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

The PSX won because Sega and Nintendo (and 3DO) completely dropped the ball on specs, price, launch-date... once it became obvious the incumbents weren't going to deliver everyone latched onto Sony. Similarly MS and Sony have simply handed it to Nintendo this go. Their systems are vastly over-speced and overpriced: they're going after the same hardcore margin of the market while Nintendo grabs the mainstream. MS and Sony became obsessed with topping each other, and believed (wrongly) the market would follow them, while Nintendo played to where the market actually was.



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I forgot the whole point of this thread, the hypothesis that the Wii won't be able to sell 80 Million plus consoles for reasons of production limitations. Honestly, I don't know how much the Wii will sell, and 80 Million is a lot. But whether or not it reaches that number won't be because of production issues. We have no idea what Nintendo's long term production plans are, but has any console ever had it's lifetime sales curbed by production issues? probably not



I'm a mod, come to me if there's mod'n to do. 

Chrizum is the best thing to happen to the internet, Period.

Serves me right for challenging his sales predictions!

Bet with dsisister44: Red Steel 2 will sell 1 million within it's first 365 days of sales.

The 360 is still a viable platform because it's userbase is so narrow and easy to sell to: Western and hardcore-gamer. So long as developers pitch games to that narrow market they can hit a critical mass (i.e. anything that's a shooter on the 360 sells gangbusters, anything that's not doesn't sell at all). The PS3, however, I think is doomed. They're stuck with that "killer" price point for the foreseeable future, and it's spread too thin to make seemingly anything profitable except for ports.



stof said: I forgot the whole point of this thread, the hypothesis that the Wii won't be able to sell 80 Million plus consoles for reasons of production limitations. Honestly, I don't know how much the Wii will sell, and 80 Million is a lot. But whether or not it reaches that number won't be because of production issues. We have no idea what Nintendo's long term production plans are, but has any console ever had it's lifetime sales curbed by production issues? probably not
The point of the thread was that between production issues and the lack of power (making the need for a 2nd generation Wii needed), would cause the Wii to not reach the uber-heights that other systems have reached. 80 million IS alot. Especially if it's only over a 4-5 year period. Only Sony has reached the production abilities to do those kinds of numbers. Even the DS, after 3-4 years, is only at 39m in this cycle.



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

stof said: ...has any console ever had it's lifetime sales curbed by production issues? probably not
The DS is headed in that direction...



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mrstickball said: The point of the thread was that between production issues and the lack of power (making the need for a 2nd generation Wii needed), would cause the Wii to not reach the uber-heights that other systems have reached. 80 million IS alot. Especially if it's only over a 4-5 year period. Only Sony has reached the production abilities to do those kinds of numbers. Even the DS, after 3-4 years, is only at 39m in this cycle.
Why is it that the Wii's lack of power compared to the PS3 and 360 will suddenly become a problem in 4-5 years? I still don't follow that line of reasoning. Also, It's not that Sony was the only company with the ability to produce so many consoles, it's that they were the only company with a console that that many people wanted to buy. If the Wii continues to sell PS2 like numbers, expect production to meet supply And the DS wasn't always selling the way it is now. in Europe and NA, it's only been since the Summer of 06 that the system suddenly hit most wanted status. Besides, they'll keep making the system as long as people buy it. Yes, the DS is supply constrained right now, but once again, supply will eventually meet demand.



I'm a mod, come to me if there's mod'n to do. 

Chrizum is the best thing to happen to the internet, Period.

Serves me right for challenging his sales predictions!

Bet with dsisister44: Red Steel 2 will sell 1 million within it's first 365 days of sales.

My reasoning behind the whole power issue with the Wii: The Wii is targeted to the casual audience, and I believe that it's their major market. Nintendo is going with the "blue ocean" strategy and trying to capture a new audience. They are targeting mainly pre-14 year olds and post 30 year olds. Its a great strategy, as it opens up lots of new people into gaming. However, there is an upper limit (I believe) to the number(s) of casual gamers that will buy the Wii. Partially because I don't see casuals (atleast 50m+ of them) buying into the Wii. If the Wii really sells gangbusters, the PS3 and 360 will addapt with the controller, whereas the Wii cannot addapt graphically to the 360/PS3. Because I believe Nintendo is focusing on the casuals that don't care about graphics or strong gameplay (in terms of typical games), there will be a decent number of American and European gamers that will buy 360s and PS3s, and the majority of these owners will buy the systems in years 3-6. Also, most 3rd parties are still producing normal AAA titles, and typical games and not activity based games (or non-games). Even if you don't want to believe it, theres still a ton of 3rd party games out there that aren't scheduled for the Wii. If software really sells systems, then the Wii has an uphill battle, as it faces DS-like issues attracting new 3rd parties. Yes, tons have already committed, but there are FAR more that need to be attracted to reach anywhere near 60+m units for consoles. Nintendo can do it on handhelds because they always have done it on handhelds (despite the fact the PSP has sold reasonably well).



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Some number corrections: - The DS is now 2.5 years old, not 3-4 years. - When comparing historic US data, one should remember inflation and population growth. Ie using 2006 prices the NES was introduced at $374, the SNES at $298, the N64 at $256 and the GC at $227. And concerning population growth, the 34 million units the NES sold in the US between '85 and '95 would be like 40+ million units today because the US population grew from 250 million to 300 million.



Hardcore gaming is a bubble economy blown up by Microsoft's $7 $6 billion losses.

Kwaad said: I'm gonna spoil the fun here... A great example of a "fad" Furby (if you dont know what it is... you should) Sold 27MILLION units over a 12 month period. Furby was well... furby. My point on that is... A 'fad' will sell like hot-cakes. After about a year... furby stopped selling. I wanna see what Wii is doing in 10 months (january 2008) That will be the best way to tell how "good" it is selling.
Well in toys for 8 year olds selling a lot of something in a short period of time is called a fad ... In the videogame industry it is called gaining massive third party support and dominating in a generation.



stewacide said: re: Nintendo's ability to ramp up production, I think there's a crucial difference between Nintendo's manufacturing model and that of, say, Apple with the iPod. While Apple's products are assembled entirely from commodity parts purchased from outside suppliers (plus some simple/cheap bespoke bits like cases), Nintendo actually owns (if they've stuck their their traditional model anyhow) much of their fab' in order to keep down costs (the alternative is to end up in the Xbox1-Nvidia squeeze). While there are lots of commodity parts in the Wii, a lot of it is actually very bespoke. E.g. the Wii CPU and GPU have effectively zero value to anyone who's not Nintendo. While they can certainly contract outside chipmakers to make more, they will pay for that, and they won't have much if any wiggle room in terms of their order.
The 360 is indeed custom designed, but it is still produced by a 3rd party (Flextronics), like the original XBox. Microsoft doesn't run any factories. If Flextronics can produce 360s, they will be able to produce Wiis just as well.



Hardcore gaming is a bubble economy blown up by Microsoft's $7 $6 billion losses.