Pachter : Wii HD Coming 'FALL 2010' -- Do you agree?!

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Soundwave said:

Iwata is not Yamauchi, I think it's an significant difference.

Yamauchi would ride the Wii and probably not release a new machine until 2012-2013 even if it meant surrendering a ton of marketshare.

Iwata doesn't really work that way. He watches week to week and month to month sales very closely, not just "well, we're making a profit, lets not do anything".

Last year they introduced the DSi because in Japan the PSP was starting to outsell the DS on a consistent basis and sales were way down in Japan even though sales of DS Lite were great in North America and Europe and NOA was even reportedly not happy with the decision to unveil the DSi. People also said Nintendo would never cut the price of the Wii ... yet sales are down year-over-year and Iwata takes action. 

I think Iwata understands something Yamauchi didn't -- if you allow competitors to just walk in and take market share uncontested eventually your profit margins will feel the pinch too.

Maybe the better way to look at it is this -- the only way Nintendo doesn't release a Wii 2 (I hate the name Wii HD) by 2011 is if Wii sales continue to increase year over year and Natal and Sonywand are both bombs. But even that, I think Nintendo has noticed this year that sales of the HD consoles are up, whereas sales of the Wii are down ... that indicates more people are buying HDTVs and eventually wanting an HD console. Nintendo is not going to ignore that market forever as it becomes more mainstream. HDTVs are now dirt cheap -- they were not in 2006. Something Nintendo also has to consider. 

DSi wasn't a new system, just a revised version of the DS. Wii sales are down about 10% at the moment, due to weaker software this year, but still well ahead of the PS3 and 360, why launch a next gen console when you are leading and your software lineup is about to get a lot stronger?