America's up!

[UncleScrooge]

kowenicki said:

UncleScrooge said:

askel50 said:

 

Perhaps you are right, but frankly I don't see anything that can justify wii doubling 360 sales, even for a week. The only way this could happen is if the 360 is seriously undershipped and I don't think it is. Anyway we will never know the truth because NPD doesn't release weekly information, so we'll have to stick to monthly comparison.

Of course there is a justification - the Wii had an additional positive effect on its sales (giftcard) while the Xbox360 had two negative ones (wait for giftcard and supply issues).

It should have been clear to most people that the Wii would see huge Christmas sales:

1) Nintendo platforms see higher christmas increases because they are often bought as christmas presents

2) The Wii wasn't down during the year because consumer interest had wayned but because it didn't get any games. There was just one million seller before October or so and that was Mario Galaxy 2, the third Mario game on the Wii obviously didn't push any hardware.

3) The Xbox360 got a redesign some months ago. Obviously that pushed its sales up additionally.

4) The Wii has a very great christmas line-up this year (and games from last year that are still selling great) and Nintendo put out lots of bundles for the first time.

Take all those effects into account and it is completely logical the Wii boost during Christmas would be astronomical. But most of the time people just compare numbers. They see a console selling bad for like 3 months and assume it is "doomed". That's also why Xbox360 and Playstation 3 constantly change places in "who's gonna be 2nd" discussion. Two months of great sales for console "X" and people assume it'll stay that way forever :-p

Whilst I agree with some of what you have said... imo point 2 is utterly irrelevant.

Are you saying that new potential Wii adopters weren't drawn in by Wii Sports, WSR, MK, NSMB etc etc.? After 4 or 5 years it is game libraries that attract new adopters not a specific game release. 

Nope. I'm saying software that is more than a year old isn't going to push 300k systems a week. Of course it is the game library that attracts new users but new games surely help to push sales. Are you saying sales for any system will stay flat and not decrease without any major new releases?

New games will always pull in new users. It also increases awareness in the system, new games get ads and a steady flow of releases makes people feel the system is till alive and kicking.

When the DS in Japan stopped getting the big number of releases it got before sales went down. When the Wii didn't get many games the sales went down. The Gameboy was way down when Pokemon hit the market. Same goes for the PSP and Monster Hunter (2nd and 3rd). Both had been on the market longer than the Wii has been now. During the last investor meeting Iwata said sales for the DS are down because there is no new hit software on the market.

If customers feel your product isn't being supported anymore they won't buy it. In the games industry you may redesign your console, drop the price or put out new games - these things all help to keep interest in your platform high.

If there was no steady stream of releases on the HD consoles they'd drop as well. Wii software selling huge numbers doesn't mean it is abe to keep system sales alive for years without new releases.

I agree with you it is not a specific game release that attracts new users in most cases. But a big flow of releases surely pushes hardware. In the Wii's case the combination of Wii Party, Just Dance, uDraw, Epic Mickey and Donkey Kong definitely pushed hardware this holiday season. And the long draught during the rest of the year reduced interest in the platform.