By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Soundwave on 19 July 2019
Edit Thread
Jumpin said:
Soundwave said:

Dropping by 5 million a year every year for three years is a fairly negative trend even if the peak was quite high, that indicated Wii peaked and then started a downward trajectory which eventually led to the brand completely falling apart and having dropped off dramatically by 2011. 

NES had a staggered launch sure, but Nintendo wasn't like forced to release a new game every month for it towards the end, in 1989 and 1990 they basically just held Super Mario 3 off and it didn't really make any difference because they could afford to not have to carry the platform so much on their own shoulders in those days. 

That doesn't help your "Wii fizzled out after two years flat" argument in the slightest, since you are now saying it fell apart in 2011, which is the fifth year, not the second or third year.

Looking at your other claims:
* 5 million drop is highly negative.
* 2011 is when the Wii collapsed when it sold 15.09 million (still higher than the peak of the competition, I might add).
* That the SNES had a strong lifecycle.

Let's look at the sales data:

* In year 4 the Wii had dropped by 5.42 million to 20.53 million from its year 3 peak of 25.95 million, a decline of 21%.
* In year 5 the Wii fell an additional 5.44 million to 15.09 million, bringing that decline to 43% from peak year 3 levels.
* In Fiscal Year 3 aligned, the SNES sold 12.03 million units, but this fell by 7.09 million to 4.94 million units during year 4, that amounts to a 59% drop.
* It wasn't until year 6, at 62% decline from the year 3 peak that the Wii had a statistical tie of decline during the SNES's 4th year alone.

Now let's draw some conclusions:

Your assertions regarding the Wii are inconsistent with your assertions regarding the SNES.

* If a 5 million drop marks a turn to failure, then surely the SNES's 7.09 million drop during its 3rd to 4th year marks it as a failure as well.
* If the Wii's decline by 43% in its 5th year from its 3rd year marks a failure, then certainly the 59% from the SNES's 3rd to 4th years marks a far greater failure.

From all of this we can deduce one of two possibilities: if the Wii failed in its 5th year then the SNES certainly failed in its 4th year, OR, if the SNES didn't fail in its 4th year, then the Wii didn't fail until its 7th year or later.

Or you can just say Nintendo has problems with end cycle drop offs. 

The difference with the Switch is its the only hardware line they have, so I don't think "well, we'll just accept 20-40% drop offs for 2021 and 2022 as the cost of doing business in our business model" really makes much sense any more. 

Whatever you can do to eliminate that makes sense rather than just "well, 5-6 year cycles with hardware refreshes and starting from 0 again is how it was done in the 1980s" being the no.1 priority makes any sense at all. Who cares how things were done in the 1980s. 

Mid-cycle refresh boost or a more phased kinda of transition probably makes more sense when they don't have the benefit of two hardware lines especially.