| burninmylight said: It really feels like we aren't in disagreement, but just making some of the same points from different angles. Like, if your main idea is that it was all about marketing, then I'm with you. I just think that the marketing stemmed around motion controls and new ways to play, not the price point. I think people would have bought the Wii if it was an X360 with a Wiimote; it might not have sold 100 million hardware units, but let's stop acting like that's the only statistic that matters. Do you think Dr. Phil and Oprah wouldn't have promoted the Wii if it cost $400 and could output games in 720p? I'm not going to tell you what you heard about people online saying, "If only Wii games had HD graphics." I'll just say that you must not have been on VGC or in many gamer forums 15-20 years ago. I joined this site about 15 years ago; I heard it plenty. |
Yeah, it's both, but mainly marketing. The lower price point helped but checking Google, the Wii sold for average $435 on Ebay after launch. People wanted it anyway.
And yeah the simple controller was the main attraction to the blue ocean. To my parents and anyone else new to console gaming, the standard controllers are rather intimidating with 12 buttons and 2 analog sticks. Here comes something you can simply swing around, point at the screen and press one button to play.
Oprah Winfrey did a giveaway of the Xbox 360 with Kinect to her entire studio audience in a 2010 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
MS copied the marketing, Oprah isn't looking at the price ;) Nintendo approached the Dr Phil show I would assume.
I don't know if the Wii would have sold so well at $399. Sure initially it would have sold the same, but as we are seeing now, later adopters look for lower prices. The lack of cheaper slim consoles is slowing current gen adoption down.
September 2009 - Nintendo Wii price dropped to $199
May 4, 2011 - Nintendo is dropping the suggested retail price of its Wii™ system to $149.99 and including a Mario™ game with the Wii hardware.
That was possible because it started at $250
Taking a graph from this site
https://www.vgchartz.com/article/466596/ps5-vs-wii-sales-comparison-november-2025/
So at 34 months price drop to 199, at 54 months price drop to 149, keeping those holiday sales boost going.
(Kinect launched at 48 months on Wii's timeline, WiiU at 72 months)
I don't think Wii would have reached over 100 million sales if it had started at $400. So yeah we agree, Wii would have been a success regardless. Nintendo would have made a bit less money, fewer consoles, fewer game sales, more expensive game development.
