Wii official running out of steam ?

[Sri Lumpa]

baph777 said:
It has been my belief that the Wii has been selling so well simply because a lot of people couldn't find them, so as soon as they are released into the stores people (many of whom really don't know anything about videogames rush out and pick it up as soon as possible. eg. I was working at a fast food restaurant a few months ago and there was a woman working there that didn't really know anything about consumer electronics but she knew that people talked about ipods and wiis and that made her think wiis were really cool, so she really got it into her head to be sure to buy a wii. Of course, you also have people like Ellen Degeneris hyping such products as Wii Fit, etc. to the non gamer crowd which accounts for similar sales).

The fact that Nintendo kept Wii's out of stores during crucial selling periods the holidays of 2006 and 2007 (learning from all the hype that was generated for the 360 during the '05 holiday season when there was a shortage of them in stores and people were paying thousands of dollars to be able to get one for Christmas) served to generate a lot of hype as well for the Wii during those selling periods which were only met in the after the holiday months when more Wii's appeared in stores which explains how well it has been selling in recent months.

However, I do think that as soon as Wii supply meets demand on a regular basis and more people have the chance to see what it's really all about and compare it to the other consoles on the market, then it won't be doing so well and will be losing steam. And I believe that is happening at least in my area of the world, because I went from November 2006 to to June 2008 without seeing a single Wii on the shelf at my nearest Wal~Mart. However, recently there have been quite a few there even in the middle of the day.

More than 30 millions people have had a chance to see what it really is about and it doesn't seem to have significantly slowed sales down. How many consoles need to sell for that purported effect of yours to happen? 50 millions? 100 millions? I know: 130 millions; that's why the PS2 sales slowed down, because "more people have the chance to see what [the PS2 is] really all about and compare it to the other consoles on the market" and it is "losing steam".

If your theory was right, sales should have plummeted in both Europe and Japan where people CAN find them in any shop selling video games (hell, whe have used Wiis selling for LESS than retail price, talk about a crazy concept).

But have they? In Japan the Wii regularly sells twice what the combined PS3 and 360  sell. In Europe it sells about 30k over PS3+36- sales, at a level that is comparable to and even regularly higher than the supply constrained American market.

It really boggles my mind how some people manage to stumble on a website full of sales number that they can use to test their theories and yet still manage to totally overlook that ability and go directly for the forums where they spout nonsense that was disproved months ago.

Oh, well, I guess the waiting game until the next batch of new users posting months old wacky theories starts now, though I somehow expect the both of you guys to keep us busy with your old flat-earth/wii-is-a-fad theories until then.