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Wii, PS3 Sell Big In First Week
Wowzer writes "Nintendo today announced the Wii sold through more than 600,000 units in the Americas in just its first eight days of availability. That's a rate of nearly one per second continuously since the November 19 launch!" From the article: "The company noted that, when taking into account first-party software and accessory sales, Wii sales have thus far amounted to an impressive $190 million. Nintendo also added that sales of the Wii's highly anticipated launch title, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, has already has achieved sales of more than 454,000 units in the Americas, a figure which it notes represents in excess of of 75 percent of all hardware purchasers." I couldn't find any sales figures for the PS3, just word that the company has sold all the units it shipped. Gamasutra is also reporting sales figures via Ebay for the two consoles. 15,000 PS3s were sold, while the Wii cracked 27,000 via the popular online auction site.
It's worth noting that 15,000 PS3 units could be as much as 10% of the North American supply. Given that we don't know the actual figures shipped, it's just as possible that 15,000 is 5% of the supply. Either way, it's a significant percentage of the PS3 consoles.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
More information about PS3
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212
never a truer word on this was spoke..
Wii like to play a PS3 but can't seem to find any. :(
I'm glad to see Nintendo doing well right off the bat. I hope they pull through and continue to make a good titles, that way one day may kids can enjoy the great games that company has put out to date.
You really have to take the PS3 sales figure and double it, though.
Cuz each PS3 sells twice. Once at the store, and then again on ebay...
Those numbers are the max systems that were available on ebay not the total sold. At one point there were 26000 Wiis and approximately 50 wiis were selling each minute, while more auctions were being listed.
I know you're not to believe analysts, but earlier this week they were reporting that the Wii had 4 times as many units and that the PS3 launched with between 125,000 and 175,000 units ...
Until NPD releases its November numbers or Sony makes an announcement I think those are about as accurate as we're going to get.
You think thats because all reports point to less than 200,000 actually being shipped when Sony swore they would be shipping twice that many?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Really? Wow, thanks for clearing that up for me, Sony. And here I was thinking that half of them had been lost somewhere in stockrooms across the country, and another quarter of them were sitting on store shelves while disinterested gamers walked by. I'm certainly glad we got that cleared up.
...and in other news, water is wet, the sun is hot, and Janet Reno is ugly.
Love sees no species.
As of now, "every system Nintendo or Sony makes is sold immediately!" This obviously won't last, and we'll see who eventually comes out on top...
Ya right, here in Montreal Future Shop has a lot of 20gig PS3 in store, nobody want it, all wainting for the 60gig.
what a failure, why even shipping a low end version (at a relative high price) of a high end console
Ok, Microsoft have doing it, but nobody take it anyway.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Even though PS2s are still flying off the shelves all over the planet, next gen has finally arrived. For the next few months it is going to be purely a shipment/manufacturing battle between Nintendo and Sony with stock selling out as fast as it arrives on store shelves.
NPD results for November will be out in a week or so and we will have independent confirmation of launch sales - most likely ~600k for Nintendo and ~400k for Sony since there is going to be an extra week of shipments for both consoles. Sony is air freighting PS3s every few days that are arriving in stores. The Wii will most likely be around 1.5 to 1.7 by Christmas and the PS3 around 1 million.
Nintendo historically sells extremely well during the holidays and then not so well during the rest of the year. So I would expect the Wii to have an early lead for the first few months of 2007 and but as PS3 production ramps up to full capacity the PS3 will start to rapidly catch up and pass the Wii in installed base.
The big battle will be in Japan between the Wii and PS3. And the PS3 should easily take NA and Europe. The 360 has pretty much flunked out of the market in the eyes of console players having sold less than the first Xbox after the same amount of time on the market. Right now the 360 has only sold around 4.7 million worldwide, so the Wii and PS3 should start leaving the 360 behind in sales around the middle of 2007.
Has anybody actually counted the number of pro-Nintendo/anti-PS3 articles that Zonk has posted here on Slashdot? I find it very hard to believe that Zonk and/or Slashdot is NOT getting paid by Nintendo for this obscenely obvious and constant product promotion combined with anti-PS3 FUD. Personally, I've counted at least 120 pro-Wii/Nintendo articles over the past six months, with at least that many anti-PS3/Sony articles over the same time period.
I think that it's high time that Slashdot come clean and publicize how much they're being paid. As a publicly traded company, I'm pretty sure that there's some kind of SEC regulation concerning this. Any geek attorneys here who can verify (on an informal basis) if Slashdot is violating some SEC laws? It's most definitely unethical. I'm just curious as to how much Slashdot is getting paid.
Come on, Slashdot. show me the money!
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?i d=150030
I cant speak for anyone else but I have a hard time believing that Gears managed to move that many consoles. I was out shopping quite a bit last week and saw lots of wii's being sold but didnt more than a handful of 360's though all the stores I shopped had plenty. Of course the way that Sony and Microsoft count sales is how many ship to retail (including the ones sitting on the shelves) where Nintendo actually counts units sold.
I always have to question whether or not those numbers can be trusted.
I bought my Wii and received it early last week. Plug it in, have it find my WPA-encrypted wireless network and proceed with my first system update. You need the firmware update to do anything online. Bong -- 110213 error (Google it -- a good number of people got it). Afterwards the system refused to go online (no virtual console goodness, no more firmware updates, etc). The predominant opinion is that the Wii doesn't CRC the firmware before installing it, resulting in semi-bricked consoles.
Called up Nintendo and, after 30 minutes on hold, I got someone. To their credit, they immediately sent another console out (received it yesterday). It was already updated to the latest firmware. Looks refurbished, but I guess I don't have a choice.
I'm personally very interested in what percentage of those numbers are "usable" systems. 95%? 99%? Even if only 1% are busted, that's still a considerable number of machines.
I'm guessing that any numbers are going to be largely speculative but it would be nice to know rough figures.
any ideas?
Zonk, you're the Tattoo of /.
360 sold more. Don't be so dumb next time.
PS3 went for "Blu-ray" + "High end chips"
Sony took the conservative route, using the same old selling tactics that have worked in the past.
Nintendo went for the radical chance route. It will either sell HUGE, making a mockery of PS3, or flop.
I am betting on huge. Granted, much will depend on the quality of the games that Nintendo can get out there quick.
But the honest truth is that current video games suffer from fat-slob-with-tired-thumb. It is not just a stereotype, there is some truth to it.
The Wii has the possibility of changing that. People's ARMS are getting sore, instead of thumbs. They may actually get exercise. This could just change the game radically, forever.
Imagine the day when everyone's picture of a gamer is someone with bulging arm muscles instead of bulging bellies.
Gyms could buy them and put in huge screens.
Hot cheerleaders might actually go for the gamers. A guy can dream...
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
This has gone largely unnoticed, but Microsoft has started a hell of a holiday XBOX 360 campaign, based on the practical idea that they can steal potential sales from Sony because there don't seem to be any PS3s available for retail, so they'll buy 360s instead.
The Wii seems to have stolen a little bit off Microsoft's thunder, which they may or may not have expected (since both Sony and MS are buying into the "Nintendo isn't in our market" byline). The console currently has an 8 million to 600,000 lead... I'm wondering if, at the end of 2007, when the score is much closer (Nintendo will put out 8 million consoles by July at the rate of 250,000 per week) and everyone gets to see if the Wii really does have a broader market, MS will be changing its tune.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Get over yourself.
Anyone considering giving this post any creedence whatsoever should look at NineNine's posting history. He's decidedly pro-Sony. Also, it's not FUD when it's true. There's been a ton of anti-PS3 news on Slashdot lately because...wait for it...Sony's screwing up a LOT! And wow! News sites like to print news!
Of course you can't easily find sales numbers for the PS3. The fact is that they claimed 400,000 would be available at launch. Turns out it's more like 125,000. Sony can't exactly just come out and be proud that *all* 125,000 sold out, because then the real story would be the fact that so few units were actually produced (well short of expectations).
Nintendo, on the other hand, only has good news all around to report.
--- witty signature
Here's to you, Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll!
Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll!
Sitting at home in your parents basement with your PS1 and 2 and 3...
Maaaaaaan, thats a lot of consoooooooles....
Or, Mr. Troll, are you playing with a wii?
Tell me, Mr. Troll-man?
So here's to you, Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll...
Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Trooo-oooll!!!
Sony has a built up brand, people want it... (I've normally only owned Nintendo systems, but I can appreciate that the PS1 and PS2 had HUGE markets)... but they can't get product out the door. To win the marathon, Sony needs to make as many sales as possible to people willing to pay high prices, and figure out how to get manufacturing costs down as they lower price to sell more units... first sell to everyone willing to pay $500, then $400, then $300, then $200, etc.
However, Sony will be able to keep selling units for top dollar, which will help them, because demand is so high... but they can't supply the market.
Nintendo appears to have figured out how to get units out the door. It doesn't matter that 2x to 3x the people want a Sony system as a Nintendo system if Sony can't get them off the line and into stores. Nintendo will sell there demand, and some will substitute a Wii for a PS3. Sony blew this launch BADLY. They may win this round, they may make money, they may pull off a lot (they have a LOT of Brand Value), but they screwed up manufacturing.
If Nintendo keeps manufacturing units and selling them, they will sell games and make money. Some third parties may sign up (if you want to launch a game for next Christmas, if Sony doesn't fix its manufacturing problems by mid-year, Nintendo may be a real option for them). The interesting thing is that Nintendo's system is SO different, it isn't straight ports that will work. Last generation, game companies could switch their target system around without much re-jiggering, but Nintendo's system requires a completely different approach because it is so unique.
However, Sony blew the manufacturing... marketing did its job, but they didn't get product out there. I expect Microsoft to be the BIG beneficiary of this, as Sony and Microsoft are much more substitutable (similar hardware, similar controllers, similar target markets), but Nintendo will find itself fighting in the normal market, not just a niche...
Interesting thing as well, Nintendo didn't overspec their system, they may have underspec'd it. That means that they may be able to get costs WAY down. If Sony's botched launch delays games (because nobody wants to sell games to a dead market), Nintendo may be able to keep moving systems and get the costs down fast. If that happens, expect Nintendo to start selling to hardcore gamers because if they can get a $200 package with 2 games out within 24 months, hard core gamers may pick one up to augment their Sony/MS gaming with Nintendo's unique offering.
Nintendo executed, Sony didn't. Kudos to Nintendo. Sony, get your divisions back in sync.
Alex
Sony was quite reserved on saying how much units will be at launch. IIRC, Sony has said last year that at launch will be about 10mln units. Over the year, the figure shrunk to 2mln.
Before launch, Sony was quite silent, but industry watchers have estimated that Sony production lines can pull 200k units every month and during 3 month in production befiore launch, Sony could have had max 600k units at launch.
P.S. Figure of 800k units was also rumored.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
That's a rate of nearly one per second continuously since the November 19 launch
How about the length of Wiis side-by-side in number of football fields?
How many Volkswagen Beetlefuls?
As someone who's casually interested in picking one up, how hard are the Wii's to find? Are they going *poof* as soon as shipments get into the stores? I'm probably going to wait until January (just bought a laptop) but even my girlfriend has expressed an interest in it. Naturally I have to investigate :).
I can't reveal the exact number of units sold in US as that's a trade secret, but both units were sold.
Wii sold through more than 600,000 units in the Americas in just its first eight days of availability. That's a rate of nearly one per second continuously since the November 19 launch!600000/8 units/day * 1/24 day/hr * 1/60 hr/min * 1/60 min/sec = 0.868 units/sec
If I got 86.8% on an exam, should I go around saying that it's "nearly 100%"?
how many units the Xbox 360 sold in the same timeframe?
Summation 2
I was just looking last night for some stats on sales. I have never been a console fan and I have been a PC Gamer since the IBM PC Jr. but the GameCube changed all that. It was the gameplay and the feel of the controls. I couldn't stand the X-Box or the PS2 hand controls after coming from a PC and was often owned by my kids in FPS which I still think is an exercise in futility on consoles. The GameCube changed that and I really began to enjoy titles such as the 007 and the family oriented games really brought my kids and I together where before we were isolated in our own little PC/console gaming experiences (not that I get much time for it anymore). When I saw the Wii advertised a few months back I instantly saw something that I had been looking for in a gaming experience and that was physical immersion. Of course it was all marketing hype and I would have to see it to believe it. I was also sick of hearing people talk about what a badass system the X-Box and X-Box 360 were knowing that it was nothing more than a crappy PC. I would say, "why not build your own gaming PC and get a really good experience with FPS games". "Well Halo 2 is awesome on the X-Box 360!." I decided to check it out and played Halo 2 for a couple of hours at my in-laws house and to me Halo on the PC blew it away. Yes, the slick cases and "skins" and all of that marketing crap make it seem cool to my kids but it just irked me that it was in no way innovative but then you had to shell out immense amounts of cash for all the items to make it worth playing or owning such as a large hard drive, wireless nic, wireless controllers, headsets, x-box-live. And then PS3 was coming out with an even more expensive system with a HD DVD that could end up going the same way that the PSP's disc format (with movies) went and that is to the grave. Launching with zero titles that I would want on top of that. It seemed like they (MS and Sony) were trying to do what all the home-gamekit builders and outfits like alienware and others had already done a million times better but due to marketing would make you accept that you had to have it and that it was the greatest thing ever. It just pissed me off. I continued to follow the Wii and read about its concepts and Nintendo's approach to development and it just seemed very cool. So for the first time in my life I actually went and stood in line for a game-system on Black Friday with my kids. We ended up getting turned away at a mall Gamestop but I tried a standalone EB-games where in the dark hours of the am I found a group of 5 people waiting for the store to open. My kids and I were 6th in line. When we got in i asked them how many Wiis they had in stock, already knowing that I wouldn't be able to get one and already having decided that I wouldn't waste any more of my time as Thanksgiving livestock. The guy said he had 5 systems and I thought everyone in line was getting one. One guy ahead of me bought a PS3 and a Wii. I stayed in line anyway even though it looked bad and my kids were with me so it would be even more dissappointing for them as the excitement had been mounting for a couple of days. Well, this lady turns around to me and says, "You are going to get one". I kept wondering what she was talking about and lo and behold she was buying her grandkid a PSP. We stepped up and asked for the last Wii and he pulled the bag up with all of the the launch stuff in it and we were just totally jazzed. My oldest boy actually made the sound of angels heralding (cheesy movie/cartoon rendition) when they put the bag on the counter. The kids were off for Turkey Day and we spent the rest of the day having one hell of a time with the new system. I haven't had this much fun playing a game and feeling immersed since I first played the text version of Hitchhikers Guide on my PCJr. The new controls are just amazing and the design of the system both on the physical level and within the Wii menu was just completely sweet. I can really see this system becoming a cornerstone for family entertainment. My wife, who has never had any intere
If I have 10 customers who demand a product I have and I only provide 4 of course they'll sell immediately. I don't know if that could be called selling well especially in contrast to another system in a similar circumstance.
When next gen systems are in abundance and one them trounces the others then I would say it's selling well.
"No doubt one may quote history to support any cause, as the devil quotes scripture." - Learned Hand
Parent has it. People don't like sony, and game mags have(pathetically) been bought.
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Sony loses $300+ per unit.
Retailer makes maybe $50 after they pay all the extra security.
Ebayers make $500-1500/unit minus...
the Ebay makes 5.25% + Paypal 2.90% = 8.15% of that (more then the retailer most likely)
And then of course all the violence, injuries, and robberies.
Sony got screwed royally, and everyone else won the lottery.
Console developers need to get their shit together and learn what a Dutch Auction is.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
As it reads, 454,000 SOFTWARE purchases exceeds 75% of all HARDWARE purchase(r)s. Does that mean 75% of all wii purchases, or 75% of all console purchases ? If it's the latter, does that mean non-wii owners have been buying this game (if that's at all possible) ?
For people who are supposedly "in the media" their writing skills need a lot to be desired.
I have a PS2 and a GameCube. The GameCube has been gathering dust for months, the PS2 is in use most nights. However, I have no interest in the PS3 at this time--but I've ordered a Wii.
So it's not anti-Sony fanboyism. The PS3 really does suck. It's too expensive and there aren't anywhere near enough good games.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I have trouble listening to anything an AC has to say about someone else's posting history.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
D:
"Liberté, égalité, fraternité" also makes for an interesting order of priorities.
You can get fraternity without equality, and you can get equality without Freedom!
But, I sail the world and I have wet to see a place where freedom is even emerging.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
If 7 million people want Wii's, and 7 million want PS3's (the number of xbox 360's so far sold) there will be 5.5 million unhappy Nintendo fans and 6.2 million unhappy PS3 fans this christmas.
Kinda sad when you think about it. If Nintendo and Sony were smart, they'd both poor all their advertising dollars into production for a while. No point in hyping something no one can buy.
and they both rock :) They are like apples and oranges when you try to compare them so don't even bother. The part I like the best is that I can have this much fun without giving Microsoft a f**king dime.
no further comment needed. With these prices I don't want to see nintendo complain about piracy in my country, EVER.
You should have offered to exchange a Wii for it - then everyone would have been happy.
Also, did you get her autograph? You could sell that on ebay too because it would be the closest that most of us Brits will get to a PS3 this year.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
maybe all of those guys queing to get a PS3 and selling them on ebay were actually Sony employees trying to get back the money they spent developing it. In fact, I bet Sony even pays people to go on to ebay to put extra bids on the ones they didnt get their hands on to drive up the prices of the ones they did. Sony are sneaky you see.Root kitters and ebayers the lot of em.
Though I do feel it's stupid to ignore a system in a supposedly unbiased publication. The Wii units didn't go out to anyone to review games or content until sometime this month. This is well past the press date for any Magazines to be printed through Christmas, so online sources are going to have to fill your news until 2007. Despite not being able to comment much on a game they couldn't play they should have at least acknowlaged it's existance; and promised features.
A key thing to note in comparing the profits of these two sales is that Sony isn't profiting, while Nintendo already is. So from my understanding, Nintendo has already sold many more units, has just as strong (if not a stronger) foothold in the market, they profit from each Wii, and have more reshipments before the Holiday season. Meanwhile, Sony is losing a significant amount of money per PS3 and won't even have a big reshipment until when? Next year? That's a giant amount of potential money they're losing by not having consoles available for Christmas. I'm not saying Wii is better than PS3. I'm just saying Nintendo wins the launch war with flying colors.
Squeenix has no loyalty to anyone. They've been currently loyal to Sony because the PS2 was such a smash hit among RPG gamers, and totally owned the Japanese market, where their games do the best. They started on FF13 LONG before anyone had any idea that the PS3 launch was going to be so bad, and before the possibility that they will achieve a low market share (and more importantly to a game manufacturer, low unit sales, period). Currently, they've released FF11 for PC and XBox (and 360?), and are finishing up a sequel to FF12 for the Nintendo DS, as well as having just released FF3 for the device. The Wii is getting both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy spin-off titles, pretty soon.
So, currently, Squeenix has a few different options:
Their best bet: screw exclusivity and release for all three systems. RPGs are 95% artwork/design anyway, coding is usually very minimal, and the time porting would be a drop in the hat compared to the time and money spent in the art department. The Wii version would simply be 480p versions of the games, with slightly lesser graphics and revised interfaces. You can be sure they won't drop PS3 version, until when/if the console totally goes under, but porting could result in over 4-5x in unit sales, and gives them a huge market advantage.
That said, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they haven't been working on a 360 version of FF13 in secret, for a while now, just in case the PS3 falls on its face, similarly to how Apple developed OSX for intel chips for years in case the PPC chips failed.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
It is tradition that the company looses money on each console sold (at least initially). Maybe Sony should sell their console through futures market. Traders bid based on stated supply and estimated demand. Stores sell based on the futures pricing. People that really want the system pay the premium to get it early. As supply goes up the futures pricing goes down.
This could also have the effect for people that really, really want the console can get one with less chance of it being out of stock. They simply have to pay the price for the privilege. With the price sufficiently high, they would never run out of product.
Simple supply and demand. Good stuff.
- the wee wii
Their economy is much higher then the rest of the world, so they don't think twice whether to buy western stuff like PS3/Wii which are quite cheap to them. Japanese selling success is a wrong point of view, I'd say a better point of view is U.S.A/U.K sells.
Think about it
Zelda: Twilight Princess won't be out for GameCube until Dec. 8th, if memory serves. This only refers to Wii purchases.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
And if the Wii starts ramping up support, it's quite possible that many who planned on getting a PS3 before, ended up forgetting about it because they're perfectly happy with the Wii - which they could at least obtain.
This was evidenced by a story in the print edition today of the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required), which said that a number of customers online who initially searched for a PS3 switched to an easier to purchase Wii on failing to secure the PS3 in visits to commercial store websites.
Once the installed base of satisfied users is there, it's more a matter of how many Wii games they'll buy - and how many fewer PS3 games will be sold, that dooms Sony's marketing projections.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Um maybe a lot of the anti-PS3 articles are because EVERYONE HATES THE PS3.
I don't hate it. I just think it's overpriced, has very few games that are even slightly interesting (except one), and I hate DRM.
But I used to own Sony stock, 500 shares, so I wouldn't say I hate them. I just think they decided to walk off the edge of a cliff at some point, and I've given up on them.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Until sony does something right, I doubt you will ever see pro-ps3 artcles here or anywhere else thats not paid by Sony in advertising.
Right. If you say so.
Sony has done nothing right, from dust scratching the system, to poor backwards compatability
Right. Gizmondo. *rolls eyes* Maybe it happened when he stuffed the fucking unit down his pants?
Poor BC? 200 games, __OUT OF 8 THOUSAND__ have problems, though most are still playable. That's right at launch. Yeah, that's real awful.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Really? Look in the mirror you jerk.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Not sure if I'm rational, but I'll not pick 360 as a substitution of PS3.
There are games on PS that I want to play. Getting Wii in the meantime will give me a cheap(er) console and a different type of game play; getting a PS3 in the future will complement the Wii. The current PS3 manufacturing delays will let me wait it out while playing the Wii.
If I get a 360, then it's like paying for a PS3 but not getting those games; too many overlaps. IMO, if Microsoft really wants to take the PS3 market share, they should push the idea that waiting for the PS3 (games) is not worth it by having very good game lineups themselves.
It is tradition that the company looses money on each console sold (at least initially).
Too bad for Sony that Nintendo has never had that tradition - they always make money on console sales, and still do.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Sony loses $300+ per unit.
No. An analyst says that Sony loses $300 per unit. That is the same $900 / unit that analysts were talking about a year ago and was generally thought to be complete bunk. Just before the rootkit fiasco when everyone decided hating Sony would be the new cool thing to do on the Intertubes. Now when an analcyst spouts some bullshit numbers that ignore the fact that Sony owns the production lines for many of the PS3 components, people take it as god-given fact.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Gaming involves viewing output on the screen, and doing things on the input device. A different input device means a different game. Making a game for PS2, XBox, and GC (a la Madden Football) is just a matter of porting to the different hardware (straight-foward, regardless of how time consuming) and remapping controls.
Making a game for the Wii requires rethinking the game because the way the user interacts is very different. Just like Console and PC ports require some fine-tuning (keyboard + mouse is different than controller... you couldn't straight port World of Warcraft to the console), a Wii game will require a different gaming process to take advantage of the hardware... including the controller.
Porting to different chips is "easy" because you just throw programmers at the problem and it goes away. Porting to a different interface system is difficult because you need to rethink elements of game design.
I agree that Nintendo is smart on this system... keep out of port-land with a different controller, keep the system simple to lower development costs, and stay out of head-to-head competition.
Companies that wrote games for any of the last-gen systems could release them for other systems simultaenously or after exclusivity ran out, the Wii requires that the Nintendo version be unique. That gives Nintendo a unique value proposition. Deciding between Xbox + Madden or PS2 + Madden comes down to "cost" (or benefits of having the system later). The Wii is so different that people that want that system will need to buy a Wii and the Wii games.
That said, if the Wii shipped with a "game cube" controller and made it a way to build games for both, they might have been able to snag more by being the uber-system (both types of games), but that might have discouraged Wii-style games, so who knows.
Alex
> As far as CRC goes...you'd have to be completely retarded to do that.
You're confused about the difference between encryption and a CRC. The CRC would verify that the download was properly received--i.e. that it wasn't missing a piece or that a bit wasn't flipped. That's hardly something "stupid" to do--if you have even 1 corrupt bit, it can trash the whole thing. Perhaps you've heard about all those Linksys routers that people brick when they try to do updates over the wireless connection instead of a wired one... Same principle.
Now yes, some forms of encryption can certainly include CRCs or other information to make sure that the message is intact after decryption, but even then, they SHOULD be doing SOME kind of sanity checking before updating firmware. If they're not, they're just begging to have the machine bricked.
Finally, yes, such systems can and have been used for DRM (e.g. in the Tivo, where the hardware won't boot if you modify the software), but that in itself is bad, not the practice of sanity checking updates before you install them to ensure that you don't brick someone's hardware...
you deserve the DRM laden, incompatible media you get from supporting an entity that treats its customers like thieves and purposfully damages their property.
I know boycotts dont work, but I dont want to hear any bitching when you cant move your media of choice to the viewing device (or OS) of your choice.
Kevin
I agree, I think the Wii has a much better chance of generating love (and that breeds brand loyalty) than other consoles. It's a genuinely novel interface that encourages real-world movement and socializing with other people - in a richer way than just sitting next to each other mindlessly clicking... It's a better user experience than all the others, and I think it deserves all the success it's getting.
--
Wiiiii
Showing its dominance, the Wii penetrated the Market.
Well, you know, I'm a graphics whore just like the next guy, but realistically... Have you ever played a game and thought to yourself "wow, that game would be a lot more fun if the graphics were better"? Graphics are the real gimmick here. You don't need them to have fun. I own several gameboys, a DS and a PSP. The PSP has the best graphics by far, but the only game I've been playing for the last week was Phoenix Wright 2 on the DS - a game whose graphics consists of a few constantly repeating 2D drawings.
Honestly, the Cube as a system has failed, but even if I knew when I bought it what I know now, I still would have bought it. For me, Nintendo's first party titles are enough to make a console worthwhile. Even if the Wii fails miserably (and it won't), if Nintendo keeps releasing games during the next four or five years, it's going to be worth it. The party games alone make sure the the Wii will be one of the most used consoles in my living room.
Either way, the Wii will probably not reach 100 bucks until the last year of its life, and the PS3 (the expensive version) will probably never reach 300 bucks.
But in the end, you're right: Until supply is bigger than demand, we won't know what's going on in the "console war."
I think people are buying them in order to sell them to others at a profit, who are again buying them because they think that come christmas, they can make an even bigger profit.
Or maybe some are actually playing games on them. Never heard of that, though.
So, you got a limited version of the console which is probably worth quite a bit in a few years. Good for you :-)
So was Nintendo; and Atari before that.
Damn, it even says 12/12 in the link I posted.
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