| Jumpin said: It’s a tactic to try and avoid debate by trying to discount the success of a console by describing one of the reasons or assumptions for its success: 1. It’s a handheld. 2. It has a DVD player when DVD players are rare. 3. It’s is well supplied meaning demand is 100% served.m while other with consoles this didn’t happen. 4. It’s supply constrained creating false demand through scarcity. 5. It’s casual and not hardcore. Any others I missed? |
Number 4 is actually really funny because during the early Wii days, many posters on this website said Nintendo was creating "artificial demand" for the console by intentionally limiting supply. (You probably lived through that period as well, seeing your account was created in 2009 - but I think we should explain this to newer posters). They accused Nintendo of "stockpiling" Wii consoles (which, hilariously, is what all companies do because demand during the holidays is so much higher than during the rest of the year) and argued sales would be way lower if people didn't have the fear of missing out. I still have the first draft of an article somewhere on my laptop that we planned to publish on VGChartz to explain this.
And, even more hilarious, today it's a good thing and an indicator of success that the PS5 was sold out at first and an indicator of doom for Switch 2 that it isn't.
TLDR: If a Nintendo console sells out its sales "don't count" because Nintendo is creating artificial demand and that's a sign that actual demand is low. If it doesn't sell out its sales must be bad, the console is slowing down and actual demand is low. It's a never-ending cycle.
