Wii passes 20 million in sales, but …
Posted on June 12th, 2009 – 8:50 AMBy Randy A. Salas
Nintendo’s vitamin-fortified Wii system surpassed 20 million units in U.S. sales in May, but things are starting to stagnate for the No. 1 console. While two of May’s top 10 video games were new Wii titles — Electronic Arts’ Sports Active and Nintendo’s Punch Out! — the biggest-selling Wii game (No. 2 overall) was Wii Fit, which is more than a year old. Two other top 10 Wii games, Wii Play and Mario Kart Wii, are also more than a year old. That’s not good that gamers continually gravitate toward older games on the Wii. It means that new games aren’t keeping current owners interested. That might change with the upcoming release of Nintendo’s flagship titles Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. But those won’t be exactly new ideas, either — although the latter will be a welcome debut on the newer system. Still, is the Wii running out of creative juice?
5 Responses to "Wii passes 20 million in sales, but …"
As a Wii owner, I’m not sure it ever had creative juice. Other than its interface and cuteness, it brings little to the table in terms of innovation (and neither of those is about the games).
If the 360 or PS3 had the same kind of controllers, I’d probably own one of those, and be much happier with my choice of games (and graphics).
If the PS3 makers were smart, they’d drop the price and sell them as a loss leader. That’s the system.
I think the Wii sells because they market (smartly) to the non-video game crowd, which is much larger than the video game crowd. It is their marketing that is their real innovation/genius.
Addendum: They market to mom’s quite well. Not necessarily directly, but through the controller (your kid won’t just sit on the couch), the games (most are pretty non-violent / cartoony), and the fitness aspect with Wii fit, oh, and the safe party aspect. Since mom’s have mostly been shunned and put off by the video game marketplace, this was brilliant, brilliant marketing. Their product manager probably deserves a raise.
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The Wii’s great, but I think its weakness is that a lot of the popular games are lacking in depth. Naturally, when you introduce a new interface paradigm (motion controllers vs. button controllers) you want the gameplay to be relatively shallow, so that people can simply pick up and play.
Nintendo needs to focus on increasing gameplay depth to start appealing towards more serious gamers. If they’re smart, they’ll release an upgrade to the Wii in the next 6 months, or a whole new console that’s backwards compatible.
Plus now with upcoming interfaces that will supposedly add Wii-like control to the much more advanced consoles, the PS3 and 360, one has to wonder if the Wii was an innovating idea, but not the best implementation? It would not be the first time that an innovator was not the market leader in the end.
I like the idea of the Wii, but let’s be realistic. It was an update of the Gamecube. Nintendo was banking on the cuteness and supposed innovation of the controller. I think the gimmick quickly wears off.
Another thing Nintendo was going after casual gamers, but I think they are now finding casual gamers don’t drive software sales.
I am not a heavy gamer but I want quality when I do decide to purchase one. The game quality for Wii based games has not impressed me. I might buy one for my five-year old, but I am much more satisified with my PS3 purchase that was based on a HD environmnet.
