Why the Wii Won't sell 80m+

[mrstickball]

TheSource said: I don't think Wii will sell over 65 million...but it could and here is why: No other system has ever had such a relative price advantage. Granted, the core model of 360 is $300, but I'm pretty sure Nintendo could drop the Wii to $150-175 and just about break even. If Microsoft doesn't want their business venture into gaming to become like Vietnam, they are not going to drop the price until they absolutely need to and can start winning back cash on their investment. But, Sony is even worse off. I don't think PS3 will be under $300 until late 2009. Imagine if by then, Nintendo was selling Wii and DS as a package for $150? I think that would be a huge 'steal' for even the biggest Nintendo detractors. In previous generations, Nintendo has not had this immense of a price advantage in conjunction with sales as brisk as they are. Because of the relative bargain, I think Nintendo will be able to sell around 1 million per month (on average) until at least the end of 2008, which gets them near 30 million. By the time Wii is 5 years old, graphics on 360 and PS3 will be dated and ancient as well (PC's). I also think the manufacturing isn't a problem because much of the tech in Wii is so similar to GC. DS has pretty unique architecture and needing two screens is a bottleneck. I don't think Wii has the same kind of bottlenecks when it is manufactured. It also seems to me that Japanese developers are becoming less important to Western audiences, so if Nintendo dominates Japan, the big Japanese third parties will eventually most of their resources on Wii to reach the home audience.

As much as price is a factor, at the same time, it's not if the software and appearance of the system are less than satisfactory. A good example is the N64/GC versus the Saturn, PS1, PS2, and Xbox. The GC launched at $200 versus the PS2's $300 and the Xbox's $300 and ended up in last place. The N64 launched at $200 versus the PS1's $300 and Saturns $300 and ended up 2nd place. Now, there's never been as big of a gap (in the fact that the prem 360 sells the bulk of the systems @ $400), but again, it's an advantage, yet not the primary reason the Wii sells out. The big issue is the fact that Nintendo HAS to sell the Wii at a significant profit to stay afloat. The PS3/360 does not (although they have to at some point). The GC is still around $100 (where I live, mind you), while the PS2 is $129. 2 years from now, the Wii could easily be going @ $150 or less. But at the same time, it'd be just as easy for a core 360 to be @ the same price. Remember, a $100 price drop on the 360 core (which actually happened in December thanks to $100 gift cards) puts it at $200: $50 less than a Wii. I'm not saying that Nintendo would allow a 360 Core to be cheaper in the US or Europe than a Wii, but it's do-able by MS if they wanted to.