Personally, I find software sales to be more important to me then hardware sales. That's just me though.

And portable sales will always be up because they are portable systems, they can be taken anywhere. Consoles, not at all.

Somebody has to say it...

NINTENDO IS TEH DOOMED

Shouldn't someone different say it though?

NINTENDO IS DOOMED

http://easytotype.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/bender-doomed.jpg

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!

I just figured that I'd save everybody the trouble, since I'm going to wind up locking this thread eventually anyways.

LOL

It's alright though since I already posted this in the thread with out lengthy discussion on why Wii sales aren't healthy.

What's been released recently for the Wii in Japan?  I've found Nintendo's output has been really sparce for, hell, well over a year.  New games keep the buzz going and give the console momentum.  The existence of new product is very much a marketing tool in itself.  Who's going to talk about the Wii and get word-of-mouth going when they've gotten bored of the games that have and have nothing new to play on it?  I know this isn't an example of the general public's taste but if you go to a gaming forum that covers all consoles the Wii gets talked about a lot when a new game is released or announced or rumoured but will disappear from conversation the rest of time, just because there is nothing to talk about.  And this happens with all the consoles.  Out of sight = out of mind.  So is the Wii currently have reason to be talked about in Japan?  And I ask that legitimately since I don't know the release schedule there.

But game sales are more important.  Nintendo gets worried about DS sales slowing down when the fact is they've sold so many damn units that the market is almost saturated.  That's not bad news it's GOOD since games are supposed to be where the money is and if you have a decent business model you'll benefit from the large userbase.  Maybe the Wii is similar to that in that it just has sold so well that most of the target market has it already.

If their reaction to this is more games then that would be great. Somehow I imagine it will involve some new gimmicky peripheral or possible a new variation of the Wii to try to get current owners to upgrade.  Making a profit off of hardware sales at first seemed like an additional source of revenue but the way they act it's like they've made it their primary source.

Monster Tri & Sin & Punishment 2 are the 2 that immediately jump to mind.
next week is NSMB Wii, the week after that is FFCC:CB (I think)

But if the market is saturated then that is all the more reason to release different versions of the hardware. Sure, you want people to buy games, but if they have disposable income maybe they'll buy a competing system to have more games. If I have consumer X buying model Y of the DSi, that means he probably not out buying model Z of the PSP. If you can keep them busy upgrading to the new model they won't have the time or money to check out the competition. Now they might feel so invested in the systems they have, they won't bother to see what they are missing elsewhere.

But you can also keep them busy playing quality games released at a decent rate which, unlike a hardware based approach, doesn't contain any negative association with trying to con people into buying something they don't need.  One option can hurt the trust between the customer and the company and the other pretty much never can.  I think it makes sense to focus on the option that creates no enemies.

Hardware is only as good as the games it supports.  Without new games any minor variation to the hardware has no value to the customer and, while it may provide short term profit with the new hardware sale, it risks losing that customer due to dissatisfaction with a product that didn't turn out to be worth the money.

The problem is and has always been the lack of games. What the hell has Nintendo been doing this last year? I don't see new IPs... just the same old franchises plus some parlor game crap and non-games. This won't cut it. If Nintendo doesn't start releasing good games then they will lose their 1st place position, and this is a fact.

Do you want them to release "Good games" as you mentioned or "New (ip)" games? Cuz they are releasing good games, which probably don't garner as much as excitement as a new nintendo IP would, which means the longtime nintendo faithful are just jaded to whats out now (and coming soon).

I'd like to see that, do you even realize how big of a lead they have? No probably not.

ShyGuy: Water is wet.

Sony has a very good chance of beating their YTD sales in Japan if things don't change. A couple more years of Sony outselling the Wii then they catch up and surpass them. Nintendo's momentum is dropping while Sony's is increasing. This is a bad thing no matter how you slice it.

PS3 might win this YTD if things don't change, but Nintendo would have to stop selling the Wii altogether if the PS3 is gonna overtake the Wii's lead in only a few years.

By the time Sony even got close to outselling a a Wii that stopped being sold today(2012), I would already expect Wii2 to already be out (end of 2011). It's not gonna happen with out some massive long lasting PS3 sales boost.

A couple more years is right. The PS3 has a 10 year lifespan. The Wii can't match that.

BnM I think you fail to understand that the PS3's sales are increasing, so it may not take that long for it to catch up.

Um ps3 sales have plummeted since the initial release of the slim. 10k lead is nothing to freak out over unless you are the "t" word.

TIKU TIKU TIKU?

The Wii is anorexic? Or is your Wii not very healthy?

Some have the theory that they were massively enamored with the user generated content idea (they did talk a lot about how it is the future...) and focused their development on that. Wii Music flopped, Blast Works flopped, Little Big Planet flopped and Nintendo noticed that UGC sucks, sending them scrambling for something to release.

No I understand it just fine. I think it's you that doesn't realize the Wii has a 5million console lead and to only make it up 10-15k consoles at a time is gonna take a very long time. If the PS3 were to actually catch up anytime soon, it would require Nintendo to stop selling the Wii now while the PS3 keeps selling whatever it's selling now.

And that is how things are now, I fully expect Wii to overtake PS3 soon again with NSMB Wii. Sony's PS3 sales had a huge spike but plummeted quickly. With the price cut for Wii there was a minor spike but the drop off has been minor as well.

The concern is that the lead will increase from 10k - 15k to something more substantial.  There's an argument that once FF XIII releases a lot of hold outs will purchase PS3s.  Then again, the same can be said for DQX, so it's a moot point at this time.

DQX will sell bucket loads in Japan, FFXIII will sell well but not as good as DQX in Japan.

Flip the series around for America.

PS3 won't catch up with the Wii. Ever really.

I would think the bigger concern would be that the current trend of PS3 outselling the Wii would be troubling from a developer standpoint, as the last thing Nintendo needs is another excuse for developers to use to support another console.

weird. I pretty much said the same thing in the sales thread

Given Square-Enix's usual development time for a Dragon Quest game, I wouldn't expect DQ X till at the earliest the end of the Wii's lifecycle.  I see it more becoming a killer-ap launch title (in Japan, anyway) for the Wii's successor.  FF XIII we at least know is coming out in Japan in a month and in North America sometime early next year, so if the PS3 gets a bounce the closest I see from the Wii matching that is the next Legend of Zelda.

The Japanese market is so radically different now though, if Nintendo releases some great casual killer app it could sustain the system far longer then FF13 would PS3.

I'm pretty sure the bump that FFXIII would give the PS3 would be a flash in the pan albeit a very large flash in the pan, but that will shortly fizzle out. Nothing that is gonna do like Nintendo's big bang then slow burn of something like NSMB or Mario Kart.

Great minds think alike? Either that or I read it earlier and it entered my subconscious... both perfectly logical considering I read the Sales Thread religiously.

True enough.  I'm sure Wii Sports Winter Getaway and Wii Fit ++ (or something of that nature) will do just that sometime in the next few years.

and lets not forget Nintendos secret weapon with the wii hardware..  the jolly rancher colors. 

Did wonders for the 64.

Is it me, or is it odd that a lot of comments are based around one company.  Squareenix?  While the properties they are about to release will throw people all over the place, ultimatly its not going to decide this generation at all.  If anything, it will most likely bump the wii  a little bit but most of all just flatline and add to the user base.

This year has been allright for releases and I am glad we didnt have all those Nintendo titles  (where is mario party 9 ninty?) so it gave room for some good 3rd party titles as well as development time for titles coming from them in the next 2 years.  I still think Retro is the workhorse on the next zelda and a mario galaxy 2 is supposed to come out next year.  So If MG2 is the big holiday title, Zelda might be a summer title, but if its pushed into the 2012 bracket I would consider that to be the final major holiday of the wii.

Just wait until Wii Love Cats and Wii Love Dogs.

Or it would require the PS3 to start selling at a much greater rate, and I don't think this is far fetched at all. The price is now fairly reasonable, Sony is advertising it very heavily, and they are going to rip off Nintendo's motion controller idea. Take all of that plus the indisputable facts that the PS3 has better 3rd party support and graphics and it is going to trump the Wii in pretty much every respect.

The flaw in your logic is you assume the PS3 is only going to be outselling the Wii at the same rate it is now. But when if it starts outselling it by double or perhaps more? I REALLY do not think that is as far-fetched as it might seem.

You guys might think I'm trolling or being sarcastic, but I'm not. I'm serious that this is something Nintendo should be concerned about and they should start getting 3rd party support before its too late. Nintendo is in no danger of being driven out of the console wars or even becoming unprofitable, but there is a very real danger they will lose their current 1st place status and if they don't start getting serious that is something that will happen sooner or later. I don't want it to happen, but I can see how it could.

What it all comes down to is Nintendo has the lead right now and they shocked everyone by grabbing it. This is great news to us Nintendo fans, but unfortunately Nintendo has squandered this early lead and haven't really made good use of it. This is what is allowing Sony and MS to start making a come back. Nintendo should never have allowed this to happen.

a 10-15k spread a month is hardly a comeback, and just because the PS3 slim is doing much better than before, WW they still have to catch up to MS before Nintendo would even trip. At this point in time Nintendo is no positionto worry about losing 1st place in Japan or WW as Nintendo has a 5 million system lead (over half way through the generation) in Japan and WW has sold as many Wii's as PS360 combined.

The Flaw in your logic is that you are relying on an if and a big IF of Sony starts out-selling Wii by double or more.

even IF the PS3 started selling 100k a month and the Wii didn't sell a single unit for the rest of the gen, it would still take Sony over 4 years to sell to sell 5 million PS3's. That is somewhere into 2013, so where is the concern? Wii 2 will be out by then, Xbox 720 will be in the news and Sony will not still be talking about 10 year strategy.

and IF Wii kept up 30k for the next 3 years along side the PS3's 100k, that would just be another Million units PS3 has to make up before Nintendo was in danger of "losing" 1st place in Japan.

I disagree. I can't see how it could in the realm of reason, unless we are expecting this generation to go on for more than the normal cycle. Sony simply doesn't have the time frame to do something feasible like this.

There are dangers here for Nintendo, but losing first place isn't one of them.

The harm comes, as previously mentioned, from this giving third parties more excuses to not support Nintendo platforms. Furthermore, it also hurts Nintendo for their respective "Wii2 vs. PS4" battle. Going from history, the largest shift of developer support happened from the transition of the PS1 to PS2 in between generations and one would assume Nintendo's successor to the Wii could boast a similar benefit depending on how the end of the generation plays out.

Yes, that is a good point about the 3rd parties. They will look at the PS3 outselling the Wii in the weekly sales and they can point to that and use it as an excuse to not support Nintendo even if the Wii is far ahead in LTD. I don't know why, but it seems like 3rd parties have a loathing for Nintendo and they will make every excuse they can to not support Nintendo hardware. The PS3 outselling the Wii in weekly or (god forbid) YTD sales is just the excuse they need to ignore Nintendo and do what they've done the last decade or so.

And this is not just 3rd parties who can use this. Nintendo haters and Sony executives and fanboys will point at this and say Nintendo is losing and Sony is winning the war. It may not be true in YTD terms, but they will conveniently ignore that little fact and harp on the weekly or monthly victories to make their side look good.

So in any case, having the PS3 outsell the Wii for even a week and even by a slim margin is a bad thing for Nintendo because of the propaganda victory it gives Sony and the excuses it gives for 3rd parties. Nintendo being number one LTD is not enough, IMHO. I want the 3rd party support to be there too because without that being in 1st place seems kinda pointless.

It is a pretty good point, and one that has already been made earlier in the thread even on this same page.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/forums/index.php?topic=29792.msg562057#msg562057

Well, I think we can all agree that the PS3 outselling the Wii (even by a slim margin) is not a good thing for Nintendo. Maybe Sony will never surpass them in LTD market share, but its still a bad thing for other reasons. So it is in Nintendo's best interest to get back on top in the weekly charts.