How Wii Is Creaming the Competition 377
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.
On top of its merits... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about this.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Production (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Wiiiii (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:On top of its merits... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm not buying a WII... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Wiiiii (Score:4, Interesting)
The PS2 thing is odd; but it may be that buying a PS2 is simply a cheaper option than the PS3 - a lot of the high-profile games I see advertised on TV right now, and sponsoring TV shows, are Playstation 2 games. There's no need for a PS3 unless you want the great HD experience nobody sees the need for yet.
You DID see it in the previous generation though. Right after the Playstation 2 came out, Sony created the PSOne - a curvy, white version of the Playstation original console, with a Dual Shock pad in it. It sold like hotcakes in the face of the hundreds-of-dollars-more Playstation 2, and with 90% of the new games still being Playstation 1 games at the time. Demand did outstrip supply for a couple of weeks.. this was with me working at a games store in my youth. It got annoying for people to ask for a PSOne, because then it was our job to try and sell them a PS2.. a little difficult to get them to justify tripling their outlay just to play some games (people did though
You've seen it in handhelds too; the Gameboy Advance SP sold a lot of units, and when people couldn't get the fliptop model with the integrated battery and the brighter, better screen.. they just went and bought the still readily available and still in-production original Gameboy Advance. I believe they did bring out a new colour of the original Gameboy Advance, before they killed it off in favor of the SP.
And they're still selling the SP even though the DS is the hotcake, and even though it is not intended as a console replacement..
Re:They're outselling them? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:I don't know about this.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I'm not buying a WII... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
One obvious fact (Score:1, Interesting)
2009??? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
What competition? (Score:3, Interesting)
Saying the Wii is blowing away the "competition" is sort of like suggesting that the Honda Accord is dominating Corvette and Porsche.
Re:I'm not buying a WII... (Score:4, Interesting)
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...
Re:They're outselling them? (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
Re:I'm not buying a WII... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Customer First, it's that simple (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nintendo's secret - women like the Wii (Score:2, Interesting)
Ever heard of 'disruption' technology? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.