Okay Midnightrider.. Prepared to be schooled..
Number one: How can you say the Halo series is on the way out when these figures tell a different story?
Halo: 6.43M
Halo 2: 8.43M
Halo 3: 10.00M
Seriously? It's on it's way out? Care to explain how?
Now onto Nintendo and in particular, Wii Sports Resort. Did you not hear what Satoru Iwata said about evergreen titles? If not then I'll get you up to speed..
Basically through Nintendo's market research, they have discovered that it takes software between 6 and 8 weeks to begin driving hardware adoption. He said it's happened with Nintendogs, Brain Age, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii/DS, New Super Mario Bros etc and it's looking likely to be happening again with Wii Sports Resort.
How can I tell? Well he said that it only works if the title maintains it's sales momentum for at least this 6 - 8 week period. Lets take a look at the Japanese data for Wii Sports Resort shall we?
1 349,411
2 153,276
3 99,102
4 70,769
5 69,940
6 63,610
7 70,385
8 (preliminary data says 130,000)
Now it seems like Wii Sports Resort will begin moving hardware in Japan beginning with 130k for Obon week. It's not alone though, Wii Fit Plus launches in Japan on October 1st both as a replacement for Wii Fit with the Balance Board and also as a stand alone title priced at $US22. So it should also begin boosting hardware sales in mid November which will see the launch of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This title will likely be the biggest software launch of any game on Wii and sell to a massive audience just like it's predecessor.
Put it this way, Mario Kart Wii has outsold it's DS counter part and it's likely that New Super Mario Bros. Wii will also outsell it's DS counter part. New Super Mario Bros on DS stands at 19.17 Million copies sold.
In conclusion, Wii will slowly ramp up sales heading into the holidays and with third party titles like The Beatles: Rock Band, GH5, Band Hero, DJ Hero, Rabbids Go Home, Shaun White Snowboarding 2, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games, EA Sports Active Expansion, Your Shape, FFCC: The Crystal Bearers, Need for Speed: Nitro, Spyborgs, Toy Story Mania, TMNT: Smash Up, Dirt 2, F1 2009, Dead Space Extraction, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Cursed Mountain, Tony Hawk RIDE and many more obscure titles like Muramasa coming this year.. I think Wii will do fantastically well these holidays.
