Fallout From the November Console Wars

All three 'next generation' consoles are out, and we can finally stop using that term. The NPD numbers for last month have been released, and there's plenty of information there to discuss. Analysts have already made some observations, with brandintel specifically pointing out the Xbox 360's 'surprising' role in last month's fight. For some more well-reasoned thought, Dean Takahashi's take is the place to turn: "At this rate, Microsoft isn't going to hit its goal of 10 million units by year end ... Sony's number is consistent with its warnings, but 197,000 is worse than what many expected ... the fair fight is really going to be what happens in the year 2007, when all three console makers should be able to ship as many consoles as consumers want. To me, this looks like consumers are hit with a case of sticker shock. The mass market is paying for cheap PS2s, DS Lites, and GBAs." Despite the Wii's success last month, it should be noted that Nintendo is no longer bragging of 1 Million units in the U.S. by the end of the year. So, essentially, it looks like all three companies will fail to hit their console goals for the year.

Re:Remedial geography

[keeboo]

That was for 'The Americas'.

You mean North America.
I see no sign of any of those consoles here in Brazil.

Re:Interesting

[FroBugg]

They're still selling every single Wii they ship, often within minutes of it leaving the box, but the problem is that Nintendo isn't shipping quite as many as they had originally said they'd like to. They haven't offered any reasons for this.

X360 base price is $299 not $500

[xswl0931]

The base X360 is $299. With game, that's $350. Use the Overstock 12% off coupon and it's ~$308 for the base console plus one game. That's a big difference from your $500 claim (even without the coupon). Don't confuse the 360 price with the PS3 price.

Re:Nope. Still Next Gen

[necro2607]

The Best Buy near my girlfriend's place got a shipment on Friday. You know what? There were about 30 people lined up, THE NIGHT BEFORE, with TENTS. This is fucking three weeks after the console's launch. Who knows how long the line was by the morning (needless to say we went home as soon as we saw the line the night before). But guess what? Best Buy received ELEVEN SYSTEMS. Fucking eleven. Can you imagine how pissed off the rest of those people were after they camped out all night, three weeks after the console was made available?

We've been calling stores for nearly two weeks, about 20-25 stores every single day, and that was the only place in the surrey/langley area at all that received any. And they received 11 fucking systems. Frankly, I'm getting pretty pissed off.

Unless I want to pay 3x the price by buying one through craigslist or ebay or whatever (or start camping out at stores days before they receive shipments), I doubt I'll have one before my birthday in March, let alone before Christmas time (which I was really looking forward to having all my family over for, and have a new Wii system for the party).

Oh here's another story. A friend of mine who works at EB Games here told me about four mothers who came into the store one morning wanting to buy Wii systems. They were told how the store didn't know if they were receiving any but they're getting some kind of shipment in that day. The women all stayed there and just sat on the floor the rest of the day until a shipment came in in the afternoon (no Wii systems).

Oh and people are now just cutting us off when we call about the Wii. We say "do you have any-" and they say "no, no Wii systems, sorry" (not because they recognize us as having called before). Trust me, at least around here, these things are NOWHERE TO BE FOUND in retail... :(

Re:Interesting

[Overly Critical Guy]

I rather expected a large turnout for the Wii.

Nintendo is selling out every shipment. What Nintendo has stopped "bragging" about (i.e., projecting) is a million sales in the U.S.; they're easily going to surpass a million worldwide sales. As many other sites have pointed out, it's likely that Nintendo is pleased with U.S. sales numbers right now and would like to direct more supplies toward Europe and Japan for the rest of the year and spread things out. I suspect, though, they'll still manage to hit a million U.S. sales by December 31...just a feeling. I'm not surprised by the 360 sales given YAXS (Yet Another XBox Shooter) released, which appears to be all its good for. With Microsoft's near-zero presence in Japan and Sony's low supply numbers, Nintendo probably wants to take Japan completely with the Wii and DS.

Actually, if you include their portable systems, Nintendo is already the #1 video game company worldwide with the most market share and highest sales. The press never covers Nintendo that way, though.