I must say that i'm surprised with how the Wii is selling. Never expected it to do so fine this early on. All the more when we look at how the sales actually differ in the big 3 regions over time.

Japan: This country must have been a sinusoide in it's past life. That is the only explenation that i could come up with after studying hardware to software sales. As we know, the Wii had a fantastic first 6 months in Japan. Christmas was godsent and later on, thanks to many country holidays during the first quarter people had more occasions to buy the Wii. During that time we would witness the following events: a new game comes out, hardware sales soar by at least 20%. The next week, even if game sales remained on a similar level, the hardware would drop off by almost a half only to regain a quarter of sales the next week. This could  have been brought on by two things in my view, on of them being the lack of hardware, which still needed to be produced or the consumers were waiting for other, more appealing games. Now, because we're talking about Japan the wii system usually had a new game introduced onto it every 2-3 weeks, which means that the whole cycle would repeat itself without causing a crash in. Later on through 2007 though, we have seen something else, the average hardware sales plummet despite AAA titles being brought to the system (mario party 8, dragon quest etc.) Since the beginning of August we have seen Wii sales stumble to an all time low just beneath 40k units per week. My theory goes, it's soley because that the games aren't flowing in anymore in the 3 week cycle. Mario party 8 came to the game after a different game was just introduced with nothing else to support later sales. And so for the past 7 weeks we have been witnesses of the Wii plummeting. Vacation time is not a factor. This problem wll be sold though by simply returning to the previously stated 3 week cycle, especially since the Wii is getting a heck of a lot of good games until year's end.

America: This is a lot more straight-forward. While the US didn't give Nintendo as much happiness as Japan did, the Wii sold nonetheless well. Following the post christmas atmosphere and consumer curiosity for the Wii sales maintained very high numbers until March, when we all saw nintendo hardware drop to around 50k. Yet again this was brought on by the lack of good software. That's when some "impulses" started showing up. Within 4 months america was given such titles as Resident Evil (having the smallest of impacts), Mario Party 8,  Pokemon Batlle Revolution, Warioware, Metroid Prime 3, Wii Play as well(this title is a little specific as it had a turn around in terms of sales after March). Each of these titles had was an "impulse" for greater crowds of people to go buy a Wii. It's interesting to note, that the reaction of the consumers was usually a week late compared to a titles debut. For instance, when Mario Party 8 came up, it would be in the next week that we would see an increased flow of saled hardware. Furthermore these impulses are long lasting, long enough for new AAA or AA titles to be released. Effectively, since March , Wii sales numbers haven't gone down beneath 90 k.

Europe: this is a region that no one really talks about, which is a shame considering how sales have been doing since December. Lately we've heard about the Wii selling over a million units in the UK alone, which is no small feat. We also have to remember that Europe had the Wii debute at thse same time as in the US, but doesn't have the same income of new games as america. After a good start in 2006 the Wii continued to sell well despite the lack of solid new games. Eventually the Wii stumped at 50-55k a week. Yet lately, since mid June sales seem to have picked up coinciding with the Japan hardware drought. And so since the beginning of July, when new games were introduced to the market sales have entered the 95-100k per week zone and thus far have stayed that way. Yet because a lot of games have yet to reach the old continent, it wouldn't be dumb to suggest an increase in sales within the next 2 months. Such an flow of games by this years end also point to a great christmas here for the big N.



It's worth pointing out the strange coincidence that despite poor Wii sales in Japan right now and normal US sales, overall hardware sales for the Wii remain at a very defined level of 230-270 per week since it's debut. Thanks go to Europe which makes up for the far east sales. Thing is, if Japan goes back to "normal" with new games on the hotizon, i'm willing to change that weekly sales figure to 300k per week. Now that's over a million units per month, that will have Sony and Microsft run for their money. Again.