Wii = ultra affordable?

[patsu]

I agree that I think Wii will end up in a niche like Cube did. Few good 3rd party games but lots of good 1st party stuff (if Nintendo games are your thing that is).

Too early to tell though. I had the same feeling for DS after I bought it. Some of the initial games were downright gimmicky. Even today, I play PSP more than DS... but clearly, the DS is no niche play.

 

[iNoV]

Exactly. And that's just the thing: As a regular gamer you will always be starved for games on the Wii, just like we were with the Cube. It's Nintendo's philosophy to only bring out 2 decent games every year.

I'm 50/50 right now on whether or not the Wii is going to be this 20 million unit niche product, or whether it can actually explode into 50+ million in an expanded market. My main reservation with Nintendo's strategy is that most of this new audience (women, grand-dads etc..) they are trying to go after are the type of people that will be interested and claim they would love a Wii, but then can't keep interested beyond a few hours.

For instance, most girl gamers I know claim they are "gamers", but then they can't really stay focused on gaming for more than a couple of hours a week. It's like these surveys you see on the Net all the time where women represent 55% of gamers or some other nonsense and then you find out in the fine print that more women game than men, but that they're playing solitaire for an hour every week and the men are playing Gears of War for 16 hours.

I'm just not sure the demographic that Nintendo is targetting (ie. people who don't care about GTAIV, Halo3, MGS4, FFXIII, Gears of War, GT4, Forza 2, etcc...) is actually that interested in spending much money on gaming.

It actually doesn't matter whether they spend heavily on games or play games much at all that matter is that the machines are out there in peoples homes, that's is the only way nintendo will be able to maintain third party support given most of th eother disadvantages in the face of the competition.

Also i am surprised people seem to think nintendo is raking in a huge mountain of money, they are only making a $10 profit off each machine sold. I know thats a lot but people seem to be acting as if nintendo are making a $100+ per unit. Its is affordable considering how little profit nintendo is making i'd also argue that it wasn't over priced.

I find it funny that people are avoiding buying a wii at launch on the principal that it is overpriced, and say they will wait for a price drop simply because the more the price drops the more overpriced the machine actually is. That's is why i also believe you are getting the best value for money on your PS3 at launch.

Its not ultra affordable but it is affordable, but my question is what is pushing up the price?

 

[Corwin_B]

The fact that every single Wii unit made is being sold very quickly at the current price shows that the price is right from a business perspective. Same for the PS3, actually. Once the initial launch demand slows down, we will see if those machines are priced right.

For example, it seems that the 360 is at a point where in spite of excellent games and well available hardware, the price is starting to slow down the rate of adoption.

I read somewhere (don't remember where, though) that Nintendo was initially considering a $199 price point for the Wii launch, but that large retailer chains asked them to bump the price because it looked like demand was going to be incredible for the holiday season (so why not pad up profit margins for everyone involved).

Choosing price points for those machines is pretty complicated, actually. You want to win as much (or more often lose as little) as possible on each machine, but at the same time you want to sell out at launch, but without having to drop price by a large amount as soon as production ramps up (like MS had to do with the original XBox) because it makes you look unsuccesful and could angry early adopters.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It actually doesn't matter whether they spend heavily on games or play games much at all that matter is that the machines are out there in peoples homes, that's is the only way nintendo will be able to maintain third party support given most of th eother disadvantages in the face of the competition.

Quite the opposite actually. As a dev, would you develop for a platform with 10 million users that buys on average 40 million games a year, or a platform with 50 million users that buys on average 25 million games a year? GC had similar numbers to XB, but lost development because of lack-lustre 3rd party sales. The install base means squat if the owners don't buy games. In the case of Wii, after the initial launch-title purchases, will gamers get tired? My sis' isn't a real gamer. She's owned a GB, GBA and DS, and buys no games for them. The same could happen with Wii after the novelty factor wears off, which could be the reason these people are buying - just the 'it's new' and once they're used to it and it becomes old, they get back to watching TV, listening to the radio, and the other stuff they did before getting a Wii.

On the flip side of the argument, DS has quite healthy software sales doesn't it? So where that could have gone the gimmick route too, it suggests that software sales can be maintained. Then again, aren't those all Nintendo games still? How do 3rd parties do on DS?

 

[Rolf N]

Quite the opposite actually. As a dev, would you develop for a platform with 10 million users that buys on average 40 million games a year, or a platform with 50 million users that buys on average 25 million games a year?

Such statistics aren't always as valuable though. They get used to make predictions about the potential sales on a platform, but they ignore quality concerns, price concerns, genre concerns. Games aren't all alike, and if you avoid bringing a game to a platform that its users are at large looking forward to, because of such a statistic based on different games that the users don't want, you've made a mistake.

On the other side you have the platform holders trying to squeeze the statistics as hard as possible to make the platform look as attractive as possible. I'm sure Nintendo will soon be able to present amazing attachment rate statistics if they factor in VC games. But it doesn't matter. If your user base can be shown to buy established classics for chump change, you can't really use that information to project sales of new and much more expensive games. Of course it should be Nintendo's goal, in terms of business, to short-change publishers this way.

 

[Citrous]

I wouldn't be caught dead playing a shooter on a console anyway. You can pry my kb/mouse from my cold dead hands. The wii has more then lived up to its expectations as far as I'm concerned. I got a PS3 for high-def gaming; HDMI into a 65" 1080p set.

I bought the wii to satisfy another side of my inner gamer.

To the very first reply after my other post: I never said I bought the wii to "get laid on saturday night" or w/e drivel it was that you spewed. I was merely pointing out that you will see roughly, a metric assload worth of chicks who would rather play a wii then an xbox/ps3. I enjoy getting newbies interested in gaming, regardless of the outlook of getting myself into their panties.

When someone who is generally not interested in gaming comes over, sure I may bust out the GT:HD at 1080p just to show them how far graphics have come, but then I would immedietly switch to the wii and let them hammer away at some WiiSports or Super Monkey Ball. I can tell you right now that most people will indeed awe at the graphics of GT, but seize up when they try to jump right into playing it.

I'm having fun with my wii, I wouldn't call it "ultra affordable", but it was more then worth the price to me. ta ta.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Maybe your women will be as loose as the controls in Wii Sports, but I find that actually taking them into the bedroom is more effective; usually after my adrenaline/testosterone has peaked after chainsawing someone in half while playing Gears of War.

 

[quest55720]

For now nintendo did get the pricing right. The Wii demand is just crazy right now. For a person with out a HD TV I can see why they would jump at the Wii. I love my 360 but when I only had a SD tv it was a bit underwhelming. It was not till I played it on a HD-tv could I appreciate how damn good the games look. You can walk out of the store at 249+ tax and play a game. You are looking at near 400 to do the same on the 360 core+memory card+game. People who I would of never thought in a million years would get a system or one for thier kids at launch are lining up several times a week hoping to get a Wii. The beauty is nintendo can make an extra 50 now while demand is hot and still have the room to drop the price when MS does in NA. How I wish I bought nintendo stock when the DS launched.

 

[iNoV]

Quite the opposite actually. As a dev, would you develop for a platform with 10 million users that buys on average 40 million games a year, or a platform with 50 million users that buys on average 25 million games a year? GC had similar numbers to XB, but lost development because of lack-lustre 3rd party sales. The install base means squat if the owners don't buy games. In the case of Wii, after the initial launch-title purchases, will gamers get tired? My sis' isn't a real gamer. She's owned a GB, GBA and DS, and buys no games for them. The same could happen with Wii after the novelty factor wears off, which could be the reason these people are buying - just the 'it's new' and once they're used to it and it becomes old, they get back to watching TV, listening to the radio, and the other stuff they did before getting a Wii.

On the flip side of the argument, DS has quite healthy software sales doesn't it? So where that could have gone the gimmick route too, it suggests that software sales can be maintained. Then again, aren't those all Nintendo games still? How do 3rd parties do on DS?

But 3rd parties never really gave GC a chance to begin with, GC was already being overlooked by 3rd party's from the start of its life. Before the buying trends of install base had any chance of being noticed.

The fact that every single Wii unit made is being sold very quickly at the current price shows that the price is right from a business perspective. Same for the PS3, actually. Once the initial launch demand slows down, we will see if those machines are priced right.

For example, it seems that the 360 is at a point where in spite of excellent games and well available hardware, the price is starting to slow down the rate of adoption.

I read somewhere (don't remember where, though) that Nintendo was initially considering a $199 price point for the Wii launch, but that large retailer chains asked them to bump the price because it looked like demand was going to be incredible for the holiday season (so why not pad up profit margins for everyone involved).

Choosing price points for those machines is pretty complicated, actually. You want to win as much (or more often lose as little) as possible on each machine, but at the same time you want to sell out at launch, but without having to drop price by a large amount as soon as production ramps up (like MS had to do with the original XBox) because it makes you look unsuccesful and could angry early adopters.

Yeh i remember reading something similar. Nintendo were also considering taking a loss at start like they did with DS, which they would have done at the $199 price, but they eventually decided it was better to make a little profit.