Pachter calls March Wii console sales 'somewhat disconcerting'

Got any good Wii dust stories?

That's the risk of putting all your chips on casuals. It can pay off big, but there's always a risk of the floor falling out beneath you since they dont' constantly buy games.

Wii dust. Don't breathe this.

Time to bust out the big Shortsell stick and use it on the Nintendo Stock! SELL SELL SELL!

So what's why Nintendo hasn't released a black Wii so far, the dust on it would be more pronounced. : P

Please tell me no one is being serious and acting like this is remotely a big deal at all, that this is the sign on the 'wii fad' ending. No one is really saying that, right? Right? If you are, please leave an address so I can go hit you with what I call the 'moron pole'.

And by 'moron pole', I actually mean Dave Hinkle's VW Vanagon.

Markez

Is that a legitimate question or is that what you are hoping isn't happening?

;)

It's slowed down considerably in Japan for a while now so it's not out of the question that we would see something similar in other regions. I don't know that I would call it a fad or whatever but the hardware sales have to decrease eventually. Also, it makes sense on some levels that the majority of Wii owners wouldn't have the same buying tendencies as PS360 owners. I'm positive once Mario & Sonic At The WInter Olympics, Wii Sports Resort & whatever other title with Wii or Mario in the title or on the cover drops that those games will move in bulk.

I'm most interested to see the sales of The Conduit and Monster Hunter because those are titles that should appeal to the hardcore gamers. Madworld & HotD should have as well but they are more niche affairs. If either or both The Conduit & Monster Hunter flop sales wise then this silly argument can be put to rest once and for all. I still think Monster Hunter would have sold better on the PS3 but we will never know that answer because exclusivity was switched to The Wii. It's hard for me to conceptualize how Monster Hunter on The Wii is going to deliver a seamless online experience. Maybe it won't use Friend Codes and will do something like Konami did with Metal Gear Online. Monster Hunter is without a doubt my most anticipated Wii game to date.

Year over year, people. The explanation here is painfully obvious.

lol, it's a legitimate question rather than any hoping. I could really care less than to 'hope' about a console's sales. I think it's just a hiccup, or aberration in ridiculous financial times to make too big a deal out of at this point.

I'm not in the know enough, but my expectation is that Monster Hunter will sell like hotcakes, and Conduit will have moderately decent sales. I'd expect The Conduit to bomb, except I think the hype is rolling it into being the quintessential FPS for the Wii which would ideally translate into sales #s. Evidence continues to be that non N titles sell 'differently', so it's always asinine to see someone jump out of the bushes to brag about how 'x title didn't sell like y title did on z console so I'm awesome'

I won't likely purchase Monster (I've seriously never understood why it has an ounce of appeal) or The Conduit because I'm not too into FPS games. WHICH PROVIDES ME ANOTHER OPPTY TO SAY HOW AWESOME THE DARKNESS IS!!!

Ahhhh, I'm losing my train of thought. And good lawd, nobody will argue that friend codes don't totally suck, but if they can conjure up more online like Kart on Wii, or do level sharing like the new Boom Blox on Wii, then I'll remain interested.

I think an ongoing segment of Hinkle and I demolishing people in his Vanagon would produce a big new following to the 'Stiq. THINK ABOUT IT GUYS

Does everyone want the Wii to fade so badly that they are unwilling to pay any attention to reality? Last year the economy was good, Smash Bros came out, and the Wii put up amazing numbers. This year, there's practically no software to drive March sales, the whole industry is experiencing a downtrend, yet the Wii is still putting up numbers the PS3 and 360 would only dream of in the holiday season. How in any way does this indicate a specifically catastrophic future for the Wii unless you have tunnel vision for it? The DS saw similar decreases in numbers, as did the PSP, and especially the PS3 are these all going to fail?

If anything these numbers show that the PS3 is in big trouble. The PS3 posted its strongest software numbers ever, released what my very well be its biggest game of the year (especially if God of War is shuffled out), along with RE5, and MLB '09, and it still sees a year-on-year decrease? What excuse is there for that? The 360 saw an increase, and the Wii and DS suffered from a weak spot in their software lineup. The PS3 has taken a lot of undue flack since late 2007, and now poor sales are piling up and blockbuster software isn't even helping and people are falling over themselves to ignore the worrying signs. Worse still, if Killzone 2 and RE5 actually moved consoles, how many will it sell through the summer when the software is going to seriously lag behind what we've had recently. I know Fat Princess has us all buzzing, but it's naive, maybe even willfully blind or negligent to pretend that that's going to boost hardware numbers.

Mr. Khan:
It's month over year. As in month (March) over year ago month (March 2008). Year over year would mean year (2009) over year ago year (2008).

David

"The PS3 posted its strongest software numbers ever, released what my very well be its biggest game of the year (especially if God of War is shuffled out), along with RE5, and MLB '09, and it still sees a year-on-year decrease? What excuse is there for that?"

It's pretty reasonable to assume the only barrier the PS3 is facing is it's cost of entry. I don't see any other inherent factor thats contributing to the sales decline other than price. In other words, if Sony does eventually offer a $100 price reduction it should see marked increase. It's been selling with or above the Wii in Japan for a while now with said higher price.

It's evident by reading the article that the analyst said it's more than likely an unreasonably high expectation when you are comparing YTD for The Wii. I've been expecting Wii sales to decrease for a while now and regardless of other contributing factors it has to happen eventually. If people want to say the Wii "fad" is ending thats their personal agenda. I would say it's actually reasonable to expect a sales decline. Do you really believe the factors you mentioned are the only reason sales were down a total of 26%? Do you think there is a possibility that demand is finally starting to subside like it has in Japan? There are more available now than ever on store shelves (everyone has them) which is a testament to how well it has sold to this point. But, it's unrealistic to expect them to keep that pace up forever. The market is pretty saturated at this point. Now, if they announce a price cut it will have a positive effect.

I would reverse the question and say that the PS3 actually has the best excuse for why it's sales have declined. Once the entry level prices are more comparable the value proposistion becomes even more obvious. It's a double edged sword because Sony can't afford a price drop at this point but they also can't afford not to have a price drop. A cumuliative effect of high quality software will make people want to purchase it even at a higher price. This is really their year to get back into the game because they have a great software lineup. I would expect an announcement at E3 regarding something to get people wanting to buy one. Otherwise they are simply content to not become irrelevant rather than to win the damn thing.

Thats my two cents ...

David

I would also like to point out that PS3 sales have been disconcerting for some time now and it's really nothing new on that front. However, when the Wii all of a sudden sees a decline it's more surprising than the ps3 which has been selling poorly for sometime now. If Sony announces a price drop and the console still sees a decline then it's panic time in Stringerville.

It's not some sort of competetion to see who's sales are more disconcerting. They can both be disconcerting and aren't mutually exclusive.

Two reasons, in my opinion:

1) After a while selling like hot cupcakes, people just stop buying Wiis because they **already have them**.

2) Since the Wii is a console focused on the casual gamers, we have to take the crysis in consideration. "Normal" gamers are pretty much bullheaded, screw the crysis I effing want that effing game and nothing will effing stop me. Now casuals on the other hand will think twice before buying anything expendable, I.E. something like video games.

Wow Jampirow, you can pull bullshit out of your ass that has absolutely no evidence backing it up, is obviously flawed, and throws logic completely out the window!?

You should be an analyst. :)

@Kenny

Considering Wii sales in Japan, this may very well be the start of a Wii slowdown. Though it isn't as bad as 26%, the Wii is only down 17%, which is the industry average for the whole month. I think not having a 2.7 million seller like last March, paired with the greatest economic depression since 1929 is plenty reason not to read too much into a year-on-year decline in March. I think it would be sillier to assume the Wii is going to take a dive after one month of discouraging data that could easily be explained by more common explanations for year-on-year decline in the videogame industry. I'd even go as far as to attribute most of the Wii's problem's in Japan to poor, or even no new software for the past few months. I think it would be a fair guess that the 360 and PS3 are both going to sell less in June this year because there isn't anything coming out that will generate sales like GTA IV, and not because both are on the brink of a downward spiral.

Just as the PS3 was constantly receiving that last nail in its coffin, the Wii fad has been consistently on the verge of ending, and anything that can be vaguely construed as such will be. These numbers aren't a great trend for the Wii or anything, but it is completely in step with the industry as a whole, and it therefore makes very little sense to attribute some special significance to the Wii's decline as opposed to any other console. The DS has proven itself to be an incredible console, and it posted a larger year-on-year decline than the Wii, but nobody's pretending that it's going to fall off the charts come august. The PSP numbers are almost half of last years, as are the poor PS2's, and I've already gone over why these numbers seem particularly bad for the PS3. The analysis that the Wii is trending worse than any console besides the 360 this month doesn't make sense.

Why was I voted down?
Was this on normal Joystiq too?

For those looking at the Japanese numbers, the Wii sales have been in steady decline since December with Japanese monthly sales dropping from 123,624 > 76,277 > 69,872.

However, the NPD numbers showed a jump in February for the Wii and other consoles. Even though the Wii had some interesting games release for February (Tenchu IV, Deadly Creatures, Dead Rising, Sonic and the Black Knight), none seemed to have the kind of sales that drove Feb's increased console sales.

The point is don't try to extrapolate what's happening in Japan as a sign of things to come in North America. If anything, consider a) the economy, and b) the lack of a highly popular series release. The PS3 boost in Japanese sales in March was attributable to Yazuka 3 and RE5.

There are plenty of excellent Wii titles on offer for anyone who looks for them. I'm a picky hardcore gamer who refuses to buy mini-game compilations or crappy shovel-ware titles and i've found 15 great Wii games to own. And i dont even own most of the A+ titles like Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Smash Bros Brawl, Battalion Wars, Zack and Wiki, Geometry Wars or No More Heroes. If i can find that many games worth owning without owning the best games (Well, i still own Zelda, Metroid, RE4 etc) on top of my 12 GC games and 30 downloaded games, anyone can. After playing games for nearly 24 years, i'm pleased to say the Wii is my 2nd favourite console ever (N64 still wins out). I'm broke, i have a limited gaming budget, so i HAVE to be picky and careful of what i buy, and i'm STILL very very happy to own a Wii since launch.

It's been a while since you brought out your premade statement foetoid

Theres been plenty of games coming, stuff like MadWorld, Deadly Creatures, Mushroom Men, Pikmin (if you didnt get it the first time), and now we are getting close to The Conduits release too.

Even with that being the case I'm still shocked to see these mature "hardcore" titles flop so hard at retail. It doesn't bode well for future titles of that same ilk like The Conduit. There is always the explanation that these games will have long legs which could be true. However, the Wii is kind of an enigma to gamers and developers. If they try to put out a hardcore title that the fans are yearning for it flops at retail. If they put out a random mini game compilation they risk being buried behind the other avalanche of those same titles. Generally speaking the truth of the matter is that most people buy a Wii to play (almost exclusively) Nintendo franchises.

At this point The Wii is a great secondary console and offers a nice change of pace from the PS3/360. I wouldn't want it as my only or primary console but thats because I prefer the games and feature set of the PS3.

Whats surprising to me is that we don't often hear people talking about the rampant piracy on The Wii or The DS. We always hear how much piracy has crippled sales of PSP games but The DS is just as pirated as is The Wii. The main difference is that most of the DS/Wii user base aren't the type of tech savvy people who pirate games. Someone who is the target demographic of Deca Sports or a Petz game isn't as likely to pirate a game as the target demographic of Madworld & GTA Chinatown Wars. I can't confirm or deny this but I have read that GTA Chinatown Wars was pirated at a rate of 2:1 compared to what it sold at retail. When you look at the majority of titles on the PSP you see that the vast majority of them are titles that appeal to that tech savvy 18-24 male which explains why most of the games are pirated.

So, with the 360, Wii, DS, PC & PSP all facing piracy at an alarming rate we can say with 100% certainty that one good thing about Blu-Ray as a gaming standard is that it has allowed to not have a retail piracy problem. Now, there are issues with people sharing PSN games because of the usuage policy so it's not non-existent.

I've only met one dude, coworker actually, who pirates DS games and he has like 20 games on his R4 thingy. Pretty ridiculous.

the psn sharing really might become a larger problem. when the cod:waw map pack came out, one of my friends bought it and distributed it to some of my other friends. it's not a bad problem now, but even a cup of gasoline poured on a fire still makes it grow.

I don't think PSN sharing would be a problem, if anything, its a solution to the problem.

The publisher/developer is given the option to allow sharing or not, and even if they do, they can set it to be limited.

In either case, sharing is locked to 5 people, with the original owner having control over it.

I don't see how this could be exploited, as the studios are the ones that put the rules.

Sly

Yeah and the thing I don't understand is why that is their own online policy. It as if they are encouraging people to do such a thing. Now, I have never shared my PSN account or traded games with anyone because there is a 5 console limit and what if you had distributed it the maximum amount of times and you had a console failure? What if that policy changes and anyone who has previously done it gets banned for violating PSN ToS? It's not worth the risk of a free PSN game or premium DLC. I go by the principal of only buying things I can afford. If I can't buy the game I'll just have to wait.

Markez

It's alot more widespread than you might think. Obviously anecdotes aren't endemic of the big picture but I know about 5 people who all have those R4 or whatever they are called and all exclusively pirate games. Personally, I was never aware of this massive hardware modification subculture that exist until this generation but apparantley people were doing this stuff last gen with the dreamcast, PSN & original X-Box. The fact that GTA CW was downloaded twice as much as it was purchased is enough to wake up everyones eyes.

For a while I was downloading every new movie that came out and I had over 1 TB of movies of which I had probably watched 5% of them. Once I got a letter from my ISP warning me about having downloaded The Dark Knight (a movie we saw twice in theatres & own on Blu-Ray!) I said enough is enough and I stopped messing around. The fact that we weren't even making use of the media and that we aren't hurt for cash made me think about what the hell I was doing it for. It had just become habit to go online and download the new movies in theatres & DVD and what have you even if I had no interest. I'm in my mid twenties with children, house, career, fiance and a family that depends on me so there is no need to risk our livelihood over some dumb movies I could afford anyway. Now, I just stream stuff from online sites like Hulu, channelsurfing & surfthechannel. These movie and TV companies offer most of their content for free online to discourage illegal downloading. That way they can at least generate advertising revenue by making me watch a dominoes commercial every episode.

ps3 is not hacked/modded/ or pirated yet?
thats great to hear if true...
i know some people try to say it has been before, but i havent seen it yet.

and its is crazy how the publishers and developers of the big release DS/Wii games are saying nothing after the game has poor sales.
1 of them needs to speak the truth for all and just publicly say that the wii is not the platform for a 3rd party developer to release a costly big game on and we have lost millions of dollars on the venture and if we continue to do this we will have to close our business.
nintendo seems to know what they are doing, and that just doesnt seem to include 3rd parties much, aside from all the 3rd party companies which manufacture and produce the many different hardware and peripherals that end up getting a nintendo logo on them.

cool last paragraph johnny about life. certain things matter much more than others.
and i know you were in your own business at some point if not still now (real estate if i remember) and you start to realize what if somebody began to steal from my company and it affected my bottom line and money that i get to bring home to my family.
theft and piracy gets to a point when you cant even stay in business anymore or turn a profit. or some corporate 'crazy security' (equilibrium movie type) store takes over and takes the fun and selection out of shopping...
tower records whered you go. there is only a handful of record stores in los angeles (americas # 2 largest city) that really have music you dont find at wal-mart or best buy, and that music is not found on i tunes either.
amazon is really the only option now, but amazon doesnt get me off the chair of couch... lol..
ok im just rambling now....

sk8

Yeah I'm still in Real Estate doing well amidst a declining market. Eventually we all have that moment of clarity about what is/isn't really important. My potential freedom & well being of my family is more important than pirating some new movie I've either already seen or don't want to watch anyway.

" I've either already seen or don't want to watch anyway. "
that is so true...
i used to just try and find music to download just to make my library bigger and bigger. its almost an addiction. like it wasnt enough... lol.. didnt even end up listening to all of it... deleted most of it I liked due to poor audio quality and end up purchasing the media.

and i believe the conspiracy theory that adware, viruses, etc. are implanted into MP3's on music sharing services by the large record companies in an attempt crash your computer and/or send information about your computer and downloading to a specific source for later use... lol.. i know its crazy..
im not going to risk downloading 1 song illegally and having that song crash my computer and make me lose $ 500.00 also.

and when you have assets you really dont want to be on the pirating side of this issue, because you risk losing your assets to fines and penalties.
and the karma, honesty, etc.. holds a part in my heart and mind also.
i have a business also and who am i to steal from another company and not expect that to happen to me also, even though theft is impossible to 100% eliminate.

im not very religious or culturally involved, however i do beleieve in karma or some similar power between all of us.
when i was a lil punk kid (which still comes out of me sometimes) I broke out 3 different car windows vandalizing over the years, and when I grew up and got my own car's, i have had my cars broken into 3 different times over the years, all through breaking a window.. coincidence? maybe...

i wonder if pro- pirate people think its okay for real life pirates to enter ships and attempt to take them over and steal millions of dollars in goods and/or hold humans hostage for millions of dollars. ??

do media pirates support identify theft ?

even without support the harsher pirating types they are the same thing in the end, just on a much smaller scale.
i probably should have posted this last part in the pirate bay forum.....

@ Kenny

I was the one who found the Chinatown Wars statistic. It was downloaded about 160,000 times. But that's just from two sites: Mininova and Romulation. It's impossible to track rapidshare and other file sharing sites, because the links are spread out across many different sites. I would say it's been downloaded over 1-2 million times easy. However the amount of downloads won't increase dramatically, while the sales will, and it will end up being something like 1-2 million sales to 3-4 million downloads.
However, hopefully Nintendo and Sony have learned from their mistakes this generation, and piracy on the next generations of handhelds will be about as tricky as it now is on the PS3. Can't wait to see the new systems at E3, by the way (fingers crossed).

I don't think this is a sign of the console's doom. The console is doing very well. IT's just the console is no good for 3rd party developers. This is pretty typical for a Nintendo console, we're just seeing it confirmed for Wii now.

Maybe if people actually bought some of the games, maybe they would sell. I mean before GTA: CW and Madworld were released everybody said they were getting them, then come release day few bought them. I think piracy has something to do with it, because you always hear a bunch of people say they will pirate a game.

The thing about this is, that I don't think the Wii IS as bad for third parties as is thought. If it was, then third party support should be drying up for the Wii, and instead the fact is the exact opposite: there are more and bigger third party titles in the pipeline to come out on the Wii than in the previous couple of years. Why would this be so, if third parties weren't making something on the system? And there is also the "long legs" theory, which has been proven true plenty of times before. Games which sold sadly in the first month, over time, ended up being huge sellers. The biggest and most obvious example, I think, is Boom Blox. It sold terribly at first, but ended up being a major success on the Wii, to the point that we are getting an even better, much improved sequel soon. Plenty of other games have done well on the Wii, and will continue to do so. Just don't expect immediate, massive sales on the Wii like you find on other systems, and instead wait a few months after a games release to say whether its going to be a failure or success. HotD:O and Madworld are two more examples. They both have sold pretty low in their first months of release, but Sega sounds really happy with the way their sales are going overall.

sk8

Hey funny thing about FF7 is it's being released as a PS1 classic here soon in Japan and after that here in North America. Buying a physical copy will cost close to at least $70-$100 for black label and probably half that for an opened green label. Unopened mint condition black label prints fetch over $1,000!

If I were you (I'm me and it's what I'm doing) I would wait for the inevitable PSN release for North America that will probably be announced at this years E3. Ive heard it will still cost $15-$20 as a PS1 classic on PSN.

Give us the address! We are sending the Joystiq Police to corroborate!

5917 n figueroa
holding a 4000 minimum frst prize halo 3 tournament right now
don't worry - we'll do a smash bros. as well

The numbers show that interest in the PS3 is down, and everyone's too busy trying to spin the Wii numbers as doom to see it. The PS3 saw a decline from last year with a far stronger line-up, and what might be their biggest game this year. Those numbers are far more disconcerting than these Wii numbers, which are in no way disconcerting.

Don't worry, I live in FL

But now if Joystiq HQ needs a place to party, they know they got a place available :D

Do you have any Shin Megami Tensei games for sale? Such as Digital Devil Saga or Nocturne? Do you have them at a good price or are you charging an arm and a leg?

wales-
u in downtown?
even though i dont know you, if im in the area ill stop by and say hey where is wales from joystiq forums... lol... just to say hi and look around.

another request to the list:
do you final fantasy 7 at your store and for how much if you do?
ive been trying to locate it for a special gift for my girlfriend and not pay more than a new game price. ( im sure everyone is going yeah right its for yourself, but it is her favorite game of all time for some reason, so it would be a great surprise)

does your store have an email list for the tournaments or are they word of mouth ???

got it for PS1. Highland Park Station on the gold line.