| Joelcool7 said:
I was most definitely being optimistic! Yes I doubt Nintendo recalled the Basic models intending to sell them at a 100$ less than they intended. Fact is the Basic models simply were not selling and Nintendo was facing a choice. Nintendo recalled the units from several retailers who simply were not seeing any sales and didn't care to have them on shelves anymore. However the units are already built the financial loss has already been taken. So Nintendo could repackage them and sell them for 200$ heck they could sell them for 100$ it is better then those units being thrown in a giant landfill ala Atari. At this point Nintendo will want to move those units, which are likely around a million or more. Why do I give such a large figure, Nintendo continued to manufacture them up until shortly before discontinuing. Nintendo must have a large stock pile sitting in their warehouses given even during the highest selling point of WiiU the Basic model was still on store shelves. Boxing Day week is going to pick up this year as American retailers are expected to push much harder. Here in Canada our retailers are also planning on pushing Black Friday week. It is not illogical to think if Nintendo priced Basic bundles at 200$ with a game that they could shift a million on each week. Given historic console sales of around 900,000+ if Nintendo was to put their basic models on a fire sale they should be able to not only liquidate their stock but push their Deluxe models as well. As for the doomsday situation WiiU is currently in. It is most definitely true that the WiiU is not selling well at all but it has a lot going for it if Nintendo plays its cards right. First Nintendo's marketing has sucked it has beyond sucked it has been terrible. If Nintendo does actually market the WiiU they have the games to push it to the public. In my estimates I put a low of 8 million units and a high of 15. I said 15 was necessary to save the console, in other words yes I am running with the same doomsday scenerio everyone else is. Failure to reach 15 million units by the end of the financial year will result in a greater loss in third party support. Sony expects to sell 5 million PS4's and if Nintendo cannot make a solid lead on the console by the next fiscal year I simply can't see them surviving. But again Nintendo has a lot of big games coming, it will be interesting to see how the release of Zelda and the 50$ price cut effect sales this coming week. If sales don't rise dramatically I am going to be even more concerned. But Nintendo could turn this around if they put in the effort! |
Your first two paragraphs seem to be at odds with one another. Why would Nintendo continue manufacturing Basics for ~6 months when it was obvious since launch there wasn't much demand for it. What exactly was the endgame there? It just seems like a scenario you made up to justify Nintendo selling a large number of systems at rock bottom prices.
I'm not really sure why you expect Boxing Day to suddenly become huge in the US. Even if retailers push it hard, it won't go from unknown to Black Friday in a year. Also, there is only so much money to go around. We've seen that December sales have been somewhat weaker since Black Friday got so huge. Also, where are you getting historical console sales of 900k+? Even combined, the consoles don't do 900k+ in the US in the week after Christmas. Why do you expect the Wii U to manage over a million in basically a day? Even on Black Friday week only the 360 has managed that, and it has only happened once (even then just barely).
