I originally wasn't going to bless this thread with my presences... but damn at some of the posts so far.
fad/fad/
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| Synonyms: |
whim - caprice - vagary - fancy - crotchet
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That is the definition of a 'fad'.
Wii from its launch through 2009, definitely had intense and widely shared enthusiasm which resulted in record breaking sales. But is the 3+ years of crazy sales one in the same as "short-lived"? What about the following 2+ years its still going on?
Is its natural sales curve any different than similar consoles from the past? A quick tally of previous consoles and you'll see that Wii, overall, is no different than nearly every other successful console.
First few years are steady gains until you hit a platue and start to fall off. Initially the fall off is quicker, especially when the successor is announced (5 to 6 years down the road), and then after that they slow down their downward trend until they are discontinued.
Same thing happened with every other Nintendo console, Genesis, PS1/PS2, etc. Of course the literal numbers are different, but the fact is, the Wii has in no way behaved, generally speaking, different from any other successful game console.
Its the PS360 that have changed the market and behaved differently in that they had far later peaks than what would considered normal. Why? The totally blacklisted Wii in prime 3rd party development. Had Wii been more comparable in terms of raw power and kept ports of big games, they would have trailed off just as early as Wii did.
