EA: The Wii is a legacy now

[Ail]

greenmedic88 said:

It essentially displayed the adoption rate of the typical leading console complete with the normal 5 year drop off rate as a platform approaches its end of cycle.

Since the Wii was a big gamble on Nintendo's part strategically, it should not be a surprise that it was likely planned around the typical 5 year product cycle in contrast to the 360 and PS3.

Technically, the Wii won't really be a "legacy" system until its successor is released, but it's guaranteed the Wii will remain in production as a low cost alternative for years after, much like the PS2.

There is a difference between the Wii and the PS2.

In the US sales are following a similar pattern with early peak and slow decline ( but the Wii curve is way above the PS2 curve).

However if you look at worldwide sales things are a little  different...

PS2 sales peaked in europe in Year 6 which led to a very strong resurgence of the PS2 late in the gen.( 18.7 millions PS2 sold that year compared to 21.2 million at the previous peak).

Wii sales peaked every where worldwide in year 2 and don't look to be picking up steam again....

So basically the Wii was a lot more front loaded that the PS2.

And as last gen went on PS2 kept increasing its market share as the sales of its competitors slowed down even faster than PS2 sales, whereas this gen the Wii is actually loosing marketshare as the gen gets older.

 

One could argue that the Wii installed base is a lot bigger, but in practice what tends to drive software sales is hardware sales ( newer hardware owner tend to purchase more software than 4 years old console owners) which is what explains the current situation...