Why Wii is the console with the most value

[Words Of Wisdom]

famousringo said:

Words Of Wisdom said:

In this case, you are confusing value with perceived value as is the OP.  Buying a console demonstrates perceived value in that the consumer sees enough value there to have it be worth purchase.  However, actual value is usually only known after purchase.  Was it worth the money?  Do you still play it a month later?  How often is it used?  Answers to these questions are more representative of actual value. 

That's a fair distinction, I suppose. Do you think there's any way to relate software sales to actual value, or are they just based on the percieved value of the software? And if actual value was substantially lower than percieved value, wouldn't the used console market quickly undermine the sales of new units?

Well, I'd say actual value of a console likely increased by having more games to play on it, but it's not guaranteed.  I know people who have bought maybe 7 Wii games and still hardly use it or haven't particularly enjoyed it.  Likewise I'm fairly certain there are people with just Wii Sports who love the Wii.

In order to say the used console market represents actual value, you need to assert that a representative number of dissatisfied people are selling them on it as opposed to just keeping it around in a closet somewhere.  This plays into the audience demographics too.  Since the Wii's demographics range from very young to very old neither of which I believe would heavily use the used market websites like Ebay as much as the inbetween ages, it's really hard to say that what we see in those areas is representative.

Actual value is really hard to measure.  At the moment, the best I can think of right now is online play time, but that's just an indicator on a small scale at best.