Topic: Its the "Nintendo is the tiku tiku " debacle all over again!!

[Ian Sane]

I don't deny the viral nature of the Wii but the Wii was nowhere to be found from day one.  There was no real down time of any sort before sales suddenly spurted.  It was a big flood of demand from day one.  Non-gamers were telling ME about the Wii, not the other way around.  Hell I would have just been sh!tting all over it anyway.

[Smash_Brother]

To declare that You and the gamers like you are the reason the wii succeeded reaching the "casual" audience is very High And Mighty of you, S_B and it saddens me you'd go that route. Its not even the fact that you're glorifying yourself as the reason Wii is successful but that you're lumping 'hardcore' gamers like me and alot of people here who've been with nintendo for years into that as well.

All I can do is speak from my own personal experience, and that experience was spent showing the Wii to a number of people who were in various levels of disinterest regarding the console but absolutely HAD to have one after I demonstrated it for them, and the same goes for all of my friends who showed the Wii to their families and then had to have one of their own.

Word of mouth advertising is and always will be the most powerful because it comes from a trusted source and typically allows people to try before they buy, and that is FAR more effective than any amount of seeing the Wii on a TV show. Playing is believing.

And in case no one remembers, the only Wii kiosks that were around for the longest time had Excite Truck, which most agree doesn't really shine until after an hour of play time and certainly doesn't have the same massive casual appeal that Wii Sports does.

[KDR_11k]

Really? The only Wii kiosks I saw were running Wii Sports.

[BeautifulShy]

KDR it was probably different because of where you two live.

[Smash_Brother]

Really? The only Wii kiosks I saw were running Wii Sports.

Germany isn't as lawsuit-happy as the US is.

All it would take is some kid swinging around a Wiimote in front of a kiosk at Gamestop to pop someone in the face and it'd be a legal nightmare, hence why they only had Excite Truck which had zero flailing in it.

[KDR_11k]

Well, you can't fit a proper Wii kiosk into a Gamestop anyway, those cramped stores just don't lend themselves to moving. All kiosks in the early days of the Wii were supervised to make sure noone steals the Wiimotes, now they seem to be without anyone watching (and the Wiimote not secured to anything either), no idea why noone steals them.

[Smash_Brother]

Well, you can't fit a proper Wii kiosk into a Gamestop anyway, those cramped stores just don't lend themselves to moving. All kiosks in the early days of the Wii were supervised to make sure noone steals the Wiimotes, now they seem to be without anyone watching (and the Wiimote not secured to anything either), no idea why noone steals them.

They finally got the wired ones into GSs in the states, but they've never put any motion-intensive game in for the aforementioned reasons.

This is why I feel that Wii Sports really got its fame from viral word of mouth more than anything. I've talked to plenty of people who "saw" or "heard about"  the Wii and/or Sports but it was me letting them try it for themselves that resulted in the purchase of a Wii.

I'm sure watching Ellen **** around with it helped, but like I said, the proof is in the pudding.