Changes in Wii Sales Rates: When Will They Occur & What will be the Signs?

[Bodhesatva]

mrstickball said:

Sullla said:

mrstickball said:

Again, the Wii really has no competition. What really counts is when MS and Sony have their cards (MGS4, Halo 3, GTAIV, ME, KZ2, RE5, price drop) down on the table. When the Wii has those things to go up with, we'll know 100% for certain. No earlier or later.

Huh? Of course the Wii has competition! Both the 360 and PS3 are out on the market, and have been on the market for its entire lifespan. "What really counts" is what's going on right now! I don't know how you could possibly say otherwise. The 360 "doesn't have its cards down on the table"? Uh, it's been out for 19 months now! Sorry, but that excuse is not flying for me.

This is just a modified version of the "when ____ game comes out, 360/PS3 will start beating the Wii!" stuff that has been going on all year. Absolutely nothing has changed in the past six months since 2007 started. But hey, feel free to think what you will.

I usually appreciate your posts, mrstickball, but this one left me very confused.

 

No, I respectfully disagree.

The Wii doesn't have any real, viable competition. The X360 is still $400, and the PS3 is still $600 - well out of mass market pricing. The Wii really hasn't faced a major hurdle in the 360, despite the huge time lead, as the 360 has done litterally nothing out of normal game releases to hamper Wii sales, which obviously hasn't worked.

The same goes for PS3. What really counts isn't your first year entirely, what matters is your first Christmas where you can actually penetrate the market with full shipping capacity. Thats where it matters, folks. When you have the ability to sell 5-6m Wiis in a matter of 8 weeks, thats when gut check time is. The ultimate issue is if the Wii can do those kind of numbers when MS and Sony drop their prices for Christmas, and Nintendo doesn't.

Again, the 360 is $400 at 19 months. If you can honestly think that the 360 should be selling better at that price, and should be doing well with prices so long and high into it's lifecycle, you are insane. The question is how it, and the PS3 will sell with a price drop @ Christmas. Will kids and families pick up the Wii when the X360 is $50 cheaper in the US for a core pack? Will PS3 sales start doing decent with some halfway decent software and a $500 pricetag for the 60gb model?

I'm not trying to give into the "game X will save console Y" mentality, but again, with a price drop that puts the X360 in actual mass-market pricing, it will either steal the Wiis thunder, and will show that the Wii won't the continued sell-out momentumn into 2008 in the US and/or Europe, or the Wii will continue selling like hotcakes, and both the 360/PS3 continue to stagnate, effectively ending the console wars, and relegating them to the GC/Xbox-like sales of last gen.

I didn't say that the 360/PS3 would magically out-do the Wii, I was just explaining what's at stake this Christmas, and that Sony and MS are wanting the market as well. They aren't rolling over, and they WILL position themselves to try to sell as many systems as possible - as will Nintendo. The Wii has huge titles in SMG, MP3, and SSBB - but will they hold off the onslaught of various PS3/360 titles? I'm not trying to answer the question, I'm merely posing the question. Again, adding in the price drop of both systems will add alot variables to the mix, and can really disrupt Wii dominance - or just roll over, and do like they have been thus far, and falling on their faces. The critical battle is Christmas, and not now. I cannot stress that enough. The Wii sells 350k a mont in the US. So what? At Christmas, it can either sell 1m to 1.2m consoles against a veteran X360 selling ultra well via a price drop, and a still-competitive PS3 doing 700-850k, or it can take the lead, and litterally sell more in 4 weeks than it did ALL year this year in the US. The same goes for Europe, as European sales have mimiced the US for all 3 systems.

Go do some research on the PS1/N64 wars in the US. The key battle was Christmas 1997. The N64 did rather well upto Sept. 1997, then with FF7, and other variables, the N64 stagnated and managed around 1.2m units that Christmas, and the PS1 ended up with somewhere near 2.5m. The rest was history - the PS1 carried the momentum for the rest of 3 years, and led to a new dynasty, and the N64 just died then and there, never to really play a significant competitor to the PS1 in the US, Nintendo's biggest market. I'm not saying "oh, the N64 will track like the Wii", but either the Wii is the N64, or the PS1 in this scenario. Nintendo expects to ship ~17m units by Christmas (press releases show Nintendo desiring around 20m units sold by March 2008). The question is if Nintendo has 100% sellthrough, or near it like they have thus far, or ends up facing tough competition and can't meet the 20m goal by 1-3m units.

Still, there are alot of variables, and questions, and tons of major 1m selling titles for each 3 systems. What major 1m sellers have come out this year against the Wii? Crackdown and Lost Planet were the only systems thus far to sell 1m+ since Jan 2007. However, from September to December, between the PS3 and 360, there are probably 20 titles that WILL reach the 1m global mark, or more. Thats alot of titles. The Wii has alot of potential 1m sellers too. But like the 360/PS3 1m sellers, they are just that - potentials.

Wow, you draw a totally different lesson from the N64/PS generation than I do. The Playstation started ahead and finished ahead -- that's the lesson. The N64 put up a reasonably good fight, but it's just another example of how a console that falls behind cannot make that ground back up, and in most cases (including the N64/PS generation) usually falls farther and farther behind.

In other words, I see the opposite of what you apparently do. The N64/PS generation is just more evidence that the 360 and PS3 cannot come from behind, as the N64 was unable to do. And it's really even worse for the 360 and PS3 than it was for the N64; as you said, the N64 did put up a reasonably good fight at first, but even that relatively small difference in install base could not be overcome, and eventually the N64 was dominated. What would make you think that if the N64 couldn't do it -- when only being outsold 1.5:1 -- that the PS3 or 360 can, when being outsold 2.5:1 or 4:1? Again, how does this do anything but simply reinforce the notion that the PS3/360 can't turn it around?