Admit it, Nintendo totally blew it.

[Bodhesatva]

Sqrl said:

Bodhesatva said:

NJ5 said:

Bodhesatva said:

Now that we see the PS3 and 360 have both outsold the Wii two weeks before Christmas, I'll repeat my stance:

If the Wii is outsold by the 360 this December, then Nintendo made a mistake. If it's outsold by the PS3 as well, then Nintendo made a BIG mistake.

The Wii didn't get outsold by anything except the DS. In US it did (due to stores choosing to sell them on Sunday apparently), but not worldwide.

 

We're talking about US here. Worldwide certainly matters, but it's significant that Nintendo is still behind the 360 in America, and is now falling farther behind.

Some pundits predicted the Wii will cede all of the headway it has made against the 360 this year in the US. I don't think that's likely, but you can clearly see that it's losing SOME ground, and that isn't a good thing. As we always say, this is a game of momentum, with hardware sales building software sales building more hardware sales and so on. Whatever the reason, if the Wii continues to fall further behind the 360 in the busiest season of the year, then that is bad.

I disagree. Any ground lost this week is going to be regained and more next week. Using this weeks numbers and ioi's info from another thread we are looking at around 800k minimum between this week and next which would average to 400k per week which is still gaining ground on the 360. It will also still outsell the 360 in the US for December due to that increase. Being behind for the wek of the lull before the storm isn't that surprising.

 

This kinda of negates my initial premise though, right? Let me  distill the conversation to explain what I mean:

Me: "If the Xbox360 and/or PS3 outsell the Wii this month, that would be bad for Nintendo."
You: "The Xbox360 and PS3 will not outsell the Wii this month."

Well.... okay, in that case everything would be fine, but the entire argument I just fleshed out was built on the premise that the Wii does not come out on top (which I think we can agree is at least possible at this point? Unlikely, perhaps, but not absurd).

So again, this isn't supposed to be a discussion about whether or not the 360/PS3 will or will not outsell the Wii. I start with the (unlikely, but possible) premise that the Wii will be outsold -- and if the Wii is outsold by its competitors in the busiest month of the year due to supply issues, that would be bad for Nintendo. Do we agree?