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[JoshuaJSlone]

What about the original Xbox? Was it even 6 months?

My offhand recollection is that the first price drops of last generation were all within a few weeks of each other. I believe it was precisely six months, like GameCube.

Yeah. Xbox and GCN launched within a few days of each other in November, and then all three had price drops around E3 the following May.

People who need biofeedback to help them figure out how to relax might be interested, but I have to figure that's a pretty small % of potential Wii buyers and most of those would probably think of going to a doctor for pills before playing a video game.

Also, even if I was going to use a video game specifically built around relaxing, I'd kind of prefer it on DS so I could relax in more than one room.

Wii vitality sensor is basically the next step for the Bio-Tetris game in Japan.

Except that snapped onto your ear, so it interfered less with normal controller use.

 

[vanguardian1]

Price drop next year.

Iwata : *laughs*

 

[gerg]

With sales flat or down for other consoles so far it's hard to say this is a problem yet. But year to date Wii is down about 800K in the US--certainly it would be better to have that extra 800K earlier than to have to fight harder for them later against competition who aren't standing still.

It depends on how much harder that sell really is. This is something we can't really discuss, as our stances are purely hypothetical, but if it turns out the later sell isn't very hard, then the time difference won't have posed a problem.

As I mentioned above, Wii is down about 800K in the US year to date. If the amount it's been down in the last three months holds for the next three months, through October it will be down 1.7 million. Last year they already set the record for what a home console could sell across November+December in the US, passing 4 million for the first time. If sales have been down for most of the year, why would we think they'll match that, let alone make up the difference? PS2 only had a November+December of greater than 3 million one time--and Wii's May-July numbers are well below what PS2 was doing in May-July of that year.

It depends on how much demand their new software creates.

Considering they already bumped up their production capacity so high, it would be a waste to... well, put it to waste. Even in a world where everyone who doesn't buy one now is going to buy one later, it's still better to reach milestone X at date Y, rather than date Y + a year.

This is an evaluation from a marketshare-biased perspective. It may not be better to do so when concerning potential profit.

It's always going to be better to have a higher userbase to sell more software and accessories, encourage more support from third parties, give people less reason to want to buy the competitions' machines, and in the long-term have a larger group of people (and publishers) automatically interested in the successor.

I'm having a hard time understanding how the one or two million extra consumers Nintendo would have attracted this year would have had any significance in these matters over the 50 million they already have.

It's always difficult to speculate "what if", but certainly there are consumers who are choosing an Xbox 360 over the Wii for the sake of price or value. It's most definitely not a "Wii or nothing" crowd out there anymore. Of course, it never was, but the balance is quite visibly changing.

I never sought to deny this, but rather that the consumers they would be attracting now would ever really wish to buy a 360 (at least until Natal is released, perhaps).

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I'm having a hard time understanding how the one or two million extra consumers Nintendo would have attracted this year would have had any significance in these matters over the 50 million they already have.

Well, sure, the increase from 5 months in one region isn't going to look huge compared to the current worldwide sales over the past 33 months. It's not just about the difference in the US in 2009, it's long term being at 80 million instead of 70 million, or being at 100 million instead of 80 million.

 

[AniHawk]

Tales of Symphonia Wii > Tales of Vesperia > Valkyria Chronicles

 

[legend166]

Tales of Symphonia Wii > Tales of Vesperia > Valkyria Chronicles

That's pretty interesting.

 

[RyuKanSan]

indeed. whats the actual sales of those tales games?

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Tales of Symphonia Wii > Tales of Vesperia > Valkyria Chronicles

As was predicted.

Everything is going according to plan

Spoiler

and as I have foreseen it

 

[Sipowicz]

Tales of Symphonia Wii > Tales of Vesperia > Valkyria Chronicles

you have got to be shitting me

on the plus side graces should sell a ton. looks like the decision to move valkyria to psp was incredibly smart too

 

[Nirolak]

you have got to be shitting me

on the plus side graces should sell a ton. looks like the decision to move valkyria to psp was incredibly smart too

While that inequality does say Symphonia 2 is the best selling of the three, it unfortunately doesn't imply that any of them actually sold well.

 

[donny2112]

indeed. whats the actual sales of those tales games?

You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never completely trust what AniHawk says when sales are on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...

 

[AniHawk]

inFamous > Punch-Out!!

However, it's very likely this may be switched next month or the month after the way things are going.

Killzone 2 > EA Sports Active > Prototype (combined)