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Forums - Nintendo - Iwata (not laughing): ' We failed with the Wii'

dib8rman on 29 October 2009

When Iwata speaks he's speaking in terms of growth not sustaining sales but sustaing growth.

To any company the idea is to show growth. Nintendo has opted not to go for the same consumers as some it's competitors but still show growth.

The point of a price drop is to test the market to see where the consumers see the Wii's value. The way Microsoft and Sony have been doing it only saturates that market for the other platform.

The difference is that Sony, Microsoft and third parties are marketing and in some cases making the games people bought those systems for. =)

All he's saying is the price drop was effective in sustaining the sales but shows Nintendo failed as a company to keep growth.



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puffy on 29 October 2009

Hey guys, it was a mistranslation, he didn't say 'failed' he said 'stalled'

http://www.nintendoeverything.com/?p=26779



 

SnesTea on 29 October 2009

We will find out if Wii really failed if it hit's 60 million.



noname2200 on 29 October 2009
Ail said:

I mean  noone else noticed that Wii sales started to slowdown in Q2 2009, the first quarter when you could finally find piles of Wii in every retailer ??

Chicken and egg. Is it no longer sold out because it's available freely, or is it available freely because increased supply has met demand? You've made this argument several times, occassionally coupled with your argument that the Wii almost exclusively sells software to people when they buy the hardware. The latter has proven untrue, and I find the former equally unconvincing.



couchmonkey on 29 October 2009

I'm glad to see Iwata admitting there's a problem, I just hope they have some good plans to resolve it.
In particular, here's hoping Zelda Wii can use Wii Motion + to do something super-neato.



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Avinash_Tyagi on 29 October 2009
trestres said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
trestres said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
trestres said:
woopah said:

“We failed with the Wii. We were unable to continually release strong software, and let the nice mood cool. We were unable to show a new game to become ‘the next thing.’ In the game market, once you’ve lost the momentum, it takes time to recover. With the price drop, sales returned to a certain level, but they just did not reach the level of last year around this time. We decided that it would be difficult to sell enough to recover from the poor performance of the first half of the year. In order to reach it (20 million target), we’ll have to move quite a large quantity, but it’s a figure we released after having felt the momentum returning [based off the price drop].”

 

I really want to know what happened at nintendo. i always get the impression that they had a lot of games get cancelled or delayed which is why their 2009 line up is so thin.

 

im sure trestres will enjoy this

I don't enjoy Nintendo being down, but they deserve it. I do enjoy however, having been right for the past 2 years despite many blind defenders calling me a hater, a doomsayer and whatnot. This goes dedicated to all the people who criticized me for being a realist.

Actually you were only right for one year, lol, this year is the year they failed to keep momentum.

I've been saying it since E3 2008, so it's more than 1 year. Glad I had a head start, that means I'm even more right.

I know, but you were wrong when you first said it, lol, as they still had the software to keep momentum then.

I was wrong because I anticipated everyone about it? They never had the software, otherwise this wouldn't have happened. History has proven me right, so it's time to move on to the next great debate, because I was right and you were wrong on this one.


I'm not brining me into it, I'm discussing your point, you say you anticipated, but just saying you anticipated doesn't give reason for why you anticipated, you said they never had software, however that is false, from launch until the end of last year, they had the software, its only in this year that they haven't, hence my point that you were only right for one year if your argument for anticipation was that they didn't have the software.

 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

Avinash_Tyagi on 29 October 2009
theprof00 said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
theprof00 said:
It was apparent when the highlights of the year would be wii music and animal crossing. I forget what the other game was, eithe MKwii or SSBB, that also released that year, but by e3 it was almost definite, but there was a strong possibilty even before that when the only big franchise game of the year was SSBB or MKWii, whichever one it was.

Actually both SSBB and MK Wii launched last year, early in the year, it wasn't until the fall lineups weakness became apparent that the momentum began to be lost, and even then, it was the issue of not having anything to recover the slack this year that caused the problem

Hmm that helps me remember more clearly.

It was when I got SSBB that it all went downhill for me. Call me crazy, but I could see a trend developing. SSBB got super moves, which instantly killed the game for me. MKWii did away with character moves, which killed that for me as well.

At that point I knew that Nintendo was starting to market the games I liked towards other demographics. That's just my personal feeling, you can think I'm wrong, but that's when I saw it.


Going towards other demographics isn't a reason, its a reason for why you lost interest, but as we saw with Mario kart, it was definitely a system seller all last year, its this year, when Mario Kart and Wii fit and others died down and there was no replacement, that sales declined.

 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

Avinash_Tyagi on 29 October 2009
Ail said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
theprof00 said:
Avinash_Tyagi said:
trestres said:
woopah said:

“We failed with the Wii. We were unable to continually release strong software, and let the nice mood cool. We were unable to show a new game to become ‘the next thing.’ In the game market, once you’ve lost the momentum, it takes time to recover. With the price drop, sales returned to a certain level, but they just did not reach the level of last year around this time. We decided that it would be difficult to sell enough to recover from the poor performance of the first half of the year. In order to reach it (20 million target), we’ll have to move quite a large quantity, but it’s a figure we released after having felt the momentum returning [based off the price drop].”

 

I really want to know what happened at nintendo. i always get the impression that they had a lot of games get cancelled or delayed which is why their 2009 line up is so thin.

 

im sure trestres will enjoy this

I don't enjoy Nintendo being down, but they deserve it. I do enjoy however, having been right for the past 2 years despite many blind defenders calling me a hater, a doomsayer and whatnot. This goes dedicated to all the people who criticized me for being a realist.

Actually you were only right for one year, lol, this year is the year they failed to keep momentum.

It's been apparent since 1 year in that this would happen.

Only since Wii music and Animal crossing has this happened in fact, without those failures and with some momentum maintaining expanded audience software, it wouldn't have happened, so like I said, one year.

blaming it solely on the relative failure of those titles does not take into account every factor.

Another factor is that this year the Wii entered it's second year where it was able to satisfy the demand.

As long as not enough Wii were found in stores this created a dynamic pushing some people that probably woudn't have bought one otherwise to purchased it.

However sometime this year the majority of customers have realized finding a Wii is no longer an issue ( the last shortage was last Chrismas) and the dynamics that were pushing some to buy it have changed....

It's not specific to the Wii, most of the  time there is a product which is unable to satisfy the demand, it drives the sales for that product...

 

I mean  noone else noticed that Wii sales started to slowdown in Q2 2009, the first quarter when you could finally find piles of Wii in every retailer ??


being able to satisfy demand is more symptom than cause, as the reason you can find Wii so plentiful, is because there is no software driving demand high for the system at the moment.

 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

trestres on 29 October 2009

Admit your failure and move on, it's ridiculous you try to fight a losing point. I didn't say they never had the software, I said it was pretty obvious that from E3 2008 and onwards they didn't have the software. I always say that in between 2006 and E3 2008 everything was going according to the plan, but a serious mess up and lazyness combined resulted in more than a full empty year. With ports and sequels. In 2007 they released more new games than in 2008 and 2009 combined.



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LordTheNightKnight on 29 October 2009
trestres said:
Admit your failure and move on, it's ridiculous you try to fight a losing point. I didn't say they never had the software, I said it was pretty obvious that from E3 2008 and onwards they didn't have the software. I always say that in between 2006 and E3 2008 everything was going according to the plan, but a serious mess up and lazyness combined resulted in more than a full empty year. With ports and sequels. In 2007 they released more new games than in 2008 and 2009 combined.

Cut out the first part, and you will get more headway in your argument. Arrogance is not a talking point.



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