Not so sure about this sentence, i'd kinda have to agree with the assessment.  If Nintendo was in a market share battle they could easily drop the Wii in price right now and watch Wii sales take off at the expense of profit.

I don't think Nintendo want to crawl over the line into the next generation though and in the end i think they will do everything they can to carry the Wii's sales momentum into the start of the next generation. 

Well, FFXIII and GT5 will help the PS3 the same way RE4 and LoZ:TP "helped" the Gamecube.

PS3 was the first one to go below it's 2008 sales for 2009 (Wii has followed, I believe X360 is still above YTD) yet that is the only one you think hasn't peaked yet?

wow you actually said this. just wow. Even when Nintendo had it's worst generation in gaming(NGC) it still brought in more money on it's consoles than the PS2. The fact that they are selling more Wii's(inferior product) at similar rate than both HD console together and making a profit on them with no price cut. The fact that they put out a simple game like WiiFit with a Balance Board, Mario Kart with a piece of plastic all for excellent profit, and your saying that they ARENT "shrewed business people focusing on profits"?  how about this "game industry changing shrewd business people of profits" is very apt.

Sigh.

Are you a joke account?
Or are you really that dedicated to your gaming machine? Do you comfort yourself to sleep by muttering how this is all just temporary, and the fabled price cut and list of PS3 exclusives will make the bad 360 man go away?

Either way, Wii and 360 have not had their peak years yet. This may be 360's peak year. But if MS can target the mass market with more software and another price cut, then the 360's peak year may be in the future.

As for the Wii... They've sold more than 50 million with an unchanged price tag. This year is going to see sequels to two of this generations most successful games-Wii Fit and Wii Sports. Motion plus is launching. New Super Mario Bros is coming to Wii, and it's little cousin is on the path to 20 million + sales. Galaxy 2 and Metroid:Other M are already confirmed for next year. With the possibilty of Zelda, too.

You sir, are beyond hope. The PS3 has an outside chance of taking second place. But don't expect MS to give that up easily.

lulWOT?!
Wii peaked?
with no price cut..first color coming end this year
no Wii Zelda yet?
new Metroid coming?

ehhhhh....okay..well..if you say so
though usually when a new Zelda game is released it does boost console sales
...and we still haven't had any Zelda on the Wii besides the very well ported TP

The Wii hasn't peaked yet.

With the software coming in 2010, it looks like it will peak then.

lol? sony cut ps3 price by 1/3, most of it's biggest games were already released and is selling worse than 360 and sometimes even worse than psp.
at the same time 360 have one of its best lineup of exclusive this year and next year.
wii without price cut or new colors is still selling better than ps3 and 360 combined while nintendo will be releasing soon many big 1st party games. biggest wii 3rd party exclusive games will be released in the second half of 2009 and in 2010.

so stop trolling cause right now i would say that it looks more like ps3 have peaked and without price cut sales will be even worse.

Well at the start of the year all of the consoles looked like they were going to do more than what they did last year. Now that really isn't the case. Hopefully next year there will be a recovery in the industry as well as some huge titles that will make 2010 the peak year for the consoles.

DS and PSP have peaked I believe. Nintendo can probably meet its 30m DS projection but thats down from last year.I don't think Sony will quite hit its 15m PSP projection, even with PSP Go, I think 13.5m is more likely than 15m - they did 14.1m last year.

PS2 had its first USA price cut in May 2002 which was only 20 months into its USA launch. We're 31 months into the time Wii has been on the market in the USA and Nintendo hasn't cut the Wii price. I do think we'll see a Wii price cut within a year - either this fall or in the spring - but they shipped 25.95m Wiis in one year at its original price point. If you do the math its the highest grossing year for a videogame machine by revenue ever....

DS FY 3/2009 ~$130 * 28m + $170 *3.2 ($4.18 billion)

Wii FY 3/2009 ~ $250 * 26m ($6.5 billion)

PS2 FY 3/2003 ~ **$205 * 22m ($4.61 billion)

** $300 until May 2002, production shipments

In the previous fiscal year, the March 2002 year Sony shipped 18.1m PS2s for $300 which is $5.4 billion in revenue. To me thats why Nintendo is hesitant to cut the Wii price.

There are probably three Wii pricing options

1) Keep Wii Price the same, rely on games

2) Cut Wii price $50 worldwide this FY

3) Cut Wii price $100 worldwide this FY

For option one I think they can do 23m-27m Wiis. Thats $250 * 25m in revenue, or $6.25 billion in Wii hw revenue.

Option two, they could probably do 26m to 32m Wiis. Thats $200 * 29m in revenue, or $5.8 billion in Wii hw revenue

Lastly, they could do option three. Probably 30m to 35m Wiis. Thats $150 * 32.5m in revenue, or $4.875 billion in Wii hw revenue

For option two, its conceivable that four million new owners brought in by the price drop would be an extra game for another $200m, then more controllers and accessories so it might be worth it...but its probably still best not to drop the price yet for Nintendo.