Wii production exceeding expectations

Most of you seem to forget that this news is very important:

1) for the shops: x360 gave them a very unhappy '05 holyday season, remember?

Shortages and pre-order total mess, broken consoles, and not enough incomes: a real nightmare for them... and this year, PS3 will have exactly the same kind of problems... at least, thanks to Nintendo and their DS and Wii, they'll be able to do some NORMAL BUSINESS and make money...

Of course, to be honnest, you may add PS2 and 360 to their late 06' incomes, but this holyday season, and in 2007 (and i guess beyond), it's "Thanks Nintendo"...

2) for the 3rd parties: would you prefer to develop a very expensive-budget title for a very small user base, or a normal-budget title for an already successful system? Of course, they still have the PS2 crowd, and the 360 is now really gettin' good fame, but for the ones who believed in Sony's promises, that's a HUGE let-down...

And don't forget the ease of development, btw: 360 seems to be VERY good, but expensive. DS and Wii seem to be QUITE good, but not expensive.

But PS3? A mess... a really pricey mess... and they remember it had been exactly the same during PS2 early life: too complicated, and hard to get used to... that's the reason why 2/3 of the best PS2 titles came out in 2005 and 2006, and not before...

3) for the investors: if you really look at Sony's future with its PS3 and its Blue-Ray, you may not be sure it will be a brandmark "easy winner"... on the other hand, a news like this is butter to their ears: more sales, more incomes... easy to understand, isn't it? Plus the whole gaming world hyped: THAT is the kind of news stock owners want to hear...

So, in a REAL business way, and not in any idiotic fanboy way (yes, even Big N ones): NINTENDO WINS...

And the Wii isn't even out yet...

All the people who REALLY make a living in the gaming world have now a deeper respect for Nintendo and their business model...

More and more of them are now thankful for the fresh air the Wii brings in a saturated business that have: no appeal to non-gamers, small appeal to casual gamers, and only appeal to the hardcore gamers, who usually buy all the systems out there anyway...

More and more people, in the business or as game buyers, may now compare the Wii launch with the 360 and PS3 launches: and they realize how the supposed "big guns" just gave themselves a bad name...

Thanks for reading...

How can the Wii possibly sell 11 million units by this spring when the Gamecube has barely done twice that in 5 years?

This could easily be Virtual Boy 2.

Again, kids aren't stupid. If they want a PS3 or 360 and get a Wii, they're not gonna be happy.

"How can the Wii possibly sell 11 million units by this spring when the Gamecube has barely done twice that in 5 years"

The wii will sell so many just becuase its the cheapest of the systems and its most likely the first choice of parents to buy... Its the price that makes ALL the difference.

@ ben
"Again, kids aren't stupid. If they want a PS3 or 360 and get a Wii, they're not gonna be happy."

Well, that would still be a console sold, wouldn't it?

Tao68: I appreciate your points, but for the love of grammar use periods.

@154: More profit=more money to spend on games and accessories and "third-party support". Which part of that confuses you?

"It's all about the games. Yes quantity, but quality? Lots of Ubisoft rehashed crap, SM Galaxy not launching, and the ridiculous premise of some games *coughkiddycough* like Excite Truck and GT Pro definately WON'T sell in holiday seasons.

Posted at 8:46PM on Oct 5th 2006 by Ouch. "

The same could be said for the PS2 game library, and look where that got Sony's machine.

@pinklink,
"If the wii dev kits are any indication (and these are machines that must perform identically to production units, with the exception of debug output, and additional ram), the Wii is running the gamecube processor, but clocked up by about a factor of 1.5. It is running the gamecube GPU, but clocked up by about a factor of 1.5."

Both the CPU and GPU were developed from the ground-up. They are not overclocked GameCube parts. They are in the same family architecture, that is all.

@ ben
"How can the Wii possibly sell 11 million units by this spring when the Gamecube has barely done twice that in 5 years?"

If the units are available and people want them, they'll sell. Past GameCube sales have absolutely no effect on future Wii sales.

@154 HeyTone

"This is my favorite line of the whole thread of comments. Unless you own stock in Nintendo, it sounds as if you are actually happy Nintendo is selling you the console at a premium. As a consumer, shouldn't you want the lowest price possible? Let Nintendo take losses on the console if it saves you 50-100 bucks...it almost feels like Nintendo is short changing everyone when they are making profits on *somewhat* dated tech (i know i know, it's INOVATIVE...), while Microsoft and Sony are throwing money out the window to get you technologically superior machines."

Based on wat ur saying we shouldnt be buy the ps3 for 600. its using a 2yr old video card. And both the 360 and PS3 dont support directx 10. So y bother with any system???

So far the only thing thats "new tech" is the controller, which is wat any smart person should be excited about. If we really cared about grafix that street fighter on xbox live wouldnt be popular now would it???

@139 ouch

"Compared to the 360, the Wii's state isn't bright- at all. The little cheap machine won't profit devs because casual games don't have a big intake of games. 40/50 bucks for a semi-neu-gen game doesn't get the point when production values are the SAME as last gen (think EA Sports-PC) content and the controller addon ramps the price up."

You do realize that the dev costs for the 360 have gone up compared to the xbox. I dont get ur logic. Why would a dev put money into a "next generation" system that has been out a yr and still cant match sales of the old generation. Why would a dev makes games for the ps3 when there wont be any this holiday season???

500,000 vs 2 mil (atleast)........price to make a ps3(or 360) game > price to make a wii game?????
You tell me

It's all about the games. Yes quantity, but quality? Lots of Ubisoft rehashed crap, SM Galaxy not launching, and the ridiculous premise of some games *coughkiddycough* like Excite Truck and GT Pro definately WON'T sell in holiday seasons.

Have you looked at some of the games that are out for the other systems??? Ridge racer 7?????? I dont thnk any game should reach 7. resistance fall of man..........wats it bring to the table that hasnt been done???

If you wii haters wanna talk about rehashes please clean up ur own backyards first. Its amazing the hate that follows nintendo. if sony was to actually make an affordable system, the world would rejoice.

I believe you all have completely missed the point of the article. Let me spell it out to you all as to what is really going on:

Market Control! Assume that the Wii creates a massive profit by outselling PS3. This means that they will have a large enough profit to expand their factory lines and produce a far larger number of Wiis next year. Furthermore, they will have the ability to advertise their product easily through word of mouth easier as well as create larger advertising campaigns to promote and sell Wiis. This pushes the PS3 and XBox 360 market share down (theoretically) and will create a larger profit for Nintendo. Plus, they have the DS profits to fall back on to help with this promotion tactic.

If all this works, it will be very hard for the PS3 (but not the 360 as it has been doing the same thing for a while) to regain market share and be a competitive business.

Of course, that is the best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that the system is a flop and Nintendo loses huge cash in production costs with few sales. Of course, the PR campaign is there to prevent that. Hence, the news releases and such.

This is what the article is about. Public relations and market control. That is all. And that is Nintendo's core ability: to give customers what they want. They figure that customers don't just want fanciful graphics and systems that are absudly complex systems that can break when you turn them on. They want to give a system that people will truly enjoy.

And I seriously doubt they care about whether the PS3 is successful or not. They are probably more intent on just creating a wonderful product that is both enjoyable and affordable.

And if you deny this, you are only trying to deny yourself truth. And doing that doesn't make you a diehard fanboy of any system. It just makes you ignorant.

Crazy idea - would it be plausible if Nintendo slashed the price of the Wii by fifty bucks at the last minute?

Just wondering....

Also, do you think there be enough demand to make a profit off of selling the Wii on eBay? :D

"Nintendo's answer to what it deems "bigger and badder" successors to PS2 and Xbox, Wii is being designed to allow developers to be able to develop games without dramatic changes in design compared its competitors. It will be around 2-3 times as powerful as the GameCube and the self-loading disc drive will take both full size DVDs, and the mini-DVDs of GameCube games. A separate device will allow playback of DVD movies and other content"


I have read a lot of posts about the wii only being a gamecube in a new case, but That is not true at all. The reason that most of the graphics look similiar to what you see on the gamecube is because the same techniques used on the gamecube can be carried over to the wii. This makes games easier to produce, thus helping the wii get more third party support, because developers don't have to spend precious time learning a new programming style. The systems are dramatically cheaper than the other consoles, again, a plus for developers because most people will not have the money to go out and buy a PS3, and maybe not even an xbox360. The controll style is obviously what is important here. The graphics are never going to be as good as the xbox360 or PS3, but I'd estimate that they could look as good or better than anything launching on either of those two systems. Developers are still trying to figure out how to pull the most out of the hardware on all of the different systems, so good graphics will come later. I don't need the best graphics to enjoy playing a game, I need good gameplay, and story line if applicable. I still love going back and playing my Sega Genesis, and my SNES. I am not a big fan of the N64 or Playstation, but at the time the were great. The point is that Nintendo was not looking to compete with the other consoles on who could have the best graphics, but to make gaming more approachable from both a price standpoint and a complexity standpoint. Sure, I can sit down at a game system, spend about 30mins, and I've pretty much got the controlls down. My mom who also likes to play games; however, cannot do this and often has to call me in for the parts of the game that require a player to know the controlls. The new controller is ultimately what the system is about, but it is 2-3 times as powerful as the gamecube (selling for about 100 dollars), and if you consider that the average of these two will be about 2.5x the power, then 250 sounds like a reasonable price considering they are also adding in an innovative and well planned controller (which has the excitement of a large portion of the game development community), the move to more of a massively-multiplayer console (Wifi), the classic library of nintendo games, The overall quality of Nintendo first party software, and the price difference between the games for this system and the other systems, I'd say that $250 is a bargain. Sure, the PS3 gives you a bluray drive, a vastly superior amount of processing power, a slightly innovative controller, and the sony playstation's reputation gained from the success of the PS2, but when most games for PS2 are cross platform (meaning PS3 will be about the same), most of the games will be watered down so that they will be more compatible with the other systems, plus the games are expensive to develop, which increases the amount a consumer has to pay for the game (almost twice what the Wii games will cost). All this added to the overall price of the system, means that the PS3 will have a pretty low user club (much like the PSP), and the games for it will be quick half-assed ports, home-brew, or very scarce and of low quality. Sure, the PS3 has some flashy titles now, but in the end I think the system will fail. Either that or it will not hit it's stride for about 3 years when manufacturing costs come down. Then the other console developers will create a system superior to the PS3 with a more current design, and the PS3 will fail more miserably than the PSP did. The Xbox360 on the other hand has a fairly large amount of exclusive titles, plenty of financial backing to make it a success (unlike Sony who is having financial trouble right now), and have graphics superior to those on the wii. Overall, this console war is between Nintendo and Microsoft. Maybe Sony will come back for the next round. I predict Nintendo as the winner, but they've got some stiff competition.

So, if the legions of true-next-gen core-gaming Sony fanboyz are to be believed, Nintendo will simultaneously (a) fail by producing too few consoles and charging too little for them, resulting in more demand than Nintendo can manage and leading to Sony winning the console war; and (b) fail by producing too many consoles at too high a price, resulting in too little demand and leading to Sony winning the console war. Please, if you're going to spread BS, at least be consistent about it.

i think nintendo is making a huge mistake trying to "re-sell" their arcade games! i have a snes and a n64 and i dont really wont to rebuy the games i love so i can play them on the wii.

I love the controllers and the sleek design and yes the price but i want to play a game other than mario or wario ft. mario - i want all the ea sports (with likeable graphics) i want a shooter like gta or halo not nintendogs or other infant games

if nintendo plan to stay alive they need to cater for teens who usually have money and sort of reasonably high percent of sales.

now i dont mean hype up their next console with so much hi tech stuff no one cares about and then sell it for $1000 (im from australia) like sony - cos NOBODY wants to spend that much $$$$$

thats my 2 cents worth

Frankly, I kinda like the way this is working out. I'm sorta obligated to pickup an xbox 360, because my friends are Halo junkies, and I'd like to be able to hold my own against them. Yeah, Xbox 360 sucks, flame away, I don't care.

But see, in previous generations? You could pretty much afford one console. This time around, I'm going to be able to grab two. At $250, the Wii is equal to 4 xbox 360 games. I could save 250 in food by cutting it out of my food budget and eating steak less often if I really wanted. I could get 250 by selling my previous generation consoles used. For any serious gamer, 250 is a not all that much, especially when the games themselves are cheaper. And for a casual gamer? A playstation 3 or Xbox 360 is just right out of the question.

Frankly, call it a gamecube with a stupid remote. Whatever. It's only about twice as expensive as a gamecube, and plays all gamecube games. Crazy console math says "sure, why not". You know, there's alot of good looking games slated for launch or quick release on it. I could say the same about the PS3, but as far as I can tell, ALL they are is good looking. They have no soul.

In the end? It's your money. Buy whatever system(s) suit you. Me? I'm grabbing a Wii, because it looks like it's going to be well worth having. Alot of people in this thread have said the same. It really makes me wonder why the PS3 fans get so *angry* about that.