proof that nintendo is stock piling wiis?

[Sqrl]

reverie said:

Sqrl said:

What you quoted there from my last post was in reference to the idea that Nintendo should focus its shipments in Europe. I by no means suggested they should ignore or abandon the EU just that it was never a big region for them so saturating the EU's pipeline with Wii's wouldn't be the greatest use of the consoles.

To answer your question about how many consoles Nintendo has sold in a generation, it has far far more to do with the market during the early generations than anything else. And by the time the markets were capable of supporting those kinds of numbers the Playstation came along.

As for first time customers, I think the Wii has a lot of first time customers for Nintendo in every country right now. So I don't know that I can really subscribe to the idea that one country is better or worse than another for them..at least not for that reason.

I see what you mean, but it's just a fact that they were shipping a lot to Europe last quarter, so we don't have to argue if they should have done that. When you said the markets were different during the NES and the SNES days, are you referring to the economic development in Eastern Europe?

Because Western Europe (I'm referring to the countries of Europe that were not communist until 1989) has been just as wealthy in the 80s and 90s as they are today, and they make up 80 % of the European population. It's just that British, German, French, Italian, Scandinavian and Benelux customers never bought that many Nintendo consoles.

Or where you referring to the fact that Nintendo couldn't offer a "mature" product like Sony? I think that's a factor, too, but if you compare NES vs. PS1 ( http://vgchartz.com/worldcons.php ) and look at the territories, the PS1 won by 31 million units in Europe, but just 7 million units in America and 2 million units in Japan. As I said, Europe made the whole difference.

I think the EU financial/political situation back in those days was definitely an issue, and I think Nintendo avoided it to a certain extent as a result. I would say Sony proved those markets viable with the PS1, and Nintendo has been fighting over market share ever since.

Edit: I should say "sony proved how lucrative the markets could be", Nintendo knew they were viable, I just don't think they knew how much money there was to be made there given the situation