No more NPD numbers (group hug coming up!)

[iceberg187]

653,000+ DS sold last week in US

NINTENDO OF AMERICA REPORTS HISTORIC SALES WEEK
Nintendo DS Passes Game Boy Advance Sales Record, Wii Becomes Must-Have Gift

REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 27, 2007 - In the first week of the 2007 holiday shopping season, Nintendo of America has sold more Nintendo products than at any other time in its history. This includes more than 653,000 Nintendo DS™ portable video game systems, 350,000 Wii™ home systems and millions of games and accessories throughout the United States - and the season is just getting started.
Nintendo DS set a new all-time sales record for Thanksgiving week, eclipsing the previous mark of 600,000 Game Boy® Advance systems sold during the same period in the United States in 2005. Nintendo DS remains on track to be the top-selling video game system of 2007.
Nintendo's 350,000 Wii systems represent the highest one-week U.S. sales total outside of its launch week one year ago. Wii has been dubbed the must-have gift of the 2007 holiday season and has been placed at the top of numerous gift lists. Nintendo has repeatedly increased its shipments and its fiscal-year sales forecast for Wii in an attempt to meet soaring demand. Wii reached 5 million sold in the United States faster than any video game system in history, after only 12 months of availability there.
Both Wii and Nintendo DS have continued their yearlong momentum into the holidays without altering their prices. And both remain attractive values for shoppers: Wii has an MSRP of $249.99, while Nintendo DS has an MSRP of $129.99.
"As shoppers look for ways to maximize their limited holiday spending money, they turn to gifts that can be used by the entire family," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Wii and Nintendo DS offer something for every member of the family. They're the most fun video game experiences at the most affordable price."
With higher gas prices and fuel costs, and the lukewarm expectations for the 2007 holiday shopping season, Wii and Nintendo DS might be just what Santa ordered: Thirty-five percent of consumers said they plan to spend less than they did last year, according to a survey conducted by Opinion Research Corp. for the Consumer Federation of America and the Credit Union National Association. Similarly, a USA Today/Gallup Poll showed that 25 percent of Americans expect to spend less on gifts this year than they did in 2006.
Note that the internal Nintendo of America numbers referenced in this release represent sales from Sunday, Nov. 18, through Saturday, Nov. 24.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/black-friday/nintendo-350k-wii-sold-last-week-record-ds-sales-327167.php

 

[RobertR1]

And then adjust after NPD is released

Funny enough, they refuse to do that since last NPD. They're convinced their numbers are more accurate.

 

[RobertR1]

Nintendo is simply going to walk all over MS and Sony this holiday season. It'll be shocking, you watch.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Well they sold what, 650k in the last 2 weeks? That's insane. If Nintendo can keep up supply they could set some records...

 

[Limanima]

I really don't get the huge success of the Wii. Is this all due to the controllers? Why are people rushing to get the Wii? I don't get it.
Is it the price? Let's suppose the Wii would cost the same as the XBox and PS3. Will it rule in sales anyways? Is there any strong campain for the Wii in the US? I live in Portugal, and I haven't seen a single Wii ad yet.
Who's buying the Wii?

 

[2real4tv]

I think alot of it has to do with the price point and also the content that on the system compare to the other two next gen. Can u even get any educational games on ps3 or 360?

 

[PellePlutt]

I think the important thing is that the wii has something to differentiate itself. It isn't just an incremental improvement over something people already have, and it isn't competing with another pretty much identical product like the xbox360 and ps3 are.

I've never bought a console before because I've always preferred playing on a PC, but the wii was different enough to justify a purchase..

 

[ninzel]

I think it's about price as well,but as the Ebay and craigslist frenzy starts up again and Wii's are selling for more than 360's ,those two ideas seem at odds with each other.

 

[_xxx_]

I really don't get the huge success of the Wii. Is this all due to the controllers? Why are people rushing to get the Wii? I don't get it.
Is it the price? Let's suppose the Wii would cost the same as the XBox and PS3. Will it rule in sales anyways? Is there any strong campain for the Wii in the US? I live in Portugal, and I haven't seen a single Wii ad yet.
Who's buying the Wii?

It's because it's more fun (for the "masses") than anything else. The easiness of use and the social factor make it irresistible for families, party folks etc. And as for who's buying it, I own one and know a buttload of people (mostly non-gamers!) who own one or will buy it for christmas. My mom (58 y.o.) also enjoys Wii Sports, plays it every time she visits me and also thinks about buying one so she can play at home anytime

It's not about price either, it's all about the Wiimote (also the reason why I bought it on launch) and accessibility/ease of use for beginners/non-gamers.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Price is a factor, but the Wiimote has huge intrinsic appeal. If the Wii were $400 though it wouldn't have done nearly as well. If the Wii were $400 there wouldn't be enough demand for there to even be any eBay auctions IMO. At $250 they really nailed the pricing.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I really don't get the huge success of the Wii. Is this all due to the controllers? Why are people rushing to get the Wii? I don't get it.

Every representation of Wii is with the player and friends/family. Even single player games are shown with someone spectating. It's positioned as the sociable game system, where traditionally consoles are seen as fairly isolationist pastimes. The Wiimote helps people get involved by not being spooked, but if it was just the Wiimote in Wii and no social games, I doubt it'd get very far. The choice of software and market positioning is the master-stroke by Nintendo IMO. Cooperative gaming is too often overlooked, and yet the 'masses' are probably only going to care for gaming when its something they can share.

 

[RobertR1]

The price and the just over all market perception. The Wii is the cool/in thing. It has the mass consumer buzz around it. Similar to ipod's. Atleast in NA, it might be a while before anything comes close.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Every representation of Wii is with the player and friends/family. Even single player games are shown with someone spectating. It's positioned as the sociable game system, where traditionally consoles are seen as fairly isolationist pastimes. The Wiimote helps people get involved by not being spooked, but if it was just the Wiimote in Wii and no social games, I doubt it'd get very far. The choice of software and market positioning is the master-stroke by Nintendo IMO. Cooperative gaming is too often overlooked, and yet the 'masses' are probably only going to care for gaming when its something they can share.

But isn't it obvious that the Wiimote will lead to social gaming? I agree with you, but I'm just pointing out that a big point of the Wiimote is social gaming.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not necessarily. If the only games that Nintendo produced were Zelda, MP, Mario, etc. it wouldn't the success it is. The smart thing was launching with social party games Sports and Play, almost as a bi-product of wanting to showcase the Wii. I suppose to a degree Wii is a big plus-point for 'social gaming' in lending itself to silly little party games like Smooth Moves, which wouldn't be fun on a conventional controller. However, Nintendo's big push is more on social gaming than Wiimote, it seems to me. They show people playing Mario Galaxy or MP3 with someone there watching and getting all excited. You could have done that with any game on any system for the past 20 years, but no-one really did. Some games were sociable like EyeToy or Buzz, but Nintendo have created an actual sociable console that's free of the traditional market perception. A couple of changes with the launch - let's say Paper Mario and MP3 at launch and there was no Sports and Play - and the machine wouldn't have got anywhere. Which is what Nintendo seem to have understood, or chanced at anyway, making sure the introduction of their machine, named Wii with that ludicrous notion of sociable gaming being two people in the name!, was as a sociable machine.

 

[Limanima]

If the Wii is selling well because it provides a good social gaming, are they hitting a new market, or this is the same market of former PS2 or XBox owners?

What I'm asking is: most of this people didn't own a console and now are buying the Wii, or are this people former PS2 or Xbox owners that decided to buy the Wii in this new generation instead of the PS3 and Xbox 360?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

From anecdotes, most are people who didn't get a console last gen and Wii is their first console, though there's clearly some cross-over and no hard-and-fast numbers.

 

[Readykilowatt]

I really don't get the huge success of the Wii.

It's really pretty simple...

Why you think the Wii has struck such a chord with consumers, including bringing non-gamers to the table?

Nintendo’s philosophy has always been that we’re an entertainment company and that entertainment is something that is for everybody. We want the widest possible audience to enjoy the entertainment that we provide. The one concern that we’ve had for a long time is that the videogame industry, as the hardware and the technology has progressed, has gotten more and more complex. And in doing so, the potential audiences for those games has gradually diminished to people who only play games. This has been a problem that we’ve felt challenged by and we’d felt for a long time that we had to solve so that we could break beyond the borders of just the videogame audience and once again bring our interactive entertainment to the mass market. I think that we were able to find a solution in Wii because we have our hardware designers and our software designers working together simultaneously. Through their collaboration and their creativity, we were able to come up with a product that we felt would appeal not only to the gaming audience, but maybe be able to break beyond those borders to a wider market. It's something we have been working on for the last 10 years and I think we have finally seen it come to fruition.

So basically what you did was go back to the basics and kept it simple so that everybody could play.

That’s right. We wanted to go back to the drawing board. We felt that we really needed to make videogames something that everybody could pick up and enjoy. In recent years, the controllers had gotten so complicated that many people were afraid or put off by them and didn’t know how to play. We really tried to streamline the controllers and make them as simple as possible so that anybody could pick them up and play and that’s what we have really been striving to do with Wii.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8096&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=2

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Not necessarily. If the only games that Nintendo produced were Zelda, MP, Mario, etc. it wouldn't the success it is. The smart thing was launching with social party games Sports and Play, almost as a bi-product of wanting to showcase the Wii. I suppose to a degree Wii is a big plus-point for 'social gaming' in lending itself to silly little party games like Smooth Moves, which wouldn't be fun on a conventional controller. However, Nintendo's big push is more on social gaming than Wiimote, it seems to me. They show people playing Mario Galaxy or MP3 with someone there watching and getting all excited. You could have done that with any game on any system for the past 20 years, but no-one really did. Some games were sociable like EyeToy or Buzz, but Nintendo have created an actual sociable console that's free of the traditional market perception. A couple of changes with the launch - let's say Paper Mario and MP3 at launch and there was no Sports and Play - and the machine wouldn't have got anywhere. Which is what Nintendo seem to have understood, or chanced at anyway, making sure the introduction of their machine, named Wii with that ludicrous notion of sociable gaming being two people in the name!, was as a sociable machine.

Very good points. Without Wii Sports the Wii would have fizzled IMO.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Not necessarily. If the only games that Nintendo produced were Zelda, MP, Mario, etc. it wouldn't the success it is. The smart thing was launching with social party games Sports and Play, almost as a bi-product of wanting to showcase the Wii. I suppose to a degree Wii is a big plus-point for 'social gaming' in lending itself to silly little party games like Smooth Moves, which wouldn't be fun on a conventional controller. However, Nintendo's big push is more on social gaming than Wiimote, it seems to me. They show people playing Mario Galaxy or MP3 with someone there watching and getting all excited. You could have done that with any game on any system for the past 20 years, but no-one really did. Some games were sociable like EyeToy or Buzz, but Nintendo have created an actual sociable console that's free of the traditional market perception. A couple of changes with the launch - let's say Paper Mario and MP3 at launch and there was no Sports and Play - and the machine wouldn't have got anywhere. Which is what Nintendo seem to have understood, or chanced at anyway, making sure the introduction of their machine, named Wii with that ludicrous notion of sociable gaming being two people in the name!, was as a sociable machine.

I think the real key with Wii Sports was packaging in tradition game types that everyone can relate too.

Bowling, baseball, golf, boxing...these are sports that almost everyone has played at some point, so if you give a non-gamer a motion sensor, and say try this, they immediately make that connection and think it's fun and cool.

For example, I bought my girlfriend a Wii, now her dad comes over to play, her aunts and uncles, and her girlfriends, none of these people are gamers at all, except maybe the girlfriends, but they like to come over and Bowl, or have a home run derby, or have a quick boxing match...

If you tried that same thing with a game that did not have a real life counter part, like Mario, or Metroid, many people would simply consider it just a video game, and immediately be turned off.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

From anecdotes, most are people who didn't get a console last gen and Wii is their first console, though there's clearly some cross-over and no hard-and-fast numbers.

I think it's 35% new players, 35% former PS2/Xbox owners, and 30% Nintendoids. All just a guess based on the people I know that have them. Wii is reaching a broad segment of the market.

I still don't believe it's taking over the market though. Especially a couple years from now when the X360 and PS3 will be priced in the $199-$249 range. Core gamers really want to play the next GT, MGS, FF, GTA, Gears of War, etc... Especially as more and more people buy HDTVs.

My prediction is that the Wii sells it's first 40 million units at a brisk pace, but that it will start to slow down a little after that, probably settling in around the 60 million mark. Very respectable, but I don't think it's headed to 100 million.

X360 and PS3 will each be in the 40-60 million unit range in the end.

Very interesting times.