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7-9 Million Wiis by 2007?

Posted by Zonk on Fri Oct 06, 2006 02:57 PM
from the that-is-a-lot-of-wii dept.
Businesses Nintendo Entertainment Games
Gamespot is reporting that Nintendo's production of the Wii is actually going better than expected. Analyst firm UBS is now estimating that 7-9 Million Wii units should be off the production lines by 2007. From the article: "Citing industry 'checks,' UBS analysts Alex Gauna and Steven Chin claim that Nintendo already made 2 million Wiis by the end of September. They go on to predict that, 'at least 7 million and potentially as high as 9 million more units are in the build plan for Q4 06. This production ramp handily exceeds a publicly announced target for 6 million units to ship by year's end.'"
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[+] Nintendo Promises 4 Million Shipped Wiis By Year-End 69 comments
Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime wants to share some good news and some bad news. The good news is that by the end of the year Nintendo expects to ship 4 million consoles. The bad news is, they still expect to sell out. From the article: "Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime hyped up the console launch, saying, 'Because of demand, we're urging shoppers not to get complacent. The level of demand we're seeing goes beyond the ordinary. Retailers are telling us a significant fraction of customers pre-ordering Wii are nontraditional gamers...' The company expects to ship 6 million Wii units globally by the end of March 2007, on par with Sony's worldwide shipment targets for PS3. Microsoft has sold 6 million Xbox 360 units to date since its launch in late November 2005, and hopes to sell 10 million by the end of the calendar year." So, fewer units than the analysts wanted. Still an impressive number.
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  • Supply and demand? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Endo13 (1000782) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:02PM (#16340939)
    I'll take mine for $200 thank you! :D
  • Now if we could only get 300 million of them, and ship them all to the US, all our base could belong to us!

    Any idea on how many games the 7-9 million Wiis will have? Are we looking at only 30 million, or will it break 100 million by the end of 2007?
  • And when the dominant platform is the one at $200 developers will develop for it to sell more units.

    And then the prices will go down, the platforms will be unified (Or at least logically diversified [high end low end mid range etc]) and all will be good with the force!

  • Might not be enough (Score:5, Funny)

    by also-rr (980579) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:08PM (#16341017) Homepage
    I know four people here who are going to buy a Wii. Assuming that everyone else in the UK knows 4 people who are going to buy a Wii that makes 240 million sales in the first week alone just for the UK via simple mathematical extrapolation. Can't argue with the numbers!

    • Re:Might not be enough (Score:5, Funny)

      by 246o1 (914193) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:12PM (#16341071)
      I know between 5 and 10 people who are going to buy a Wii. Assuming all other people also know 5-10 people who are going to buy a Wii, that's 30 to 60 billion sales in the first week alone!

      • Re:Might not be enough (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rolfwind (528248) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:29PM (#16341315)
        I think it does say something that geeks are anticipating the Wii. It was MS/Sony's expectation that us geeks, being more hardcore, would welcome the PS3 or perhaps the Xbox with welcome arms due to the horsepower alone.

        And then we would spread the gospel to the Muggles in turn, providing free advertising/sale's drive to their consoles.

        I know enough people still anticipate those systems, but it seems the Xbox 360 reception has been lukewarm and the Wii has turn the industry on it's head by not trying to compete in the areas Sony is exceedingly strong in, but rather playing to their own strengths.

        In part, I see the PS3, with its Bluray encumbered/enable device, heading somewhat in the same direction as the Nintendo Gameboy VR and Sega Saturn, of years past. It will have success, however, but right now it seems Sony has to initiate most of its own hype, the PS3 will fail to launch Blu-ray as a defacto video standard, and probably fall short of the PS2 in terms of market domination.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cowscows (103644)
          I was thinking about this last night. I remember a little bit of Atari gaming, but the bulk of what I clearly remember in my gaming career started with the NES. Since then, the industry has grown by leaps and bounds, the power of the hardware has increased at a stunning rate, and game development prices have continued to balloon.

          But through all that, I still only seem to see about four or five must-have games in a given year. Despite all the advances in technology, making a great game appears to still be ra

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by cowscows (103644)
              Yeah, I thought about that, but I'm not sure that's entirely it. There are still plenty of older games that I still find fun. The bulk of my time on my DS is spent on Advance Wars, which is so simple that it could probably run on an NES no problem (with mildly downgraded artwork and sound.

              Online multiplayer, however, I'll give you. That's a recent advance that's really benefitted as of late from technology, and has made some new types of games possible.

              All that being said, I think my original point still st

      • Nintendo is doomed. (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I don't know any people. Assuming everybody else doesn't know any people either, this implies no people eixst and Nintendo will not be able to sell ANY Wiis, due to a lack of potential customers.
      • Well I've just come back from the pub and I'm going to have one right now!* Don't think I can hold on until December.

        *well in five minutes when I'm in the bathroom anyway**

        **and yes checking slashdot after I've come back after a night out does mean I haven't bought a lady home***

        ***though my other half will be pleased about this****

        ****that is the not bringing a lady home, not the checking the slashdot bit*****

        *****OK now I really do have to go, but the question is - To Preview or not to Preview?

      • Re:Might not be enough (Score:5, Funny)

        by Heir Of The Mess (939658) on Friday October 06 2006, @08:43PM (#16344321) Homepage
        I know between 5 and 10 people who are going to buy a Wii. Assuming all other people also know 5-10 people who are going to buy a Wii, that's 30 to 60 billion sales in the first week alone!

        Who let these RIAA/MPAA mathematicians in here? This is a gaming forum goddamit! Oh wait..Is that you Sony?

    • And there have been quite a few people on Slashdot (me among them) who haven't been buying consoles at all the previous few generations, but will buy a Wii. I wonder if we're factored into the projected demand?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by CastrTroy (595695)
        I think that they must be factoring in this. The Wii is supposed to be geared toward those who don't usually buy games, of course, while still satisfying the needs of the people who do game.
    • Wait, this is a great idea! We can figure out which console will win this generation by seeing which one Kevin Bacon buys!

      • Re:Might not be enough (Score:5, Funny)

        by kthejoker (931838) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:35PM (#16341411)
        An Imagined Conversation Inside Your Head

        The Guy Who Makes You Funny: Man, did you read that?
        The Guy Who Does Your Math: Yes, what terrible logic!
        Funny: Logic? Well, of course it's not logical, it's a j-
        Math: Shh! I am working out how to explain the logical flaw of "social networking" to this yokel.
        Funny: What? You're going to "explain" it. Dude, he knows it's a joke. That's the whole point of jokes, people do them on purpose.
        Math: Preposterous. He's not joking, he's clearly an imbecile who thinks that people's networks are exponential in nature, when really they're not.
        Funny: Wait, wait. I get it. You're joking with me.
        Math (having just hit submit): Yes. A joke.
        Funny (chuckling): Whew! You had me going there, I thought - you know - maybe you were really going to try to prove a point, and we just don't need to show we're unfun-HOLY SHIT YOU ACTUALLY SUBMITTED A POST HOW COULD YOU?

        (Pause.)

        Funny: We are *never* going to get laid.

  • Going so well (Score:3, Informative)

    by nlawalker (804108) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:10PM (#16341037)
    Everything is going so well for Nintendo. I really hope for them that the launch dates go off without a hitch and the awesome reviews start pouring in a few days later. It would be a make a huge impact in the definition of what "next-gen" games are if this console is a massive success.

    Hopefully nothing has gone wrong in the production process. I can't imagine the stress of being a designer or tester for the console hardware. What happens when your company is successfully rolling millions of new machines off the line and someone finds a showstopper hardware bug? We all rememeber the Intel division fiasco.

  • Smart move (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jacks smirking reven (909048) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:14PM (#16341113)
    With that many units on the shelf they have more then cover the holiday buyig system, and enough left on the shelves for the post holiday market. Lines up very nicely with a price drop in the late spring summer time frame. Its almost creepy how everything Sony has gotten wrong (supply, timing, innovation, buzz) Nintendo has gotten dead on right this time around.
    • Yeah. It looks like Sony is finally going through the same thing Nintendo went through with the N64. I guess that's what happens when you rest on your laurels. Hopefully Sony can recover as well.
      • I still think that Nintendo did the "Right Thing TM" when they released the N64. They used cartridges, because CDs were too slow at that point. I remember games taking minutes to load, whereas games on the N64 would load instantly. The gamecube had the same high speed load times. Nintendo waited until optical media was ready to provide sufficient load times, and applied the technology when it was available. When you look as the PS1, PS2, and XBox, the load times are abysmal compared to the N64 and GC.
        • Preach it, brother. I was going to buy an original Playstation back in the day. But then I saw the load times and said no way. A friend showed me Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. It took 10-15 seconds to go from the game to the 'in game' menu and 10-12 on the way back again. No chance I'd ever put up with that. I just waited for my 64 and was quite happy with almost non-existent load-times.

          Though I almost had a heart attack when I got my Gamecube and borrowed a copy of Turok: Evolution (worst game in the s

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Kemanorel (127835)
        Interesting parallel you just brought to mind for me... NES, SNES, N64. Third console for Nintendo, the beginning of their decline in dominance. PS1, PS2, PS3. Third console, underwhelming response from potential customers, possible (probable?) decline in dominance. Is this the console equivalent of the sophomore curse that many bands run into?
        • The problem is with disappointing the hardcore fanbase, it leads you to instant death, IMHO... PS2 _IS_ the hardcore gamers system, it has all the games you want to play. The system with the most games win's, period. Sony has got you covered on all the games you might want to play (and rent). That's something both Xbox and Gamecube failed to deliver on: The numerous titles one could rent at blockbuster.

          You have to have enough games to sell your system and then you need the library of "renters" of games t
    • With that many units on the shelf they have more then cover the holiday buyig system, and enough left on the shelves for the post holiday market.

      Perfect for all those moms and dads returning their kids' overheating PS3's.
    • everything Sony has gotten wrong (supply, timing, innovation, buzz)

      You missed pricing. The number one reason I'll likely be getting my kid the new Nintendo instead.

  • I think Sony & MS have jumped the gun too earl (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rolfwind (528248) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:20PM (#16341179)
    It seems they went in and produced HD capable consoles one generation too early, the increase in price seems to be giving Nintendo a big boost come launch time. I only hope the actual launch lives up to the speculation.

    Nintendo won't have to live up to the graphic expectations of Sony, Xbox, but for that, the gameplay will have higher expectations.

    This is of course good for the average consumer, because, by the merits of mass production, HD capable consoles will be the minimum/default the next generation, and it might even boost HD TV sales more than they are, and drive down the price in that area by the time the next console wars come.
    • I think you have jumped the gun too early by making conclusions about consoles that have yet to be released. Besides, by the end of their life cycles, HD will be more common. How common, who knows? But it will give the consoles more lasting power.

      The funny thing is...the only thing the Wii has going for it is it's controller (and first party games, of course). If the other consoles make a similar controller that works well...the Wii advantage is gone (Wiirased?). I am sure they have some good patents

      • But it isn't hard to add a new controller after the fact

        Actually, it is hard. I know of only one case where it worked: The Dual Shock on the original PS. And that one only worked because the new controller was a superset of the old one (it added the analog sticks) and because it came very early in the PS's life.

        You can't just go ahead and replace the pack-in controller with something totally different. How would people play the old games with the new controller? You'd essentially fragment your customer

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Leviance (1001065)
          Its wishful thinking on his part. He's just a PS fanboy who hates to see another company win. The ideal solution for all gamers would be for the Wii to be successful, forcing M$ and S to either copy them (most likely) or better yet, come up with some innovations of their own. By all means I hope Sony does well, but it seems they have s___ed the pooch on this one.

      • The funny thing is...the only thing the Wii has going for it is it's controller (and first party games, of course).

        You forget about a few things: The price, and the target market.

        The price matters... well, for obvious reasons -- especially for casual gamers.

        The target market matters because it means that I, as a casual-/non-gamer, will probably be able to find plenty of software which provides fun diversions without eating up much time at a chunk or requiring any kind of dedication. (There are others

      • Besides, by the end of their life cycles, HD will be more common.

        MS & Sony can't realistically add new controllers after the fact, but Nintendo can certainly release an HD-edition of the Wii down the road. The SD and HD edition can be 100% compatible (PC games support multiple resolutions and detail levels all the time). SD-era games won't look as good on an HD unit--but games always start to look dated after time.

  • Not to get prophetic on dat ass, but code name "revolution" is starting to make a little more sense, with the way wii may affect the industry.
        • It seems a one of your sibling ACs beat me to it, but the N64 was code-named 'Project Reality' and it was the GameCube that was codenamed 'Dolphin'.
  • 7-9 million Wiis?

    Thats just pissing in the ocean...

    • Has Nintendo ever had these sorts of problems with their consoles or handhelds? I don't recall any. I think it's pretty safe to bet that there won't be any. Not to mention that they've said (too lazy to find a reference) that they've paid attention to these sorts of things.
      • As several people have pointed out, Nintendo has had several design problems in the past. The biggest examples are with the lack-of-backlight original GBA portables, and the bulky original DS unit (with a stupidly positioned power button). That said, they were all completely playable (I had both handhelds), but when the redesigned units came out, they were much superior to the original.

        A cynic could argue that even the design problems were "by design", as its a great way to get gamers to buy more hardware i
        • first generation gameboys were nigh-unplayable due to shitty backlighting.

          Did you own a 1G GameBoy? There was no backlight at all! Even the first color GameBoys didn't have backlights. Backlights in GameBoys are a pretty recent development. But they were able to survive a long time without them, since all of the other portables with backlights and/or color were pretty much total flops (Sega GameGear, Atari Lynx, etc.).
        • My brother and I (and like 70 million other people [wikipedia.org]) played ours until they practically died from materials fatigue. Actually, I think that mine still works, even after riding around in the pockets of preteens (good thing pockets started getting bigger in the mid '90s), being through airports, roadtrips, dropkicked, sat on, and having batteries explode in it. And on top of that, you could squeeze an outrageous amount of time out of the batteries... they'd go for days! The one time I played a GameGear you
          • that's just how shitty it was.

            [pause for laughter]

            ok, I can't remember if they did or not. But I -do- remember not being able to see a damn thing on it unless I was in a brightly-lit room.
    • Because this isn't brand new technology, just improved existing. Don't get me wrong, i'd follow Nintendo into hell. But if it is indeed just a suped up gamecube, how many problems could their be?

    • Re:what if problems arise? (Score:4, Informative)

      by SoapDish (971052) on Friday October 06 2006, @03:31PM (#16341349)
      I have no worries about this. I (or my brothers) have bought every nintendo system the day it came out since the SNES, and we've never had a problem, ever. I've had many, amany problems with my first of the run PS2, though.

      Also, with the early production, maybe nintendo will test those first units to make sure the mass-manufacturing works well.

    • The worst I ever got from Nintendo was the need to constantly blow dust out my NES games.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Wdomburg (141264)
      I expect heat won't be an issue since they're specifically designing for low power consumption.

      For the most part, I don't forsee too many issues. The chips are derivitives of a proven design manufactured using mature technology at a quality fab plant (IBM's fishkill facility). Most of the other components are off the shelf - Broadcom ethernet and bluetooth chips, MoSys SRAM, etc.
      • While your post is reasonable in general, I feel the need to inform you that MoSys SRAM is neither a "component" nor "off the shelf." It's not a part in itself, it's an implementation technology -- really just intellectual property (IP). BTW It's usually called "1T-SRAM" because it has an SRAM-like interface and function and required one transistor to implement one bit of storage.

        "1T-SRAM" is really DRAM and is implemented as a macro, or block, within larger integrated circuits (chips) using embedded D
    • When does their fizzical Q4 end?

    • Just to elaborate the above post. Nintendo has never stated that it will ship 6 million consoles by the end of the year. What it has stateded is that it plans to sell 4 million by the end of 2006 and 6 million by the end if its fiscal year, which ends in March 2007.

      Because of these inaccuracies I'm not sure if the analysis meens 9 million by the end of 2006 or 9 million by March 2007. Either way it's good news. If it sells as well as expected it'll be well on the way to that glorified number 1 spot. Afte

      • that would be a fiscal cycle ? I thought the general corporate fiscal year ended like in October ? To allow them time to fake the necesary doc's for tax time...

        • Just checked [wikipedia.org]. Fiscal year seems to be the correct term and every company can choose it's own with tax being paid the following march. October is the start/end of the US goverment's fiscal year.

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