Unemployed people have more time to game!

But unemployment is not a big deal in America right now.  The main problems are

1. inflation is huge on food (and some other goods) and gas prices are high

2. housing values are going down and housing sales have slowed 

 Heh, thanks. I don't post many comments, so they need to make sense when I do. 

At least it should be agreed upon that the wii would not be what it is if it had an introductory price of $399.

Infact, the large part of its appeal is its price.

IMO, if anyone thinks the wii could compete with the HD consoles (when they are at the same price), they would be crazy.  But look at Europe with the 360 being priced lower than the wii.  Man Microsoft has to just be kicking themselves right now. How unbelievable that the 360 is cheaper than the wii, and still it is being outsold by a wide margin by both of the other consoles.  I am not sure which hurts Microsoft more, the fact that the PS3, or the wii is still outselling the 360 in Europe.    It's gotta be the PS3.    ouch

Sorry for going so off topic 

A problem here, is that some people (note: not Sony fans, as there are few who actually say this) use the price as an explanation to why the console is going so badly (not that it really is horrible, but compared to Ps2 it is surprisingly weak). Well, what does that help them? Their profit is lower, and that is what matters to them.

Sony loses about 50 dollars pr Ps3 sold (isn't that it? Correct me if I'm wrong) while Nintendo earns about 60 dollars (due to 70 euro earn over in Europe).

Wii + 60 dollars
Ps3 - 50 dollars

+ 60 dollars > - 50 dollars.

The cost of making the Ps3 was also multiple times of the Wii. I believe it was 3 and a half as much! (But again, I am almost certainly wrong)


It sums down to this:

You have a few ways to look at how good the companies are doing, you have so choose some of these (unless I missed some), you can't just make up your own way.

Most logical way:

1. Profit. More profit = bigger success. Problem: None

Very logical ways:

2. Games. Higher quality games = bigger succes. Problem: Game Quality is subjective.

3. Console sales. More consoles sold = bigger success. Problem: Very little of the profit is actually made by console sales.

4. Software sales. More software sold = bigger success. Problem: Not all titles cost as much.

Illogical ways:

5. Attachment rate. More games pr console = bigger success. Problem: AR doesn't really help anybody get profit.

6. 3rd party games. More 3rd party = bigger success. Problem: kinda hard to explain, it's just simply illogical.

7. Total money spent on buying the consoles. Problems: Consoles don't cost the same everywhere, this doesn't help anyone.

Any other?

On topic: At the current pace, Wii will actually beat X360 in total sales by the end of June (just as Reggie said), they just have to keep sales this high, but again, that will be a problem.

millions of wiis have sold on ebay/craigslist for 350-400+
360 is same price as wii in others yet wii outsells it by a large margin
ps3 is more expensive than 360 yet now outsells it in all regions

price is not why people buy the wii...they buy it for the wiimote/wii sports/nintendo games/vc/etc

 The numbers are so impressive that many still cant bealive that its possible :) God for the Wii , actually Im happy for it performing so well . Who knows a ouple of major 3rd party excluives and I might have to buy one :P

BTW : PSP climbed silently this week :) It seams that CC and CoO did helped the system a bit ;) 

The Wii is still $250,-.

No one will spend $250,- on something he/she doesn't want.

Some people here act like people are buying Wii because it's cheap, that's absolute nonsense. First of all it's not cheap, it's cheaper than it's competitors. Second: No one who actually wants a PS3 will say: "aaah, I wanted to play Uncharted so bad, and I want a Blu-Ray player but now I'll have to settle for Mario and 500k Flash memory".

As for the one who wrote that the next gen competition is about next gen graphics: Sure, but I personally haven't seen any next gen machine. The current gen however is very much alive and Wii is winning it big time.

Edit: Nevermind that last comment. He's banned.

But note that those are all the cheapest gaming items.  I think that part of the reason allthose things are doing so well is price, as peoplehave mentioned.  And we're going to see that gap widen if the economy continues to slide.  Big hype items will sell - like GTA  - but the middle of the pack titles andthe higher price consoles will not sell as well as they might have otherwise.  Both PS3 and 360 are selling more than they did last year in U.S.  But who knows what those numbers would be like if the average U.S. household had more spending money.

 The games industry will do well, because entertainment usually survives fairly well, but think of whatthe numbers COULD be....

@Fastyxx

So Guitar Hero III selling so well is why? And Wii Fit will flop heavily? We actually might have overtracked it by 1.6M!

And think of what it could have been! Today only miserably 75% of America are gamers! A shame!