Dearth of New Nintendo Games Could Indicate Wii 2 118
A speculative piece at Kotaku looks at the release cycle of Nintendo games over the past 10 years, pointing out a current lull that's quite similar to the one near the launch of the Gamecube. They suggest this could be because first-party developers are busily working on games for the Wii 2. Quoting:
"The spring of 2002 was the longest Nintendo game drought on record, and has a number of characteristics in common with the season we're entering now. Nintendo has launched a major piece of technology (the 3DS) and is initiating the gradual retirement of a console with a large and reliable installed base. While we entered into this data mining project with the presumption that we could recognize a pattern that presaged a new console release—the Wii 2, obviously—the last time there was a Nintendo game drought this pronounced was after the release of the Gamecube. Still, you can neatly overlay the release history of the Gamecube overtop the current release history of the Wii—they match that closely."
All right. I can't take it anymore. (Score:4, Informative)
To all of you who saying your Wii is never used anymore: please SEND IT TO ME.
I pre-registered and had a Wii on day one. This is the only time I've EVER bought a console at launch. We have ~50 games and they get played a LOT (I have 4 kids).
So much so that the optical drive in our Wii is now dead. I know I can send it in to Nintendo and pay $75 plus s/h for repair. But WTH...it seems there are many people on slashdot with Wiis sitting in closets or in a bag or on a shelf collecting dust, so won't somebody think of the children and send one my way?!
Re:Could be Wii 2 or could just be bad planning (Score:2, Informative)
I suspect that despite its early sales lead, it would still end up in third place overall if the cycle were allowed to run for 10 years as some had suggested.
That's a tough sell as it stands its:
Wii 84 Million (2006) Units sold 2010 17 Million
Xbox360 50 Million (2005) Units Sold 2010 11 Million
PS3 48 Million (2006) Units Sold 2010 13 Million
Assuming a 10 year schedule the 360 sales numbers will continue to climb and the Wii numbers will continue to fall, but at some point they'll all flat line around year 9-10 as rumors of new systems come out. Basically they will have to beat Nintendo by at least 8.5M each year for the next 4 years if they have any hope to overtake Nintendo.
That being said, I think Nintendo is going to continue with 3D and has no reason to release this early until 3D gets more market. Still, I don't think it'll go 10 years. There's a $10-15 per game royalty at stake. Last thing they need is for PC hardware to be on the rise again.