Does the Wii prove that the HD razor/blade model is flawed?

[couchmonkey]

@Topic: I started thinking about the razors/blades model while reading through the replies and it occurred to me that this model was never very relevant to video games since not all systems are created equal.

Every razor does the same thing and once you own one there's hardly any reason to trade as long as you can keep getting more blades! If you can convince someone to take or buy a razor, they have very little reason to switch.

With video games, I can buy a new system to get a different set of games. I can even sell my other systems to raise money for the new one. Final Fantasy and Wii Sports Resort are reasons to buy the systems in and of themselves! This flaw in the razorblade / video game logic is even more obvious when you use Wii as an example. Currently the games on Wii aren't even possible on the HD systems and vice-versa.

Something that falls much better under the razors/blades system was Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. Both were doing the exact same thing and if it weren't for business politics, they could have offered the exact same movies. By selling Blu-ray players at a loss, Sony could become the de facto standard for HD movie playback. Sony did a variation on that by packing Blu-ray in with the PS3.

The razorblades model kind of works in a red ocean situation because all products on the market are fighting for the same audience and are okay substitutes for one another. As soon as someone differentiates, the model starts to fall apart.