Its not the Wii/Nintendo which is in trouble, its the image that the Wii and Nintendo are unbeatable thats in trouble, the idea that the Wii will outsell the PS2 and get over 50% market share. (Remember how that target keeps moving backwards?).

When the PS3 outsells it for 6 months straight in the US. Half a year of the 3rd place console leading over the current leader would be enough to say that the Wii has lost its power to draw in more gamers.

You might ask why I don't consider it in trouble now, so I will answer simply this - the Americas market has traditionally and continues to be the most viable and profitable market in the game industry. What happens here influences all of the western devs, and makes eastern devs wary of bringing a game overseas. With PS3 and XB360 both selling lower on a weekly basis than the Wii, I would say that Nintendo's position looks solid for a while yet.

What I will say is that if the PS3 dips below the 30K/week mark in the US at this stage, it will have lost more steam than the GameCube did last gen in the same timespan. I truly wonder if the PS3 will continue getting support if they can't get their numbers back up before the holiday season.

That was true when the dollar was strong.

That's not the case anymore.

Euro market is actually more profitable for foreign companies due to stronger Euro than Dollar...

The Dollar has lost 50% of its value in the last 6 years...

This. We'll know they're in trouble when they no longer have control over demand.

Your posts are amusing me as of late, keep it up!

From what I recall, the euro was initially balanced stronger from the dollar from the introduction of the euro currency.  I could be wrong, that was a while back.

If what you say is accurate, then you're implying that the dollar exchanged at 1.42 to 1, or 42 cents higher, euro to dollar conversion, as it currently sits at 1 to .72   This makes me question your numbers. I will agree the dollar isn't as strong as it was prior to roughly June 2008, when the first signs of the economy failing started to show. Yet, all of the currencies took a global hit since then.

Yet, this is irregardless of the market, as by volume, more software is sold across all platforms in the American market than the EU market. Thus, volume is what the industry is focused on, how many units sold, which is pretty much the premise of this website. Even with monetary fluctuations, the sheer volume of product sold in the US offers a wider profit margin than the EU market does. America is a consumer nation, which is why China loves us so much. We keep importing their crap.

6.5 years ago 1 euro was worth 0.92$.

Today 1 euro = 1.39$.

I should know I sent 70k$ back to europe back then and got like 64k Euros...( I don't feel so bad about my 64k euros right now though lol..)

Add that Wii games that retail for 50$ in the US retail for 50 euros in Europe and if you suppose similar profit margins for publisher on games, they make 39% more profit per game sold in Europe than in the US.

That among others things is the reason Nintendo diverted so many Wii shipments to Europe last year and actually matched the Wii demand there before it started matching it in the US. It was more profitable to do that way ( and there were many articles explaining it last spring).

Nonstanding all of this, any slow down in Wii HW sales is troublesome as it is a well known fact that software sales follow hardware sales trends.
So any slow down in HW sales will result in a slow down in SW sales.
Sure the install base will help to compensate a little of that, but not much...

Look at Mk Wii or Wii Fit sales over the last 10 months and watch how their sales curve closely follow the Wii HW sales...

Less Wii HW sales is going to result in weaker legs for most Wii games...

Typically install base has a huge impact on first 4-5 week sales, legs however mostly depend on how well the hardware sells every week...

That is kind of a big issue for a console where software sales depend so heavilly on legs.......

Define trouble? Or rather in trouble of what?

You need parameters to understand the question.

This.

The 360 and PS3's fortunes have waxed and waned over the last couple of years, why not the Wii's?  It just wanes at a higher level than the other two.

Some people seem to take these low sales as a sign of impending doom, like they still maintain a glimmer of their 2006 hope that the Wii is a fad and they will finally be vindicated by the unceremonious crash of Wii sales.  I say prepare to be disappointed.