No more NPD numbers (group hug coming up!)

You guys don't think that people will quickly get sick of the Wii?
I'm a guy that enjoys all type of games. I like the Eye Toy games, which I think are very similar to those in the Wii.
I got sick of those games easely. They are fun to play, but for only a short moment. After that I see myself playing FF or GTA or whatever. In the end, I always end up spending more time with more "complex" games.
I've downloaded Creature Feature and The Trials of Topoq (both PSEye games) and they are really fun. But only for a short moment...
For how long will people play Wii Sports? Will Nintendo be able to keep renewing the games and keep the Wii fresh?
 
Readykilowatt said:
It's really pretty simple...
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8096&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=2
Click to expand...
If that was it, do you think Wii would have the same success now if it didn't have all those social games? If it had MP3, Mario Galaxies, Mario Strikers, Red Steel, etc, but no Sports and Play, do you really think all these new owners would have bought Wii to play those games with the new controller? Or if Sports and Play were single player only? If Nintendo really believed that it was just the controller needed to open up the 'normal' games to new gamers, then they just got real lucky!
 
Yeah. You're right. The average guy on the street doesn't care about Metroid Prime 3. It's not a controller issue. You could jack MP3 into casual gamers heads so it was so intuitive it would blow your mind and it wouldn't have the impact that Wii Sports has. Other than the 30% Nintendoid (IMO) that purchased a Wii for Nintendo games, the other 70% of Wii owners didn't really buy a Wii. They bought Wii Sports/Play with a dongle called Wii.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
If that was it, do you think Wii would have the same success now if it didn't have all those social games? If it had MP3, Mario Galaxies, Mario Strikers, Red Steel, etc, but no Sports and Play, do you really think all these new owners would have bought Wii to play those games with the new controller? Or if Sports and Play were single player only? If Nintendo really believed that it was just the controller needed to open up the 'normal' games to new gamers, then they just got real lucky!
Click to expand...

Nintendo did a smart thing by packaging Wii Sports with the Wii and Wii Play with a controller. It guarantees that Wii Sports and Wii Play will have a strong presence in the mind of potential buyers far longer than they would have as standalone games.

Not many people are buying the 360 over the current holidays because of GeOW and not many will buy the 360 during next year's holiday season because of Halo3 but a significant number of consumers will continue to buy the Wii for Wii Sports and Wii Play for the Wii controller for a long time to come as long as they remain packaged with the Wii and controller.

Since the Wii Sports and Play's attractiveness to consumers aren't built around graphics, those titles don't have to worry about looking dated. Both titles are built around the unique motion features of the Wii and its doubtful that playing it will look less fun over time to new consumers.

Packaging will allow Wii Sports and Wii Play to remain marquee titles for the course of the generation. Super Mario Bros would have reached nowhere near its LTD sales if it had been released as only a standalone game and its attractiveness would have faded long before EOL of the NES system.

I think MS and Sony should package a major first party AAA franchise into every console as it leads to far greater exposure than any titles could do on its own. It practically gaurantees heavy sales for sequels as bundling means everyone that owns your console has been exposed to that particular franchise.

Imagine if the Wii had standard controllers and the motion sensing controller had to be bought as a seperate peripheral and Wii Sports and Wii Play were standalone games? Its highly doubtful that that kind of scenario would have produce the same level of demand for the console and those particular games as the current setup of the Wii.
 
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Exactly. And why some of us are disappointed that Sony didn't include PSEye in the box as standard. They're potential for reaching the same market as Nintendo is severely retarded because of that decision. Cost was always going to be a problem, but if for your $600 or whatever you got your BRD player and high-end games machine and a strong social game you could play with friends and family, it'd be a much stronger sell. Perhaps they ought to include LBP as standard when its available?

I think there's certainly scope for companies to focus more on positioning and software value as a differentiator in future. Having the better hardware isn't likely to win you as many buyers as having a great mass-appeal packin. Even great stand-alone titles have trouble selling on individual merit. There's a lot of scope for creative marketing and positioning.
 
I think when you're talking phenomenoms like the Wii, there's only room for one.

At $600, PS3 would never have competed with Wii, and would never have reached that audience regardless of what happened. Not to mention, Nintendo's unique brand of 1st party titles is a huge factor in why the Wii is so appealing.

So, it's probably a smarter choice for Sony to not package in the Eyetoy, it wouldn't have had any effect anyways at that pricepoint, and that's assuming they would've been able to provide compelling software to the casual gamer group. If they want to do that, they can still do so when they reach a lower pricepoint.
 
Putting a PS Eye into the box is nice, but not really what I would go for. If nothing else, it would increase the cost of the package, and that's not what's needed right now. Besides, the machine has plenty of features already.

If Sony were to do anything, it would be create even bigger software teams, and focus on getting software out even faster to make use of the unique abilities of the PS3. That's one of the biggest parts where the Wii is making a difference now (as was the DS) and it's for a large part due to Nintendo's software development team.

I would probably even make games using a mouse or something similar. Everyone has a mouse or can get one cheaply, you can even pack one in almost effortlessly. Keyboard, ditto. As long as you can make some fun software that uses it, whether educational or business-like or whatever, it doesn't matter.

The hardware is there, now it's all about software. And PSN helps in testing the waters early too, so you can do some prototyping and see how people react. Bring new and wild ideas out there and go with it. The recent PSN development thing with the drawing stuff on paper is a good example, but maybe even too technologically advanced compared to what they could be doing to make good use out of the machine. If you let your mind roam free, it's easy to come up with a tonne of ideas (at least that's my personal experience), and it's just a matter of creating a clever structure that gets those ideas out there. Ditto, by the way, for third party publishers.

Most important thing is though that the PS3 can do a lot of different stuff, and as a result a lot of different people will buy it for different reasons. The Wii, most people right now buy for either Wii-mote Play, or for Nintendo software, or both. The PS3 has much wider potential in that regard, but that also makes it harder to focus on a specific market and to market it efficiently.
 
Arwin said:
Putting a PS Eye into the box is nice, but not really what I would go for. If nothing else, it would increase the cost of the package, and that's not what's needed right now. Besides, the machine has plenty of features already.
Click to expand...

The addition of an Eye Toy would have been cheaper than the addition of hardware related to BC. None of the added features that is not part of the core hardware has the potential that a Eye Toy for every PS3 would of have if it had be included.

Arwin said:
If Sony were to do anything, it would be create even bigger software teams, and focus on getting software out even faster to make use of the unique abilities of the PS3. That's one of the biggest parts where the Wii is making a difference now (as was the DS) and it's for a large part due to Nintendo's software development team.
Click to expand...

Packaging Wii Sports and Wii Play into the hardware gives Nintendo an advantage over Sony and MS. 4 years from now, people will still be buying the Wii with knowledge that Wii Sports is part of the package and thus Wii Sports will still provide an added incentive to purchase the Wii. The same goes for Wii Play when buying a Wii controller. Halo3, GT, FF13 and MGS4 are not going to directly factor into the buying decision of a 360 or PS3 4 years from now. The PS3 and 360 are dependent on new releases to maintain or create demand year in and year out. While Nintendo will have two titles that will carry over every year to help maintain demand of the hardware.

Wii Sports and Wii Play represents one time investments whose costs will add up to a few pennies for each console and each controller sold. Continual release of software comes at the expense of heavy budgets every year to release software that may or may not attract consumers.

Arwin said:
I would probably even make games using a mouse or something similar. Everyone has a mouse or can get one cheaply, you can even pack one in almost effortlessly. Keyboard, ditto. As long as you can make some fun software that uses it, whether educational or business-like or whatever, it doesn't matter.
Click to expand...

A mouse or a keyboard isn't conducive to every PS3 setup and not even the average setup for that matter.
 
CNBC: 360 Sells 310,000 in US Last Week

UPDATE: More than 310,000 Xbox 360 consoles sold in the U.S. for the week of Nov. 18, including Black Friday, rounding out its third holiday season on the market. While Xbox 360 consoles continue to generate great consumer demand, the strength of the Xbox 360 ecosystem remains unmatched by any console on the market.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/22025587
 
Additionally, 360 software outsold both PS3 and Wii put together.


Software sales continue to outpace those of Wii and PS3, with Xbox 360 capturing 54 percent of total software sales at $162 million during October, according to NPD. Wii and PS3 captured 30 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
 
Microsoft announced Thursday that that Xbox 360 sold 310,000 units for the week of November 18 in the US. This compares favorably to the year-younger Nintendo Wii, which sold 350,000 units during the same time frame.

It’s highly likely that the gap could’ve been wider if Nintendo was able to keep up with the Wii’s runaway demand.

...

Microsoft said that it outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 2 to 1 last week, according to retail estimates.

Greenberg also said that the newly-introduced entry-level Xbox 360 Arcade package ($280) is performing considerably better than expected.

“We heard from one of our top retailers that the launch of Arcade was the biggest Xbox 360 sales week since Christmas of last year. It’s performed above what we’ve expected and is a bigger percentage of the mix than what we thought it would be.”
Click to expand...

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8148&Itemid=2
 
I have to think they expected the Arcade to do better than the old core, but I wonder how much better than expectations that it really is doing.
 
I think that pretty much confirms an 500K+ November for both MS and Nintendo. Probably in the 600-700K range for the Wii, but X360 will be a close second.
 
Nintendo are steamrolling the holidays already. I can't imagine it would be easy to find a Wii this Christmas anywhere (except New Zealand?), even with the increased shipped numbers. MS and Sony just need to to bow out of comparing themselves to Nintendo's numbers at all, since it looks like the war has been lost and won ;)
 
PARANOiA said:
Nintendo are steamrolling the holidays already. I can't imagine it would be easy to find a Wii this Christmas anywhere (except New Zealand?), even with the increased shipped numbers. MS and Sony just need to to bow out of comparing themselves to Nintendo's numbers at all, since it looks like the war has been lost and won ;)
Click to expand...

MS & Sony aren't comparing..
 
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PARANOiA said:
Nintendo are steamrolling the holidays already. I can't imagine it would be easy to find a Wii this Christmas anywhere (except New Zealand?), even with the increased shipped numbers. MS and Sony just need to to bow out of comparing themselves to Nintendo's numbers at all, since it looks like the war has been lost and won ;)
Click to expand...

I got a feeling that Nintendo has been doing quite a bit of holiday hoarding the last 6 months. They've up there production to 1.2 million and then 1.8 million, but world wide sales seems like they are moving around 1 million a month for a while now.

They already flushed a big shipment into the US for the month of Nov and I am sure they have a bigger shipment planned for December. I wouldn't be surprised if Wii sales tally for the month of Dec come somewhere north of 2 million.
 
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