NPD April 2007

[Eteric]

hmm... probably pretty close to what a $250 Wii sells like.

As is, Wii is severely supply constrained (still). Dropping price on the Wii in response to a xb360 price-drop would do nothing for N except reduce their profit margin.

We may be faced with an odd situation where xb360 is sold for less than Wii.

That would definately be different.

And the Wii would probably continue to sell. The casual market is quite ignorant to graphics and HD compared to the more seasoned gamers. They probably won't know the difference.

Heck, they have videos at Wal-Mart on loop with one showing Lair, Resistence, and Motorstorm, while the Wii shows Mario Party, Wii Sports, Wii Play, and Paper Mario.

Guess which one people are looking at the most. :|

 

[ninzel]

We may be faced with an odd situation where xb360 is sold for less than Wii.

I would doubt that. If the Wii is having trouble keeping up with demand at $250 I imagine the 360 would be even more supply constrained at a lower price. Price is clearly limiting demand for 360 and PS3, that would spike with massive price drops.
I believe the Wii being older tech,gives Nintendo a better chance of meeting demand than MS would have.
Putting aside supply issues,I think my point about Nintendo always being at a price advantage is valid.

 

[TheChefO]

I would doubt that.

Well...
$299 xb360
$249 Wii

It's $50 short right now. Sales of xb360 have been slow and a price drop seems necessary and likely. At the same time, Wii is sold out before it hits the shelf. I wouldn't be surprised to see MS undercut the Wii or at least match the same price where Nintendo could sit tight with the same price likely through this Christmas.

 

[dobwal]

I walked into BB in Feb and picked one off a stack, I doubt they were hard to find in March. March just happened to be the month Oblivion and GRAW came out, hence sales picked up. But people love the urban myth of the supplied constrained 360, pretty soon it will stretch into July 2006

The fact that you walked into a store and bought a 360 off the shelves in February does little to disprove the 360 supply constraint during its early life.

I had to use BB online instore tracker to get my 360 at retail price last March. I searched for 8 weeks and called about 50 different stores while concentration on 6 major retailers at their biggest stores and calling multiple times a week around the city of houston, texas the fourth largest city in the US. I used multiple tracking sites which tracked the majority of the major online stores and for the most part only highly priced bundles were available with some regularity and typical length of time of greater than 24 hours.

The chance of your experience during a supply constraint is probably a million times more likely than a mine in a fully supplied market. Its not an urban legend.

 

[<nu>faust]

ok here is my question:

does ms really want to be the market leader in videogames market or just stopping sony on the living room media center front and creating a healthy proftable platform that is also the leader of hd gaming would be enough for them?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Or maybe the PS2. Wii buyers are not old school gamers, they are some strange new demographics, I don't think they want a PS3 or 360 no matter what the price.

Everyone I know that bought a Wii is an old school gamer. As in, people who haven't been interested in gaming post PS1/N64 and look on the NES, SNES and Genesis as the golden age of gaming. These are also the same people who are buying boat loads of DS, because it has New Super Mario Bros, Castlevania etc. A lot of them haven't owned a console in a long time. They remember when they played games to have fun and didn't care about what was inside the box. The Wii is a throwback system with a new controller. I would say I fit into that same boat.

 

[ninzel]

Well...
$299 xb360
$249 Wii

It's $50 short right now. Sales of xb360 have been slow and a price drop seems necessary and likely. At the same time, Wii is sold out before it hits the shelf. I wouldn't be surprised to see MS undercut the Wii or at least match the same price where Nintendo could sit tight with the same price likely through this Christmas.

I guess my point is,whatever problem that a Wii price drop causes would also apply to the 360.... unless MS has better supply ability?
So if it doesn't make sense to drop the price now on the Wii because of supply issues wouldn't a price drop on the 360 also cause supply issues thus negating the advantage?
You could be correct,but I just don't see Nintendo giving up one of their biggest advantanges without a fight. And I doubt MS wants to test Nintendo's ability to ramp of supply even further.
MS's direct competition is already more expensive,so I don't see any price drops soon unless they can ensure that they can meet demand(65-nm??)
I expect MS and Nintendo to try and ride out this holiday with bundles and or using their big guns to sell the system further.

 

[scooby_dooby]

unless MS has better supply ability?

Or less demand!

 

[ninzel]

Or less demand!

I'm not sure what you mean.
Let's assume equal demand for both the Wii and 360 right now,who has the greater ability to meet demand?

 

[dobwal]

I'm not sure what you mean.
Let's assume equal demand for both the Wii and 360 right now,who has the greater ability to meet demand?

I doubt a manufacturer that has had a product in circulation for 19 months would have problems producing more than a manufacturer out less than 7 months. Even when you account for a technology gap, it shouldn't take a manufacturer almost two years to work out kinks that might affect production volumes and ramping up volume if demand dictated so.

 

[TheChefO]

wouldn't a price drop on the 360 also cause supply issues thus negating the advantage?

This assumes the difference in sales is tied directly to price.

I don't think it is. They are very different products and currently i think they have some overlap in mindshare but I think they also have very different targets.

(Overall for both companies obviously their target is profitability but I'm speaking of the means to get to this end.)

I don't believe MS would have the same sales as Wii if they dropped to match the price and this is not a knock on xb360. I just think Wii is appealing to a much wider audience right now and they have the right price to match.

It will be very odd to see a xb360 sitting on the shelf with a lower msrp than Wii.

 

[zed]

please MS drop the price of the xb360 $100 ( thus making it cheaper than the wii )
if only so i can see the ppls reactions when it would still being outsold by the wii

 

[Todd33]

Extrapolating the numbers is pretty useless...

 

[TheChefO]

please MS drop the price of the xb360 $100 ( thus making it cheaper than the wii )
if only so i can see the ppls reactions when it would still being outsold by the wii

It probably would!*

It is more approachable by design and thus will appeal to many non-gamers and gamers alike. Having said that, I think a $200 xb360 with Halo3 & GTA4 on the shelf will do pretty decent too.

(*depending on how much they drop the price and when they do so)

 

[TheChefO]

Extrapolating the numbers is pretty useless...

Well, aside from showing current sales trends. It can't predict with certainty of course but it does give an idea for where things are going.

Things will change these projections like game selection and console price, but aside from these variables, the projections can give us a good idea for where this gen is heading.

 

[Todd33]

Well, aside from showing current sales trends. It can't predict with certainty of course but it does give an idea for where things are going.

Things will change these projections like game selection and console price, but aside from these variables, the projections can give us a good idea for where this gen is heading.

It's completely useless. It is about as bad as you can get in forecasting. It ignores game releases, price drops, holiday shopping, mood swings, etc. The reality in a year or two will look nothing like that chart.

 

[TheChefO]

It's completely useless. It is about as bad as you can get in forecasting. It ignores game releases, price drops, holiday shopping, mood swings, etc. The reality in a year or two will look nothing like that chart.

Like I said, aside from the game selection and price drop variables (holiday shopping can be estimated), it gives an idea.

It's not perfect, but it's not "useless" either.

 

[dobwal]

Well, aside from showing current sales trends. It can't predict with certainty of course but it does give an idea for where things are going.

Things will change these projections like game selection and console price, but aside from these variables, the projections can give us a good idea for where this gen is heading.

Except those projections don't take account certain factors that inevitably affect the forecasted sales. The fact that the Wii was heavily supplied constrained during the holiday and remain so even now has a negative effect on its projection. The 360 benefits from having more supply and thus the holiday season has a positive effect on future projections.

 

[Rangers]

First of all Expletive, I feel like you and I are never in the same threads these days.

But second of all, on the MS PR, well... it's already started getting a little caustic. Saying the Wii is less powerful than XBox 1 and that "kids" will "grow out of it" when they turn 14 or whatever it is... I mean, that's harsh.

Anyway but I don't think 360 core can really compete with the Wii in the immediate term, price-drop or not. Lower price will of course raise sales mind you, but as mentioned elsewhere I don't think PS3 and 360 sales take away from Nintendo sales in the present context. I think either Wii will just begin to flame out a little on its own, or honestly it will in fact be a 'Revolution,' and indeed the game market will be fundamentally shifted. Maybe in the longrun there's a lot of grey in there as well.

I dont think a price drop will propel 360 above Wii either. I have no such delusions. In many parts of Europe I'm told Wii is already higher priced than X360 premium, yet in sales there's no comparison. There is much more demand for Wii.

BTW, I do not think the Xbox 1>Wii comments by MS were anything but innocent truth, something that B3d has discussed before. Now the outgrow at 14 comments clearly were aimed at Wii.

Also, MS, Peter Moore, have hinted that there are a couple "big" kiddy/family titles coming this holiday for 360 that have yet to be revealed. Some have even speculated it will involve some type of motion control. Dont be surprised when that's revealed. I wouldn't count on much success, though.

I do not think Wii is too much of a competitor to 360/PS3, simply because Epic, graphics heavy, challenging games will always be on those systems. And I think 18-30 males will go that way. Wii may "win" easily, but I think the market for PS3/360 will not go away, and in fact will grow. Videogames were a business "bigger than movies" (IIRC, might be wrong on this, but at any rate a very big business) even "back" when it was aimed almost exclusivly at 12-34 males.

BTW, Sonycowboy a good source at GAF says Elite sales were 67k in April. Which was only 1 week. Now one must interpet this news. Did Elite cannibalize 360 sales, or save them from an even worse month? As SC pointed out, take away Elite and that leaves only 107k 360's sold. It bears close watching to me if Elite becomes the new default SKU, which I dont think would be good news for MS as it would be a virtual price hike. It also confirms what I thought, that MS probably shipped ~100k Elite's and they sold out quickly. Elite's are still mostly sold out as of right now.

Itrackr is a site I look at to check availability, it's flawed apparantly but appears to give a general clue. Anyway, it has Elite at 17% national availability right now. Wii is at 11% for comparison.

 

[Todd33]

Like I said, aside from the game selection and price drop variables (holiday shopping can be estimated), it gives an idea.

It's not perfect, but it's not "useless" either.

It's semi-useful for the short run, but all bets are off in the Fall of 2007, let alone April 2008 where the plot ends.

If this was good science then Dean would be President...