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HappySqurriel on 18 October 2007
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Words Of Wisdom said:
etuoyo said:
HappySqurriel said:

Wii Fit numbers seem really high but one thing we need to consider a few things:

  1. Over 2 Million people in Japan bought Wii Sports.
  2. The DS has really tapped into alternate markets in Japan and traditional "Non-Gamers" now have enough of an interest in gaming to market to them.
  3. Japan has (historically) been more willing to buy additional hardware to play quirky games than North American
  4. In many ways Wii Fit is a flagship title (on the level of Mario Galaxy) except it is targeting an alternative gamer market.

Now, I doubt it will hit 2 Million in 30 days but I expect it will sell in the 500,000 to 1,000,000 range with little trouble.


I think Jon Lucas expects it to sell around 4 million in one week so in terms of sales predictions so far (these and that of Jon Lucas are the only ones I have seen) 2 million in 30 days is on the low side.


But the problem is just because there is a market of non-"hardcore" gamers doesn't mean that "casual" games are always guaranteed to appeal to that market.

I think too many people are getting attach rate with market size confused.  Just because there's a large user base out there doesn't mean it has a high attach rate for games. 

Wii Sports broke new ground.  However there is still the possibility it was a fluke.  Wii Fit sales will be very telling I think.


I think Wii Sports being a fluke is fairly unlikely with how much success Nintendo has had with similar "Blue-Ocean" games. In Japan Nintendo has sold more than 10 Million Brain Training games (over 14 Million if you include English and Common sense training), Animal Crossing has sold more copies in Japan on the Nintendo DS than any other version has sold, and Nintendogs has been very successful.

The truth is that these analysts are probably pretty good at predicting how the Japaneese market will react. I think that it is possible that Wii Fit could flop but I believe that it is far more likely that it would flop in the image conscience western countries than the quirky Japaneese market.