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Pineapple on 30 December 2010
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mortono said:
Pineapple said:

I personally think that Skyward Sword will sell less than the Wii version of Twilight Princess.

The Wii's competition gets fiercer and fiercer every year. In 2010, you have to compete with all the new 2010 titles, but you also have to compete with evergreen 2008 and 2009 titles. Essentially, the amount of games that people could potentially buy increases.

And, with the Wii, the amount of software isn't increasing. It's stuck at selling around the same as in 2008 and in 2009, and it's quite clearly going to sell roughly the same in 2011 and 2012.

More titles that buyers could potentially buy, coupled with no increase in software sold, means that the average title will sell less. Essentially, all titles will sell a bit less on Wii now than the earlier released ones.

We see this pattern being true for all installments of Zelda on machines. The second one on the machine always sells less.

So, I'd say somewhere in the 4-5 million range seems likely.

Backwards, isn't it?

Lower overall software sales results in lower selling games.

Or...

Lower selling games results in lower overall software sales.

You decide.

But I do think you are right about the competition aspect of it. Zelda TP was THE game to buy as a launch title, but now with all the good software on display it will really have to stand out.


No, you're missing the point. The buying habits of consumers are that they buy 4 games the first year, 3 the next, then 2, then 1. They gradually buy less and less games.

An average person who has owned his Wii for 4 years won't buy as many games as a person who has owned it for half a year. This is why machines tend to see similar software sales in years 3, 4 and 5. Or in the Wii's scenario, year 2, 3, 4 and most likely 5 and 6.

Here's a very, very simple layout of it. I've simplified the numbers (the Wii sells a bit less than 200 million software a year), and I'm just ignoring 2006 and 2007 for now.

In 2008, the Wii sells 200 million software. All of those sales are from games released in 2008.

In 2009, the Wii sells 200 million software. Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit sell 20 million combined, and other 2008 titles account for 10 million more. Thus, there's only 170 million left for games released in 2009.

In 2010, the Wii sells 200 million software. Wii Sports Resorts, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus account for 30 million sales, Mario Kart Wii and Just Dance for another 10, and other titles for another 10. That leaves just 150 million left for titles released in 2010.

And this is going to become even more true in 2011.

So no, it's not backwards.  It's not either of the two scenarios you wrote up. It's a third.

- More competition on the machine, coupled with no increase in software sales, results in less sales per game.