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Forums - Sales Discussion - Why the Wii Won't sell 80m+

Bodhesatva said:
misterd said:
cerdsmania said:
to tell you all my opinion the wii may sell 80 miliion units but not to hardcore gamers who keep consoles going. if u look at what the wii is selling most it is wii play and wii sports. okay but compare to xbox360 which is selling crackdown lost planet,gears of war and so. those games are for serious gamers not just the non-gamer. the ps3 on the other hand it top sellers are resistance:fall of man, motor storm, and virtua fighter 5. these are real games. as in theyre games meant to be played not wii sports or wii play or even raymond raving rabbids. these arent games you enjoy. and personally when u buy a hdtv u already have the money so many people just buy a ps3 or 360 to go with it. and if i made any grammar mistakes please excuse me cuz my spelling sucks.

First, I don't know the actual breakdown of casual vs traditional gamers so far as Wii sales go. I would be willing to venture a guess that a large number of households contain both, so the difference may not be as big as some are making it out to be.

Second, casual gamers often includes adults with well paying jobs and disposable incomes. Its going to be hard to predict exactly what their long term purchases will look like. God knows 8 years ago I would never have predicted that so many casual movie watchers would have purchased so many DVDs.

Thirdly, what Nintendo and Sony and 3rd parties care about is not so much which games are sold as they are how many copies of a given game are sold. So far, Nintendo's top titles are handily outperforming Sony's top titles. Third parties are especially taking note of this, and are beginning to move their better development teams onto Wii titles. The question is - what are they being moved from?

Finally, you can't really look at WiiPlay or WiiSports as typical games. WS is obviously packed in with the console, so there's no way to tell who would have bought it had it been a separate purchase. And many gamers are buying WiiPlay simply because they want the 2nd controller, and given the success of WS, are willing to spend the extra $10 to give it a shot. Rayman Raving Rabids is a better sample, and that's the 2nd or 3rd best selling Cube game after Zelda. The other game in that trio is, I think, Red Steel, which does appeal to the traditional gamer more than the casual one, so I'm not sure there is any discernable pattern emerging yet. The real test will be when games like Brain Age, EA Playground, and Carnival Games, come out against Mario, Metroid and Smash Bros.

The real trick here is that Nintendo is trying to engage the casual gamers so that they don't continue the same lacksidasical pattern you cite in previous generations. If Nintendo fails, they may still have enough traditional gamers (who are more interested in the Wii than they ever were in the GCN), but if they are successful (as they have been with the DS), then all past precedent has to be tossed out the window, and Sony and MS will have to hurry up and adjust to a brand new paradigm.


 You, sir, win my "best new poster of the week" award. Congratulations. 

 


Woo hoo!Glad to see my neglect of a good night's sleep wasn't for naught. Where do I pick up my prize?



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misterd said:
cerdsmania said:
to tell you all my opinion the wii may sell 80 miliion units but not to hardcore gamers who keep consoles going. if u look at what the wii is selling most it is wii play and wii sports. okay but compare to xbox360 which is selling crackdown lost planet,gears of war and so. those games are for serious gamers not just the non-gamer. the ps3 on the other hand it top sellers are resistance:fall of man, motor storm, and virtua fighter 5. these are real games. as in theyre games meant to be played not wii sports or wii play or even raymond raving rabbids. these arent games you enjoy. and personally when u buy a hdtv u already have the money so many people just buy a ps3 or 360 to go with it. and if i made any grammar mistakes please excuse me cuz my spelling sucks.

First, I don't know the actual breakdown of casual vs traditional gamers so far as Wii sales go. I would be willing to venture a guess that a large number of households contain both, so the difference may not be as big as some are making it out to be.

Second, casual gamers often includes adults with well paying jobs and disposable incomes. Its going to be hard to predict exactly what their long term purchases will look like. God knows 8 years ago I would never have predicted that so many casual movie watchers would have purchased so many DVDs.

Thirdly, what Nintendo and Sony and 3rd parties care about is not so much which games are sold as they are how many copies of a given game are sold. So far, Nintendo's top titles are handily outperforming Sony's top titles.  Third parties are especially taking note of this, and are beginning to move their better development teams onto Wii titles. The question is - what are they being moved from?

Finally, you can't really look at WiiPlay or WiiSports as typical games. WS is obviously packed in with the console, so there's no way to tell who would have bought it had it been a separate purchase. And many gamers are buying WiiPlay simply because they want the 2nd controller, and given the success of WS, are willing to spend the extra $10 to give it a shot. Rayman Raving Rabids is a better sample, and that's the 2nd or 3rd best selling Cube game after Zelda. The other game in that trio is, I think, Red Steel, which does appeal to the traditional gamer more than the casual one, so I'm not sure there is any discernable pattern emerging yet. The real test will be when games like Brain Age, EA Playground, and Carnival Games, come out against Mario, Metroid and Smash Bros.

 The real trick here is that Nintendo is trying to engage the casual gamers so that they don't continue the same lacksidasical pattern you cite in previous generations. If Nintendo fails, they may still have enough traditional gamers (who are more interested in the Wii than they ever were in the GCN), but if they are successful (as they have been with the DS), then all past precedent has to be tossed out the window, and Sony and MS will have to hurry up and adjust to a brand new paradigm.


Well, it isn't packed in in Japan.

Which could be good indicator how many copies it would have sold from launch to this point:

2.5 million consoles sold and 1.67 million copies of Wii sports sold there. (even though amount of sold Wii sports is a bit old but still)

It would make with 7.54 million consoles sold --> about 5,04 sold copies of Wii sports ;)



Nothing's cheaper than something free.

F1 vs FOTA, when too much power is in couple peoples hands.

---------------------------------------------------------------

i'm talking gameplay and graphics.



cerdsmania said:
well my persoanl opinion still sticks the wii wont sell 80 million since its a fad while its posting up great numbers and game sales from what ive seen casual and non-gamers buy main titles occasionally and most of their games within the first two years then they stop buying on the other hand hardcore gamers tend to keep buying essentially making the profits for any company for example when me and my friend had ps1's in the beggining he as a casual gamer had more games. but by the launch of the ps2 he had 15 titles and i had 37 not to mention i had sold another 12 off. with the ps2 it was a similiar story he had 12 titles i had 32 with 5 others being sold off by the time of the ps3 launch. essentailly hardcore gamers will buy ps3 and 360 yes and in the long run theyre profitable since they keep on buying games. also as an employee of ebgames many peoples reason for not buying a ps3 at that moment was that they just got a job and were going to buy one in the summer or they were going to wait for better games to come out so they would buy one end of summer buy a couple games during the fall and spring such as(gta 4, timecrisis4, heavenly sword, and final fantasy 13, final fantasy versus 13) well thats my opinion the wii wont sell 80 million due to a non-gmaer base and essentially crappy games(excluding zelDA)

Don't want to break it for you but once upon a time people called DS a fad. I also think that you are underestimating the casual gamers, but that is another matter.



 

 

Buy it and pray to the gods of Sigs: Naznatips!

wow there is alot of fanboys on this thread in it makes me sick



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Well, Zelda boy, you obviously don't like Nintendo.



misterd said:
marc said:
 

The human population has "only" increased a few hundred million in the last 10 years, and most of that growth is in poor regions, where Wiis, 360s and PS3s are going to be quite rare.

 


Population grows about 1% every year in the USA. That is a 10% from 10 years ago. Taking absolutely nothing else into account, that means we will sell 10% more consoles even if there are no social changes. An increase of 10% is very significant especially since it represents a change from old to young who are more likely to play games to begin with. Combined with social changes like the increase in gaming popularity in general, this 10 percent can easily account for millions of sales. For reference, there are now about 25mil more people to sell to than 10 years ago just in the US. We arent even talking about china or japan or europe.



Sherlock99 said:
wow there is alot of fanboys on this thread in it makes me sick

 This forum has a serious infestation of them...from all sides



robjoh said:
cerdsmania said:
well my persoanl opinion still sticks the wii wont sell 80 million since its a fad while its posting up great numbers and game sales from what ive seen casual and non-gamers buy main titles occasionally and most of their games within the first two years then they stop buying on the other hand hardcore gamers tend to keep buying essentially making the profits for any company for example when me and my friend had ps1's in the beggining he as a casual gamer had more games. but by the launch of the ps2 he had 15 titles and i had 37 not to mention i had sold another 12 off. with the ps2 it was a similiar story he had 12 titles i had 32 with 5 others being sold off by the time of the ps3 launch. essentailly hardcore gamers will buy ps3 and 360 yes and in the long run theyre profitable since they keep on buying games. also as an employee of ebgames many peoples reason for not buying a ps3 at that moment was that they just got a job and were going to buy one in the summer or they were going to wait for better games to come out so they would buy one end of summer buy a couple games during the fall and spring such as(gta 4, timecrisis4, heavenly sword, and final fantasy 13, final fantasy versus 13) well thats my opinion the wii wont sell 80 million due to a non-gmaer base and essentially crappy games(excluding zelDA)

Don't want to break it for you but once upon a time people called DS a fad. I also think that you are underestimating the casual gamers, but that is another matter.


Said the same thing about Pokemon too.

 And, come to think of it, video games in general.



marc said:
misterd said:
marc said:
 

The human population has "only" increased a few hundred million in the last 10 years, and most of that growth is in poor regions, where Wiis, 360s and PS3s are going to be quite rare.

 


Population grows about 1% every year in the USA. That is a 10% from 10 years ago. Taking absolutely nothing else into account, that means we will sell 10% more consoles even if there are no social changes. An increase of 10% is very significant especially since it represents a change from old to young who are more likely to play games to begin with. Combined with social changes like the increase in gaming popularity in general, this 10 percent can easily account for millions of sales. For reference, there are now about 25mil more people to sell to than 10 years ago just in the US. We arent even talking about china or japan or europe.

 

That's assuming the 10% increase is spread across the board. It's not. Western Europe, Japan, and the non-immigrant US populations - the vast majority of the game buyers - have been stagnant for the last decade. Places like China and India generally lack the sort of widespread wealth needed to support gaming. If the gaming community is increasing in size, I think it has as much to do with the changing demographic. 10 years ago there were few people over the age of 20 who played games. Now that is much more common, and some of my generation continues to play into our 30s.