TruckOSaurus said:
txrattlesnake said:
The big thing is that if the Wii was selling like the Gamecube, then no one would even bother to defend Wii Sports or Wii Fit or Wii Play as being decent games in any way let alone trying to say they are among the best games ever made like some Nintendo fans try to go completely overboard and do.
There are four main reasons why the Wii has sold as well as it has.
One would be the fact that it was by far the cheapest of the next gen consoles when released.
Another would be the heightened demand for the Wii that existed because of shortages and limited availability for the console during Christmas '06, much of '07, Christmas '07, much of '08, and whose effect seems to have been wearing off a bit more recently.
Third they did manage to get most of their core games out in a timely fashion. Zelda as a launch title, Metroid Prime and Mario Galaxy by its first year anniversary. Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit that have been carrying it over the last year.
And lastly, the law of cycles which says that everything cool twenty years ago will eventually find a way to be cool again. Since, the NES was cool twenty years ago and Nintendo had gone through a bit of a slump the last two gens, they did catch a benefit from the law of cycles. It was just time for Nintendo to do well again.
Wii Sports had very little to do with any of these four things.
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1) Sure it helped.
2) No, no, no, no, no. Shortages and limited availabilty... wait for it... LIMIT sales they don't increase them.
3) Yes those titles are system sellers (maybe not Prime, I love the game but it's pretty niche) but they don't explain the phenomenal Wii sales alone. At Metroid Prime's launch Wii was at 11.2 million, Twilight Princess was at 3.4 million at the point so there was 7.8 million who bought the Wii for something else.
4) That point is too ridiculous to reply to.
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2.) Actually when people are unable to obtain an item it increases both the demand and the word of mouth for it. Look at the 360 when it was scarce in the holidays of '05 and people were able to sell them for $3,000.00 and more. Also look at past sales for items like Tickle Me Elmo, Cabbage Patch Dolls, etc, etc. It is a well known phenomena for the it items of holiday seasons to have an increased demand due to their scarcity.
4.) The law of cycles is a well discussed phenomena in pop cultural studies. Basically music trends, interest in ufos, etc. seem to have a spike in interest every twenty years or so. Basically the fact that Nintendo was able to survive so long in the games industry even through their two off console eras ensured that sooner or later they would release something that would become popular again.
