| Loud_Hot_White_Box said: 1. True in a way, but consumers won't necessarily buy just one or the other. And as PS3 drops in price, (even as the huge games roll out), its value to people just explodes. Regardless of the price of Wii, and even 360. 2. I expect a large uptick in HDTV adoption given the all-digital-signal TV switch in Feb '09 and much, much lower prices on average than, say, we saw in '01-'05. 3. I kind of assume since it's SD, that somewhat limits it, in part because Nintendo will probably bring out a 720p-capable successor in a few years. That machine (call it Wii2), also decently low-priced and fully backwards compatible and with a similar control scheme, would cut off Wii sales much more than the expensive PS3 cut off the cheap PS2's sales. It will limit Wii sales on the back end, but don't get me wrong, that's not any kind of failing for Nintendo; it'll be a great business move. Wii plus Wii2 sales over any period will be much higher than Wii sales alone. (assumption here is that the next Nintendo machine comes out well before PS4, and cheaper. Though PS4 will also be cheaper at launch than PS3 because Cell and Blu-Ray will be mature tech.) |
1) As we have seen from the recent release of Grand Theft Auto 4, the huge games that have been announced for the PS3 are already being factored into current console purchases and it is unlikely that the release of these games will increase the value of the PS3 to consumers. With the exception of games that define a new market (like Nintendogs or Brain Training) few games actually have any impact on long term sales trends after they're released.
2) Maybe ... Being that people are feeling the crunch from higher oil prices, the loss of easy to access home equity credit, and the eventual tax hikes in the United States people are (probabaly) going to have less desire to make large purchases without reason. Certainly the digital switch over will impact some people, but this only impacts people who receive their television through an antenna which is a very tiny minority.
Beyond that, a large portion of people have bought HDTVs with little concern for the high definition capabilities of the TV. Many purchases are made because the TVs are large, with others being made because the TVs are flat panel displays, and many of those people who are buying them for High Definition have no (real) understanding of what High Definition means.
The last thing to consider when it comes to HDTV adoption is that there was a survey done last year which demonstrated that (something like) 75% of Wii owners had a HDTV; there is nothing saying that you can not (or will not) buy a Wii once you have a HDTV.
3) Its hard to say what Nintendo will or will not do ... Nintendo favours waiting until their competition begins the next generation before they enter into it; I suspect the reason for this is Nintendo is (at their heart) a software company and are completely happy as long as they can maintain high software sales.
If Microsoft (or Sony) decides to begin the generation in 2010 or 2011 I suspect that you will see the next generation Nintendo system released soon afterwords; at the same time, it is amazingly likely that both these systems will have far greater capabilities than the PS3 or XBox 360 and will be sold at a reasonable price ($300 equivalent) which would limit the potential sales of the PS3 or XBox 360 after this point.
