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Nintendo's Sale Dominance Gets Noticed
Via Kotaku, a Wall Street Journal report on Nintendo's continued dominance of the game charts. The piece rehashes the February NPD numbers and discusses the role the Wii and DS have had in revitalizing a company the WSJ refers to as an 'also-ran'. "To take better advantage of the Wii's growth, EA moved quickly to ramp up game production for the system, acquiring Headgate Studios, a developer in Utah focused entirely on making titles for Nintendo hardware, and shifting resources in other EA development groups to Nintendo projects. The company released four titles for the Wii in March, including a version of its Tiger Woods golf game in which players swing the Wii controller like a club. EA is also working on a line of consumer guides for the Nintendo DS that will be aimed at older players in Japan."
Stiill?
Sorry.
Sony's hubris was palpable. I'm not quite sure why Microsoft hasn't garnered more of a lead here though.
http://www.bynarystudio.com
In fact, Nintendo is doing so well, that Square-Enix has suggested that Final Fantasy XIII may in fact be heading to the Wii. (Probably as a port.) In any case, they have 100% confirmed that it will no longer be a PS3 exclusive.
Nintendo execs say only one word as they ride the rollercoster to the top... wiii! (mandatory wii joke, I know its getting old)
[quake3arena]
DOMINATING
[/quake3arena]
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
I think a more telling story is that the PS2 is still selling more than all the "next-gen" consoles.
280,000 vs 259,000
Although, I think the wii could trounce it if they could keep it on the shelves.
Aren't businesses *supposed* to innovate and sell their product? Isn't EA supposed to suffer for not at least throwing *some* of their development at the Wii from the start? Whatever I'm just starting to get tired of everyone sucking Nintendo's wii.
So.. when will there be any new games released for the Wii? Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime, Super Smash Brothers are all without release dates, with a few of these rumored not until 2008. I believe the analogy of the Wii just being two GameCube's duct-taped together is looking more true every day.
An opinion that many don't share :) What do you not like about the wii?
Though I am getting a bit impatient waiting for a great game for the Wii (Super Paper Mario was alright, but didn't satiate my craving), this and other announcements is just encouraging companies to rush out tripe. Only a matter of time until we get another E.T.!
First of all, I should mention that I'm somewhat biased (read my profile). That said, I do like what Nintendo is doing, and have been seeking out a Wii for months now. However, I'm not willing to buy one on eBay, or call stores everyday, or stake out early morning shipments at Target. I do look for one everytime I'm at Costco or Fred Meyer (a local big-box store where I do my grocery shopping). I have more than enough games and other things to do, that I don't need one right away, but am willing for it to be a simple impulse buy.
Anyway, I'm confused why the NPD stats show that Wii production is decreasing. Here are the numbers for the past few months:
January: 436,000
February: 335,000
March: 259,000
I think we can all agree that demand far exceeds supply, so these numbers essentially cover production as well. Now, I didn't include the November and December numbers, because they probably still reflect the huge ramp up of Wii units that were pumped out months before launch. I am guessing that most of that initial supply is long gone by January now.
So again, why is Wii production decreasing? As I am not a business person (just a lowly software engineer), someone please correct me if I'm missing something here.
I just want my Wii, dammit.
-- jchenx
Huh? Those are sales numbers.
They stockpiled an assload before the launch at christmas, and those have trickled out onto the market. The lowering numbers mean the supply sitting in the warehouses in japan is running out.
I'm sure if anything production has increased, just not enough to meet the demand.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
My guess would be the fact that it's launched in Japan and Europe during that time period. Those numbers are too low to be worldwide.
are these world wide numbers or for a specific region (considering 6-7 million have been sold, and these numbers for a month seem low to represent a console that sold that much worldwide, it look regional to me)? if worldwide, yeah i'm wondering why the numbers are dropping. if for a specific region, then maybe other regions are getting a different distribution of wii amounts depending on the percept demand relative to the region the above numbers represent.
Saddly then you would be missing some great Wii games. Madden 07 (for the Wii) is exceptional, and both the Godfather and Tiger Woods are eating up lots of my free time. In fact, I suggest getting Tiger and the Godfather at the same time. I'm stuck on Jim Furyk in the Tiger Challenge, and each time I lose to him I throw in the Godfather so I can throttle someone with Full Motion controls.
If only I could import him into the Godfather game directly... It would be much more satisfying, and I wouldn't mind losing as much.
NPD stats are North American only right? Maybe after the Christmas Rush, Nintendo's shifting the distribution a bit to equalize it across the regions. So if they are making say 750k/month, in January they sent 500k to North America, and split the remaining 250k in the rest of the world. Now, North America's down to 300k, while Japan and Europe and Asia are splitting the remaining 450k. That, or Nintendo is shipping proportionally more to Wal*Mart and e-tailers than to the b&m stores that report their stats to NPD.
It's being fucked with by the distribution chain, too.
Example: GameStop held onto thousands of units over a couple of months just so they could horde them into $600 packages and sell them on their website.
Which is how I got mine because, well, let's face it, super paper mario is pretty kick ass.
I don't think it's so much that production is decreasing, as it is that they had a giant stockpile of constructed, un-localized Wiis ready before the initial released in November. along with a stockpile of parts for making more Wiis that wasn't immediately shipped to stores so that they could localize and then distribute them based on what regions were selling the most. However, since it's been regularly selling out everywhere, and possibly as a pace faster than Nintendo or any of their suppliers fully anticipated, they probably are hitting a limit on production for one or two components that are limiting their production output.
...and from another article, they certainly seem like north american numbers only
NDP is north America.
Nintendo had trouble getting everything shipped end og '06 so January has slightly inflated numbers.
The Japanese market is similar though. So it is possible that:
a) Europe/South America/Rest of Asia/Africa are getting more.
b) They are being held for something big (speculated for next fiscal quarter).
c) More "obscure" places count for a lot of stock and they are piling up in places like K-mart (sounds unlikly).
d) A slight monkeying around with shipments to increase scarcety.
e) Contracts running out for factory time without it being replaced elsewhere.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
You're implying they had 100's of thousands of Wii's sitting in warehouses that they chose not to ship to stores during the shortage? Just decided to skip the whole Xmas rush thing? Marketing reason's, right?
Slashdotter's can be so clueless
Production probably isn't decreasing as that would be downright foolish. These are US sales #s, worldwide sales numbers have probably stayed pretty constant which means that the European release would decrease the US supply. Does anyone have those numbers?
And don't even get me started on their recent releases for PC. The local landfill has less bugs than most EA fare does these days.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
My guess is your'e one of the dudes who paid $2000 for a PS3 on eBay and now you're bitter because you have 2 good games...
Umm no limited shelf space, and you can usually stockpile a product faster than you can ship it out.
They dont teleport themselves from Japan to the shelf at Toys R' Us, fella.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Ahh yes, I probably should have mentioned in my post, that NPD is only North America.
People have made many good points about regions. The numbers would make a lot of sense, if it's just a matter of Nintendo shifting production capacity from region to region. If someone could pull worldwide numbers of the Wii, that would help.
That said, it is disconcerting that, at the very least, North America seems to be getting fewer and fewer units. I'm speaking from the point of a North American consumer, who just wants to be able to buy the console. From a business perspective, Nintendo may be doing the right thing, if it thinks that supplying Europe and/or Japan is more important than North America at the moment.
-- jchenx
More likely is that Wii production is constant, and Nintendo is simply burning through the end of supply built up during pre-launch production last year.
That said, I don't think anyone outside of Nintendo will know for sure either way.
-- jchenx
The NPD numbers are only for the U.S. Production could be going elsewhere.
My guess is that the GP is just trying to flame without reason - you know, just to get a rise outta you :)
Okay, but let's stop there. Thwii or four would be wiidiculous.
(checking "Post Anonymously" out of shame...)
because football changes each year... right?
granted, the wii has brought far new ways to interact with the game, but i dont see '08 on the wii being different except maybe better interface controls.
sports games are old and uncreative despite what wii has been doing. (heart wiimote)
In other words, the biggest kid on the block, rather than doing their homework and using their brain power to stay ahead of the competition, simply went out and bought a solution in order to bring it in-house. Headgate dudes, I feel sorry for the head-up-ass rape that is sure to follow. I hope you can still crank out a few good titles before you get eaten alive by the EA machine.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Those are sales numbers, not production numbers, and yes, they are a decrease from prior months. Roughly, compared to February numbers, the Wii saw a 22% decline in sales, along with a small percentage for the 360. The PS3 has actually gone up in sales a little, shockingly enough. 127,000 units in Feb versus 130,000 units in March. Not a big increase, but it's there.
My opinion, it's the slump we usually see around this time of year. I figure some of the blockbuster titles are being retained by Ninty so they can continue to tweak things (they're about as bad as Blizzard on delaying something for quality purposes), but also to combat the future big hitters from the PS3 and 360 Camp (i.e., Halo 3). Figure, they still have Metroid 3 and Mario Galaxy up their sleeves, plus those other new franchises we saw briefly at E3, yet haven't heard from since (H.A.M.M.E.R. and Disaster). I think as we get into the summer and early fall, we're gonna see a lot of really cool stuff coming out for all three consoles. Sony better have cool stuff in the pipeline, or they're gonna be swimming up shite creek without a paddle (and have hole in the boat).
And the DS? Crikey. 508,000 units in one month. That's just insane. I wish I'd invested in their stock a year ago. tbey struck their all-time high since getting listed on the Osaka Securities Exchange back in 1962. I think it's up to ¥36,000 or something now. Their yearly financial report also comes out next week. That'll be interesting to look at.
--K
Too bad you are an AC. I would like to be able to read your other rants about the failings of capitalism.
If the wii is selling much better than any other new console, that defines it as not crap. The fact that you have a low opinion of it simply defines you as not being part of the target market.
They can only hit retail as fast as they can be shipped from Japan, and get through Customs.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Sounds like an Audiophile to me. Can I interest you into some great $2000 speaker cables? They are pure copper alloy and have been demagnetized as well. I also have a demagnetized granite shelf to mount your equipment on for 20,000. And a tuned power cable for $500.
You know that price is a sure indicator of quality.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Don't mess with my SSX Blur. Yeah I don't buy any other EA games but I do love Blur and hope for a sequel.
I suggest photoshopping Larry Probst face on 7-of-9 to complement BillGates/Locutus.
Well, until demand is met (which it clearly hasn't been, yet), those numbers say nothing about the actual demand, so it's impossible to chalk up to disinterest in Wii titles. Those numbers are pure reflections of how many units are being produced, since 100% of all inventory is being sold the moment it hits the floor. Large titles aren't going to increase sales at all, at this point, if Nintendo can't even meet the damand that is already out there.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Screw that. Hey EA, bring back Zany Golf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zany_Golf
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
Which has everything to do with the Wii's unique controller and very little to do with EA or Madden.
No, no... It's because of EA's implementation of controls using the Wii's unique controller. The Wiimote, awesome as it is, is not a magic wand. It does not turn shit into gold, and it's perfectly possible for a game to implement shitty controls for the Wii. In fact, seeing how hard it seemed for some game studios to get simple analog stick + binary buttons controls working reasonably, I think the potential of shitty controls for the Wii is very high, and some of the games that are out there bear this out.
I'm not a fan of EA or Madden (nor have I played it on the Wii) but the reason people keep talking about Madden for the Wii is because EA did a good job of implementing the controls and creating a unique experience. Never would have happened without the Wii there in the first place, but hey that's the whole point of Nintendo's strategy, breaking game developers out of their old habits and getting them to do something new.
The enemies of Democracy are
Actually, it's not quite that simple. That would lead to lost potential profit. If a dev team finishes a game and is about to start a new one, you obviously go with the one that has the most potential profit. If you could compete with Madden and make profit x, or you could instead create a GTA clone and make profit y, then you go with the GTA clone if y > x, even though you could have made money with the football game.
Not neccessarily disagreeing with you. Just saying that "it makes profit" alone isn't enough to get a game made. Committing a team to a game means that the team can't make another game that could make more money.
it looks like we are going back to Playstation (as in 1) level of graphics,
I stopped reading your comment right there
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Probably because they already own a Wii, so they play the one they don't own yet?
As for the Wii's graphics: Not sure what game you've played. There are some Wii games with really awful graphics, and there are some with nice graphics. The Wii is capable of easily outpacing the original Xbox, so it's certainly not "going back to PS1 level graphics."
Nintendo has a number of killer apps in development. The current lineup is not great, but it's not bad either, given the age of the console. Definitely better than the PS3 (where you still basically have Motorstorm and Resistance - personally, I'm not into FPS; I own Motorstorm, Ridge Racer and flOw, none of which are games you're going to play for more than a few weeks at most). The third party support is also good, and getting better. EA, interestingly, has released a bunch of awesome games - Godfather comes to mind.
Not sure about your classic controller remark. Are you just making things up? I don't think there's even one Wii game that supports the classic controller. As far as I can tell, it's strictly VC games (and maybe for Metal Slug, not sure).
Wait, I'm starting to see what you're doing here. You're not actually making a coherent argument. You're just making stuff up as you go. Damn. Sorry for replying. Look, the Wii is winning because it's fun, just like the iPod became the best selling MP3 player by being easy to use and offering a full solution that did not force the user to copy MP3 files using Windows, or scroll through his songs on a single list using arrow buttons. There's a well-sized list of awesome games for the Wii, some of them even from EA, and yes, there are Wii games with good graphics. The controllers are great. Sure, they cost more than PS3 controllers, all things considered, but they're easily worth it, and you still come out ahead by a huge margin, given the Wii's price.
Give the Wii a fair chance, and you'll end up liking it.
(Disclaimer: I own both)
The DS sales are almost certainly due to the upcoming release of Pokemon Pearl and Pokemon Diamond this weekend. I've heard figures claiming that there have been 500k pre-orders already, between the two games.
"Two Gamecubes duct-taped together"? I think you're still using last month's analogy. Haven't you seen the memo? The Wii's games lineup looks pretty good right about now. Bunch of new games you might want to check out: Super Paper Mario, Heatseeker, Godfather, SSX Blur.
That looks quite good, shame the Wii demo unit had nothing like that in its cycle the best game graphically was Zelda and I wasn't particulary impressed with it. Since the demo i got to play was Wii Sports you can imagine how low my expectations for the Wii are. That actually looks impressive, thanks for the link
Out of curiousity, your local Toys'R'Us has a playable Wii kiosk?
I ask because the manager at the one here in town said that none of their stores would have any, and I was curious if things were different on your side of the pond.
I dunno, it's sorta painful to go back to the PS2 after just playing on the GAMECUBE. I'm playing Tales of the Abyss, right now, after having played Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube, and it really is painful to go back like that. From a hardware perspective, the Wii is like two overclocked gamecubes with a boosted graphics card, and a few more shaders and goodies like that.
So wait... this makes no sense. Why is it painful to go from the PS2 to the Wii, when I found it painful to go from the GameCube to the PS2? Something tells me you need to get out more, cuz even the latest PS2 games are pretty crappy compared to early GameCube titles.
I'm just not buying it.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
yeah, same with the PS3 it wasn't obvious or advertised. There were two demo units running through a cycle since i was stuck in town i thought i would try my luck and get a controller since the entertainment desk was directly opposite they let me have a controller. I have no idea if its standard practice
Dude, Wii Sports' graphics are simple... but they're far from PlayStation quality. They're clean and everything that the developers intended them to be. Have you played Okami on the PS2? That's my benchmark for success, at the moment, a game with incredibly beautiful, but low powered graphics that I feel accomplished everything they tried to achieve. Mario Sunshine is another example: it's cartoony and fun... it's smooth and clean, developers could have used 10 shaders, but they only needed 3 (or whatever). This becomes clear once you notice the trailors for Super Mario Galaxy, and realize that there's really no graphical improvement over Sunshine... because there really can't be. Most of the games currently out for the Wii don't even attempt to use the Wii's graphical power to its advantage. Seriously, the best game you saw on that kiosk was a GameCube port (Twlight Princess), and I'd have to say it was one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, regardless of its graphical "impressiveness"... it accomplished exactly what it set out to do: no less, no more... and is currently my favorite game of all time. The fact is, while the current Wii games could have been done on the PlayStation, the Wii can do them flawlessly, without you having to think about how poor they look. Many of the games look like they were drawn by Terri Gilliam (Wario Ware), or a 3 year old (parts of Super Paper Mario), but that's because that was their intention. Now, go check out some of the trailors for Metroid Prime 3, which puts Halo 2 to shame and rivals some of the stuff we've seen for Halo 3. Umbrella Chronicals is another one. It's really all about the developers' intent. The PS3 and 360 have the potential to be graphically superior to the Wii... but not if the developers keep doing the same old shit they've been doing for years.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
-- jchenx
Oh, sure, you demagnetized the granite shelf, but did you align the crystalline sub-matrix of the quartz particles? For $20,000, obviously not!
I drank what? -- Socrates
And a tuned power cable for $500.
You know that price is a sure indicator of quality.
You're paying $500 for a power cable? What kind of cheap junk is that!
The only thing almost good enough for MY ears is the
JPS Labs Kaptovator Power Cord for $1500.
Sometimes an NPD month is four weeks versus five weeks. February was a four week month I believe.
As for the low March numbers, this is likely due to the end of Nintendo's fiscal year (where the last of the original 6 million are shipped). April's NPD should be considerably higher.
I can not make up anything as stupid as reality.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
The Wii doesn't even have pixel shaders. It's CPU is less than 2x the GameCube CPU. It has about twice as much memory. It has a faster GPU, but its still a *fixed function* GPU for christ's sake, a design that has been obsolete for several years! I don't think you can even *buy* those on graphics cards for PCs anymore.
I'm a game developer working on a AAA title for the Xbox360. Even if we wanted to release our title on the Wii, we'd probably have to redo all the graphic assets in the game to get around the lack of shaders. We've built a bunch of 'next gen' technologies into the engine we're using, which would have to be disabled or re-implemented. And the Wii almost certainly wouldn't have enough CPU power to run our game anyway.
I own a Wii and an Xbox360, but not a PS3. I can state that the Xbox360 and the PS/3 are about equal on paper. In practice, the Xbox360 is much easier to develop for and easier to extract the full power from (expect it to be about 1.5 to 2 years before you see a lot of PS3 games that equal or exceed Xbox360 games in the 'shiny' category).
The Wii is proving to be enormously popular, and I hope Nintendo has great success with this console. But make no mistake--Microsoft and Sony pushed their "next gen" technology, with HDTV fillrates and high production costs and fans that go crazy. In contrast, Nintendo has made another "old gen" console.
The Wii hardware is literally almost the same as GameCube hardware, with clock rates and memory sizes increased by 1.5x to 2x. The controller IS innovative (though to be honest, I like Sony's sixaxis controllers better).
Despite the previous post, the Tiger Woods game for Wii is terrible. Your player will hit the ball before you swing (generally in the water) and the graphics are a lot worse than Wii Sports. This game alone is probably why people throw their remotes at their Tv!
(Posted from my Wii!)
I've played LOTS of games. I own around 50-60 for ps2 + xbox360 + wii.
This includes 3 tiger woods for ps2 and 1 for the wii.
The wii version disgusted me so much I unplugged the wii and it hasn't had power for over 2 months.
The game sucks. The graphics are poor, and the programming of the motion sensing is pathetic. I can handle being bad at games and sports when its my fault, but EA really fked us this time.
Bit of a shame because it had so much potential.
Without the "Tiger Woods" name, this game would be ranking in there with ET.
Wii sports baseball or wii sports golf are SO much better at interpreting what you do with the controller.
This could mean that Wii won't be like Gamecube in terms of game selection. Publishers know that Wii has hundreds of thousands users and probably continue to sell out. This equals profit to them and will bring dozens of games to the Wii. Sony's PS3 will take third seat like Gamecube did unless Sony does something drastic to compete in price with Wii.
Question remains, Who will dominate, the 360 or Wii? Only time will tell.
FoxNews reports on this story.
\
...when NINTENDO'S hubris was quite palpable? You Do remember when Nintendo was cock of the walk, and swung their weight around Sony style?
I've never wished I had mod points so much in my life.
It is no doubt that Nintendo is the most profitable of the three major console company's when Nintendo makes a Wii or a DS they actually make profit from selling the systems. Unlike Sony, which looses hundreds of dollars for every console sold. There is no doubt that people love Nintendo so much since they make games which are actually fun. 2D graphics are great, thats one of the things that DS has going for it. The work and time that it takes to make 2D graphics is intense, just the other day I came across this site that provides colors for up in coming game and sprite makers. colormagix well anyway back on point Nintendo is a god of gaming and everyone should just accept it.
Well actually, it IS a magic wand. . .
http://wii.ign.com/articles/779/779905p1.html
Wow, this game puts Time Crisis 4 (In arcades) to shame.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Because I am a nice guy:h tmlh tml
http://media.wii.ign.com/media/748/748547/vids_1.
http://media.wii.ign.com/media/819/819756/vids_1.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
More and more it looks like "production" was "decreasing" because Nintendo was happy with their numbers for the quarter, so they stopped shipping units and have been stockpiling them. This hypothesis is substantiated by the sale this past Sunday (Best Buy locations had a minimum of 12 units on-hand with many having more on the order of 45). They make a lot of direct profit on these little boxes.
Sony, on the other hand, takes a loss on each PS3 shipped, which they hope to make back as quickly as possible through games and BluRay videos. Thus, for their numbers, it would look best to sell as many as possible right at once and have one bad quarter, then watch the next quarter's profits increase as a result of the games and videos.