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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."
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.
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
How about "Nights: Journey of Dreams" in Fall 2007? That's the reason I'm buying a Wii.
I thought they said that Final Fantasy XIII wasn't going to be exclusive to PS3. This can easily mean a couple of things:
a) Outright port of Final Fantasy XIII or XIII Versus to XBox360, PC or Wii
b) Another game in the set of games they're releasing under the FFXIII project umbrella for another system. A good bet would be DS, followed by Wii or XBox360.
In my mind, b is most likely because they are already advertising that at the Square-Enix Party this year they will be unveiling a brand new FF game that no one knows about. An outright port to the 360 or PC would be possible if PS3 sales continue to lag to the point where the current install base + new customers just for FF13 will not recoup the loss from development (which is supposed to be offset by numerous ports/remakes released this year). If the cost:benefit ratio for a port to a different platform will help them at least break even on the entire project then it's inevitable and good business sense. Square has already gone on record stating that this generation is going to be expensive, so if they drop the cross-platform FF13 hammer, I'm not going to be surprised at all.
A Wii port could be done if they were smart about it. They would be smart to scale back the real-time rendering to FFXII standards and they can still keep the FMVs at high poly counts, just re-sized to 480p. Redoing a game but keeping the same plot, etc. isn't impossible. They scrapped Mother 3 for the N64 and remade it from the ground up as a GBA game. Also, Namco was working on a Xenosaga Episode 1+2 game for the DS as well at one point.
Insert Sig Here
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.
MS's flagship game hasn't come out yet. For a lot of people Halo was the reason to get the Xbox. I don't think they are going overtake Nintendo when Halo 3 comes out but I'm sure they will be doing a lot better. I expected the 360 to be doing much worse. Its Sony's low sales that have suprised me.
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!!!!