Wii 'Popularity Bubble' to Burst?

A combination of industry and developer observations has prompted Tech.co.uk to wonder if the Wii's overwhelming popularity is due to end sometime soon. This is based on a report from Japanese business newspaper The Nikkei, which published an article recently entitled 'Software Houses Miscalculate Audience, Demand For Wii'. "The report goes on to discuss the likelihood that many Wiis are gathering dust in owners' cupboards, citing one software house president as saying, 'People bought it out of curiosity, and it's likely a lot of them haven't used it.' Given that September saw Wii sales fall sharply in Japan for the second consecutive month, it seems reasonable to speculate that the bubble inflated by the novelty factor is starting to deflate, but writing Nintendo off at any stage is a perilous course to steer." Is this just worrying, or is there validity to this?

Comments

Really bad assumptions

[milamber3]

Suggesting that tons of people bought the Wii and have never even used it is a really awful assumption. While it's true some people will buy it and use it less often than other's that's not to say it will sit in a box collecting dust. I got the Wii on launch day and my girlfriend and I have gone through periods where we use the Wii and lot and then periods when we dont play for a while. It has more to do with our jobs then a lack of interest. Some of the games we most want to play have not even come out yet. Regardless, the Wii does not have some special characteristic that will make people lose interest and not buy games for it any more that they would for the PS3 or Xbox 360.

Re:Not surprising...

[Volante3192]

So they package "Wii Sports" in with the system (or "Wii Play", I can't remember which one Japan got)

Japan didn't come with a bundled game.

Re:No dust.

[Wordplay]

I have all of the major consoles, and of them, the Wii is the least-played, and the Xbox 360 is the most-played, with the PS3 in the middle. The PS3 only has a handful of good on-disc games, but as the other guy who replied mentioned, the downloadables save the system. Many of the downloadable games are very high quality.

Re:Third party developers

[moderatorrater]

For the past week the top five games for the wii included Carnival Games at #1 and DDR at #3. Resident Evil's been up there, Rayman's been up there, and you have to go back six weeks to find one in which there aren't two games in their top five that are from a company other than nintendo. Developers that put out games for the wii have, so far, been reaping some nice benefits from the data that I've seen.

Re:Poor timing

[metamatic]

The rest of your argument would only apply if the Wii existed in a vacuum. It doesn't. It's being shut out of the software top ten, its hardware sales are only 10,000 per week ahead of the PS3 at this point...

Lets look at some games sales stats for October...
DS 135,851
Xbox 360 129,986
Wii 95,800
PSP 91,966
PS3 29,718

And as for hardware sales: "Also worth noting - PS2 outsold PS3 2:1 this week, 360 outsold PS3 4:1, and Wii outsold PS3 3:1 this week."

Ah yes, surely victory for the PS3 is assured! The Wii is only outselling the PS3 3:1 in both hardware and games, Nintendo are doomed!

Re:Not surprising...

[metroid composite]

they're casual gamers, they're not out buying a new game every week.

I'm a game developer, and before that an administrator for a gaming website. I don't buy a new game every week. Studies I've read suggest that this "once a week" demographic only accounts for 3% of all gamers.

It's happening. Look at the Japanese software charts, not just the hardware charts. Not a single Wii game in the top ten last week, this on supposedly the most popular console in Japan.

You're right, according to last week we should expect the 360 to win in Japan! ...Or we could look at this week, where in the top 30 there's 5 Wii games, 1 PS3 game, and 0 360 games (despite the Wii hardware dropping AGAIN). Now, 5/30 is low, but 0/30 and 1/30 are DISASTERS.

the competition's got big games in the pipeline too (not to mention a price drop).

The Wii is also quite capable of dropping price. This is less of a big deal in Japan, mind you, and more of a big deal in North America where people continue to buy GBAs over DSs for being $30 cheaper.

Not many hardcore gamers in any territory are going to want to own the system that their grandma and little sister thinks is cool. That probably sounds harsh, but that's the way 18-24 year old males think, and they make up the majority of hardcore gamers.

My experience with siblings is the opposite--younger sisters tend to take interest in whatever the older brother is playing. People get into arguments like "I want to play the NES" "No *I* want to play the NES".

As for the 18-24 male have-moved-out-of-the-house range, why would they care what their relatives are playing? If playing a game can get them into girl's pants, they'll do it, but otherwise they'll play whatever they like, or their dorm-mates like.

Whether or not the Wii continues to outsell the PS3 and Xbox 360 (by whatever shrinking margin it can muster), the big problem for them is that games aren't selling, really at all.

In North America the Wii games are selling better than PS3 games, and worse than 360 games. More 360s have been sold than Wiis in North America, and more Wiis have been sold than PS3s in North America. It's almost like install base is important after all!

Now, yes, the 360 has a spectacular attach rate--the 360 probably having the most hardcore of the ownership bases, and having achievement points which seem to be an obsession for some people. For this reason, the Wii could pass the 360 in America and still not control the region. This doesn't mean that the clear #2 console will be ignored by developers, though (the original XBox wasn't ignored last-gen; only third place (GC) was).

Re:No dust.

[radish]

I'll join the others introducing themselves to you :)

I stood outside TRU in Times Square for 6 hours the morning of launch day to get my Wii, so no-one can say I wasn't excited to get this thing. Played it a bunch the first month or so, but since my wife finished SPM we've basically never switched it on (except to install an update every so often). I honestly can't remember the last Wii game I bought, Metroid is something I'm interested in playing but to be honest it's at the end of a very long list. I just don't have enough time to play all the games on other systems I'm into, and nothing on the Wii appeals enough to beat them in the queue. Mario Kart is a probable buy, likewise Galaxy - but this just feels like the GC all over again.

Meanwhile I'm finishing Bioshock before starting Halo, finishing DiRT before starting Forza or PGR4 and at some point I'll make it back to R6 Vegas. Ratchet & Clank looks unmissable (first PS3 title to win that award in my book) and I still haven't really finished Crackdown. I will say that the PS3 isn't currently used much more than the Wii, but the 360 is miles ahead (at least for the games I enjoy).

Re:Nintendo's new motto:

[Bob-taro]

... The main point of the Prime series (and all Metroid series really) was to explore and find power-ups that allowed you to get farther into the "dungeons" ... one of the key features that sets Prime apart from other more traditional FPS titles is the need to use the various Visors and jump upgrades which effectively make the game play closer to a platformer such as Mario Sunshine. The fairly constant switch to third person when performing certain jumps and using the morph ball also serves to distance Prime from a FPS.

So I guess to the purists Half Life 2 isn't a FPS because there are physics puzzles. And Doom wasn't a FPS because you needed to navigate "dungeons" and find and use keys. Halo isn't a FPS because of all the 3rd person cutscenes.

Now, I'm being a bit of a hypocrite because I don't personally feel like it's a REAL fps unless you have a keyboard and mouse (I never got into consoles), but logically, if it's mostly first person and mostly shooting, I think you pretty much have to put it in the FPS category, even if it does overlap with other genres a bit.

Where are the network games!??

[Stone316]

I have a Wii and I barely play it.. My kids play it every now and then but days (weeks?) go by without it being turned on. My son continues to play his gamecube more. Why don't I play it more? I can't stand playing against AI.. I want to play real people and 1 year later where are the network games?!? Are there any?? I think there are a couple like the Pokemon one and I heard Call of Duty or some such is coming out in a few months with game play up to 16 people. The Wii has alot of potential but if they keep focusing on party games and things like Wii Fit, then people are going to get tired of it.