Slashdot Mirror
Wii Is the New US Console Leader
stoolpigeon writes with this snippet from an AFP story carried by Google: "Nintendo said Thursday that its globally popular Wii has become the top-selling video game console in the United States, a crown coveted by rivals Microsoft and Sony. Market-tracking firm NPD Group reports that 666,000 Wii consoles were sold in the United States in June, raising the total sales count in the country to nearly 10.9 million units." I'd rather play board games than video games, but the Wii Fit makes one of these tempting anyhow.
Dam all you bastards buying them out every time I try to get one!
This, combined with the popularity of the Nintendo DS, should be proof enough that normal people want to play games, not brag about their system's capabilities.
Its proven with 666,000 Wii's how much eviler could you get
I'm not trying to troll, not at all--I own a Wii and no other current-generation consoles.
But where's the games! The Wii has so much potential, with its unique controller, and yet, I find so few games interested in playing.
I don't care about top-notch graphics. If I want that, I'll play my PC. What I do want are actual quality games instead of more shovelware. Where are they?
I wonder how many of these sales are due to people playing Wii Sports alone? I'm rather underwhelmed at the Wii's selection...
Oh, andoOnline gaming especially is important to me, and they really dropped the ball on Super Smash Bros. Brawl--the online is terrible, something reminiscent of 56k gaming, almost, just with better graphics. I haven't played the Wii's iteration of Mario Kart, which I probably should rent, but I have a feeling it's not much better (although, feel free to enlighten me on this).
This Bloomberg article also gives the numbers for PS3 and 360s in June. 405,500 and 219,800, respectively. Which is more interesting to me. The way people talk about the hard times the PS3 is having, I was surprised that it is outselling the Xbox.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
Nope. Real devil is XBOX 360 - they sold exact 666 units.
are willing to camp out overnight at Wal-Mart or BestBuy based on word that they *might* be getting some consoles in.
I can understand a shortage over the holiday season when the console was first introduced, but this is ridiculous. Doesn't Nintendo have people doing capacity planning and supply chain management and things like that?
Hi, Grandpa! What are you doing on Slashdot?
Fucking exclusively I might add.
Which is annoying because its (Fatal Frame) actually how I conned her into a PS3.... Damn you interwebs and your faulty informations!
Those sales are impressive, but at the bottom of the page it points out that the Nintendo DS has has sold double that.
Regardless, the most interesting thing is that the Wii is doing so well despite Sony and MS also doing very well. Wii's share is probably, lets say, 90% new gaming market? Most of their guys weren't going to buy a PS3/360 anyway - certainly that tallys with my experience.
I hate to break it to you, but there is no way that Nintendo has a monopoly on game consoles. They just now and just barely reached first place out of three.
At some point, the manufacturer risks pissing off their own potential customers who buy their competitor's product because it's easier to get.
Yes, maybe us proletarians can also take Nintendo's means of productions and stick it to those bourgeoisie Japanese businessmen!
Obviously it's your right to a Wii console and a Cheap and Affordable Price For You! Don't let any evil, sinister Republican politician or conservative demagogue tell you otherwise, comrade!
Barack Obama '08!!!!
Shouldn't the title be "Wii Are the New US Console Leaders"?
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
Personally I've always thought of the Wii as more of a gimmick and that this was all a fad, but after 10 million units sold it's still going strong. So that shows what I know.
Still, I wonder if the Wii's lifecycle will be as long as the N64 and SNES. My personal experience is that my family and I really enjoyed the wii for the first few months, but now we find that we rarely play it. I tend to prefer my 360, and my daughter has gravitated to PC-based games like Webkinz and Nick Arcade. Also, while I think that Nintendo's first party titles are always pretty good, the 3rd party signal-to-noise ratio is getting worse and worse. Nintendo's E3 performance was roundly considered to be the worst of the big three -- even if you come at it from a non-hardcore perspective, they didn't outline as many exciting titles as in previous years.
So what do you guys think? Is the Wii popularity going to stay strong over the next three years, or is there going to be a drop off?
I'd rather play board games than video games, but the Wii Fit makes one of these tempting anyhow.
Since when are these things mutually exclusive? You can have both, play both, and enjoy both. There are even video games based on board games and board games based on video games. Computer solitaire is popular because there are many options and rulesets that expand the games for veteran players; and for casual players, you don't have to find your deck of cards or shuffle them or pick them up, it's pretty much all automatic. You can even minimize the window and walk away a lot more easily and effectively than asking everyone to mind those cards on the table. Online board games let you find a partner right away, which allows you more opportunities to enjoy your favorite games. When board games start coming out on paper that uses electronic ink, the distinction between video games and board games will pretty much disappear.
Twinstiq, game news
It's affordable (only one car payment instead of two for the competition) and it's fun -- that is, the games are fun not just pretty.
I'm getting tired of pretty first person shooters that are all about the graphics where gameplay is clearly an afterthought.
After the poor show at E3, I'm starting to doubt whether Nintendo can hold on to its lead for much longer. They like to think that it's the casual games selling Wiis, but the AAA titles are what the hardcore gamers want - and it's the hardcore gamers who'll decide the outcome of the console wars. The initial batch of AAA titles was pretty strong (Zelda, Mario, and SSBB, for instance), but the thing is, it takes Nintendo quite some time to churn these out - usually a few years. There's always the chance that by then, they could simply have run out of steam. The novelty hasn't worn off yet, it appears, but the Wii isn't infallible, like Reggie seems to think - if Nintendo aren't careful, their beloved Wii may indeed turn out to be just another fad. I doubt many hardcore gamers would be satisfied with a Wii alone - for games with true substance as opposed to novelty, most will go for either the PS3 or 360 in addtion to a Wii.
Actually I read somewhere that they are sending most of the Wii consoles to Europe due to the falling dollar. Which makes sense,as they can get more money for the same unit by shipping there instead of the USA. Maybe when the recession is over and the dollar picks back up(if we don't end up sliding into another great depression) then we will see plenty of Wii consoles here. Until then it only makes sense to go where the money is. But that's my 02c based on what I read,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Nintendo is brilliant for turning their backs on the gamers that supported them for decades and designing games for grandma.
They owe no loyalty to anyone. They're a company and they exist to make money. As it stands, they're doing that. Also, I'd say it's not really that they've turned their backs -- the games aren't much different from the goofy stuff from the N64 or GC days. They just lost a lot of third party support after the GC took such a beating by the PS2, and haven't regained that. Their inhouse games -- Mario, Zelda, Metroid -- are still good. (Actually, I liked this generation Zelda *more* than I liked any since the SNES.)
They're also brilliant for releasing a "next gen" console with last gen hardware specs for 250.
Yeah, how *dare* they not be just like their competitors and offer something different and affordable.
And it works great because grandma and grandpa have no clue about how graphics or processing power can improve their gaming experience.
Yeah because games *sucked* until this generation. Just out of curiosity -- how old are you? Anyone who has been a Nintendo fan "for decades" remembers 8-bit shit graphics.
Means they make raw profit on every machine sold
They don't have a choice. They're not part of a massive conglomerate that can subsidize their gaming unit until it comes out of the red -- they have to make money on hardware sales.
Hell, even of the more regular gamers I know, they have wii's for two games only. Mario and Smash.
Metroid, Zelda, Mario Kart? Basically the other three in the five series' that have been Nintendo staples (and some of the only games worth playing that were exclusive to Nintendo) since the N64 days? (Okay, so no Metroid then... but the other four, yes.)
So, for third party developers, it's still better to make titles for a PS3 or 360.
Yeah, ignoring the leader by miles -- great strategy. They should make PSP games, too, and not DS games -- right? So what if it wins?
The reason the Wii isn't doing well with third party? They lost a lot of support over the previous two generations -- their fault, given the way they behaved toward developers in the past -- and nobody had anything big planned for the Wii. Then it took off and developers are either pushing out crap or working on something decent, or quietly praying the other two catch up.
Video games stopped being for gamers a long time ago. Now they are for teenage boys who don't want a real game but simply a pastime that makes them look "cool", who like to pretend they are gamers without actually having to play with real games. I played with a few X-Box games, and they have very little challenge. In some, like BioShock, there is simply no way to lose, you can just see what's next. How can you call something where you are sure to win "a game"? Calling those "games" interactive video entertainment instead of video games would certainly be more truthful.
Nintendo's brilliant move was simply to stop making entertainment for teenage boys who like to pretend they are cool, and actually make entertainment for the broader audience of people who don't care about looks and who simply want some light fun with their friend. (BTW, I don't own a Wii and I don't intend to)
"They just now and just barely reached first place out of three."
perhaps because the DS is just too popular...
"In 2007, the Wii was the second best-selling game console (behind the Nintendo DS) in the US and Japan"
considering they were number 2 to themselves, the numbers take on a different light.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
free market
I am so sick and tired of hearing that as if it was supposed to be the solution to all problems. first Nintendo has "ramped up" production more than you could demand of them, getting the whole supply chain to "ramp up" production is not easy. Second the free market is handling the demand, becuse of free market you can find them on ebay for twice as much. And in america there may be a shortage becuse of the dollar's low value but nothing is stopping you from importing from EU.
preview button, my computer does't have any preview button
666,000
omg Nintendo is teh beast!
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
(Emphasis Added)
This is solid proof that Nintendo are sponsored by the devil.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Unlike PS3 and XBox 360, the Wii console is sold above cost. Nintendo has a monopoly on the wii and their distribution of it, they hardly have a monopoly on gaming consoles (in fact, given the scarcity, it's sort an anti-monopoly).
One of the underlieing assumptions of the Invisible Hand is that a rise in price will immediately bring production up to a new equilibrium. Of course, this is really an abstraction that makes the thought experiment work; in the real world, Nintendo can't immediately increase production to meet increased demand, because it takes time to build new manufacturing facilities. It's also not worthwhile to invest in new facilities to serve a short-term spike. Big investments like that have to pay off for the long haul. Since it was expected that the Wii would start making demand last spring, it wasn't worth too much effort to increase manufacturing rates. (I suspect WiiFit created a new demand spike which threw off that prediction.)
So if they can't meet demand, the Invisible Hand says they should increase the cost. This pads their profit margin, allowing them to reinvest into building facilities to build more Wiis, and then sell later at a cheaper price when manufacturing ramps up. This is also the best strategy for retailers (even if they were a monopoly), since it pads their margins just as much. So why hasn't this happened?
Nintendo has a long term need to maintain its brand image. If it sold the Wii at $300 or more (which is where the eBay price suggests the equilibrium price is at), it would be competing around the same price point as the XBox 360. Since the Wii is (let's face it) less powerful than the 360, many would perceive this as evil price gouging. At launch, the 360 was already considered too expensive (though many considered it cheep when the PS3's price was announced). Brand perception may be more important than a short term profit increase.
Not a typewriter
what a free market is about.
Don't buy it if you don't want it. Simple as that. This is a "want," not a "need."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I can't tell if you are joking or are serious, but since there are people who actually think the way you do, I will respond to your points for their sake and hope you aren't too offended if this was just sarcasm.
What I wonder is why the free market isn't able to meet Wii console demand. Under the normal conditions the price would rise to reduce the demand until there are some units sitting on the shelves because they are too expensive, after which the manufacturer would increase the supply and lower the prices while still keeping supply-demand in equillibrium.
There are numerous examples of products throughout the years that were both cheap and sold out. The reason the companys making them didn't raise the prices as you descibe is because this would create ill will with their customer base and likely cost them in the long run. This isn't to say however that the free market doesn't respond as you describe its just not Nintendo or the retailers who have binding agreements with Nintendo that are letting the market find the price - its places like ebay; anyone who wants a wii could have one immediately if they are willing to pay the current going rate on auction sites.
Since none of this is happening, I suspect the monopolist manufacturer manipulates the prices and supply such that there is an artificial shortage
While Nintendo has a "monopoly" on manufacturing wii's, its makes as much sense to call it a monopoly as it would to call Apple a monopoly for being the only one making Macs; they both are products in a larger marketplace, and customers have plenty of other choices.
either to 1) undercut the competitors by keeping the prices too low,
All evidence is that Nintendo is the only game manufacturer unwilling to sell hardware at a loss. This is completely contradictory to your statement. Further it is not illegal or unethical to sell a product that everyone knows has cheaper components (than its competitors) for a cheaper price.
2) to generate hype by the perceived scarcity of the resource: "hey, if these consoles are so popular I gotta get me some" (which counts as false advertizing)
While its not impossible that Nintendo has done this, don't you think its a bit idiotic to accuse Nintendo of purposefully creating shortages in a discussion that began with the title "Wii is the New US Console Leader". (doubly so when that now make the wii the leader in every region)
Monopolists need to be fined or broken up!
Sure, but what does that have to do with Nintendo?
I'm sorry, but your $.02 is now worth only $.015
The weak dollar is part of it, but what it really amounts to is that Europeans are willing to pay more for it. Use the current exchange rate and compare the Euro prices to the dollar prices. They are much higher. Europeans who are buying the Wii could buy more American entertainment (measured in nominal currency) than they are getting with the Wii, but they obviously prefer the Wii.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
the package itself is small and convenient, the controllers are easy as hell to figure out and the games are just fun to play. Spent yesterday night drinking with friends and turned on the Wii and everybody is jumping on the balance board skiing, having a hell of a time laughing it up.. I love the thing even if the there aren't all sorts of fancy FPS type games for it.
The best software margins are also at the low end. It takes many millions of dollars to create a big 3D acronym-compliant game, which may end up flopping in the end. It takes one semi-decent programmer a weekend to hack up a Bejeweled clone, and there's millions of middle-aged women who will buy it. While this doesn't necessarily mean that large complex games will go away, it does mean that the major publishers are at risk of being market-corrected into something akin to a small scale .com bust. Even if they avoid a major bust, "hardcore" gamers are going to have to face the fact that the biggest gaming demographic isn't males aged 15-30.
Not a typewriter
Your first paragraph is incorrect. There is no such assumption. There is an assumption that a rise in price often leads to an increase in production and a new equilibrium, but there is no assumption that the increase will come, or that it will be immediate. As you go on to point out, the invisible hand is just as happy with price increases as it is with production increases.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Well. It cant be hard for a computer to be better at it than Bush. And the Japanese practically run the place anyways. Good on you Wii!
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
...and yet, third party developers insist that all Wii owners are 4 year old girls, so they shove games like "Party Chef" down our throats and then complain when no one buys that garbage. Just look at what Electronic Arts has done with their "All Play" series. NCAA football 09 is an absolute abomination with no online play, phony stadiums, and graphics so bad, they make the PS2 version look like the 360! Tecmo Bowl has more advanced gameplay!
Software developers just don't get it... they don't get what casual gaming is about... it's not about kiddie games... it's about games that you don't need to spend weeks of your life playing to get anywhere... that doesn't mean that the games should be lame... quite the opposite, since we play less often, we want our games to be more meaningful and rewarding.
Nintendo gets it... that's why their games sell... everyone else? Not so much!
In looking things over again, I think I was actually hinting at assumptions that often underlie examples of comparative advantage (which the Wiki page phrases as "Perfect mobility of factors of production within countries").
However, I believe the overall argument stands. You don't immediately get new oil reserves opening up just because the price rises, and you don't immediately get more Wiis just because the demand is higher than manufacturing capacity, since "perfect mobility" rarely (if ever) exists.
Not a typewriter
This time they did it with good product and beat out the competition, unlike the underhanded and illegal tricks they used to topple Atari back in the old days.
I still don't like them a bit due to the past however.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nintendo is brilliant for turning their backs on the gamers that supported them for decades and designing games for grandma.
I guess it's kinda ironic that I'm playing through Castlevania on the DS right now, huh?
and nobody had anything big planned for the Wii
And that's the key. The Wii took everyone by surprise, and now, like you said, developers are scrambling to cash in. Easiest way to do that in the short turn? Churn out shovelware. Hopefully they have some better titles in the works for a long term approach.
...something deep inside me tells me that the Wii will have been a collector's item for quite a while when the US recession will finally be over.
You have no idea what lies ahead, sorry to say that. Next up: all-out thermonuclear war in the Middle East.
You have no more of an idea than the people you're lecturing to, so don't make claims. "Something deep inside" doesn't count as knowledge.
Does that mean the Wii is the Anti-Christ? I can't believe I thought of that... *hits himself*
considering they were number 2 to themselves, the numbers take on a different light.
They were actually #2 to XBox 360. The article is about life-to-date sales in the U.S. and, although it's up for debate, handhelds and home consoles are generally considered two different markets.
Anyway, I was actually surprised when Nintendo announced this at E3. I had assumed it had already happened long ago with the sorts of numbers Nintendo was hitting every month and the way the 360 sales had slowed.
I was once a horse.
These numbers aren't counting handhelds.
The DS has been WAY ahead on that count since before any of the home consoles were even released. Currently around 24 million in the US according to VGChartz, though it also says the Wii is 12 million and this says 11.
Nintendo is brilliant for turning their backs on the gamers that supported them for decades and designing games for grandma
I'm one of the gamers that supported Nintendo for decades. Guess what? I don't have time to play hardcore games. I don't have an XBox or a 360, don't have a PS3 or a PS2. But I love an hour or two of Mario Kart or Wii Play or Boom Blox with my kids.
And in fact, the game that's had most play in my house this weekend has been Goldeneye, on our N64.
So have Nintendo turned their backs on me? Um, no. They've worked out a way to create and sell new games to me. Have they stolen back from a losing position in the last console generation, to eat Sony's and Microsoft's lunches, by redefining console gaming and finding a new and much larger group of gamers? Yes, in fact. Are you a sad loser who can't deal with the fact that Nintendo have revolutionized gaming by opening it up to this new group, people who would never have bought a console before the Wii? Well, it kind of looks that way.
Why mod this guy down, so I have to click to see the post? It was at least a decent line of thought: if they can't get serious gamers, they may not survive the long haul (remember Nintendo has had it's struggles - it's the Mac of the gaming industry). Other have countered and been "Insightful", so why can't this guy at least be "interesting"? Remember, as a moderator you are to work to get the flow of the discussion going along nicely. Keep out the truely dumbass (be very careful with this), mod down a troll, and mod up insightful/funny/interesting, no matter what you think of the person (and maybe even if you don't agree). Posting AC, since the guy i am directly referencing probably still has mod points.
I'm not lecturing anyone, please do read the parent's post I replied to. I was just making fun of the obviously naive statement (implicit as it may have been) that as soon as the recession would be over, everything would be good again, at least in all things Wii. I have no idea either when the economical valley will lie behind (us all, I'm in Europe, mind you, that downward curve is global after all), I'm just picking up signals (read: reading some analysts' reports) that suggest we might be in for a long, hard ride.
Not trying to pee on someone's Wii parade at all, if that's a fitting picture (I guess not).
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
I mostly agree with what you said, but I disagree on one point; The old NES/SNES games did *not* suck. They were primitive, to be sure. And some of them have horrible engrish ("Go find the triforce Link to save her!"). But, I still remember how much FUN I had with Super Mario Bros when I was a kid, and I've given my ten-year-old nephews a game like Super Mario World and they've had atleast as fun with it as I have.
Not saying that things were better back then - But, dissing a masterpiece like say, Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past or Final Fantasy 6 just because it's OLD is like dissing Hamlet, or the Illiad, or a good old fairy tale just because it's old. It may be old, but it's still good games. 'Nuff said.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
The Wii is the leader in sales only if you don't count the PS2, which is still selling well every month.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
Funny, but Barack Obama is not a communist, despite what your Republican politicians and "conservative" demagogues tell you. In fact, he leans more towards the right than you think.
No no no, don't take "suck" from what I said. I just meant the graphics were inferior to now, thus, graphics aren't that important. It probably didn't come off as well as I intended (I couldn't resist the bit/shit rhyme), though. Zelda: LttP is still my favorite Zelda, Twilight Princess is just my favorite *since*. And I don't think anything tops Mario World as far as its sequels go.
And I've yet to come across RPGs that I've enjoyed as much as Chrono Trigger or the goofy Earthbound.
I meant for my graphics point to be that Nintendo didn't need to break out the OMFGMOREPOLYGONSPRETTY! to be good.
My imagination is better than any graphics card.
Then again, I play nethack, so I'm clearly not the target of the graphical wave.
There is a Wii emulator out already. I submitted a story last week, but as usual....
http://www.dolphin-emu.com/
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
fucking microsoft shill.
VGChartz counts Canada as part of "America", and it accounts for about 10% of the total. The VGChartz numbers are pretty close.
I agree that Nintendo can't raise production immediately in response to an increase in price. The point is that there is nothing about 'market' economics that would require them to (it is implied that they would, but the reason would be self interest, so other self interests are sufficient counters).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Lets just hope more and more software would start selling on the system so that third parties would make money out of it, and I just don't mean casual games but also core games.
Look at your balls, take the first one, realise it's not there, go fuck yourself for not having the balls to troll while logged in.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
if we don't end up sliding into another great depression
Bush ran every other company he managed to the ground, I don't know why people thought he could manage an entire country.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
Why should I risk a karma hit just to point out your stupidity. You're just mad because numbers, in and of themselves, are meaningless. Oh and I only have one testicle anyway, so what?
I don't have the console as I haven't seen a single exclusive to bother. I'm saying actually that a lot of the new games I dislike on consoles, though I wouldn't mind them on a desktop.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Custom hacked firmware that allows backups and homebrew to boot now? No mod-chip required.
Sources: Engadget
DCEmu
So this here may have caused an influx of sales.
This states the # of Wii consoles bought. Not the amount that were returned or were played for a week and never touched again. I bought my Wii about 6 months ago and have only played it a few times. Its just a novelty where my 360 is a gaming machine. There are no games for it that are fun except sports IMHO. The sensor is not even good enough to give good enough game play for what you would think.. I'm talking speed detection: theres only Fast - Medium - Slow. Take Wii-Boxing for example - wouldn't you expect hitting harder (thus getting a better workout) would give you better chance at knocking him out? But it doesn't do anything different from just laying lazily on couch and barely moving. The one person I know who plays it more than once a month just uses a gamecube controller cause its no different. People buy the Wii for the cheap price and novelty. People buy 360 and PS3 for games.
Interesting, as I ran across about 30 wii's in the past 2 weeks in various stores, each with 3 or more in stock. (Including used cd/record stores and Half-Price Books even).
Maybe your local Best Buy or Fry's is sold out, but there are plenty out and about.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Whoosh.
Well, I hope. The kind of people who actually believe numerology tend to stay away from Slashdot... right?...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The whole blame-Bush thing is becoming a near obsession. If you don't like him as a president, that's fine, but don't you think it's a little weird that a post about game consoles turns into how it's Bush's fault?
leaning to the right so he can take my wallet out of my back right pocket?
Do you even know what half of those words mean? Because they aren't actually strung together into sensical sentences.
Yeah, but he's only "leaning to the right" because he knows he can't win if he doesn't at least have a plausible logical argument for conservative values holding voters to either vote for him, or at least not vote against him.
It remains to be seen whether he lied to his base to get through the primaries or he's lying to the rest of us now. It should be noted that he's still sadly noncommittal in an area where commitment to something is, at the moment, more important than what that something is (energy).
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It's not a monopoly if the market is more or less evenly split and one company just happens to have a slightly larger slice. I would suggest you look the word up in the dictionary.
The Wii has been number one worldwide for awhile now but not in the US until now. Despite, what the article may say, the DS and the Wii aren't in the same market. That's like saying the Wii is actually in 5th place behind toasters.
Nope. Not weird. Life in the U.S. has been a nightmare under this regime. It's totally natural to express this.
Granted, it's tangential to the story, but parent was referring to the current economic crisis. And, yes, you can "blame-Bush" for this grand laissez-faire experiment.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Monopoly?
You keep using that word and you don't even know what it means.
What a silly post. You don't even understand the free market which you hark on about.
So if they can't meet demand, the Invisible Hand says they should increase the cost. This pads their profit margin, allowing them to reinvest into building facilities to build more Wiis, and then sell later at a cheaper price when manufacturing ramps up. This is also the best strategy for retailers (even if they were a monopoly), since it pads their margins just as much. So why hasn't this happened?
Also, another thing that would damage it's image is the fact that no video game console has ever seen an increase in price by the company making it. It would be absolutely unprecedented (at least since the age of the original NES, as i didn't check further back), and Nintendo fanboys would be howling in anger about it.
I don't do portable gaming. I'm not that addicted. No need to game when I shit, lol. Or when I travel. But good luck with that.
They owe no loyalty to anyone. They're a company and they exist to make money. As it stands, they're doing that. Also, I'd say it's not really that they've turned their backs -- the games aren't much different from the goofy stuff from the N64 or GC days. They just lost a lot of third party support after the GC took such a beating by the PS2, and haven't regained that. Their inhouse games -- Mario, Zelda, Metroid -- are still good. (Actually, I liked this generation Zelda *more* than I liked any since the SNES.)
I wasn't being sarcastic. It was a brilliant move, period. As far as Metroid, I'm not saying it was bad. I'm just saying it wasn't a system seller from what I've heard. And I own the game. As far as Zelda, I hated it. For two reasons. First it was a goddamned GC port with mediocre motion controls tacked on. Second, hated playing as the friggin wolf.
Yeah, how *dare* they not be just like their competitors and offer something different and affordable.
It's not about being different. It's about selling weak hardware at a next gen price. But to each their own.
Metroid, Zelda, Mario Kart? Basically the other three in the five series' that have been Nintendo staples (and some of the only games worth playing that were exclusive to Nintendo) since the N64 days? (Okay, so no Metroid then... but the other four, yes.)
So wow, five whole games. Fantastic...... Zelda was trash. Metroid was good. Didn't bother with Mario Kart this time around since I dislike nintendos online setup. I'd love to see: Pilotwings, Punchout, Fzero,Donkey Kong,..etc. But hey, wii sports 2 is coming.....
Yeah, ignoring the leader by miles -- great strategy. They should make PSP games, too, and not DS games -- right? So what if it wins?
That's my point, they're NOT the leader for 3rd party software sales. You can sell all the consoles in the world. Doesn't mean dick to a 3rd party company if said owners of the number 1 selling system barely buy games for it.
The reason the Wii isn't doing well with third party? They lost a lot of support over the previous two generations -- their fault, given the way they behaved toward developers in the past -- and nobody had anything big planned for the Wii. Then it took off and developers are either pushing out crap or working on something decent, or quietly praying the other two catch up.
That, and the hardware just CAN'T do the games they'd like to make. Some devs would rather not dummy down their games to run on the weakest console. But if a wii version of a game would sell better, they should. The wii is a gamecube with motion controls. Hell, even the Xbox 1 was able to produce better looking(720p) and playing games. With the exception of SSBB. That game is great :)
The thing about the wii is that its using outdated hardware. And these non-gamers don't even know it. And if it doesn't bother them, good for them. I hope they have fun. For me? I know better. Just irritates me that Nintendo is going backwards. Never seen a damned system release for the "next generation" that was weaker than the previous gen.
But that's just my opinion. Cheers!
Just because someone sells a lot of something doesn't mean it's good. Look at most popular pop music today...or music in general. People just 'want' to buy 'something'. Congrats to Nintendo for selling a pretty shallow system. I own one. I like it, but its games and experience are inferior to the 360 IMO. In terms of quality, my 360 library is twice as large as my Wii's (yes, I do have duds for the 360 also...GoW one of them)
and Nintendo fanboys would be howling in anger about it
That's exactly why they should do it. Plus, they'd get credit for engineering the world's must abundant source of clean & renewable energy. All you need is Fritos, Pikachu alarm clocks, and web forums, and the turbines practically spin themselves.
The Wii doing well reminds me of how the C64 came into the game with vastly inferior hardware that "anyone could use" at a lower price point. I believe they sold more than any other machine at that time (maybe even now).
Have a few fun games, make it easy enough to use, make it cheap enough and people will buy it. Those old school Tiger LED games like "soccer" and whatever else where you can't tell what's going on and random crap lights up would be a huge seller if any of the games were actually playable.
You've put it well. I would like to add: this isn't A Corner in Wheat for heaven's sake. Nintendo has to meet the demand for new Wii systems, not the free market. There is no free market for Wiis. There is Nintendo, Nintendo's factories and the stores that carry Wiis. For the monopoly statement to have any weight at all, we'd have to be talking about a commodity.
The OP seems to expect Nintendo to:
1. Sell units at a loss, forcing everyone else out of the market
2. Create artificial shortage to drive prices up, and then
3. Keep charging the same price
Which is dumb, even for a conspiracy theory posted on Slashdot. In fact, it's so dumb that I'm going to have to assume it's actually true.
Whoosh.
Not really. A joke it may be, but if you see a certain sequence of numbers and immediately associate it with the "devil" then your consciousness is tainted with superstition. Even if you feel compelled to make a joke about it, you're still brining attention to and perpetuating the superstition. That's what makes him incredibly stupid, perpetuating superstition.
perhaps because the DS is just too popular.
The DS which is a hand-held and belongs in a different category to the Wii which is a console. If you wish to compare then you need to compare the DS (75.8 million world wide) to the PSP (38.3 million world wide). Before the fan-boys start waving the flag there are few reasons why the DS leads the PSP. The first reason the DS's Nintendo brand is synonymous with gaming and the second is if you consider that most parents when choosing a hand-held for their child would chose the DS because it is cheaper and can take more punishment than the PSP.
The Wii is actually in a category of its own since it is the only Standard Definition console out of the PS3 and Xbox 360. It is also very popular since the majority of its games cater to the casual gamer. I have had nearly every Nintendo machine since the NES and have enjoyed many games on them. What has turned me off the Wii is that the only games that are interesting to me have been milked again and again to the point were I don't want to play the latest Zelda, Metroid or Mario game. Even the graphics which should appear better then the Gamecube's (which I have) appear to have been poorly implemented and on a large screen HDTV the graphics appear to be worse.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
No, it says the can sell it for more, not that they should.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Or... I'm just making a joke. I don't honestly believe 666 has any real significance more than 13 or 777, 888 etc.. I don't know about you, must most people naturally spot paterns and things they recognise. It's just a joke. Lighten up.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Customer walks into the store and see this: Wii: $250 Xbox360: $279 $349 and $449 PS3: $399 and up The Wii makes economic sense. A casual games who knows nothing about the hardware only see price. I purchased a Wii last year and sold it 3 months later. I am a hardcore gamer and I want graphics and certian titles that arent found on the Wii. So I bought the Xbox 360 elite go big holiday bundle with Fornza 2 and Marvel Alliance.
That, my friend, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what I just said. I know it's a joke. That's obvious. The fact that you knew enough about the superstition to make a joke is the problem. I think that this particular area of human misconception, the prescription of meaning to the arbitrary, needs to be treated like a flaw of humanity. That is ignored as it ought to be.
Making a joke about the the flaw is fine if you qualify it with the sarcasm or harshness it deserves (see my original reply as an example). But a casual joke about it just perpetuates the superstition. Thus tainting our collective unconsciousness.
I know I'm being self-righteous and humorless. Should I lighten up: hell yes. But I needed to get this off my chest. Don't take it personally.
Hi, you must be new here; welcome to slashdot.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Games do that, *particularly* online ones, and suddenly you have rather drastic balance issues. A lot of FPS is dumbed pretty down (auto-aim like crazy) for the consoles, due to the inaccuracy of the control pads, and it would just be ludicrously easy if someone had a correctly behaved mouse doing the aiming. If they castrated the mouselook to be fair, it would be pointless too.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Erm....
USD 0.02 is now worth only USD 0.0126 compared to the Euro, and it fares worse still against the New Israeli Shekel. :-D
The fact that in the US the units are NTSC and in Europe the units are PAL would stop you. Not because any TV/Receiver can't handle both signals, but because having a PAL system makes it mandatory to either crack it (chip) or to import PAL titles at 45-70 Euros a pop henceforth.
Not many Americans would like to dance to that tune, now would they?
nothing is stopping you from importing from EU.
Other than the fact that Wii (NTSC U/C) consoles aren't sold in EU? Unlike PLAYSTATION 3, Wii games are region locked.
Are you also discounting the 17%?? VAT? The prices the end unit that the Europeans see is a lot higher, but it has a lot of tax worked into the price that Nintendo never sees.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
While Nintendo has a "monopoly" on manufacturing wii's, its makes as much sense to call it a monopoly as it would to call Apple a monopoly for being the only one making Macs
Just about every commodity PC maker makes PCs that are source-compatible with Mac OS X applications through a toolkit called GNUstep, an LGPL reimplementation of the OpenStep API that Apple now calls Cocoa. On the other hand, I haven't read about any commodity set-top video game player that allows video game developers to just recompile their Wii titles and make some minor fixups.
All evidence is that Nintendo is the only game manufacturer unwilling to sell hardware at a loss.
Why are Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo the only game manufacturers? Why isn't there a "commodity console"?
They should seriously port Doom to the Wii.
I see two problems with putting Doom and Doom II in WiiWare:
First, there would be a file name extension conflict. Doom stores its data in archives called WAD, while Wii channels also store their data in archives called WAD, with a completely different format. That might be easily solved: rename the Doom archives to .iwad.
More importantly, Doom and Doom II are rated M. There aren't any M games in Virtual Console (NTSC U/C), and I don't think there are any in WiiWare either, but I could be mistaken.
From what I've read, the main differences between the Wii and PS3/Xbox360 versions are that there is no internect connectivity nor any downloadable songs that you can purchase.
The Wii has an 0.5 GB drive, of which half appears reserved for the system software. Even Wii-compatible memory cards can't be more than 2 GB because there's no evidence that SDHC (>= 4 GB) memory cards work in a Wii. Compare this to the 20 GB drive of the Xbox 360 and the 40 GB drive of the PLAYSTATION 3.
I wasn't explicitly, but in the UK, it sells for the equivalent of $360 and in France it sells for the equivalent of more than $300(I used Amazon.uk for the UK but I can't find a good price for the Euro zone), both of which more than account for a 17% tax.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
All of these consoles have USB ports, what's stopping them from implementing support for keyboard/mouse?
Because unlike PC games, console games tend to support four players on a sufficiently large monitor, either through split screen (Mario Kart, Goldeneye) or through a camera that shows all the players (Bomberman, Smash Bros.). You'd have to plug in a lot of USB hubs to fit four keyboards and four mice on one console.
If they made Starcraft II for consoles, I'd rather buy those versions than a PC/Mac version
Even if the versions for Windows and Mac OS X have more thorough support for user-created elements?
Not only that but M$ also pump up 360 numbers by including warranty replacements and talking about units shipped rather than sold.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Nintendo is brilliant for turning their backs on the gamers that supported them for decades and designing games for grandma.
Well, you clearly weren't one of them were you? Interesting fact: Famicom is short for 'Family Computer,' which FYI has been Nintendo's design philosophy since 1983.
"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." - George Orwell, 1984
Get a PS3, install Linux and nethack. That's what I did.
others with small penis
Ahhh, so YOU'RE the one who writes all those penis enlargement spam emails.
I can tell you that (AFAIK) here in Portugal we never had any shortage of Wiis, ever since it was launched. Everytime I go to a game store there's always a mountain of them.
your consciousness is tainted with superstition. Even if you feel compelled to make a joke about it, you're still brining attention to and perpetuating the superstition.
And what is wrong with that?
Take George Hrab's "Religious Moron of the Week" -- is that equally stupid for "perpetuating superstition"?
By carrying on the discussion, you've drawn even more attention to this "superstition" -- and the fact that it is a superstition -- than existed before. Good job! You're not only a hypocrite, you're (by your own definition) an "incredibly stupid" hypocrite!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Look, everyone is complaining about Nintendo like they did Xbox during the last generation. I knew they would come out on top for two reasons, one the low price point, and two the appeal across generations. I work at Target and several old people - seniors - are buying Wiis. WiiFits, and other games like the Wii Play. They say their grandkids have them and they played with them enjoy it and want it for themselves and their families. Nintendo really did invent something amazing here, even if the shovelware is starting to pile up....
Super Smash Bros Brawl can save and read custom levels from the SD card, so I don't think that there is a technical reason why Rock Band couldn't do the same for downloaded songs.
You're supposed to share copies of custom Brawl stages on the Internet. You're not supposed to do the same for downloaded Rock Band songs. That's one of the reasons that you can't copy the save file of a WFC game to an SD card.
Dam all you bastards buying them out every time I try to get one!
I got mine on ebay..there's a lot left
Of the new Wii/Gamecube emulator are available here:
http://www.nyleveia.com/nevada/release/
If you are on Windows, and don't want to compile source code.....
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Well the alternative to the closed consoles is a PC running windows
The problem with PC gaming is cost: Not enough games designed for a PC running Windows will allow two to four players to connect controllers and play on a single PC + TV.
The thing is the closed nature of consoles actually works well for games.
Yeah, if you like to play all vanilla all the time. My cousin, on the other hand, prefers to experiment with modded games sometimes. The problem with console gaming is the overall lack of support for user-created elements. There are a few console games designed to be modded, such as RPG Maker 2, but not nearly to the extent as on Windows.
The Wii can be played and enjoyed by anyone. I took the console to my parents and had my 80-year-old dad enjoy bowling and golf, and even my technophobic husband enjoys some of the games and sports. Of course, the "hard core" gamers in our family still remind us of the power of their Xbox 360s, but they still seem to be enjoying Prince of Persia, Madden, and Zelda on the Wii. I don't have time to sit for hours trying to get those delicate thumb controls perfect. I have a life. With the Wii I can enjoy the strategy of the game more because the controller is less frustrating. It is selling because there is something anyone can play.
Weird as a Bush discussion may be (I also found it odd), is it not true that he has run every company he has managed into the ground? :)
Clever signature text goes here.
Well, he successfully managed to turn tax dollars into $.50 or so when he ran the Rangers.
But successfully suckling government teat is a skill that bolstered the franchise. Unfortunately for him there was no world government teat to suck, or perhaps invading Iraq for oil could have paid off.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Worldwide Nintendo passed them ages ago. It's just that in the US specifically, where the 360 is strongest, they had yet to.
I suppose the constrained US supply is partially responsible.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
4/5ths of the country thinks he's screwed everything up. We can expect some portion of that group to have a more deeply seated belief, and some portion of that group to live in their parent's basement posting to Slashdot.
For the record, I blame Mr. Rogers for all the world's ills.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
The DS which is a hand-held and belongs in a different category to the Wii which is a console.
They're in a different category but both are consoles. The DS is a handheld console and the Wii is a home console.
If you wish to compare then you need to compare the DS (75.8 million world wide) to the PSP (38.3 million world wide). Before the fan-boys start waving the flag there are few reasons why the DS leads the PSP. The first reason the DS's Nintendo brand is synonymous with gaming and the second is if you consider that most parents when choosing a hand-held for their child would chose the DS because it is cheaper and can take more punishment than the PSP.
It's obvious you are the fanboy. So you're telling us Playstation and Sony is not synonymous with gaming?
After the Playstation and PS2 success?
Either you're ignorant, or you're part of the fanboys that said at DS and PSP launch, that PSP would destroy the DS. Every reporter in the industry said Nintendo was in panic mode when they released the DS.
The true reason why the DS is destroying the PSP is because of Nintendo's games. The DS and PSP hardware totals were pretty much equal, until Nintendo released it's new IP like Nintendogs or Brain Training. That's when DS pulled forward and never looked back.
The hardware can give a false idea of the big picture, as software wise, the DS is destroying the PSP competition even more.
PSP software sales are really poor compared to the DS software sales.
The Wii is actually in a category of its own since it is the only Standard Definition console out of the PS3 and Xbox 360. It is also very popular since the majority of its games cater to the casual gamer.
The reason why the Wii is very popular is not the one you gave. It's far more sophisticated than this nonsense.
Exactly like your nonsense about the DS. You read like a blinded fanboy actually.
I have had nearly every Nintendo machine since the NES and have enjoyed many games on them. What has turned me off the Wii is that the only games that are interesting to me have been milked again and again to the point were I don't want to play the latest Zelda, Metroid or Mario game. Even the graphics which should appear better then the Gamecube's (which I have) appear to have been poorly implemented and on a large screen HDTV the graphics appear to be worse.
The graphics of the Wii appear very good on my large screen (55") HDTV, but whatever.
You're a perfect example of someone that can't understand what Nintendo is doing, and you're the proof that if Nintendo had counted on gamers like you, the Wii would be dead. You say yourself that you're jaded and don't want to play their games.
Don't worry, they understood that in the Gamecube era, when you and your fellow gamers didn't buy their more powerful console.
So they found other customers. Fair enough.
Of course, what you say doesn't make any sense, as North America is the strongest Wii market, meaning where it sold and is selling the most.
What you say looks even more ignorant when you learn that the sales of the Wii are breaking record left and right in non-holiday months. The current sales of the Wii in NA are what you usually see in holidays months for other consoles.
The Wii is selling faster than any home consoles in history, and they're producing more Wii than the PS2 ever produced every months.
So these rumours are pure BS, surely spawn by the competition. But they're ineffective: the Wii still claim the most consoles sold in nearly every country around the world for this generation of consoles... with one year disadvantage against the XBox 360.
And NA is XB360 strongest market too.
Quite impressive.
My wife played bowling at a party and had to have one. We finally found one on the shelf and bought it with an extra controller. That was about a year ago. Still have not found anything else worth buying on it and we rarely turn it on now.
I'll agree most that the Iraq war is an expensive mistake. If we had the intel reports to warrant going to war, why didn't we share it with the UN and convince the world that it was the right thing to do? At a minimum we could have given a map to UN inspectors.
The economic situation is the result of many different factors but go on blaming the president for them all if it makes you feel better.
*Removes flame resistant clothing*
Back to topic, I am glad to say that I was able to purchase both the DS and Wii for my daughter. The Wii took a bit more searching as it was a Christmas gift and the DS was a middle of the year birthday gift when demand didn't seem quite as high. I'm also glad to see that we haven't had a clear console winner from the start. Each system offers something to their audience and will have a positive influence on future consoles.
Mij
This last dec I bought a gamecube (brand new at Target, which was the last one they had)! I'm always a few consoles behind. It saves me money that way. Also, by the time I do buy a console that's been around for several years, I have a huge selection of titles to buy at discount prices. I'm thinking I'll get my WII around 2011 or so. :) Next, I'm buying a PS2! Oh, and I finally got myself a gameboy advance about a month ago!
Kids these days. While your PC was definitely top of the line for 1991, the vast majority of PCs out there were still running MS-DOS on 286s and 386s. Your perception is therefore a bit skewed in saying that most PCs could display 1024*768 AND 256 colors at that time. I have an IBM PS/2 server from roughly the same era that could display one or the other on Windows and OS/2, but certainly not both! Only a top-of-the-line monitor and top-of-the-line video card would do that in Windows 3.0, which I presume you had.
You also are either a latecomer to video games or (more likely) too young to remember video games from the late 70s / early 80s. I'll illustrate:
The Atari 2600 came out in 1977. The original IBM PC came out in 1981. PCs were the absolute LAUGHING STOCK for video games at the time with their (at best) CGA graphics. The Atari 2600, even with its measly 128 bytes (yes bytes) of RAM, had no problems displaying far more colors than any PC until the mid- to late-1980s. By that point in time, the NES came out, and everyone was playing that. It made far more sense to spend $200 to $250 for an Atari 2600 or NES than it did to spend the (obviously) thousands that you had to spend on your PC at the time.
PC games did not really become mainstream until the late 80s at the earliest. Prior to that, nearly everyone was playing on their Atari, NES, Commodore 64, Colecovision, Apple ][, Intellivision, Pong, etc. Yes some of those are technically computers, but you (and others in this thread) seem more focused on PCs, as in x86s or IBM-compatibles.
Now if you (and others) had stated computers instead of PCs, then perhaps your points would have more merit.