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Forums - Sales Discussion - All new manufactured Wii shipped to Europe ?

Diomedes1976 on 17 March 2007

1) Nintendo cant send japanese consoles to Europe ,first ones are NTSC and the others are PAL .Plus the problem with the electricity standars etc .Plus ,they are region-locked so there you have it . 2 )Here in Spain in the recent weeks you can find Wiis in most stores ,and they have a good amount in some of them .Demand for it was extremely high in december and early january ,but right now nobody seems to be fighting out to buy the consoles .Maybe they have increased supply here ,but we have to keep in mind that it cant be due to japanese or US consoles sent here because of point 1 and that either way the hype is dying down a bit as it would be expectable .



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nintendo_fanboy on 17 March 2007

but they can stop producing ntsc-consoles in favour for the pal ones.



Currently Playing: Skies of Arcadia Legends (GC), Dragon Quest IV (DS)

Last Game beaten: The Rub Rabbits(DS)

Diomedes1976 on 17 March 2007

nintendo_fanboy said: but they can stop producing ntsc-consoles in favour for the pal ones.
Yes ,that would be technically possible ,they should change the production ramps etc ,but I highly doub it this is happening .For Nintendo Japan has always been a bigger market than Europe ,they sell better there ,plus they dont have a very decisive lead to make this decission .Changing the production ramps stops the production and costs money ,and if you have to do the same again some months later to increase the NTSC production ...... Well ,everybody is free to believe in what they want ,but thats faith and not science .The change of production ramps to create more Pal consoles and leaving the two greatest Nintendo markets (Japan and US ) without hardware simply isnt happening .Its just slowing down the sales ,period .



HappySqurriel on 17 March 2007

I could be wrong, but I thought that the only difference between a PAL and NTSC Gamecube was a jumper setting which is why making the Gamecube region free was so simple ... I never did it but was told that you inserted a small chip which acted as a digital switch to change the setting depending on how you booted the Gamecube.



kars on 17 March 2007

HappySqurriel said: I never did it but was told that you inserted a small chip which acted as a digital switch to change the setting depending on how you booted the Gamecube.
You are probably right, but it really wouldn't make sense. Or does anyone seriously think that someone who wants to buy a PS-3 and suddenly find a Wii in a store will suddenly decide to better buy a Wii instead? It would be much cheaper, but it simply does not offer the features of a PS-3 or even the Xbox 360 (there you could at least buy an additional HD DVD drive to wqatch HD Movies and it wold only cost 50 Euro more (less than the price of one game). On the other hand: Nobody in its sane mind would think to buy a PS-3, that costs more than two times more, when he only wanted a Wii. What kind of features have these two consoles in common, that the Xbox 360 does not have?



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The Joker on 17 March 2007

plus they dont have a very decisive lead to make this decission
Uh, that's exactly what they have. Nintendo has basically NO competition in Japan so I think they're confident enough to divert some supplies until Golden Week, Paper Mario and Big Brain Academy hit.
Its just slowing down the sales ,period .
Explain how it's still sold out then.



zsidane on 17 March 2007

Diomedes1976 said: Nintendo cant send japanese consoles to Europe ,first ones are NTSC and the others are PAL .Plus the problem with the electricity standars etc .Plus ,they are region-locked so there you have it
No, you're wrong. It's not that difficult to produce PAL instead of NTSC consoles. The electricity "probleme" is a Power supply one. I have a JAP and a PAL GC and all I need is to use my 220v power supply (the one that comes with my PAL GC) on my JAP GC. For the region look as pointed by HappySqurriel, it's not a big deal



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Erik Aston on 17 March 2007

Nintendo is being ruthless with Wii. They were confident in Japan, because DS had re-cemented them as the leader there. But they did make sure to allot enough units that they could pass PS3 in Japan right away. And in the US, they launched Wii on the same weekend as PS3, knowing they'd have better supply, to absolutely kill PS3 hype as much as possible. Stories comparing the launches were all over in the mainstream press, and it made Nintendo look like the golden boy of the industry. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were making a big European push in March. Not so that people waiting for a PS3 buy a Wii--that doesn't make much sense. But just so that when sales figures come out, Nintendo can say that they held their own against the PS3 launch during their fourth month of release, to once again draw the PS3 into question. Nintendo says they aren't competing with Sony. But their timing seems like its designed for viral FUD creation.



"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."

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nintendo_fanboy on 17 March 2007

Erik Aston said: Nintendo is being ruthless with Wii. They were confident in Japan, because DS had re-cemented them as the leader there. But they did make sure to allot enough units that they could pass PS3 in Japan right away. And in the US, they launched Wii on the same weekend as PS3, knowing they'd have better supply, to absolutely kill PS3 hype as much as possible. Stories comparing the launches were all over in the mainstream press, and it made Nintendo look like the golden boy of the industry. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were making a big European push in March. Not so that people waiting for a PS3 buy a Wii--that doesn't make much sense. But just so that when sales figures come out, Nintendo can say that they held their own against the PS3 launch during their fourth month of release, to once again draw the PS3 into question. Nintendo says they aren't competing with Sony. But their timing seems like its designed for viral FUD creation.
This really seems to make sense, nothing could be better for nintendo then selling more wii's during the ps3 launch then sony sells ps3's.



Currently Playing: Skies of Arcadia Legends (GC), Dragon Quest IV (DS)

Last Game beaten: The Rub Rabbits(DS)

kars on 17 March 2007

Erik Aston said: I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were making a big European push in March. Not so that people waiting for a PS3 buy a Wii--that doesn't make much sense. But just so that when sales figures come out, Nintendo can say that they held their own against the PS3 launch during their fourth month of release, to once again draw the PS3 into question.
well, Sorry to burst your bubble, but "sales figures" are more or less secret in Europe, at least in Germany, these are mainly guesses based on the sales numbers of certain stores, Even for countries itself these numbers are in general unreliable and if you try to add them up to get something , that would be pretty unreliable. And to be frankly France does not really bother how certain titles sale in Germany or Italy and vice versa. So companies normally don't compare their sales with the sales of other companies (they could claim different numbers) but instead tell you how satisfied they were with the sales.