jarrod said:
But really, I think you're missing a central point, and you've actually indadvertedly touched it at the same time... "Motion controls were fun". A control interface on it's own isn't inherently "fun"; it's just a tool, it's how it's implemented in software that does that. I said before that Wii Sports was basically the platform's proof of concept, and that's really what sold new consumers on it. That's why Reggie insisting on bundling it outside Japan was such a genius stroke, it ensured Wii Sports was always there as the first game new potential consumers would play at a kiosk or their friend's place, it was always there to "sell" new people on Wii. Wii sold largely on word of mouth, with a viral approach to people outside the traditional market spaces, and Wii Sports was really central to that plan.
And again, I'm not seeing any concrete evidence concerning pricepoints from you... this argument is boiled down to "Wii was cheaper and sold more, ergo it sold more because it was cheaper", which is a logical fallacy. What I'm asking for is any real indication that Wii sold due to it's lower pricepoint, which is something no one's seemingly been able to bring to the table. Does it selling well above MSRP 2nd hand for years indicate that? Does it being the most expensive, and yet best selling, Nintendo console in history prove that? Does it going longer than any other console in history without a price reduction prove that? And why are you continually shitting on the Arcade/Core? The Core was exact same industry standard setup we had with PS2, it needed a memory card or HDD, it came with a wired controller, VGA cables, so what? Was the "real" PS2 launch price $400 using this logic? Consumers must also be dumber than you think, considering how the $199 Arcade flew off shevles... |
You are missing the point that it doesn't matter what Nintendo prices their system at. It doesn't matter if it's the most expensive Nintendo system to date. None of that matters. What matters in the eyes of the consumer is how does it stack up to the competition. In the consumers eyes, the Wii was a much cheaper system than either of the outputs the competition was offering.
By offering such a low entry point and drastically different control scheme, Nintendo got a lot of people (A lot more than MS or Sony) to bite on the Wii system. Once they had this massive amount of people, they started over dosing them with quality Nintendo software. The thing is, Nintendo had great software on the Gamecube and N64 too. It's just a myriad of reasons limited them from reaching a full audience and therefore their games didn't receive the credit they deserved.
Let's fast forward 300 years from now. Sony / MS / Nintendo all still exist and are the three largest Video game console producing companies. In the year 2310, Nintendo prices their console at a whopping $250,000. Highest priced Nintendo console to date. Is that even relevant? No. If Sony comes in with a console priced $600,000 and MS comes in with a console priced at $400,000 the Nintendo output will still be considered a far cheaper option.
This isn't the year 2000 anymore. Had people wanted to purchase a PS2, they certainly could have for what $150? $120 at the time? The fact of the matter is, if you wanted a next-gen HD console you wanted a hard-drive on a system that essentially requires it to utilize a lot of basic features. You probably wanted a wireless controller (Which every other system had) and most likely you cared (Atleast on a passing sense) about HD (Which you were going to need to eventually buy cords for anyways.).
And we aren't speaking about the Arcade . We are talking about the Core. By the time the Arcade unit (Which included some modern amenities) was announced the Wii had already had around a 6 million console sale lead over the almost 2 year old 360 and almost year old PS3.
