Two And A Half Years Later, Wii Shortages Start To Let Up
from the still-no-wii-fit dept
The shortages that accompanied the launch of the Nintendo Wii weren't too surprising, since they seem to be par for the course for any new game console these days. What was a little surprising was just how long the shortages lasted after the Wii's late 2006 introduction. If you still haven't had a chance to find a Wii in-stock, your wait should soon be over, as an exec from the retailer GameStop says they "finally have enough inventory on the shelf" (via Engadget), and the shortage of Wiis should be letting up. Clearly the Wii has been a huge hit, but it would seem that Nintendo could have gotten a handle on its production output in less than, eh, two and a half years. There's also speculation that the weakness of the dollar was leading Nintendo to send Wiis to places like Europe with stronger currencies (and hence more profits when Nintendo converts foreign currencies back into yen). Or did Nintendo just leverage the scarcity so it would contribute to the Wii's appeal?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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I have a Wii and love it, I just find those examples weak.
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The marketing towards casual gamers was a smart move but game systems succeed or fail on the backs of the hardcore players. Nintendo needs to encourage more adult oriented games if they want the thing to keep its momentum.
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Depends on how you look at it...
Out of the "current gen" machines (it's debatable whether the Wii belongs in this group), Nintendo are the only ones making money off the console itself. Microsoft must be close, but the RROD debacle has cost them a lot of money. Whereas MS and Sony need to get people to buy as many games as possible, Nintendo are already in the black with each unit sold.
Add to that the fact that many people buying the Wii are people who would never have considered buying a videogame console before, and the fact that many people are buying them solely to play things that wouldn't normally be considered "games" (Wii Fit comes to mind), and you simply have a different market to the one that existed last gen. The "hardcore market" may simply not be relevant with regard to the Wii.
Having said that, there are a lot of "adult"-oriented games coming out now. In the last couple of months, we've has Bikini Zombie Slayers, Dead Rising, Madworld and House Of The Dead: Overkill. Now, there's a good case to be made that Madworld is the only truly decent game there, but there's definitely an attempt to target something other than the "kiddy" or family market.
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Re: Needs hardcore players?
Nah, the Wii is completely different. It's a game machine aimed at people who aren't gamers. And it works. I've seen people who wouldn't touch a PS or an XBox play and enjoy games on the Wii -- even tell me how great they are, how much fun they are. It's surviving -- and thriving -- not because of gamers, but because the gamers aren't the big consumers of the box.
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We have a Wii and 10 or so titles, 4-5 of which get regular play. The system has very broad appeal within our extended family, but limited appeal for my older son (11 y/o) except for Super Smash Brothers Brawl. For people interested in high-performance games (for example, most first-person shooters, many racing games, etc), the Wii is not the system to choose and likely never will be. If you are interested in something that even "mom & dad" with our "limited reaction times" can play, the Wii can be great.
I think the trap here is thinking of the Wii as being the exact same console/platform as the XBox or PlayStation systems. It's not and never will be. While I believe it does compete with those other systems for entertainment dollars, I truly feel the intended audience is the whole family instead of just the gamers or families where only the gamers play.
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There's something seriously off about a system that can move that many units and not appeal to 3rd party developers. But hey... what do I know? I'm just a gamer :P
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Re: Re: Re: Are you serious?
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Maybe I wasn't quite clear. I was referring to full-game third party titles (as in the $49.99 titles, not the 5 dollar marketplace ones). As much as I'm spamming Kotaku here... read this article. It sums up my point nicely.
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"There's something seriously off about a system that can move that many units and not appeal to 3rd party developers"
The shovelware problem comes from the early history of the Wii. Many 3rd party developers (i.e. nearly all big names apart from Ubisoft and EA) dismissed the Wii and decided to plough ahead into development for the 360 and PS3 instead. They assumed that the lack of HD and the unusual control system would make it a non-starter. They were wrong, and completely caught off-guard by the Wii's success.
Now, it doesn't take a genius to work out that the quickest and cheapest way for these developers to get games on the system is to dump a load of shovelware onto the system. There are small developers who have churned out some god-awful "original" games (most of the worst shovelware is from the same 2 companies), while many of the bigger names started off by simply welding Wii controls onto PS2 games.
Now that the market has matured quite a lot, there's quite a few decent games coming out, many of them Wii exclusives (Madworld, The Conduit, Deadly Creatures, Overkill as well as cheaper WiiWare titles like the Strong Bad series, LostWinds, etc.). Not only that, but there's a number of great games that simply could not work with a joypad (Trauma Center comes to mind). The simple fact is that good games take longer to make than a bad one, and most 3rd parties didn't even bother starting until *after* the Wii had been released.
The shovelware's still there, but you can easily ignore it if you bother to read reviews or even just stick to trustworthy developers. Yeah, the system has Ninjabread Man and 100 crappy minigame compilations, but it also has Metroid Prime 3, Brawl and de Blob.
For the record, I also own a 360, and I play on both consoles equally. If I want to play CoD4, BioShock, GTA4 or Pure, I fire up my 360. If I want Zelda, Madworld, Zack & Wiki or Wii Fit, I fire up the Wii. There's not really any need to attack a console for not doing what another console does, but then I do actually look at what I'm buying before handing over the cash, be it a game or a console. But, the "no good games" argument is pretty tiresome. It wasn't really true 2 years ago, and it sure as hell isn't true now.
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Re: "little surprising"
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No Temporary Employment
Or so someone said... That's probably wrong info.
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I don't know
Now that Nintendo has all these Wiis outputting, what's going to happen when it douse finally drop off. They're going to have a lot more leftover than the 360 or the PS3.
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Re: I don't know
Spend too much on building factories and they'll have to be closed sooner as demand drops off too quickly. Spend too little and demand will drop off because it's never available. I can't fault them for how they did it because to me, it's been a pretty successful product.
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Anyway, I have had a lot of fun with my Wii. I've had it for just over 2 years now, and from Zelda and Metroid Prime 3 to the current Madworld there are a lot of fun games on it. Hell, one of the best times I've had in recent years was having a family game on Samba De Amigo after one too many Christmas drinks... I don't think I could even get half my family to pick up a 360 controller, let alone have a blast on CoD with me. It's for a different market to the "traditional" consoles, and there's a place for both.
It would be nice if the shovelware stopped, but there's plenty of great games for it and 3rd parties are finally starting to show some imagination.
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Who plays the Wii?
I have been a Wii owner for about 6 months, along with the Wii Fit. I use it EVERY day for exercising and tracking weight. You may not get a huge cardio burn from the exercises but you can improve your flexibility and coordination. My grandchildren can play the same things I play. They likely wouldn't be into XBOX or Playstation for many years to come. I have plenty of middle-aged (30's to 70's) adult friends who enjoy the Wii on a regular basis, as well.
Lest you think I am a technophobe, I routinely build my own PCs, enjoy PC games (Crysis, etc.), but have never gotten into the limited control when using a game controller vs. a keyboard. I have no problem with the consoles and controllers, but I prefer the PC.
Now, as far as the limited availability, that is a great question. The goal as a marketer is to sell as many of your product at the best possible price. With 50 million consoles world-wide, they may be missing a few sales, but it would be crazy not to call this a huge commercial success for Nintendo. No doubt, many are bought because they are hard to get, but you can also be sure many non-Wii consoles are gathering dust as well.
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No shortages - at least in Slovenia
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Re: No shortages - at least in Slovenia
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In the beginning, Nintendo intended to do what all game console developers do: produce some steady number of consoles per month, I think it was something like 6 million per month; there'd be a shortage at first, then it'd die down and they'd develop a big surplus which would get them through the next holiday season.
The problem was, sales never dropped, so they didn't get the surplus... by the time they saw that they would be going into the holiday season with nothing in stock, it was too late to ramp up production in time.
So they held production steady, certain that after the holiday season was over sales of the year-old console would drop. Yet once again, sales stayed steady. Finally, in the middle of last year they decided to ramp up production by several million units per months and keep it up until they could meet demand. They've finally hit it.
So, in summary: They had _no idea_ how incredibly successful this thing was gonna be.
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However, I disagree with some of the original content too. Just recently the UK price of the Wii went up something like 20 pounds do to weakness of the pound. The story is maybe a week or two old on Joystiq.com. Also, I worked at Walmart in an electronics deptartment up until October of last year, and our allotment of Wiis was based upon how many Wiis we sold, with an emphasis on how much accessories we sold with each Wii. The Walmart I worked at started 'bundling' the Wii with Wii-Play, an extra Nunchuck, and often even a casual controller, not so much because the customers wanted it (there was no savings from getting the bundle as opposed to buying it separately) but because the more we sold like that, the more we got in to sell. After the fall of 2007 or so we stopped having any Wii shortages for the most part.
So, assuming that Nintendo used this same structure across other stores, places that didn't sell accessories would seem to have more of a shortage than others.
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MY 2 cents
Shooters and racing games (aside from Mario Cart..) are best left for the more graphically inclined systems.
Will the Wii slow down in sales? Sure they all do, but I think I can say (in my opion) the Wii was and continues to be a huge success. We have a family bowling tournament every christmas... when my son and his great grandmother can bowl agaist each other (and niether was a slouch son is 4 and bowled a 191 his great grandma is 76 bowled a 180) that is a success. Period. That is what Nintendos system is about. Bridging the gameing gap.
It may not substitute as the end all be all for gaming systems, but then....which one ever has? :)
Peace!!
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@Chrono S. Trigger
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so i think the reason that the wii has had continued success may be because they keep giving people more and different reasons to buy.
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We own two Wiis and use them both
I realize that many of the games are also available on other consoles, and indeed sometimes I wish I had CoD on a 360 or PS3 because of the graphics. However, the controllers on those consoles don't hold a candle to the Wii controllers. After a marathon gaming session I don't even have sore thumbs or stiff hands, not to mention hunched shoulders from keeping both hands together on a tiny controller.
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If Nintendo started to try to go in the direction that Sony and MS are you'd be leaving the casual gamers out in the cold. Hardcore gamers have 2 systems to choose from. Is that not enough?
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Wii Scarcity? = SOP at Nintendo
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True
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