| shams said: Good topic. In a way, Im all for regional launches (rather than global ones) except for one point: Because I live in Australia, I (and other gamers here) get shafted. There is nothing more frustrating than waiting for a "local" release of something that has come out in Japan 12 months (or more) ago, and the US 6-9 months ago. Places in Europe are even worse than us. With a global launch, because Im a keen enough gamer I can be "rewarded" with a console around the global launch time - because Im willing to preorder/line up at midnight. I really like this. The downside is (global launch again), without a "big" local launch (lots of units, etc..) there isn't a chance for everyone else to get excited about the product. ... Much of it comes down to demand and marketing dollar spends. If your demand greatly exceeds supply, you might as well do local launches. You may need to focus on one territory for 6 months or until demand dies down. This delays launches in other countries, and if you are "competing" for market share - this can hurt. ... I personally think Nintendo did the right thing with the Wii. They have a very simple problem, which is a good one to have - demand is FAR outstripping expected demand (and supply). They can't lose really, just crank up their manufacturing - and in 12 months time, will be a really strong (and profitable) position.
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Yeah one of the problems with staggered launches is even the US wouldn't get new systems for half a year after Japan. So it's sort of replacing the current shortages with universal shortages. Then again at least we would get a system that has games to play at launch, rather than having to play CoD2, Zelda, or Resistance for 4 months.
@Hus
Didn't Nintendo have 2 million before launch? The Wii has sold over 6 million after just over 4 months of 1 million units a month production. Maybe they should wait for 3 million?
