| reverie said: Hello? Don't try to estimate Wii demand for 2008. Not even Nintendo knows how much they can or cannot sell. It's impossible to see sustainable demand because they still have a backlog in the US. They need at least 1 month of shortage-free sales to see what's possible. I for one hope that they'll do everything to reach 50 % by March 2009 because the 2nd half of the console cycle will be tougher if too many games stay 360/PS3 exclusive. The Wii should become the reference console for multiplatform titles like the PS2 before. That would be ideal for Nintendo. They might need a price drop for that. On the other hand, they could also live without it. It would just be nice for me, because I wouldn't have to buy a PS3 to get every game I desire. |
If Nintendo has a couple of months of shortage-free sales, they'll open the floodgates to areas of the world starving for a Wii who haven't been able to get it (such as China -- Vii anyone?). The only way I could see them dropping the price in 2008 is if they over-increased production and had millions sitting in warehouses. I can't imagine this happening, however.
Looking at the numbers again, here's how I see it happening:
Xbox 360: 7-9 million units sold
PS3: 10-12 million units sold
Wii: 21-26 million units sold
This leaves the Wii with a ~50% chance, imo -- it *needs* to reach the high end of its potential for 2008, and Nintendo would have to increase production again. I believe this much is a foregone conclusion considering they haven't gotten their system a world wide release yet.
The Wii needs to outsell the PS3 + Xbox 360 by a combined 6 million units to break the 50% market share. This /is/ a tall order, admittedly, but it's something the Wii could do during the first 7-8 months of 2008. From that point out, maintaining a sales lead over both of the other consoles is a much trickier proposition.
The Wii, however, has had a huge influx of third party support just this year, and a lot of it will come to fruition next in 2008. A lot of those games will have been 18 month dev times, etc. The Wii will almost certainly have more software releases than any other home console in 2008.
A $400 console isn't going to surprise anyone. A $400 console has never sold all that well, and while the 360/PS3 have done better than any other $400 console in history, both of their sales are remarkably slow in the offseason and this will certainly be repeated in 2008.
