[Looking at August's NPD U.S. console retail results, Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews finds Nintendo platforms lagging -- Wii hardware has hit a lifetime low, and could weakness in the DS market be attributed to iOS platforms?]
For at least six months analysts have been asking serious questions about the direction of the Wii market, in particular the software segment. This was not idle chatter – the Wii software market has had only one month of year-on-year growth in it the past year.
When Nintendo introduced its Wii MotionPlus hardware bundle, which comes with both Wii Sports Resort and Wii Play, Wedbush's Pachter suggested that this would erode software sales further.
While we are in no position to assign causality, we will note that software sales have declined by 19 percent, 30 percent, and 38 percent in June, July, and August, respectively, compared to those same months a year ago.
One difficulty is the continued strength of Wii titles on the top 20 software chart. In August alone, six titles for the Wii made it into the top 20, two developed and published by third-parties. The figures for July were similar, with seven Wii titles of which three were by third-parties.
One must accept that the top 20 chart does not tell the full story. Combined with what we know about software sales generally on the Wii, we can say that a selection of titles that do exceptionally well – Nintendo's Mario titles along with trendy third-party titles like Just Dance and Wipeout: The Game – while many others languish somewhere below the public rankings.
At some level, this is true on all platforms. The absence of Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days in the August top 20 suffices to establish this point.
However, the Wii is notable for being both the best-selling current generation console of the last 12 months and the one with the greatest decline in software sales so far this year. Year-to-date Wii software dollars are down an estimated 23 percent, while the Xbox 360 is essentially flat and the PlayStation 3 is up about 35 percent. (See table below.)
While total software dollars are down nearly 9 percent so far in 2010, the current generation console software segment (Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3) is practically flat with the same point last year. That is, all the ground lost by Wii software has been made up by gains in PlayStation 3 software, for a net change of approximately zero.
As long as Nintendo continued to sell Wii systems at a blistering pace, the software market seemed able to support itself. We believe that a significant portion of Wii software is bought by new owners (what we would define as those within the first six months of ownership), and continued hardware sales provided ample supply of new owners to snap up Wii software.
Wii hardware has now hit an all-time low, recording its weakest monthly total since the system launched in November 2006. In terms of average weekly sales only March 2007, a five-week month, was weaker. The figure below gives an idea of just how weak this summer has been for the Wii; April, May, July, and August 2010 are identified in red.
Given the amazing sales the Nintendo Wii racked up in December 2009, we are hesitant to write off Wii hardware and software sales for the entire year. If sales return for the holiday this year, much of Nintendo's lost ground could be made up, especially with the pending launches of Wii Party, Kirby's Epic Yarn, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. Even if the Wii consumer is a seasonal creature, it seems unlikely that consumers will again buy 5 million Wii consoles and $1.5 billion in Wii software during the last two months of the year.
The Nintendo DS platform, represented by three hardware models, is also experiencing a similar weakness in sales. Ever since the launch of the Nintendo DS Lite back in the summer of 2006, the dual-screen handheld has consistently dominated hardware sales. There have been only three times in those 51 months that the DS and Wii haven't taken top hardware sales: September 2007 with the launch of Halo 3 and July and August of 2010.
There are several possible explanations here. We consider the large installed base (second only the PS2 for systems still being sold) and the current price structure to be the key limiters. The base system is still $130, and has remained at that price since 2005, and the DSi and XL models are $150 and $170, respectively, after a price drop on 12 September 2010. Sales of hardware at these prices will be recorded in the NPD Group's estimates for September.
Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities suggests that the iPod Touch has become a legitimate threat to the handheld segment, and that the Nintendo DS is suffering as a result. We did our own examination of the console/handheld sales figures and found that, indeed, handheld software marketshare is at a historically low point relative to console software. (See the figure below.)
Whereas handheld software often accounts for around 25 percent of all software revenue in any given 12-month period, that share has dropped nearly constantly since around January 2008, six months after the launch of the iPhone and four months after the launch of the iPod Touch. As of August, it hovered between 18 percent and 19 percent.
The fortunes of the handheld market should reverse upon launch of Nintendo's new handheld, the 3DS. Except for speculation about the price (an announcement is expected within two weeks), practically all press about the system is exceptionally positive. We expect that consumers will buy it at least as quickly as they bought the Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi at their respective launches, despite our estimated $230 - $250 price tag. Along with a compelling slate of announced software, the 3DS will make the handheld segment hot once again.
"One must accept that the top 20 chart does not tell the full story. Combined with what we know about software sales generally on the Wii, we can say that a selection of titles that do exceptionally well – Nintendo's Mario titles along with trendy third-party titles like Just Dance and Wipeout: The Game – while many others languish somewhere below the public rankings."
Can this statement be backed up by numbers?
Because to say 4 out of 12 worst months were in 2010 doesn't proof much. First of all, the Wii is available for 45 months now, why pick 12 months? Additionaly, without any comparsion with the other 33 months the chart isn't very informative, how much sold the 13th worst selling month? How much sold the best selling month? These informations were necessary to get a picture of the development of Wii sales.
"Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities suggests that the iPod Touch has become a legitimate threat to the handheld segment, and that the Nintendo DS is suffering as a result. "
From it's launch to june 2010 Apple's Appstore had an overall revenue of $1.4 billion, that breaks down to about $466 million per year. Only a portion of this goes into games. Everybody can do the math to see, that the revenue just isn't big enough to produce sales numbers similar to that of real gaming handhelds. I find it more likely to say, that the handheld market is at such a low point, because the PSP nearly vanished from the market.
Seeing the sales of XB360 hardware soundly trouncing the Wii these last couple of months has been surprising to say the least. A few years back I commented at the potentially protracted timeline of this current generation and suggested that those declaring the Wii the definitive winner of this console generation were, perhaps, a bit premature in their postulations. If this current crop of consoles is truly going to last at least another two years, it isn’t entirely impossible that the XB360 could eventually overtake the Wii in terms of hardware sales.
It’s not a likely scenario but then again, this is proving to be an unusual generation full of surprises.
Also, like it or not, HD is beginning to matter to the consumer. Nintendo was incredibly short-sighted in not giving customers some sort of HD option, even if merely 720p.
At the current rate MS can catch Nintendo by 1.3 million units a year in the US. Nothing to sneeze at I suppose, and there are contributions and counter contributions from other territories, but to take back the more than 30 million unit lead is probably beyond possibility. The 360's uptick is nice, but its sustainability is unknown, and the sustainability of Wii's downturn is also unknown. Remember last year, where Wii's 2009 tracked well behind 2008 until the very end of the year, but in the last two months made almost all the business back with record busting sales. Anyway, at the rate for the last couple of years, if Nintendo canned the Wii tomorrow, it would still take about 3 years for the 360 to catch it, not that MS should necessarily be disappointed by their performance.
People have liked to talk about the impending doom for Wii since, well, 2004. Does saying that really mean anything anymore if we're 4/5 years into the generation, it's sold >73 million systems and it's generated billions of dollars of profit? Again, Nintendo could walk away from Wii tomorrow and be pretty pleased with its performance, and obviously, their business strategy.
As for HD I think it's fairer to say that Microsoft were being long sighted with regard to HD. It's adoption was slower than many analysts were expecting, and the associated costs of the resolution to the hardware have made the Xbox a painful business for Microsoft. Just think: three times the resolution trebles the GPU demand, trebles large portions of the motherboard capacity, trebles the Major proportion of the RAM and its throughput, increases the display adapter and cooling costs all add up to a higher production cost. At the time Nintendo made a wise choice, and until MS starts pulling multiple billions in income, I won't be convinced Nintendo made the wrong one. It may turn out for MS (and maybe Sony), but it's been a long time coming.
When the Wii first launched, the penetration for HDTVs was less than twenty percent, which meant that both Sony and MS, despite hyping the notion of HD gaming to the very ceilings of heaven, were essentially predicating their graphical sales strategy largely on a market that, at the time their respective consoles launched, was paltry. So in a sense, your criticism of them being “long-sighted” is fair. They were looking to the future and while they certainly were wise to include HD support, they perhaps made the feature a bit too prominent in advertising to consumers, many of whom were probably years away from buying an HDTV.
However, the penetration for HDTV’s today is now over 50% and climbing steadily, thanks largely in part to the decrease in prices which facilitates a lower entry cost for the consumer. The demand for HD in every facet of entertainment is increasing and people want the ability to exploit their new TVs. This will continue to play a factor in hardware and software sales as this generation progresses because even less-than-tech-savvy consumers are looking to exploit HD.
As to the notion that HD was expensive and wasteful in terms of resources, I’d actually argue that HD was long overdue for consoles and as somebody who has been gaming for many years I would never want to go back to SD resolutions. The trials and tribulations you allude to in terms of hardware and resource management are probably true but HD gaming, which has been a mainstay on the PC for years, needed to cross over into console territory. Frankly, I don’t think the lack of HD for the Wii was even a concerted strategy but rather business as usual for a company as technologically behind the times as Nintendo. I mean, are we also going to extol the virtues of their poorly-implemented Virtual Console, the lack of a dedicated hard drive for the console, or the feeble connectivity that Nintendo thinks passes for online functionality merely because they are currently number 1?
What’s interesting about the Wii is that it’s the first non-handheld Nintendo console to enjoy market share dominance since the original NES and yet people seem to forget that when praising Nintendo this generation, as if this is merely a recent achievement in a long timeline of definitive successes. When I examine the Wii and its sales, I don’t necessarily see the brilliant business model of Nintendo so much as the massive missteps of both Sony and Microsoft, who launched incredibly expensive consoles touting features and multiple SKU’s that threw off the casual base to such an extent that the Wii became a streamlined and easy-to-grasp alternative.
Now that HD has a stronger presence in the market and both Sony and MS have streamlined their own strategies, it’s not unrealistic to think that their superior software libraries would garner them greater sales, though I think the emphasis on Kinnect and Move is a big mistake.
"business as usual for a company as technologically behind the times as Nintendo."
Really? Perhaps the Wiimote itself is not the most technolocally advanced controller in a long time, one that took the "technolocally superior" MS and Sony 4 years to clone? Or is it also common to have 3D portable systems without glasses?
I do agree that I would like to see some more horsepower on the Wii, but I don't elude myself claiming it "had to be HD". For that matter, most games for X360 run at resolutions lower than 720p. Nintendo only did what was best to stay afloat in the market - come with a good enough, exciting system that was cheap enough for the masses. And now they have enough money to innovate, or perhaps evolve only this time, with a more advanced system. Time will tell.
"What’s interesting about the Wii is that it’s the first non-handheld Nintendo console to enjoy market share dominance since the original NES and yet people seem to forget that when praising Nintendo this generation, as if this is merely a recent achievement in a long timeline of definitive successes."
This statement is a bit misinformed. The NES and the SNES were market leaders in their respective generations. Sega was pretty close second during the SNES days, but were not anywhere close to being ahead.
Now yes, Nintendo did mistep in the N64 era when they underestimated the market power of cd rom games. They attempted a comeback in the GC days by playing follow the leader, but that strategy didn't pan out. So what they did was change course and this lead to the Wii.
So while Nintendo is not infallible, they do learn from their mistakes. They learned that cartridge based systems are not the way to go when their is a far cheaper distribution method. This lead to adopting a CD ROM style system. Then they learned that trying to compete in a "Keeping up with the Jones" style was not economically feasible nor a way to differentiate yourself from other consoles.
The DS and the Wii are both a testament to their strategy of input innovation. This is where they saw the best way to differentiate themselves from the competition, not graphical power.
"I mean, are we also going to extol the virtues of their poorly-implemented Virtual Console, the lack of a dedicated hard drive for the console, or the feeble connectivity that Nintendo thinks passes for online functionality merely because they are currently number 1? "
I must ask, "What exactly is wrong with the Virtual Console?" As far as I have experienced, it works as advertised. It allows gamers to buy games from older generation for consoles that are not necessarily Nintendo consoles and play them on a modern console. What makes it "poorly-implemented"?
On the online front, you can play with other people online, you can purchase DLC and other games. Sure they don't have achievements, but not everyone cares about that. The only thing I can say is lacking is better friend management. But that hardly makes it "feeble".
As for the harddrive, yes the built in portion is only 512 megs, but when the majority of the games you download are less than 1 meg, that is plenty. The addition of the SD makes that less of an issue. If you really need more than 16 gigs that an SDHC card allows, I would really question what you are using it for.
Actually, neither Nintendo nor Sega ever established clear market dominance during the 16 bit era and having read various sources in regards to the issue, neither console maker could reasonably be considered “the winner”. They actually split the market fairly evenly though most numbers I have read suggest that Sega actually had the majority of the market share during the most prominent years of era, albeit by a very slim margin. Regardless, the historical context I provided in my earlier post remains accurate. Nintendo hasn’t enjoyed clear market dominance on the console front since the NES. (And now of course the Wii) I should amend this however to include the fact that the SNES outperformed the Genesis quite handily in Japan.
Your analysis of the N64 and GC is, at best, generous and at worst a whitewashing of the overwhelming failure both consoles represented given the systems that preceded them. Your assertion that Nintendo learns from their mistakes is also up for debate, since I don’t see their recent success as employing a different strategy so much as being present for some sizeable blunders by the competition and smartly capitalizing on them. When you really analyze Nintendo, they are still doing things much as they have in the past, only now with renewed hubris at having finally gotten back to the top. They still are unable to adapt to certain necessary technological trends (the aforementioned hard drive, the paltry and inadequate online functionality) and they continue to be wholly unable or unwilling to give their third party developers anything but the most perfunctory support even while both MS and Sony generally roll out the red carpet for their third party developers.
As to the Virtual Console, it was a brilliant idea hobbled by the typical laziness of Nintendo. What they promised was a service similar to iTunes where their massive back catalog of games would be made available at reasonable prices. What we got was a service that started out decently and then began to decline and now, years later, the flow of releases is a mere trickle with sometimes weeks passing without a notable game dropping. It’s a truly great concept that could still be salvaged but as somebody who has frequented the service and purchased numerous games in the past, it has become a husk of disappointment. And if you think my assessment is in the minority, you are greatly mistaken.
The online structure of the Wii is indefensible, especially when matched against Sony and Microsoft. The entire construct is clunky, the friend code system is a hassle, and the entire endeavor feels like an afterthought. For you to suggest that achievements are the only profound disparity between Nintendo’s online structure and what Sony and MS offer is ludicrous. The Wii doesn’t even facilitate the downloading of game demos outside of a handful of WiiWare titles. I would call the Wii’s online offering an archaic throwback but in reality it’s merely an inadequate and uniquely Nintendo entity.
Also, the lack of a hard drive actually becomes a problem as you download software from their store. I actually ran out of space quite some time back and while I appreciate the SD support, any console that offers downloadable games should include a HD of some sort or the option to add one; it’s simply a glaring omission. As to your comment at the tail end of your rebuttal about questioning why I would need more than 16 Gigs, that merely demonstrates you don’t know how the storage actually works, as you must load and swap out games to actually play them on the console; you can’t actually play the games from the SD card. It’s a solution and one I can live with but it’s a far cry from looking up my list of downloadable games on XBLA and playing them without wrangling up external memory cards.
The thing is, I love much of what Nintendo does and I give them nothing but credit for their handheld dominance, which is well-earned and predicated upon great hardware and fantastic software. I also remain pleased to own a Wii, even though I think the system is a collection of missed opportunities. What I cannot do is lower my standards to such a point that I accept mediocrity or defend banality, which is clearly what you and like-minded individuals opt to do whenever somebody becomes critical of this scared cow named Nintendo. As somebody who owns and plays all three consoles, I have no reason to be biased and rather I merely call things how I see them.
@Bill I still have yet to see market numbers that would suggest that the Xbox 360 or the PS3 success is attached to the saturation of HD TV sets in the living room. We could say that the PS2 was very attached to the DVD market and it proved a successful business model at the time for Sony. They have yet to see that market be as successful now that they own the format of which their games are currently played on concerning the PS3 BLU Ray HD push. If HDTV saturation was going to be a successful venue for Nintendo, don't you think they would have done it by now?
Bill, regarding the relative lack of an online service, you're right that for people like you it is very disappointing. For most people it is immaterial, which is why it makes sense as a business decision. Resources are limited and they have been focused elsewhere. Some Nintendo employees have come out and said that they are disappointed with the online offering and wished that more people used them so I agree it could be seen as a failure in this sense. However, they might even have been better off providing *less* online support and focused on being a games machine, the thing that brought it success in the first place. Perhaps no online experience is better than a frustrating one. At least until the next generation when there are fewer technical limitations.
Not all is well with online in 360 land either. One of the biggest problems is strangers shouting racial abuse etc. Nintendo are targeting a mainstream audience and want to remove barriers to gaming, including those imposed by family members. To create this experience it is absolutely mission-critical that nothing like this *ever* slips through the net and enters the user experience. Unfortunately for 'mature' gamers this adds a lot of inconvenient processes for things that should be simple. I don't know what the solution to this is. It's a very difficult problem.
It is very annoying being constantly asked to sign in to a friend's xbox, being warned that being offline will mean that will mean losing out on functionality you don't care about etc. The end result is a lot of extra button presses that are unnecessary. On top of all that, navigating around all those menus with a controller is slow and frustrating. For a large portion of the mainstream console audience, suffering all this complexity is out of the question. Most of them don't even bother getting their Wii online.
If we are talking about business here then we need to be trying to get into the heads of typical customers, not listing our personal gripes. In this respect Nintendo have done many things really well this generation, which is the reason they get praised, but they are far from perfect. They have also made many mis-steps that have cancelled out some of the work they've done. They have been successful when they have followed the customer ("Here's your full 2D Mario game.", "Here's a sports game that's very easy to pick up and play!"). They have failed when they have been trying to impose their will on the customer ("Please play Super Mario Galaxy 2! It's like 2D mario in some segments!", "Play as Samus! A bad-ass bounty hunter with no emotional balance and a tendency to mope in long cut-scenes"). It's kind of funny watching them repeat some of these mistakes. There are probably a lot of internal politics creating a somewhat schizophrenic release schedule.
There's a whole array of issues here, to which other people are responding better than I can quickly, but on the point of N64 and GC I think you're being unfair.
The N64 is widely regarded by an industry used to counting out Nintendo as a failure, but the end product was >30 million sales (outperforming the Xbox every SEGA console ever), billions of dollars of profits, an array of innovative and acclaimed games that make up childhoods and Best-Games-Ever lists alike, and incorporated all kinds of advanced technologies that you deride Nintendo for never including. If the N64 is an "overwhelming failure", then the Xbox is a Hellspawn's Catastrofuck. Nevertheless, cowtowing to a unified industry's criticisms of their decisions, Nintendo attempted to make a more conservative and 3rd party inclusive console in the GC. Not as acclaimed, sales worse etc. etc. Clearly the consensus view doesn't not serve Nintendo well. Nevertheless Nintendo maintained profitability over this time frame higher than even Sony in every single year bar one. They've gone on to do the opposite of what everyone has told them to do, and made record breaking sales and profits.
As for the SNES, early on it was a close call, but 50 million to 30 million ain't THAT close. And a 10 million install base loss speaks more of Sega's expansion of the market than Nintendo's missteps.
I see Nintendo's strategy as more like this: They made a hit. They wavered. They wondered in the desert. They played every angle, and now, after 5 home and 3 portable consoles, they've worked out what works for them: Universality, affordability, intuitive control, having a hook, continuous genre creation, and leveraging working franchises in old ways and new. Oh, and NEVER LISTENING TO THE INDUSTRY. The way I see it, in wins Xbox is 0 for 2 but still in play, Sega is 1 for 5, Sony is 2 for 4 and Nintendo is 6 for 8. Clearly they've figured SOMETHING out.
"Nevermind that the Wii gets VERY repetitive very quickly, and the overall low quality of titles."
The Wii does not get repetitive, the games for the Wii get repetitive, at least the poorly done games.
I have found quite a number of games that have kept me busy and other people have as well. Kotaku keeps a monthly chart of the most played (note, not necessarily the best selling) games each month and almost all of them are what most "hardcore" gamers are looking for, but for some reason not buying on the Wii. (http://kotaku.com/5628541/the-20-most+loved-wii-games)
"The Wii is simply past its prime, and its time to move on. "
If they can get an exclusive on the Light saber game that everyone has been waiting for since before the system even launched, I would bet that sales would recover.
I think the wii has just hit a point where not as many people want it. I think nintendo can chalk up the console as a success. the fact that both my aunt and grandfather own a wii means they have penetrated the deepest most untouchable markets possible. after 3 years of leading the console manufacturers it only makes sense the console would drop. add in the fact the wii is the cheapest of the 3 consoles and really there is no other excuse. I am sure the wii will once again sell at Christmas but this may be the first year in a long while where we don't see wii shortages. I mean the sales had to dip eventually right ?
This is bound to happen. How many Wii can a family household buy? With record pace in previous years all those families that want a Wii eventually got a Wii. Since to most this is a Secondary gaming system to X360 and PS3 for hardcore gamers, they do not break down as often as the other two consoles, so replacing Wii is also a all time low as well.
Well, there are people like me that are never going to buy a Wii you know. I just don't want one. Mario, again? Zelda, again? Metroid, again, but they messed it up? What ever. Say what you will, but to me, Nintendo is a pony that only knows a few tricks. They are good tricks, but they are the only tricks it will ever know till they day it dies.
I prefer to just buy a PlayStation Move and have all those games at my disposal with Move support. No, it is not just about graphics. It is about gameplay. I could never play KillZone 2 on the Wii, EVER. That is a fact. I am hoping that Dead Space 2 will have Move support. If it does it will RIP. I know Resident Evil 5 will have Move support. I can never play Resi Evil 5 on the Wii. There are couple of more hardcore games like Mad World on the Wii, but the pickings are very anemic.
If you can't play Killzone 2 on the Wii @Alan; what makes you think that you will be able to play Killzone 3 with move support on the PS3? It virtually the same technology with a different coat of paint.
...And to bring up RE5 and being able to never play it on the Wii is like saying RE4 remake on the Wii was a failure, when it was clearly very playable on the Wii.
...Also they have a Dead Space Game on the Wii called Extraction. No one know what possessed EA to make it a Rails game, but it did show that DeadS game could very well be made playable on the Wii. And yet you say you say that game must have Move support for the PS3. This will make it somehow more successful?
It just sounds like you have a tied preference to Consoles based off of what perception seems to dictate on the outside thinking of others.
It's definitely a troll, the argument is without merit.
Popular games on the X360 are themselves extremely similar year over year, with sequels selling over and over again (COD/HALO/Gears/Madden). It's not that systems that aren't the Wii are some how original (in fact there is less variation among the top-selling titles on the other two systems if you want to run the originality card), it's just a matter of what types of games you like. If you like FPS, then you will never be happy with a Wii just like if you liked platformers you'd never be happy with a X360/PS3.
There's nothing wrong with different people liking different things. I never understand why people feel threatened when they realize that not everyone thinks as they do. That diversity is great, and it's been sorely lacking in gaming.
The Wii is the greatest success in console history simply b/c it allowed for variety and different kinds of games than what we had ever seen before. It's great that MS and Sony are both trying to also aim for new experiences now, and I hope the industry keeps reaching for the unknown and yet to be experienced. We'll likely enjoy some of the same types of games we've always liked along the way, but pushing for what's new instead of just what is shinier is the Wii's legacy.
Ok, if it is not "just about graphics", what exactly is stopping you from playing Killzone 2, Dead Space 2 or Resident Evil 5 if they were released on the Wii?
Yah, just call me a troll and write me off. Sure. Typical Ninty fans.... O.o
I just don't like what is on the Wii for the most. I never dissed on other people for liking it. What is wrong with that? Nothing at all. I am out of this discussion.
I can't tell you how many "wii is doomed' pieces I have read only to see the system later sell out during the holidays. Besides that, consider that the lowest sales number of the Wii is still more than the PS3 (and yet I've seen very few negative articles about the PS3).
X-box sales are obviously high because of Slim sales. If the Wii had some kind of redesign that fixed many of it's current problems, you would see it's sales skyrocket similarly.
If anything the low sales should be attributed to Nintendo's recent pandering to the hardcore. So far they released a black-colored Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Sin and Punishment 2, Monster Hunter 3, and Metroid: Other M. These releases were largely ignored by the hardcore audience. Meanwhile the expanded audience gamer is waiting patiently for Wii Party.
If Nintendo wants to be successful, they must completely abandon the hardcore gamer.
Wow, those are strong words John, especially on a site composed of hardcore gamers. the thing I admire about nintendo most is that they are one of the best developers of creating games both hardcore and casual fans can enjoy. bringing up nearly any mario or zelda title puts a smile on most gamers faces regardless of which group they identify themselves with. I don't think nintendo could abandon the hardcore gamer even if they wanted to. while they can definitely appeal ot more casual fans games like pokemon, mario, zelda, star fox, and others will always be supported by gamers as a whole. I highly doubt there is any benefit to giving up on hardcore gamers, heck the success of monster hunter tri should show that hardcore gamers do still care for nintendo .
You wrote: "and yet I've seen very few negative articles about the PS3".
I'd like to think I've written some sharp comments about Sony's PS3 in this series of articles here on this very site. This month? Maybe not, but we tend to comment on what's changing, not what's static. The movement in sales has been heavily on Nintendo's systems, and the movement has generally been down.
Commenting on how Wii's sales are down is a far cry from saying it's doomed. The drama you evoke makes one less likely to take you seriously.
The Wii has always had more negative press than the other consoles, especially on Gamasutra. "Wii is doomed" is not my own term. I've heard it from other forums and sites as a way to describe the constant negative press towards that console.
The time for Wii's ultimate DOOM has passed a while back. This article just takes a snapshot of months and compares them to the same months in past years of the consoles sale record. I think the same comparisons need to be made for the other 2 consoles as well. You would probably see a decline there as well. I also think it pretentious to call SMG2, S&P2, MHTri or MP:OM as ignored by the "hardcore market" However NMH2 and MadW can be seen as virtually ignored.
You wrote: "I think the same comparisons need to be made for the other 2 consoles as well."
The same comparison is made for the other two consoles, in this very article. Wii software is down, Xbox 360 is flat, PS3 software is up. See the first table.
And it is easy to check YTD hardware figures. The Wii is down YOY (-17%) while the Xbox 360 is up (+34%) and so is the PS3 (+40%). These trends aren't new.
Yes the trends may be there (at least, if we totally ignore the fact, that Nintendo sales used to skyrocket during the holidays, much more then the other consoles), but the fact, that Sony is in console sales and software sales in 3rd place after being almost 4 years on the market is much more remarkeble in my eyes, then everything else. They used to dominate the stationary market for over 10 years and now they are in 3rd place.
All the upward trends of Sony can't disguise, that they are on a very low level. In your chart they gained 35%, this is impressive, but does it change the market reality, that they sell lesser then the competition? I read an awful lot here on Gamasutra about Sony gaining market shares for the PS3, but I can't remember articles about there constant loss in handheld market share. This is something that is happening right now, the market share of Sony melts like a snowball in hell.
These are the real stories, these and the fact, that MS is still in 2nd place, despite all the losses they were willing to take to get their foot into the market.
of course , that's how fanboyism works. never acknowledge that the other companies you don't support ever did anything right. the improved graphics and web browser on the ps3 and wii are absolutely unnecessary to the 360 fanboys, xbox live has done nothing to further online console gaming to the nintendo and Sony fanboys, and to put it bluntly sales don't mean anything for the wii....in the fanboy wars we all lose.
But HD is not an innovation. It is a higher resolution. PC gamers have been enjoying HD resolutions for over a decade. Consoles have been gradually increasing their output resolution over the years. HD is just another inevitable and completely predictable step except it has been branded and marketed.
Similarly, to take motion input at a higher resolution is not something you could be accusing of copying, now that motion input has already been popularised.
The fact that the gaming press is perpetually "worried" about the Wii's future and "cautiously optimistic" about PS360's future despite contradictory overall sales figures is so old and repetitive that it's not even worth hashing out beyond a brief reminder for the newcomers to the discussion. That's that out of the way!
A quotation from the article:
"As long as Nintendo continued to sell Wii systems at a blistering pace, the software market seemed able to support itself. We believe that a significant portion of Wii software is bought by new owners (what we would define as those within the first six months of ownership), and continued hardware sales provided ample supply of new owners to snap up Wii software."
I think the causation here is backwards. Most people don't want compelling games consoles. They want compelling games. Consider the statements:
1. Good software will sell consoles. - True
2. Good consoles will sell software. - False
But it is true that the Wii has not had a great year so far compared to its previous years. This is because there hasn't been a serious software release on the Wii since New Super Mario Bros Wii. In fact, that game is the only thing propping up the Wii right now. If it wasn't made then we would *really* need some sensationalist headlines.
NSMBW is the kind of game people want but developers don't want to make. Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, Monster Hunter Tri are the kind of games that developers want to make but people don't want (I say this having enjoyed 2 of those games). The fact that Mario Galaxy 2 came with an instructional DVD and tonnes of condescending promo did not help expand its audience one bit. The market rejected it (in relative Mario terms). Compared to 2D mario it is a niche game. Nintendo has a couple more 2D platformers coming out this year. Perhaps that will turn things around. It depends completely on their quality. Wii Party is also a reason for Nintendo to be hopeful. But I don't know anything about the nature of that game, only that it sells well in Japan. And there can be a significant different in eastern and western tastes.
At least the PS3 and 360 do a good job of consistently providing titles suited to their audience. I do think that feat is harder on the Wii though. There are ways in which the Wii customers are more discerning: They aren't as easily swayed by hype (see Wii music, SMG2). They won't accept many slightly-altered iterations (2 versions of Wii Fit and Wii Sports so far, less than the big HD franchises). Even once they own a console, they won't buy more games for the sake of it, only if appealing games exist.
Can this statement be backed up by numbers?
Because to say 4 out of 12 worst months were in 2010 doesn't proof much. First of all, the Wii is available for 45 months now, why pick 12 months? Additionaly, without any comparsion with the other 33 months the chart isn't very informative, how much sold the 13th worst selling month? How much sold the best selling month? These informations were necessary to get a picture of the development of Wii sales.
"Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities suggests that the iPod Touch has become a legitimate threat to the handheld segment, and that the Nintendo DS is suffering as a result. "
From it's launch to june 2010 Apple's Appstore had an overall revenue of $1.4 billion, that breaks down to about $466 million per year. Only a portion of this goes into games. Everybody can do the math to see, that the revenue just isn't big enough to produce sales numbers similar to that of real gaming handhelds. I find it more likely to say, that the handheld market is at such a low point, because the PSP nearly vanished from the market.
It’s not a likely scenario but then again, this is proving to be an unusual generation full of surprises.
Also, like it or not, HD is beginning to matter to the consumer. Nintendo was incredibly short-sighted in not giving customers some sort of HD option, even if merely 720p.
People have liked to talk about the impending doom for Wii since, well, 2004. Does saying that really mean anything anymore if we're 4/5 years into the generation, it's sold >73 million systems and it's generated billions of dollars of profit? Again, Nintendo could walk away from Wii tomorrow and be pretty pleased with its performance, and obviously, their business strategy.
As for HD I think it's fairer to say that Microsoft were being long sighted with regard to HD. It's adoption was slower than many analysts were expecting, and the associated costs of the resolution to the hardware have made the Xbox a painful business for Microsoft. Just think: three times the resolution trebles the GPU demand, trebles large portions of the motherboard capacity, trebles the Major proportion of the RAM and its throughput, increases the display adapter and cooling costs all add up to a higher production cost. At the time Nintendo made a wise choice, and until MS starts pulling multiple billions in income, I won't be convinced Nintendo made the wrong one. It may turn out for MS (and maybe Sony), but it's been a long time coming.
However, the penetration for HDTV’s today is now over 50% and climbing steadily, thanks largely in part to the decrease in prices which facilitates a lower entry cost for the consumer. The demand for HD in every facet of entertainment is increasing and people want the ability to exploit their new TVs. This will continue to play a factor in hardware and software sales as this generation progresses because even less-than-tech-savvy consumers are looking to exploit HD.
As to the notion that HD was expensive and wasteful in terms of resources, I’d actually argue that HD was long overdue for consoles and as somebody who has been gaming for many years I would never want to go back to SD resolutions. The trials and tribulations you allude to in terms of hardware and resource management are probably true but HD gaming, which has been a mainstay on the PC for years, needed to cross over into console territory. Frankly, I don’t think the lack of HD for the Wii was even a concerted strategy but rather business as usual for a company as technologically behind the times as Nintendo. I mean, are we also going to extol the virtues of their poorly-implemented Virtual Console, the lack of a dedicated hard drive for the console, or the feeble connectivity that Nintendo thinks passes for online functionality merely because they are currently number 1?
What’s interesting about the Wii is that it’s the first non-handheld Nintendo console to enjoy market share dominance since the original NES and yet people seem to forget that when praising Nintendo this generation, as if this is merely a recent achievement in a long timeline of definitive successes. When I examine the Wii and its sales, I don’t necessarily see the brilliant business model of Nintendo so much as the massive missteps of both Sony and Microsoft, who launched incredibly expensive consoles touting features and multiple SKU’s that threw off the casual base to such an extent that the Wii became a streamlined and easy-to-grasp alternative.
Now that HD has a stronger presence in the market and both Sony and MS have streamlined their own strategies, it’s not unrealistic to think that their superior software libraries would garner them greater sales, though I think the emphasis on Kinnect and Move is a big mistake.
Really? Perhaps the Wiimote itself is not the most technolocally advanced controller in a long time, one that took the "technolocally superior" MS and Sony 4 years to clone? Or is it also common to have 3D portable systems without glasses?
I do agree that I would like to see some more horsepower on the Wii, but I don't elude myself claiming it "had to be HD". For that matter, most games for X360 run at resolutions lower than 720p. Nintendo only did what was best to stay afloat in the market - come with a good enough, exciting system that was cheap enough for the masses. And now they have enough money to innovate, or perhaps evolve only this time, with a more advanced system. Time will tell.
This statement is a bit misinformed. The NES and the SNES were market leaders in their respective generations. Sega was pretty close second during the SNES days, but were not anywhere close to being ahead.
Now yes, Nintendo did mistep in the N64 era when they underestimated the market power of cd rom games. They attempted a comeback in the GC days by playing follow the leader, but that strategy didn't pan out. So what they did was change course and this lead to the Wii.
So while Nintendo is not infallible, they do learn from their mistakes. They learned that cartridge based systems are not the way to go when their is a far cheaper distribution method. This lead to adopting a CD ROM style system. Then they learned that trying to compete in a "Keeping up with the Jones" style was not economically feasible nor a way to differentiate yourself from other consoles.
The DS and the Wii are both a testament to their strategy of input innovation. This is where they saw the best way to differentiate themselves from the competition, not graphical power.
"I mean, are we also going to extol the virtues of their poorly-implemented Virtual Console, the lack of a dedicated hard drive for the console, or the feeble connectivity that Nintendo thinks passes for online functionality merely because they are currently number 1? "
I must ask, "What exactly is wrong with the Virtual Console?" As far as I have experienced, it works as advertised. It allows gamers to buy games from older generation for consoles that are not necessarily Nintendo consoles and play them on a modern console. What makes it "poorly-implemented"?
On the online front, you can play with other people online, you can purchase DLC and other games. Sure they don't have achievements, but not everyone cares about that. The only thing I can say is lacking is better friend management. But that hardly makes it "feeble".
As for the harddrive, yes the built in portion is only 512 megs, but when the majority of the games you download are less than 1 meg, that is plenty. The addition of the SD makes that less of an issue. If you really need more than 16 gigs that an SDHC card allows, I would really question what you are using it for.
Actually, neither Nintendo nor Sega ever established clear market dominance during the 16 bit era and having read various sources in regards to the issue, neither console maker could reasonably be considered “the winner”. They actually split the market fairly evenly though most numbers I have read suggest that Sega actually had the majority of the market share during the most prominent years of era, albeit by a very slim margin. Regardless, the historical context I provided in my earlier post remains accurate. Nintendo hasn’t enjoyed clear market dominance on the console front since the NES. (And now of course the Wii) I should amend this however to include the fact that the SNES outperformed the Genesis quite handily in Japan.
Your analysis of the N64 and GC is, at best, generous and at worst a whitewashing of the overwhelming failure both consoles represented given the systems that preceded them. Your assertion that Nintendo learns from their mistakes is also up for debate, since I don’t see their recent success as employing a different strategy so much as being present for some sizeable blunders by the competition and smartly capitalizing on them. When you really analyze Nintendo, they are still doing things much as they have in the past, only now with renewed hubris at having finally gotten back to the top. They still are unable to adapt to certain necessary technological trends (the aforementioned hard drive, the paltry and inadequate online functionality) and they continue to be wholly unable or unwilling to give their third party developers anything but the most perfunctory support even while both MS and Sony generally roll out the red carpet for their third party developers.
As to the Virtual Console, it was a brilliant idea hobbled by the typical laziness of Nintendo. What they promised was a service similar to iTunes where their massive back catalog of games would be made available at reasonable prices. What we got was a service that started out decently and then began to decline and now, years later, the flow of releases is a mere trickle with sometimes weeks passing without a notable game dropping. It’s a truly great concept that could still be salvaged but as somebody who has frequented the service and purchased numerous games in the past, it has become a husk of disappointment. And if you think my assessment is in the minority, you are greatly mistaken.
The online structure of the Wii is indefensible, especially when matched against Sony and Microsoft. The entire construct is clunky, the friend code system is a hassle, and the entire endeavor feels like an afterthought. For you to suggest that achievements are the only profound disparity between Nintendo’s online structure and what Sony and MS offer is ludicrous. The Wii doesn’t even facilitate the downloading of game demos outside of a handful of WiiWare titles. I would call the Wii’s online offering an archaic throwback but in reality it’s merely an inadequate and uniquely Nintendo entity.
Also, the lack of a hard drive actually becomes a problem as you download software from their store. I actually ran out of space quite some time back and while I appreciate the SD support, any console that offers downloadable games should include a HD of some sort or the option to add one; it’s simply a glaring omission. As to your comment at the tail end of your rebuttal about questioning why I would need more than 16 Gigs, that merely demonstrates you don’t know how the storage actually works, as you must load and swap out games to actually play them on the console; you can’t actually play the games from the SD card. It’s a solution and one I can live with but it’s a far cry from looking up my list of downloadable games on XBLA and playing them without wrangling up external memory cards.
The thing is, I love much of what Nintendo does and I give them nothing but credit for their handheld dominance, which is well-earned and predicated upon great hardware and fantastic software. I also remain pleased to own a Wii, even though I think the system is a collection of missed opportunities. What I cannot do is lower my standards to such a point that I accept mediocrity or defend banality, which is clearly what you and like-minded individuals opt to do whenever somebody becomes critical of this scared cow named Nintendo. As somebody who owns and plays all three consoles, I have no reason to be biased and rather I merely call things how I see them.
Not all is well with online in 360 land either. One of the biggest problems is strangers shouting racial abuse etc. Nintendo are targeting a mainstream audience and want to remove barriers to gaming, including those imposed by family members. To create this experience it is absolutely mission-critical that nothing like this *ever* slips through the net and enters the user experience. Unfortunately for 'mature' gamers this adds a lot of inconvenient processes for things that should be simple. I don't know what the solution to this is. It's a very difficult problem.
It is very annoying being constantly asked to sign in to a friend's xbox, being warned that being offline will mean that will mean losing out on functionality you don't care about etc. The end result is a lot of extra button presses that are unnecessary. On top of all that, navigating around all those menus with a controller is slow and frustrating. For a large portion of the mainstream console audience, suffering all this complexity is out of the question. Most of them don't even bother getting their Wii online.
If we are talking about business here then we need to be trying to get into the heads of typical customers, not listing our personal gripes. In this respect Nintendo have done many things really well this generation, which is the reason they get praised, but they are far from perfect. They have also made many mis-steps that have cancelled out some of the work they've done. They have been successful when they have followed the customer ("Here's your full 2D Mario game.", "Here's a sports game that's very easy to pick up and play!"). They have failed when they have been trying to impose their will on the customer ("Please play Super Mario Galaxy 2! It's like 2D mario in some segments!", "Play as Samus! A bad-ass bounty hunter with no emotional balance and a tendency to mope in long cut-scenes"). It's kind of funny watching them repeat some of these mistakes. There are probably a lot of internal politics creating a somewhat schizophrenic release schedule.
The N64 is widely regarded by an industry used to counting out Nintendo as a failure, but the end product was >30 million sales (outperforming the Xbox every SEGA console ever), billions of dollars of profits, an array of innovative and acclaimed games that make up childhoods and Best-Games-Ever lists alike, and incorporated all kinds of advanced technologies that you deride Nintendo for never including. If the N64 is an "overwhelming failure", then the Xbox is a Hellspawn's Catastrofuck. Nevertheless, cowtowing to a unified industry's criticisms of their decisions, Nintendo attempted to make a more conservative and 3rd party inclusive console in the GC. Not as acclaimed, sales worse etc. etc. Clearly the consensus view doesn't not serve Nintendo well. Nevertheless Nintendo maintained profitability over this time frame higher than even Sony in every single year bar one. They've gone on to do the opposite of what everyone has told them to do, and made record breaking sales and profits.
As for the SNES, early on it was a close call, but 50 million to 30 million ain't THAT close. And a 10 million install base loss speaks more of Sega's expansion of the market than Nintendo's missteps.
I see Nintendo's strategy as more like this: They made a hit. They wavered. They wondered in the desert. They played every angle, and now, after 5 home and 3 portable consoles, they've worked out what works for them: Universality, affordability, intuitive control, having a hook, continuous genre creation, and leveraging working franchises in old ways and new. Oh, and NEVER LISTENING TO THE INDUSTRY. The way I see it, in wins Xbox is 0 for 2 but still in play, Sega is 1 for 5, Sony is 2 for 4 and Nintendo is 6 for 8. Clearly they've figured SOMETHING out.
Nevermind that the Wii gets VERY repetitive very quickly, and the overall low quality of titles. Hence, plunging software sales.
The Wii is simply past its prime, and its time to move on.
The Wii does not get repetitive, the games for the Wii get repetitive, at least the poorly done games.
I have found quite a number of games that have kept me busy and other people have as well. Kotaku keeps a monthly chart of the most played (note, not necessarily the best selling) games each month and almost all of them are what most "hardcore" gamers are looking for, but for some reason not buying on the Wii. (http://kotaku.com/5628541/the-20-most+loved-wii-games)
"The Wii is simply past its prime, and its time to move on. "
Not likely.
I prefer to just buy a PlayStation Move and have all those games at my disposal with Move support. No, it is not just about graphics. It is about gameplay. I could never play KillZone 2 on the Wii, EVER. That is a fact. I am hoping that Dead Space 2 will have Move support. If it does it will RIP. I know Resident Evil 5 will have Move support. I can never play Resi Evil 5 on the Wii. There are couple of more hardcore games like Mad World on the Wii, but the pickings are very anemic.
...And to bring up RE5 and being able to never play it on the Wii is like saying RE4 remake on the Wii was a failure, when it was clearly very playable on the Wii.
...Also they have a Dead Space Game on the Wii called Extraction. No one know what possessed EA to make it a Rails game, but it did show that DeadS game could very well be made playable on the Wii. And yet you say you say that game must have Move support for the PS3. This will make it somehow more successful?
It just sounds like you have a tied preference to Consoles based off of what perception seems to dictate on the outside thinking of others.
Hope I'm not feeding a Troll...
Popular games on the X360 are themselves extremely similar year over year, with sequels selling over and over again (COD/HALO/Gears/Madden). It's not that systems that aren't the Wii are some how original (in fact there is less variation among the top-selling titles on the other two systems if you want to run the originality card), it's just a matter of what types of games you like. If you like FPS, then you will never be happy with a Wii just like if you liked platformers you'd never be happy with a X360/PS3.
There's nothing wrong with different people liking different things. I never understand why people feel threatened when they realize that not everyone thinks as they do. That diversity is great, and it's been sorely lacking in gaming.
The Wii is the greatest success in console history simply b/c it allowed for variety and different kinds of games than what we had ever seen before. It's great that MS and Sony are both trying to also aim for new experiences now, and I hope the industry keeps reaching for the unknown and yet to be experienced. We'll likely enjoy some of the same types of games we've always liked along the way, but pushing for what's new instead of just what is shinier is the Wii's legacy.
I just don't like what is on the Wii for the most. I never dissed on other people for liking it. What is wrong with that? Nothing at all. I am out of this discussion.
X-box sales are obviously high because of Slim sales. If the Wii had some kind of redesign that fixed many of it's current problems, you would see it's sales skyrocket similarly.
If anything the low sales should be attributed to Nintendo's recent pandering to the hardcore. So far they released a black-colored Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Sin and Punishment 2, Monster Hunter 3, and Metroid: Other M. These releases were largely ignored by the hardcore audience. Meanwhile the expanded audience gamer is waiting patiently for Wii Party.
If Nintendo wants to be successful, they must completely abandon the hardcore gamer.
I'd like to think I've written some sharp comments about Sony's PS3 in this series of articles here on this very site. This month? Maybe not, but we tend to comment on what's changing, not what's static. The movement in sales has been heavily on Nintendo's systems, and the movement has generally been down.
Commenting on how Wii's sales are down is a far cry from saying it's doomed. The drama you evoke makes one less likely to take you seriously.
The same comparison is made for the other two consoles, in this very article. Wii software is down, Xbox 360 is flat, PS3 software is up. See the first table.
And it is easy to check YTD hardware figures. The Wii is down YOY (-17%) while the Xbox 360 is up (+34%) and so is the PS3 (+40%). These trends aren't new.
All the upward trends of Sony can't disguise, that they are on a very low level. In your chart they gained 35%, this is impressive, but does it change the market reality, that they sell lesser then the competition? I read an awful lot here on Gamasutra about Sony gaining market shares for the PS3, but I can't remember articles about there constant loss in handheld market share. This is something that is happening right now, the market share of Sony melts like a snowball in hell.
These are the real stories, these and the fact, that MS is still in 2nd place, despite all the losses they were willing to take to get their foot into the market.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28136/Analysis_DS_Games_Outselling _PSP_8_To_1
_In_US.php
It was run right here on Gamasutra and the headline gets out the real point: that Sony's handheld software sales have collapsed.
Also, Nintendo Wii software revenues this year are pretty close to even with PS3 software revenues. They're not a distant third place anymore.
When Nintendo comes out with a console that has HD resolution capability will everyone here accuse them of copying MS and Sony?
Similarly, to take motion input at a higher resolution is not something you could be accusing of copying, now that motion input has already been popularised.
"Leave Wii Alooooone!!"
This pretty much summarizes every Nintendo Wii discussion on the internet.
A quotation from the article:
"As long as Nintendo continued to sell Wii systems at a blistering pace, the software market seemed able to support itself. We believe that a significant portion of Wii software is bought by new owners (what we would define as those within the first six months of ownership), and continued hardware sales provided ample supply of new owners to snap up Wii software."
I think the causation here is backwards. Most people don't want compelling games consoles. They want compelling games. Consider the statements:
1. Good software will sell consoles. - True
2. Good consoles will sell software. - False
But it is true that the Wii has not had a great year so far compared to its previous years. This is because there hasn't been a serious software release on the Wii since New Super Mario Bros Wii. In fact, that game is the only thing propping up the Wii right now. If it wasn't made then we would *really* need some sensationalist headlines.
NSMBW is the kind of game people want but developers don't want to make. Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, Monster Hunter Tri are the kind of games that developers want to make but people don't want (I say this having enjoyed 2 of those games). The fact that Mario Galaxy 2 came with an instructional DVD and tonnes of condescending promo did not help expand its audience one bit. The market rejected it (in relative Mario terms). Compared to 2D mario it is a niche game. Nintendo has a couple more 2D platformers coming out this year. Perhaps that will turn things around. It depends completely on their quality. Wii Party is also a reason for Nintendo to be hopeful. But I don't know anything about the nature of that game, only that it sells well in Japan. And there can be a significant different in eastern and western tastes.
At least the PS3 and 360 do a good job of consistently providing titles suited to their audience. I do think that feat is harder on the Wii though. There are ways in which the Wii customers are more discerning: They aren't as easily swayed by hype (see Wii music, SMG2). They won't accept many slightly-altered iterations (2 versions of Wii Fit and Wii Sports so far, less than the big HD franchises). Even once they own a console, they won't buy more games for the sake of it, only if appealing games exist.