Lifespan of the Wii?

[robjoh]

Shane said:
Nintendo may have established the industry, but that hasn't mattered in over a decade. They lost their grip and have proven to not know a way to get it back. The bleeding looks to have finally stopped, but the damage is done.

The PS1 did have its advantages over the PS3, but it also had its disadvantages.

I disagree. Nintendo had plenty of third party love on the Cube. At the end of 2002, Gamecube had 156 third party games. If Wii surpasses that, it won't be by much. Cube had plenty of support. What it lacked was support that would move systems, and their own internal games have definitely lost a step. As I said, they still don't have an exclusive (or even a multiplatform game for that matter) the likes of Resident Evil that they did have at this point on that system, though.

A look at the monthly history shows that Sony almost always moves 2-3+ million units in the US in the month of December. For the PS2, this amounted to 11 million units, just shy of the total amount of Gamecubes sold during its lifespan. This is why when people are jumping up and down about how Nintendo moved 300k during February, I'm more interested in seeing what the holidays look like.

Nintendo definitely knows how to make a profit, which is a viable strategy but not cutthroat enough for my tastes. I viewed Wii as a bit of white flag waving, but we'll see how long they can go before costs become too much for them to even do something like this.

Sony's been a target, but it's always been a target. Based on PS2 software and hardware sales, people are obviously still buying Sony products, so I don't see how they alienated customers. No doubt PS3 would be doing better if it had a lower price, but that's nothing that... lowering the price can't fix.

The thing about PS3 is that all developers just assumed that it would be #1, and most of them continue to assume so. With that, they've gotten so far into development of their AAA titles that they can't just scrap them, so they will be coming out on PS3. If the world ends and FFXIII fails to sell on a Sony system, then there's a door opening as far as future versions, but we're talking a couple years off. At most, in terms of current major products, all they can do is put them multiplatform (meaning Xbox 360). Best case scenario for Nintendo on the major franchises is spinoffs and last gen porting.

Microsoft wants shorter lifecycles anyway. They're using this as a way to get an upperhand, and it certainly worked this time in terms of stealing exclusives from Sony and also just having a higher userbase by the time the others launched. Sony will go on its own terms. They invested too much into PS3 to just drop it in 3 years.

 

So let us start from the top:

1. So they haven't proven that they know a way back, when their new system is selling better than their previous. When the new system is sold out in all three regions. When their new system has sold half of the cubes LTD in Japan and almost the same thing in EU?
2. What disadvnatage did PS1 have that PS3 didn't?
3. They don't need 3rd party software to drive sales, Wii Sport and Play stands for the system selling now. But if you really want to know, I do think that DQ: Swords can move some systems. Looking at it, the problem for Nintendo isn't the system seller, the problem is lack of games. I do think Wii will beat the Cube in 3rd software support without any problem because Nintendo will win Japan. They know the market, how could you otherwise explain the DS?
4. Any succesfull system will sell more during december,  if Nintendo Wii continue to dominate the sales monthly we will see Wii sell 3-4 million during december also. Just because Sony has in the past sold well during december, that doesn't mean that they always will. PS2 is usually selling much better the rest of the ordinary month than the PS3 is selling now.
5. Ehh Nintendo has no loans, hasn't shown a year were they made a loss since the NES era. That isn't enough cuttroath for you? How much profit must a company show?
6. If sony cut their price with 100 USD each year (and that is a lot) they will hit 300 USD in 2009, Nintendo need to lower their price with 100 USD to reach 150 USD. Meanwhile Nintendo is selling their system with a profit today, sony is losing. I am working with cost-reduction, you don't reduce you price during one year with 10% without volumes, something Sony doesn't have for the moment.
7. Yes 3rd parties assumed that PS3 would be number one, so far it isn't happen. They game that is started in development will be realised, sometimes later than plant just to wait for a big enough userbase, but their is no new 3rd party exclusivs announced since launch. Where is the support? Some of the 3rd party exclusives is even going too xbox360. Meanwhile Nintendo isn't getting the biggest titles but they are getting more and more exclusivs. 3rd party support isn't static, if it was Nintendo wouldn't have lost against Sony from the start.
8. No Microsoft doesn't want shorter life cycles, they killed the xbox because they were losing tons of money on it. It is pretty clear that Microsoft needs to show some profit this generation if they are going to launch a xbox720 (or whatever), something that they have failed so far with.

Finaly I want to point out that you are making an assumption that is building on, as far as I see it, a wrong idéa. That is, PS1 and PS2 had great software support therefore PS3 will have it. It isn't that simple, becuase you get 3rd party support if you can show a userbase, something the PS3 have failed with so far. So 3rd party support wont be there, at least when it comes to exclusive games if the sales isn't there. Nintendo is selling on its first party studios, Sony has so far failed to do that.