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Wii, DS, Not Cannibals
Nintendo President Iwata, GameSpot reports, has stated that the Wii and the DS are not 'eating' each other. That is to say, the Wii's brisk sales reports have not harmed the high demand for Nintendo's portable system. From the article: "'Some analysts say the largest rival of the Wii is the DS,' he told the Reuters news service. 'But if you take a look at DS sales in the United States in the Thanksgiving week or DS sales in Japan in the week of the Wii launch, there has been little impact.' By the end of its fiscal year on March 31, 2007, Nintendo now believes it will have sold 6 million Wiis and 20 million combined units of the DS and DS Lite. It currently predicts its annual profit will total 145 billion yen (around $1.26 billion), an increase of more than 60 percent, with annual sales rising 45 percent to 740 billion yen (approximately $6.44 billion). "
Yamaha, or some other motorcycle company. It's not. If you're going to get a motorcycle you're going to get a yamaha, if you want a truck/car you get a ford. If you need both, you'll get a ford and a yamaha.
The only person that the DS and the Wii competes over is the guy who is only going to buy 1 system or handheld. And in the past the DS was competing with the PSP for that anyways (and winning for the most part).
This is a fine example of framing the debate. The marketing department of Nintendo is attempting (and succeeding? I can't tell) to paint themselves as having only to compete with themselves. It's just part of they overall strategy they've been executing for the last several years.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
One attaches to your TV, the other you can take anywhere. The Gameboy didn't do this to the NES when it came out 20 years ago, so why should anyone think this now?
The batteries lasted forever, but yeah, whatever ...
Hank! White!
Wii, DS, Not Cannibals
Wii And DS Are Not Cannibals
(But they should be eating Microsoft and Sony's lunch!)
The rest of your point is of course accurate, but it also wasn't "just" games. The GameGear, for example, was something that people said "oh, it's so superior to the gameboy; it has color, a backlit screen, more powerful hardware, etc.". But the GameGear also had terrible battery life, and the screen quality wasn't all that great and tended to have a lot of problems with ghosting and appearing washed out. I never did play a TurboGrafix Express or Atari Lynx, but I recall hearing they also had similar issues. And of course, the GameBoy's huge game library helped a lot too.
Nintendo has been criticized to some degree for being "behind the times" with the GameBoy/GBC/GBA/DS/etc. compared to its competition, and certainly from a pure technical point, there have often been more superior devices out there. But I think Nintendo has generally had a tendency to wait until they can really perfect something before they put it out there. So, for example, the original GBA launched without backlighting, but the GBA SP finally did add it in, and pretty well (and Nintendo has continued to make improvements to backlighting quality) and without the huge sacrifice in battery life.
I think the current "battle" between the DS and PSP also highlights another, newer factor in this competition. The approach of the PSP really seems to be, for the most part, to offer a true "portable" PlayStation experience, with the main selling point being that you can play the exact same kinds of games as you would on your console at home.
But what has really been shown here is that, to some degree, the games people want to play on a console at home aren't always the games they want to play on a handheld. I think Nintendo has a really good grasp on what a lot of people actually use a handheld gaming device for.
You often hear people now say that the PSP's problem is "no good games", but I don't think this is necessarily it. I own both a DS and PSP, and actually have a fair number of games for both. And they actually have been putting out some really nice PSP games, and lately I've been enjoying Syphon Filter Dark Mirror and Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth and even Tekken: Dark Resurrection. But the thing is, I play these games at home most of the time, and I treat them more like "console games". I don't carry my PSP around with me and play them for a few minutes or something like that while I'm waiting for something. So I don't think it's that the PSP doesn't have "good games"; it has some great games. It's just that it has a lot of games that aren't necessarily well suited for "on the go" gaming.
To be fair, there are also DS games I use like that too........ Advance Wars, for example, isn't a game I normally just play "on the go". But I think this is the fundamental issue with the PSP right now.
Honestly, I think this is the one thing Nintendo has understood about portable systems that nobody else has ever been able to figure out:
If the batteries are dead, then it doesn't matter how awesome your graphics are, how l33t your processor is, or even how good your games are: your system is an expensive brick. It seems like such a small thing, but poor battery life can bring even the greatest system to its knees. None of Nintendo's competitors seem to have understood this, and in the end they've all suffered for it.
I wouldn't exactly call it a trouncing. according to this article by years end the DS(all versions) should sold about 8.3 million units, the PSP 6.5 million. Now granted that number is 80% of the DS number so they aren't leading(in console units sold), however I wouldn't label that a failure.
Monstar L
You mean OTHER consoles are generally sold at a loss. Nintendo does not operate this way. They make money or they don't sell it.
Those wacky japanese businessmen.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
So I'll say it again here: I reserved a Wii and got one on launch day. For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa are buying two DS lites (one each for my daughter and eldest son). Add in the games (4-5 Wii games + 4 [2 each] DS games) and accessories (2nd and 3rd Wiimotes and nunchuks, Wii points cards, personalized Wiimote gloves, etc.) and Nintendo is making a mint off my family alone. But, no, the Wii is not negatively affecting DS Lite sales. Frankly, I want a DS Lite more now that I have the Wii. Every indication is Nintendo will offer integrations that make it very compelling to have both.
Actually, Microsoft and Sony sell their consoles at a loss.
5 2.html) that Nintendo is not selling the Wii or any of it's accessories (the remotes, nunchucks, etc) at a loss. They make profit on everything they sell.
It has been stated several places (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060915-77
According to that same article, the DS is expected to sell 4.5 million this year compared to 2.9 million for the PSP. Which means the DS will sell 50% more this year. If you also factor in the sales of the GBA this year (3.1 million) it begins to look like a trouncing.
Those numbers appear to be in the United States only. Sony currently quotes 22.94 million units shipped as of 2006-09-30 on their website. Nintendo currently quotes 26.82 million units sold. Not too shabby in the "to date" department, though Sony only reports shipments and not sales, which skews the numbers in their favour.
Looking at current retail sales reports paints a much grimmer picture for Sony, though. The latest figures that have been released have DS & DS Lite sales outpacing PSP 2:1 in the American and European markets and 5:1 in the Japanese market.
Even just looking at the article you quoted, notice that the sames of the GBA, Nintendo's last generation system, are higher than the PSP. Not a particularly good trend.
Ahh the days of old when we didn't HAVE to buy every consumer product out there. HAHA how silly and out of debt we were...
Nintendo is expecting a 60% increase in profits for the year...
Meanwhile MS and Sony are trying to keep from digging themselves too big a hole with their video game divisions.
Who is the real "winner."
No sig for you!!
You need SOMETHING to do while waiting 12+ hours in line to buy a Wii!
I know that's supposed to be sarcasm, but The original Gameboy took 4, and lasted 10 hours or better. The best any competitor could manage was 6 hours. Nintendo had 4 basic rules about making the Handheld the other handhelds didn't get. Obviously the Games are the reason to buy it, but from an Engineering standpoint Nintendo's handhelds have always had 4 things going for it:
1) Make it portable. - Atari Lynx had a commercial showing a child pulling it out of a backpack. Why? Because he needed to. A portable needs to fit inside a coat pocket so it's always accessable.
2) Make it affordable. - Every Handheld system pre-DS sold for $99.99 USD or less. Nintendo is in the business of selling games, not systems. Keep the system price low, so more people can buy your games.
3) Make it last a day. - A reasonable amount of Battery Life is required or Customers get angry. The Sweet spot is at 10 hours or more.
4) Make it durable. - Handhelds suffer more, and accidents happen. Their systems have been outright abused and they still work. There is actually an original GameBoy on display at Nintendo World in NYC that was in the Gulf War. It's half melted (Including searing the cartridge to the unit) but still will play Tetris. As long as a customer has a working system they can buy, and play your games.