Wii (in about 2002) Nintendo decided to switch directions from producing a "super powerful" system to a system that required far less power and still performed well; one of the turning points was when they saw how much less power the Gamecube would require (which lead to the system being on 24 hours a day)

    "When we were struggling to reduce the power consumption, there was a point in time when we simulated how power consumption would change in existing devices if we applied cutting-edge semiconductor technology to them. In the case of the GameCube, we discovered that the power consumption could be reduced to between one-third and one-quarter of the consumption of the GameCube's semiconductors. I was really impressed with these results. Of course, I was surprised by the data itself ..."

    We know that the Wii requires 80% of the power of the Gamecube so one can assume that it is not a repackaged gamecube as some people would have you belive. The system is produced by IBM, using the same process as was used with the PowerPC970 (G5), at the same time the G5 would have been in development so it is possibly a low speed (1.5 GHz) G5 based system; although it would be inexpensive, it would still cost money to produce.

  4. What about accessories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    A lot of people are going to want to buy a second controller. How many of those are going to be available at launch?

  5. Re:Virtual Console a Weakness by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they don't flood the VC with all the piles of crap ever produced for Nintendo systems (no Deadly Towers, no Superman 64), then maybe they can make the risk for the consumer low enough that they'll feel $5 is worth it.

    I've had just about enough of your "Deadly Towers"-bashing, young man.

    DT is not a BAD game, just a mediocre one. I could easily name a dozen NES titles which were an order of magnitude worse, and that's not even counting anything by Color Dreams.

    I mean, I wouldn't spend $2 to get it on the Virtual Console, but it's not nearly as awful as SeanBaby makes it out to be.

  6. Re:Virtual Console a Weakness by Josiah_Bradley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I myself own over 50 classic NES titles and about 20 SNES and N64 titles and a couple Gamecube games as well as some Sega Genisis games. Shouldn't there be at least a discount for those of us who already purchased these games at retail prices years ago? I know of at least 20 games for the NES I want to play again without having to fix my NES, but at around 100$ to do so it would be cheaper to re-build my old consoles. I'm more than happy paying for the bandwidth as some of those n64 games are huge, but another 5-10$ for a 30-50$ game?? just to play it again on the same TV? I love the idea and will most likely pay for everything again just feels so wrong. On another note it is legal for me to play my legally bought games on an emulator for free on my TV with upsampling and better graphics.