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superchunk on 07 November 2011
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Joelcool7 said:
superchunk said:
Joelcool7 said:

I dunno its interesting to here Wii won out over 360/PS3 but I am not convinced that this will translate into high sales of WiiU. DS was the most successful handheld of all time and 3DS failed at launch due to price and lack of software. Brand recognition alone cannot sell hardware. PlayStation learnt that the hard way with PS3.

I think Nintendo will need to work very hard to maintain this dominance next generation. They will need just as many amazing first party titles and even more third party higher quality titles. Fact is their are multiple factors which could lead to WiiU bombing regardless of brand recognition!

3DS hasn't really done much worse/better than the DS originally did... and we know how that turned out.

At launch 3DS was doing terrible as far as I know it was way under DS's levels it wasn't until the price cut was announced that things started to turn around. Which is why I specifically say "Failed at launch" this shows that the brand recognition was not enough to sell the hardware , Nintendo had to take a loss on every hardware unit to achieve the level of success DS had.

Then factor in the fact that software sales are dismal and that hardware can't be cut further if the system begins to struggle. Usually Nintendo can cut hardware every year or two but at 169.99$ Nintendo can't afford to cut the hardware in the foreseeable future.

In the end I was just pointing out that brand recognition while useful is not a determining factor in a consoles success. Wii proved that when it trounced PlayStation despite Nintendo's brand recognition having dropped drastically in popularity! In the end solid software, solid hardware, good marketing and reasonably priced hardware is far more important to a consoles success then brand recognition!

1) Where is it printed that the 3DS @ $169 is losing money per unit? All estimates I've read said cost of materials is around $100-$110 and then adding in everything else that goes into the retail product, I'm sure its either barely profitable or really close to it. Nintendo was just hoping DS popularity and titles that didn't' make it to launch window would allow it to sale successfully with a very large margin.

2) 3DS launched in February (beg) and had its price cut in July (beg); 5 months. In that time frame it sold ~3.3m units. DS launched in November 2004 (end) and if you move 5 months out to April 2005 (end), you have sales of ~4.9m units.... and that includes the DS launching during the holiday period in NA and Japan (3DS has yet to hit the holidays).

While this is less by 1.6m units or ~30% less in sales, you are talking about a $100 increase in price or 40% increase in price and no holiday sales. I would not consider the 3DS launch a "failure" given this info based on DS sales.

3DS hasn't failed at all. Nintendo's projects failed to take into account the price and lack of content as well as the misconception that it would match the current sales of a mature and very cheap DS product with tons of content.