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Forums - Sales Discussion - Analysis: How Xbox 360 And Kinect Nearly Toppled Wii In 2010

landguy1 said:
Squilliam said:

~$150M in 2009 vs >$600M non subscription revenue on Xbox Live financial year 2010 and >$800M revenue on PSN for calendar year 2010. Even if the game revenue is a fraction of those totals, that fraction is extremely likely to be larger than Wiiware and VC combined. It is completely foolish to argue that this revenue is irrelevant or that physical retail tie ratio is the entirety of the whole story without considering retail revenue and online revenue to complete the picture.

I never argued that Wii users don't buy much software, I said they didn't buy as much software because it was likely that their values in purchasing software on average are different to Xbox 360 and PS3 users on average.

"I said they didn't buy as much software because it was likely that their values in purchasing software on average are different to Xbox 360 and PS3 users on average. "

 

I agree...  If you look at the average sell price of most titles for the Wii, it is at least $10 lower if not $20-30.  That alone will change the total revenue #'s.  But, if you are really talking about the number of units sold, it would generally cause the buyer to make more purchases because of the lower prices.  People generally have a plan of how much $ they want to spend on gaming or other things they do and will spend that amount or more when they shop.   This effect hasn't really happened as much for the Wii, because a large number of the install base are casual gamers who don't play as frequently and don't tire of their games so fast.

I believe its sort of a little more complex that that. Price surely factors into things of course, but I have a strong suspicion that people with Wiis are buying games for how they fit into their lifestyle rather than investing their life into games. I don't think that software on the Wii is cheap because they have less desire for games, I think it is cheap because it doesn't offer nearly as much longevity or isn't relevant to people who buy the Wii. What makes a good value game on the Wii is different from that which makes a good game on the Xbox 360 and PS3. I don't think the ideal is to beat the game and move on, I think the ideal is to play the title continuously and build up a gaming library of relevant games. Once a user has the required title for a particular desire I doubt they are much interested in buying another, which is why sequels and copy cats have done so poorly. Given the selectiveness of the userbase, third parties have done poorly because they couldn't offer the same assurance of quality Nintendo gives and therefore have to lower the price because of this inate hesitation in the market. On the 360/PS3 people would assume if they hated it they could always trade it in.



Tease.

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As i continue to look at the Wii sales, i find it hard to believe that the software is selling the systems.  I guess to me, that people are still buying it because in general, the public are all lemmings.  They just seem to buy what the think that everyone else is buying.  I agree that if the Kinect continues to gain awareness as the "cool" thing to buy, the Wii sales will ultimately see a very strong downward trend later in the year(especially in the US).  But, maybe Nintendo has a plan to release something later in the year to surprise us all?  Kind of doubt it...

It's been how many years and people still think Wii sells on lemming status alone?  Games, man.  People are obviously buying the software so hwo can they not be a factor?  if they didn't like the software, the attach rate would plummet and it hasn't.

And of course it's supposed to drop of this summer really bad.  Just like it was supposed to drop off realy bad every summer since summer 2007.

I didn't say that all of the sales are from "Lemmings", just 60% probably.  Look mom its RED, we need a new one.... I agree that Nintendo is putting out every one of their staple titles, and gaming fans from years past are reliving their childhood.  But the attach rate doesn't mean much to me.  Having all the shovelware and cheap titles for $10-30 makes it easy for people to add titles that  they find as crap after buying them and because of the price, they don't feel totally ripped off.  

As far as the drop off scenario, this is the first year that there is an actual reason for it(even though Wii did drop last year).  With the Move/Kinect basically taking away the Specialness of the Wii if not totally deleting it.  That allows people to upgrade to an HD console that has the Wii motion and HD capabilities.



So I wonder how many Kinect units were purchased to hack rather than to play games on the 360?

 

In regards to Wii sales, the console sells software but it sells Nintendo software.  All my firends have Mario Kart, Donkey Kong etc but very little else.  Look at the Dead Space game, great reviews but sold dismally.  Put Mario on the front cover and it would have been a multi million seller.



squeeky said:

So I wonder how many Kinect units were purchased to hack rather than to play games on the 360?

 

In regards to Wii sales, the console sells software but it sells Nintendo software.  All my firends have Mario Kart, Donkey Kong etc but very little else.  Look at the Dead Space game, great reviews but sold dismally.  Put Mario on the front cover and it would have been a multi million seller.


You must have missed many threads that showed that the overal total 3rd party sales on Wii were higher than even the PS3.   The argument that 3rd party games don't sell on Wii has been beaten to death more times that a dead horse with ground hog day syndrome.

And Dead Space Extraction was on rails.  Do you know how sick and tired Wii gamers became of on rails titles?  Especially when Wii gamers woanted something more akin to the original?  That game would not have sold any better on the HD consoles.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

landguy1 said:
Raze said:

I think the key thing to consider is the fairly lackluster year for Nintendo software vs a major technology add-on for Microsoft. I can honestly say that there may be only 2-3 games that came out this year for the Wii that appealed to me at all, whereas the 360 had several good games released this year PLUS Kinect.

What will be the key thing for 2011 is how well Kinect continues to sell/increase userbase vs Nintendo's Wii releases for 2011. Factoring a new Zelda game is a major difference, as it pretty much shakes up the ant farm and gets more people to buy Nintendo consoles. Whereas Twillight Princess gave the option for some GameCube holdouts, Zelda fans will HAVE to play this one on the Wii. Should prove an interesting battle.

According to the chart in the OP, it's also interesting to note that the PS3 remains unchanged YoY, which is both good and bad. Good because it's not losing sales, but bad because its not gaining on either of the other systems - in the Americas of course. We know the Japanese circuit is different.

 

As i continue to look at the Wii sales, i find it hard to believe that the software is selling the systems.  I guess to me, that people are still buying it because in general, the public are all lemmings.  They just seem to buy what the think that everyone else is buying.  I agree that if the Kinect continues to gain awareness as the "cool" thing to buy, the Wii sales will ultimately see a very strong downward trend later in the year(especially in the US).  But, maybe Nintendo has a plan to release something later in the year to surprise us all?  Kind of doubt it...

The lemming concept doesn't really work in a recession. People only spend what they must. Go to your local mall, look how dead it is. The "spend spend spend" mentality is dead for now. People wanted to play SOEMTHING on their Wii, whether it is Just Dance or Metroid will remain to conjecture, but its not a popularity bandwagon syndrome, I'm confident in believing that.



The Carnival of Shadows - Folk Punk from Asbury Park, New Jersey

http://www.thecarnivalofshadows.com 


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LivingMetal said:
Carl2291 said:

... In America.

Too bad it finished in 3rd place Worldwide for the Year, and sold almost 5 Million units less than the Wii.







Raze said:
landguy1 said:
Raze said:

I think the key thing to consider is the fairly lackluster year for Nintendo software vs a major technology add-on for Microsoft. I can honestly say that there may be only 2-3 games that came out this year for the Wii that appealed to me at all, whereas the 360 had several good games released this year PLUS Kinect.

What will be the key thing for 2011 is how well Kinect continues to sell/increase userbase vs Nintendo's Wii releases for 2011. Factoring a new Zelda game is a major difference, as it pretty much shakes up the ant farm and gets more people to buy Nintendo consoles. Whereas Twillight Princess gave the option for some GameCube holdouts, Zelda fans will HAVE to play this one on the Wii. Should prove an interesting battle.

According to the chart in the OP, it's also interesting to note that the PS3 remains unchanged YoY, which is both good and bad. Good because it's not losing sales, but bad because its not gaining on either of the other systems - in the Americas of course. We know the Japanese circuit is different.

 

As i continue to look at the Wii sales, i find it hard to believe that the software is selling the systems.  I guess to me, that people are still buying it because in general, the public are all lemmings.  They just seem to buy what the think that everyone else is buying.  I agree that if the Kinect continues to gain awareness as the "cool" thing to buy, the Wii sales will ultimately see a very strong downward trend later in the year(especially in the US).  But, maybe Nintendo has a plan to release something later in the year to surprise us all?  Kind of doubt it...

The lemming concept doesn't really work in a recession. People only spend what they must. Go to your local mall, look how dead it is. The "spend spend spend" mentality is dead for now. People wanted to play SOEMTHING on their Wii, whether it is Just Dance or Metroid will remain to conjecture, but its not a popularity bandwagon syndrome, I'm confident in believing that.

Not trying to beat this horse dead, but just got back from a conference out of town.  I happened to bring up that i had purchased a kinect to play with my kids during the holidays.  Of the 5 people standing there, 2 of them said that they just bought the wii during the holidays.  After i explained what the kinect was, they shook their heads and said that they should have bought one of those instead.  One of the 2 people had a 360, but wanted something different for the kids to play.  The other bought the wii because they thought that's what everyone else had.  Again, i know this is a small sampling, but thought that just about every time i ask why someone buys it, they give similar answers.