Ail said:
Honestly, when you did you last see a commercial for the Wii on TV? I don't think I have seen any in the US for over a year.... I see Xbox360 and PS3 commercials weekly ( and Xbox360 has done a terrific job of grabing the news attention with Kinect which translates as free marketing). The other reason is that some of market segment that Nintendo grabbed ( Blue Ocean as some like to call it) have now moved to other gaming experience. The last 2 years have seen social gaming ( facebook) and phone gaming explode. Sure it's not the same gaming experience than a full HD AAA game, but it's not the same price too and seeing by their success, a huge chunk of the population actually enjoys them. It's like Wii made a segment of the population discover gaming to have it stolen right from under them by newer gaming forms... And part of that like you point out is NIntendo abyssmal marketing for the past years. They did a kick ass job the first 2 years and since then have totally dropped the ball. Heck I seriously wonder what Regie is doing these days, because he sure isn't earning his salary marketing the Wii......... |
Yeah, this is another thing I don't understand; a lot of people claimed that the Wii would draw in customers that under other cirucumstances would not care about gaming, and to that much I agree. What I don't get is how they assume that these new "gamers" will then advance and "go deeper" (to quote the most hyped movie of last year...) and start playing more intricate games, buying loads of software and become essentially like the "hardcore" consumer. Why on earth would they do that? They never cared for such a hobby before, and there was a reason they didn't. They won't magically turn into a different consumer in droves and start playing RPG's, strategy games and other, deeper games all of the sudden. Their interest will remain superficial and half-hearted and they'll play Farmville, Angry Birds and other easygoing games on various platforms, these people can never be expected to invite a friend and play through Gear of War 2 in one sitting on their brand new 50" TV and surround sound system they bought to enjoy their games more. Most of them are even perfectly content with not playing games at all since its not a big part of their life at any rate.
Someone with a casual interest will, in the vast majority of cases, retain that interest level due to the nature of the subject at hand. People are naturally drawn to things they really like at once, without having to deploy clever tactics to "trick" them into trying it at all, one example would be my interest and passion for history, it was always there, since I could talk and inquire for myself. Its not like I started off easy with how my poop ended up smelling so bad one particular day and trying to analyse the most important events of the last two hours and then suddenly decided to jump on Ancient Egypt and the birth of China.
Here in Norway, there are over 30.000 people who train Tae-Kwon Do, how many of them are shooting for the black belt? Not a whole lot, in fact; most of them aren't interested in grading themselves at all, they're there for the social event, exercise and learning (somewhat) how to defend themselves. Then there's a solid core who started because they were genuinely intrigued by it and wants to see how good they can become and compete amongst themselves for getting better belts and in real bouts. This is just one example, there are countless others (people starting book clubs to "analyze" Twilight and drink wine won't be in a hurry to start on classic Hemmingway or Poe any time soon, for instance).
Casuals will remain casual, they are a fickle crowd who gets easily swayed one way or the other and you need to really work at it to keep them interested, lest they move on to other things. In these instances, marketing is all the more important, relying simply on viral marketing, especially for an aging product with no real news value, is plain silly. Customers like these will never be loyal and your product's percieved value will drop in time. This is part of what is happening to the Wii, one cannot blame software issues, especially since it has had no disadvantage like I showed on my list, in the past six months or so, its almost the other way around.
Metallicube: I ask again, why is the PS3 above the Wii? If it were simply software, things would be dead even or perhaps slightly in the Wii's favor. And since Nintendo's core titles both sell more and move more hardware (by your account, that is) the PS3 has had no advanatages through 2010 at all so the longterm momentum should be all but lost. No recent price cut, Slim version is getting old and no advantage in software. Mind you, the PS3 is down yoy as well but not anywhere near as much. If 3rd parties alone make and break a consoles sales, how could the Wii be the fastest selling console of all time at all? It never had good 3rd party support. Nintendo's own games did all the work? Fine, maybe they did, but that once again begets the question; why can't Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Wii Party and other games move any consoles? Games that sell several million are system sellers, don't even try to argue that if you want to imply that the likes of Red Dead Redemption is what kept the PS3 floating last year.
To everyone saying "Its only one bad week, hold off on the doom!" Well, its actually the fourth consecutive week of bad sales and the yoy drop is increasing for every one of those four weeks and there is nothing to point to a change any time soon so its hardly one bad week drawn into question. When the PS3 had significant drops (roughly half of those the Wii is seeing now, before the Slim launch) there were many threads discussing it's fate and imminent death despite it being the 3rd place console all along, yet I didn't see any of you emerge in those to stem the tide of doom prophets. To simply brush of the decline from incredible domination to placing below both competitors as insignificant is a really strange thing to do. When exactly will there be cause for worry? What if it dropped to sub 100k levels (this is a very real possibility within a reasonable time window), would you still maintain that its okay since the last place console has posted worse numbers at its worst? This is misplaced logic, or lack of logic at all and it leads me to believe that people are still blinded by the likes of Reggie and actually think that Nintendo are immune to industry woes and the need to conform to markets to make headway.
Do let us know when the drops are worrying.
PS: Don't call my rant "doom talk", there is currently no console that is doomed and the market leader can't be doomed at this point anyway. I'm simply curious as to why you won't see the possibility that this (low sales) could have a bad effect on Nintendo both in the present and in the future? Will 3rd parties be more inclined to aid them next generation when they let sales plummet and do nothing about it? Will investors be pleased that they have effectively dropped extremely in profits in just a year due to significantly lower sales and the fact that they are forced to lower their projections time and time again? I also find it funny that some would maintain that "The PS3 is still in more trouble than the Wii". Why? Its selling more without any good reason and is experiencing drops that are nowhere near as bad and has gone from being constantly third to approaching second and first in weekly numbers. The 360 is probably also in more trouble, despite being on top of the charts and moving software like hell. Here's a tip; don't let Malstrom do all your thinking and reasoing for you, it won't do you any good.
