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How Wii Is Creaming the Competition
CNN has a report on the Wii's success in the games marketplace right now, referring to their sales dominance as 'creaming the competition'. The article tries to break down exactly why Nintendo's console has sold so successfully, discussing the system's marketing, engineering, and philosophy. "Next, engineers settled on a new approach for the Wii's looks. Just as the DS shunned the Game Boy name to appeal to a broader audience, the Wii would adopt a sleek white exterior instead of the toylike loud colors used on the GameCube. Even CEO Iwata got involved in the design process; at one point he handed engineers a stack of DVD jewel cases and told them the console should not be much bigger. Why so small? To work with the motion-sensitive wireless controller Nintendo planned, Iwata reasoned, the console would have to sit directly beside the TV. Make it any larger and customers would hesitate to leave it there. " Their sales strategy is working in spades. CVG reports that at least one analyst thinks that Wii demand won't be met until 2009. This past weekend Chris Kohler had an interesting comment on the 'ambassador programs' Nintendo ran in advance of the Wii's launch, and how that might tie in to the system's financial success.
The Wii also has the advantage of being hit with supply problems. Nothing makes the average consumer want something more than knowing they can't have it. It's affordable, has some pretty good games out there at release, and is in short supply. It's a trifecta!
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Personally, I own both a 360 and a Wii, and while I've had tremendous fun with my Wii - especially over the holidays - I've recently found myself playing my 360 again. The lack of integrated multiplayer as well as the poor selection for Wii titles is making me start to regret my purchase, which is the last thing I want to do. Really, I've enjoy the Wii a lot so far, and I'm excited to see what developers will do to utilize this unique system, but if they don't start coming out with titles that aren't lousy ports from the other systems, I may find myself selling the poor thing. I could probably get double what I paid for it, too.
Blerg.
A few months ago, I would have said the challenge was getting new games for the Wii into the market. We're still in a bit of a drought (depending on your taste in games), but there's a lot in the pipeline. Game makers are switching over to support the Wii given it's new found popularity and growing market share.
Nintendo's challenge will be to produce enough units to meet demand without sacrificing quality. They were clearly surprised by the demand, and have been slowly ramping up production. They are at a production volume of 1 million a month, and ramping to 1.5 million / month.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Their sales strategy is working in spades. At least one analyst thinks that Wii demand won't be met until 2009.
And that analyst should be fired. I think it is much more likely that the Wii will be able to catch up to demand in 3 to 4 months. Right now there are 1000s of Wii consoles up on Ebay. So I feel some of the demand is a bit artificial due to people trying to make a quick buck.
What I find interesting is that the PS2 is outselling the Wii (of course, we don't know if the Wii would outsell the PS2 if it could increase its supply enough..it probably would). I mean, it makes sense because it has the largest library and still has great games coming out for it...but still...I don't remember this happening in the previous previous generation.
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for instance nintendogs for the DS. Fun for exactly 20 minutes then you find out thats it. No locked features, no extras, just more decoration. Wii Cooking mama.. can't do anything with those points just minigames. Wii Warioware.. minigames. Wii Rayman.. minigames. Wii sports. 20 min then meh. Lotsa of minigames nothing with meat except zelda. thankfully there is more variety in DS titles but my fear is they will abandon my market segment to do nothing but shallow mini-game collections.
I have a life and am busy too but I need a $40+ to entertain me for more then 20min.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
That is not what took place. The Dreamcast sold well but then slumped badly after Sony promised the moon with the PS2. Even if you only look at the sales figures in a vacuum - a drop in hardware sales does not indicate, to me at least, a problem with widespread piracy. If anything, piracy should have helped to move more numbers of consoles.
That's interesting. I've sunk a whole bunch of time -- many, many hours -- into Wii Sports. Bowling especially! The nice thing is, I haven't sunk all that time at once. I've played for a while, done something in real life, come back, and so on. My fiancee and I play Wii Sports together, since it's a great game to play with someone who doesn't have as much video game experience.
Even if you want games that take longer, how about Zelda? Or Super Paper Mario? I think the Wii succeeds, because it hits all of these targets.
There is one obvious fact that Sony seemed to have forgotten is price point. While there are people who want a gaming console with all the bells and whistles for $$$$$, most prefer a cost around $200 with games around $25. You go too high, and the problem results in why buy a console instead of a PC, why should I pay so much for my kid's game machine, etc.
OMG!!! The data set of analysts' predictions has an outlier??? We should definitely pay the most attention to that estimate and not even mention the average predicted date for demand being met.
Sorry, the Wii invented its market and it is completely separate from that shared by the next-gen consoles. The Wii's market is the cheap family - especially any parent who thinks the Wii is going to be an exercise machine. Sony and Microsoft's strategies have very, very little focus on families.
Saying the Wii is blowing away the "competition" is sort of like suggesting that the Honda Accord is dominating Corvette and Porsche.
"I've sunk a whole bunch of time -- many, many hours -- into Wii Sports. Bowling especially!"
What he said. I'm still playing Wii Sports to this day, usually 4 or 5 times a week. My bowling skill score keeps fluctuating around 980-1050, and I'm still working how to bowl strikes more consistently to raise it. Anyone who says Wii Sports gets dull after 20 minutes is talking out of their posterior.
And another fun long-playing Wii game that gets overlooked is Excite Truck. It takes a damn long time to S-rank all of the tracks in Mirror Mode (and unlock the final unlockable). Too many folks, however, simply win a few races and mistakenly assume they can "beat" the game in a few hours...
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Plenty of reasons why you don't supply a ton of units all at once. First, you don't just produce a gagillion units because you need the infrastructure to support said units once they are out there. You have to ramp up customer support, network infrastructure for all these online units, etc.
You can't just ramp all those things up within a company automatically, you have to find the right line between unit sales and infrastructure to support those units. If you just produce a ton of units and grow your business infrastructure to support them without any idea what actual sales and support costs will be, then it's a big waste of money and your business will fail. They need to know unit failure rates with each batch, typical support time of all these new users, etc,etc. Network access patterns because of all the online stuff.
I think they release enough units to keep a linear growth of Sales and the support infrastructure to support those sales.
Case in point: I was at my parents house having dinner when my 57 year old mom said "I really like those Nintendo Wiis. I think I'll buy one." My jaw about hit the floor. Here's someone who has never played a video game for more than five minutes in her life talking about dropping $250 on a console. I asked her why she liked it, and she said that it wasn't just sitting in front of a screen, that it would help her stay active. She's worried about osteoporosis and gaining too much weight.
Let me summarize for those who don't get it: A grandmother who is almost sixty wants a Wii. There are at least as many of them in the world as hardcore gamers, mostly because the hardcore gamers live in their basements.
For what it's worth, I'm a 25-year-old male, but not a hardcore gamer. I get about 1 hour a day of downtime, which is split between the Web and TV. I'd like to buy a Wii, but I have to save some money since my wife and I are having a kid in October. So I'm going to stick with my NES I picked up at a yard sale for $20 along with about 80 games. That is, unless they release Guitar Hero 2 for the Wii.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I guess you just don't know my wife. She just about creamed when I bought her a 360. I guess I'm just lucky enough to have a hot wife who likes video games and computers ;) No really she has EVERY system released in the last ten years, save for the PS3 which will have to change once the Final Fantasy titles start to roll out. She likes the Wii, but she REALLY likes her 360.
It is more likely the PS3 and Xbox 360 can co-exist. Both have similiar philosophies with the systems and both place emphasis on graphics. Both share multi-platform games.
The Wii is a classic use of 'disruption' technology. A disruption occurs when a cheaper product introduces new technology to make doing the current job (of what the industrys' products are supposed to do) easier and/or better. The 'disrupted' products end up shriveling up in the marketplace. (Did the DS disrupt the handheld market? Is the PSP co-existing nicely with the DS? Rather, PSP got a price drop and is fighting for its life. How is this happening if DS was no threat to it?)
If the Wii continues to sell and sell, then the Wii-mote becomes the standard controller for video games. If the Wii keeps on selling, then the Wii will be seen as THE defacto standard video game system and the Xbox 360 and PS3 will be seen as ancient systems. A disruptive technology can be very nasty and literally change the landscape of the market.
Why did the PS3 get so much flak when it was launched? Probably because the PS3 launched at the same time as the Wii so the mainstream press and the market compared the two (and they slammed the PS3). Even now, the Xbox 360 is coming under increasing scrutiny. Microsoft is lowering shipping forecasts (360 sales did drop).
If the Wii is massively successful, then the PS3 and Xbox 360 will be hurt and the future of the console-as-meda-top-box will be essentially dead. The Wii is exactly in the position where the NES was twenty years ago. The NES disrupted the marketplace on such a scale that game centric computers got cut off at the knees. The NES pad replaced the joystick and gaming returned to the TV and away from keyboards and monitors.
Here's an example: do you think most people will want to play tennis games on the Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii? The answer is Wii because Wii Tennis re-defined video-game tennis. What about bowling? What about golf? Etc. etc. Soon, the Wii will 'alter' most game types and it will appear that Wii is the superior system for them (such as with tennis games). Most of the Wii stuff has, so far, been early launch or filler stuff, but the big stuff will come. What happens if Wii disrupts the FPS? What happens to Xbox 360 then? What if Wii disrupts all sports games and many action games?
Wii will become a massive problem to Sony and Microsoft, but I don't think they realize it yet.