1 Million Wiis To Be Sold in U.S. By December 206
Gamasutra reports on comments by Nintendo's Reggie-Fils Aime, who is claiming the company will have sold 1 Million Wii consoles by December 1st. From the article: "Nintendo's previously stated plans called for the company to ship approximately 4 million consoles globally before the end of 2006. It is not clear whether the new figures stated by Fils-Aime are still in line with these numbers, since no estimate for Japanese or European sales were given. Sony's plans call for 1 million consoles sales in the U.S. by the end of March, 2007. When interviewed by Reuters, Fils-Aime also commented on the potential lifespan of the Wii, suggesting that a four, five or even six year lifespan was 'just about right.'"
Not to shout "this isn't news but"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes but the PS3 is to looking like a disaster (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of it like this: if I spend $1000 on stock, I didn't "lose" $1000 - I invested it, with the hopes of getting more than $1000 back at some point in the future, but my returns are not guaranteed, just as Sony's returns are not.
You're more or less right, but there is a difference. If you invest in stock you get something, stock. You made a purchase that may or may not increase in value. When Sony loses money selling consoles they don't have anything. They have arguable increased their potential of selling games and movies. Thus, it is more like paying for advertising than it is investing in stock. This doesn't mean that the return is less likely, only that what they have purchased is more ephemeral. It also means their expenditure may be more exploitable by individuals who happen to want just that hardware, but who don't want any games or movies.
Back-order? Direct-order? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes but the PS3 is to looking like a disaster (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, you gave a lot of URLs for articles that say various negative things about the PS3, but not a single article to bolster your main point, that you believe they would have trouble with sales. On the other hand, Sony had 400k units go out the door in minutes on launch day (Please show me figures if you believe it's lower, because everything I read shows the higher number), with lots of frustrated people paying big bucks on eBay because of very high demand.
I had thought that the Wii was going to be 4 million units strong yesterday. I was impressed that they sold out that many units. As time goes on today, I find out that the true number was much lower. The leisurly sell-out of 500k units actually looks kind of bad for Nintendo in the demand are. Based on the launch day alone, it looks like there was much stonger demand for the PS3.
Once again, say all you want about how bad you think the PS3 is and how great the Wii. you may be wrong and you may be right. But don't try to tell me the Wii is more popular at lauch. Unless you got some cool numbers the rest of us have never seen, it's just fantasy talk. Even if you do have the numbers, you'd be hard pressed to tell me week long lines compare to breezing into the store and haveing no problem getting your box, even though the numbers were closer than everyone thought.
TW
Re:Yes but the PS3 is to looking like a disaster (Score:4, Insightful)
You also have to consider that it takes quite a hefty amount of game and accessory sales to make that $300+ back. Licensing for 3rd party titles is about $8 a pop, and Sony has arguably the weakest 1st party support out of the three major players so most of their games sales will be for 3rd party games. Even if you consider accessory markup around the 40-60% area you can only sell so many controllers and AV cables before people don't need to buy any more. Blu-Ray movie licensing is probably nothing compared to that of games. They're probably banking on PS3's helping move the format and thus the players that they can make money on. Unlike Microsoft they don't have an online service that brings in money, they also don't have memory cards to bring in money, or a network adapter accessory, etc.
Thinking about it further this money spend really is more like advertising then anything else. They're just doing what they can to get the console out there, to start the word of mouth and get people interested and excited about it so that when there are more games available and the consoles are easier to track down, and Sony's losses per unit aren't as high, they'll sell more of them. It also boosts word of mouth and desire for the Blu-Ray movies which in turn boost sales of the Blu-Ray players that they can make money on. It almost works to their advantage to have so few units out in the wild because it buys them time to reduce the cost of manufacturing, drives up demand from the short supply and the console is still out there for people as a tangible object.
Re:Yes but the PS3 is to looking like a disaster (Score:5, Insightful)
Rob
Re:Back-order? Direct-order? (Score:5, Insightful)
Console manufacturers need the stores' support. They won't compete with them. If Nintendo opened an online store, stores would stock less games and consoles and give them less shelf space. People going to the stores would perceive Nintendo to be the smaller brand and would buy other consoles instead.
Re:Yes but the PS3 is to looking like a disaster (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks like you're using Sony's worldwide launch numbers, but Nintendo's (completely speculated) U.S. launch numbers. Why?
"Everything you read" says Sony shipped 400,000 -- okay, though there are lots of rumors to the contrary I don't know of documented evidence otherwise -- the main documentation seems to say that there are no verified numbers... but, like many reporters you seem to accept Sony's advance numbers by default (despite widespread reports that shipments were short). On the other hand, no definite numbers are known for Nintendo yet, so you... reject Nintendo's numbers and go with lower numbers you made up. Without even the short shipments rumors as in the PS3 case. Why? Are you aware of even one single store that had fewer than twice as many Wiis as PS3s? Most of the margins seem to be well above that, though of course the dust has not settled yet.
I had thought that the Wii was going to be 4 million units strong yesterday.
Why did you think this? Nintendo never said this. Nintendo said 4 million by the end of the year. It's unreasonable to be disappointed in Nintendo because you misread the press releases.
Based on the launch day alone, it looks like there was much stonger demand for the PS3.
You made up your numbers backing this up, and I'm unclear how you define yesterday as "leisurely"... fewer people shot at/robbed? Okay, I'll give you that, but it seems like most stores were still sold out pretty early in the morning, if not right at opening. If it took longer for the sellout to happen than for the PS3, it seems mostly because there were more units available, and more stores with significant numbers of units, so tracking all of them down took longer. Also, people weren't as worried about shortages, and could afford to be less crazy about getting one.
In any case, as basic econ tells us, in situations of inelastic demand (the hardcore fans), "shorter supply" can have effects that look very similar to "stronger demand," and it's very unclear why you're claiming the latter with no real evidence...
Re:Yes but the PS3 is to looking like a disaster (Score:3, Insightful)
I totally don't get how one could apply the razor concept to the PS3. The razor concept depend on the idea that the razor is cheap so that people buy it without thinking, and then buy the relatively expensive blades over time without noticing since in absolute terms the blades still don't cost very much and the purchases are spread out over time.
Care to explain to me how this has anything to do with a console that costs USD 500-600 and has games that cost 50-100?