RolStoppable said:
The Wii wasn't hot during the current economy, when this generation started the world was fine. The Xbox 360 always was in a similar price range to the Wii, in the USA you could always get the Core model for $300 and in mainland Europe it was quite common in 2007 to see the Premium bundled with two games for €300 (not official, but big stores did it anyway in order to sell it somehow). Didn't help 360 sales all that much. If the PS3 had been in a similar price range from the getgo, the Wii would enjoy higher marketshare today. Much higher. It would have bankrupted Sony's gaming division with the PS3 being discontinued within a year and with a struggling 360 third parties would have had not much reason to continue making HD games, sunk costs or not. Any future price cuts won't change the big picture. The Wii has run its course, it's not going to come back. If people don't want something, then price doesn't matter. This also works in reverse. If people really want something, then they are willing to pay a higher price than stores actually ask for. That could be seen when the Wii kept selling out in America. On ebay Wiis were commonly sold for around $350-400, at a time when the PS3 entry model was officially priced $400 (happened in July 2007). As you know, the 360 Premium was also priced that high. So what you are looking at is a situation where people were willing to pay $400 for a Wii, but not so much the 360 or PS3. All this taken in consideration makes it weird to suggest that price was really a big reason for the Wii's success. It wasn't. It had the games people wanted to play and that is what matters the most. Today the Wii doesn't have any games at all, hence why its sales are nowhere near the level they were at its peak. |
by 2006-2007 economy was already starting to go down under. And again, I hate repeating this to you, price IS a factor, 'a' not the biggest or anything. if you think a casual who walks into a store just to get a holiday gift for a kid will consider all the games coming out for it....well not sure what to think of that lol. Heck considering how lacking the number of good games have been on the wii (thanks to the 3rd parties ditiching it for the HD's) it should have been selling way way less in the past year.
and the argument was not whether ps3 COULD have sold for a lesser price because it couldn't as it packs way more than the wii. If they had just upgraded it a bit from the ps2, with ps2 sales still going strong and the brand name still fresh on the minds of consumers, they could have easily given a bigger competition in the early years for Ninty. But like I said, Ninty was smart, added motion control for the wow factors, made it affordable and cheaper in comparison, marketed it well and made few games to show off the tech to casuals. So like I said they did a lot of things right together to be so succcessful early on. But price did play a part, however significant it may have been, we may never know.
I would love to see Ninty come up with some out of this world tech (holograms! lol yea I wish) and price their console $500 and have many many great games from the start, no ports, and see how it sells in the long run. would be amusing to have this conversation then.
In-Kat-We-Trust Brigade!
"This world is Merciless, and it's also very beautiful"
For All News/Info related to the PlayStation Vita, Come and join us in the Official PSV Thread!
Leatherhat on July 6th, 2012 3pm. Vita sales:"3 mil for COD 2 mil for AC. Maybe more. " thehusbo on July 6th, 2012 5pm. Vita sales:"5 mil for COD 2.2 mil for AC."
