Hi everyone. Well, we're all familiar with the situation at retailers, where many games on a Nintendo platform are not held on shelves, and where PS and xbox hog most of the retail space. There may be cases where that's not true, but it's rather the exception.

My guess is that the digital era will have a positive effect on Nintendo's business. Since Nintendo for the longest time has struggled to find popularity with retailers, I believe that cutting the middle-man will give them an edge.

However, for the retailers that will remain alive and that will carry gaming hardware, I believe it will be more the likes of Toys R Us and kids outlets which favored Nintendo, rather than dedicated gaming outlets like Gamestop which favor the competition.

What do you think?

Digital availability will have a positive impact on all software sales.

Retailers distribute space to products depending on how well the products are selling. Wii doesn't get a lot of space now because its sales have slowed to a crawl. Back in 2009 or so Wii probably had as much space as PS3 and 360 combined in a lot of stores, and DS probably had just as much.

I always thought the digital sales would help boost old SW classics. Nintendo games rarely get old.

Nintendo doesn't have a DD infrastructure in place to benefit from the "digital revolution." Stuff gets locked to your console instead of your account then there's the fact that they're one generation behind in distribution model(retail emphasis). Sony/MS already do Day 1 digital release for some games and that will be standard comes next gen.

Also, core Nitnendo users aren't conditioned to make digital purchases as much as Microsoft users are.

Okay for the first part.

@bold. Could you explain this part, I'm not sure what you mean.

I seriously disagree.

Nintendo is the console the most tied up to kids and the console that see the most seasonnal variations during the holydays.

Kids don't have the financial means to take advantage of digital downloads ( no credit card) and most people still want a physical gift for chrismas that they can hand out, not some digital stuff..

PS : And you can't seriously argue WiiU will rule the digital era when you can't even store 2 games on the console internal storage... if you want to be competitive in the digital era, the least is to at least provide storage for digital purchases...

Just to clarify, I meant a boost of their usual performance as compared to Sony and MS' boost. I wasn't trying to say that they would topple Sony and MS in digital sales altogether.

About your post, it's true that kids don't own a CC. Then again, I for example have had little luck finding certain Wii games that interested me at retail. For my age group I beleive that the e-shop will increase sales. Owning a 3DS I am exposed to a lot more games than I would had I just counted on retail. A prime example is Fire Emblem. I rarely see that kind of game on shelves. However on the e-shop it's very clear, and there's a demo for it, I was quite tempted to buy it.

As for storage, well, we know that it supports an EHD, so I'm not gonna accept that as a reason.

@Kowen. No I haven't, post a link. I saw the one saying that there are 46m active live users but not about DD.

Actually MS doesn't do much day 1 digital release.

However the majority of  PS3 games released since last summer had day 1 digital release( I'm tempted to say every PS3 game since last summer but I only follow the titles I know so I'm not sure if it's 100% coverage)..( sadly with no discount except Ni No Kuni which was a day 1 digital release at 55$).

heck the PS3 actually does day 1 digital preorder with automatic download at midnight the day of the release...

Now, if they just adjust that price a bit, and makes the games tied to an account, we would all be happy (and I would agree with you 100%)

lol