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misterd on 03 July 2007
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auroragb said:
johnlucas said:

Sorry to come off as arrogant. That tone is supposed to represent assured confidence.

I never expect people to agree with my proclamations. I expect and actually welcome the doubt. Upon glance my foretellings DO look crazy. That's why I love making them. I can see something the others can't.

The reason Wii will sell this much is because of the AUDIENCE. AuroraGb thinking that Nintendo can't ramp up production to meet an ever growing demand is frankly unrealistic. No one leaves money sitting on the table like that. If the demand is there you bet your bottom dollar they will make 'em. They may continue to fall short of satiating demand but they will do their best to match it because there is money to be made: pure and simple. They will simply do what they have to do because it would be wasted opportunity if they don't.

You're doggone right, Gamerace. "A common household device". That's EXACTLY what I saw when I said 240,000,000 AT LEAST. And this system will go beyond the 5 year span. It will be too successful to abort prematurely. This thing is set to be a cultural phenomenon, folks. I'd really wish people stop looking at this machine as an ordinary "gamesystem" because it ain't. What Nintendo has in mind for this device will change the household dynamic. It's gonna be as common as a VCR or DVD player and held just as prominently on the entertainment center.

People simply have limited vision. I'm going beyond the current established times and current expectations and current conventional wisdom to make my forecasts. People doubted me before and I proved myself right. I live for it. I love it when people doubt my seemingly bizarre claims. 

I'm not saying that Nintendo will not increase production.  But, if they ever go to 55M / year production, it will not be before 2010.  Is the DS doing well? Is the DS-Lite doing better?  If so, why has it not seen the ramp that you've projected for the Wii?  The answer is that Nintendo is a conservative company.

Your projections assume several things that are hard to support:

1. Elastic supply - Nintendo is a risk averse company.  No matter how successful a product is, it will not increase year on year production by > 50%.  Which is why I say that it cannot achieve 55M/year until ~2010

2. Multiple console / household a common phenomenon - NO. A draw of the Wii is that it is a supplement to family activities. Having multiple Wiis / household detracts from that.  There will be many multi-Wii households, but don't expect that to account for a small fraction of the Wii sales.  DS, by its handheld nature and low price is now showing the number of households that exists for gaming market.  To have a significantly larger market than the DS is rather unreasonable

3. Wii having a significantly longer life than 5 years.  If you consider a possible WiiHD update to be Wii, then it might be stretched out by a year or so.  But, historically, Nintendo has not let console gen go > 5-6 yrs. Wii shall be no exception.  Console industries is a innovation driven industry, to expect no innovation for > 5-6 yrs is naive.

I can see Wii > 120M if the above factors go in favor of the Wii on a very optimistic level. But 240M goes beyond reasoned optimism and into the realm of sheer faith. I admit to being a Wii cheerleader, but a realistic one

Remember, it still has a number of things going against it.

1. It has no franchises that does not have "kiddie stuff" stigma

2. No HD (impacts longevity), tho should not be an issue till 2010/2011

There's other stuff, but the cheerleader in me is blocking it atm :P

In short, there is a number of things that Nintendo needs to overcome, and chances are it will do it with a next gen console to replace the Wii.  Hurting its chances to even reach 120M

 

I agree with most of your points, but just to comment on your last 2:

1) Just speaking for Nintendo franchises, Zelda and Metroid do not have "kiddie stuff" stigma. On the 3rd party front, Manhunt 2, SoulCaliber Legends,  and Resident Evil UC hardly have a kiddie taint, and let's not forget the sports titles. Odds are we'll be seeing a lot more stuff that's "non-kiddie" so long as the Wii continues to sell. Of course, I'm not entirely sure the "stigma" is what it's been made out to be, given the success of WiiSports, LEGO Star Wars, and the ongoing juggernaut that is Mario.

2) The HD impact will conveniently be at the time when the console is ending its life and we'll be getting the next console, so it's impact is likely to be marginal.

I'm still not convinced that the Wii can sell anything close to 120 million (unless the overall gaming market expands tremendously), but I don't believe the 360 or PS3 will either. I expect final numbers to be much closer to each other.