Analysis: Will the Wii fall foul of its own success?
Hardware sales in Japan have always been a good indicator of Nintendo’s prospects, strong sales in Japan synonymous with Nintendo’s continued success worldwide. Recently however, Sony Japan have slowly but surely been eating into Nintendo’s market share.
During the week ending 15th November 2009, the PS3 sold nearly 40,000 units a piece in Japan while the formerly all-conquering Wii was able to shift just 21,000 (stats courtesy of Media Create). Compare that to statistics from this time last year and they make for a staggering comparison – the Wii comfortably outselling the PS3 by a factor of six to one.
Worrying times for Nintendo, particularly because this seismic shift is in part self-perpetuated – a direct consequence of the Wii’s unparalleled success. By creating a system perfectly suited for mass-adoption by a whole new section of the public: the games console virgin.
Consequently Nintendo created a license to print money in the short term, but also presented Sony and Microsoft with the opportunity to appeal to those same console-buying newcomers – a fact not overlooked by Nintendo’s rivals.
‘We have lots of data that suggests that lots of people bought into N64 as their entry level gaming device, and were happy to upgrade to a more powerful machine [the PS2] later in the life cycle when the price point was right for them. I think we’re going to see this later on PS3’ suggested Andrew House, head of PlayStation in Europe when speaking to Edge in June.
Nintendo’s problems are magnified by a series of related issues, for instance, the over-saturation of the Wii’s games catalogue with sub-standard releases. As new Wii owners seek out games it’s unlikely they’ll know what are good and bad games and so may simply chose based on packaging. The ramifications, if consumers purchase a series of poor games, is obvious – the Wii is consigned to the cupboard and in some instances replaced by a competitor’s console.
A lack of ‘triple A’ releases by Nintendo is another issue. 2009 may have seen the release of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Wii Sports Resort and Punch-Out!! But where is the new Zelda, Mario Kart, StarFox, Pokemon, F-Zero, Donkey Kong, Kirby or Metroid? And, where is the online multiplayer? Surely a Wii Sports Resort which could be played online is an advertisers dream, with family’s coming together from all parts of the country, or even world, yet Nintendo have failed to seize the opportunity.
So what is Nintendo’s next move? Rumours abound that a HD ready Wii is in the works and Nintendo have form when it comes to revamping their existing consoles – just look at the DSi XL, already selling over 100,000 units on its maiden week in Japan. At the same time Nintendo are already hyping up E3 2010 as the show that will see any number of console selling titles announced, a new Metroid and Mario already announced and rumours of more Zelda on the way.
Will this be too little too late to stop their market share being stolen by its competitors or does Nintendo have another ace up its sleeve? One thing is for sure, with Sony and Microsoft about to launch further improvements for their systems – in the guise of the PS3 Wand and Microsoft’s Natal – whatever Nintendo has in store had better be good.
