Perhaps the blue ocean Nintendo waded into this generation with the Wii isn't so deep and so wide as we first believed. Thats what it seems like at present. We have the Xbox 360 exceeding the Wii in weekly sales in the U.K, the PS3 exceeding the Wii in weekly sales earlier this year in Japan and overall sales down 20% when the Wii itself is just as affordable the day its released. With the Wii always being sold out for the first two years of its life perhaps the limitations of its sales potential could not become apparant. We know the audience is capable of rapid adoption, the real question is about whether theres enough audience for sustained rapid adoption of the console.
There are plenty of people out there who have been interested by the Wii but haven't yet adopted the console, theres absolutely no disputing that. Those sales will continue to trickle in unabated. However beyond cleaning up the last of their core fanbase and people who had been interested in but hadn't yet aquired the Wii as the features/benefits exist now, I don't see anything on the near roadmap which isn't just going to simply speed people who are already interested in the console into making a purchase. Perhaps at this point we're seeing the effect of a lack of certain third/first party type games coming into play and Nintendo could be losing some of the existing gamer demographics.
Could the 50M sales the Wii has now be essentially the same as the well understood 3rd year peak only coming one year sooner? The Nintendo Wii sold rapidly, but that sustained rise may have only sped up the point of noticeable saturation and declining sales. The internet and media have changed since the earlier generations and people found out about it quicker and the unique selling proposition of the console got them into the stores faster. So perhaps in the end the idea that the Wii will get >50% market share or outsell the PS2 have to be put under deep scrutiny.
Tease.
