30% of US households to own a Wii by 2011 (1 Viewer)

[Frybread]

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4780&Itemid=2

Yoshiyuki Kinoshita, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, made the prediction following news that Wii had captured a 68% share of the Japanese next-gen market last month, selling over 400,000 units against 150,000 units for PS3. In the U.S, Wii outsold PS3 by 436K to 244K, although, of course, PS3 is still out-billing Wii on a dollar basis.

Analysts are increasingly dismissive of the idea that Wii is a short-term gimmick, whoe appeal is fading. Jay Defibaugh, analyst at Credit Suisse said, "There has been a concern that the Wii was gimmicky but each passing month assuages that."

30% of all households would make Wii the most popular console in US history.

I see this as good news for PC Gamers, as the big threats to our platform of choice, PS3 and Xbox360, will be playing runner up to Wii. This has two results:

1) With fewer PS3's and Xbox's in people's homes, that gives the computer a good chance to win the "living room" war. Especially when you consider 76% of US homes own a PC.
(http://www.byopvr.com/ if you want to get a jump on the crowd)

2) If the Wii wins out like Merril Lynch is predicting, and the 360/PS3 trail far enough, it could be like the 1990's all over again - cheap consoles and poor graphics dominating homes, while developers interested in cutting edge graphics and high-end gaming will stick with the PC.


In more "ha ha I told you so" news, every analyst said Wii would be a failure. Gamespot made "Wii is a success!" their april fool's joke last year.

Nintendo, I was with you from the start. When I needed extra holiday cash, I camped for Wii's on November 19th (release day). I did not waste time camping for PS3's, even when people said that was the big money.

 

[mven]

I would own a Wii if I could find one to buy at some point that I had some extra cash laying around (the 2-3 days following pay day). Would I actually use it? Probably not. Personally I think the Wii is a piece of shit. I think it's success is based on a gimmick and not quality in the "adult" end (people 20+) of the console. I think most of this part of the market will get bored with it rather quickly as most of the titles end up being "kiddie". Then again with the huge amount of cross platform console games being released it may hold their attention a bit longer. I dunno. I guess I just see the dated hardware eventually being raped by games that would be made for the 360 or PS3.

On the kids side of the console market I see this selling like hotcakes for a good while. It's less than half the price of a PS3 which makes it a fairly sensible "compromise" for parents trying to appease kids wanting a PS3 or 360. Nintendo already has a huge number of game IPs that they can pull from their insanely popular GBA and DS library that kids will recognize and be into. The controller gimmick even allows for a bit of physical activity while gaming which is probably better than growing the number of lazy couch bound children you find nowadays.

I dunno. The Wii is a piece of shit. I still want one.

 

[(Un)conscious]

I agree, my money was on the Wii from the beginning as well, from the start it looked like the classic VHS vs BETAmax battle.
But I'm not entirely sure you are right with your analysis of PC vs Console. I've owned I think pretty much the entire range between my first Atari and Commodore 64 till my PS2 and latest PC. IMO consoles are the best thing that happened to us PC gamers (incl Mac): they provided good graphics and great "Playability" at a time when PC games weren't that advanced and forced by the healthiest of means (ie competition) the PC industry into a direction it probably would have not taken otherwise. So lets hope the "living room war" is never won by anyone or we (the consumers) will get screwed into another Windows-like adventure...

PS: and calling the Wii "cheap consoles and poor graphics" seems a bit harsh to me. Ok its not as awesome as the PS3, but I'm happy its winning as they took a more "human" approach to gaming (graphics are not the point, playability is). A mistake Sony has been making often recently is to listen to its engineers and specialists when deciding the scope of a product and not to the consumer's wishes (which start with affordability...). Which goes back to almost every story of technological advance (apart from the military, on account of their proverbial stupidity) big white elefants pop up which might be more technologically advanced but do not answer a need, so they flounder...

 

[dermien]

I entered a contest to win a Wii but that's as far as I'm going to go to get one, and now I won't stop getting emails from PETA.

 

[mven]

and calling the Wii "cheap consoles and poor graphics" seems a bit harsh to me. Ok its not as awesome as the PS3, but I'm happy its winning as they took a more "human" approach to gaming (graphics are not the point, playability is).

The problem is that that has little to do with the console hardware. Any game that can be made for the Wii can be made for the 360 or PS3 with little problem. The reverse however isn't necessarily true. Worse case scenario they have to develop new controllers. It's not like they haven't been tacking on all sorts of peripherals to consoles for years (guns, vr, mice, dance pads, guitars, cameras, the power glove?!, etc).

The Wii won't really offer more bang for your buck in terms of hardware IMO (though currently it does as all 3 systems have shit for games) it just costs less. Hell the Wii is so cheap that they are actually making money off the console itself. The biggest thing for all 3 consoles is not even the hardware itself. It's who they can get to produce games for their system. A lot of the big name companies are going cross platform for the time being so any of these consoles is about the same investment at this point. I think when you start seeing the Metal Gears, Final Fantasies, etc that are only released on say the PS3 that things will start to decline. Having no HD support, outdated hardware, no large capacity drive, etc will hurt the Wii in the future I think.

I doubt it will fail at delivering all the 5-14 year old market could want for years to come but I don't think it will fare as well in the "big kid" market once titles that are released that actually take advantage of what the more expensive systems have to offer.

Or I could be wrong and the PS3 could end up as the Neo Geo of this generation of consoles. I already own a 360 and a PS3 so once I pick up a Wii it won't matter to me which one wins out. I'll be shocked though if there are 70-80 million Wii's sold in the US in the next 4 years. Is there even a 30% saturation of every console ever built in the US? I know they sell a lot but that seems excessive.

 

[imported_tribute]

The "Wii" has possibly one of the crappest names ever.

I always thought a "Wii" was what you did in a bathroom, I don't play with mine.

P.S. Did they have any statistics about how many people would be severely injured/die due to Wii usage? Not to mention the amount of broken TVs, furniture etc. I guarantee this number will be quite high by 2011...

 

[oshin]

The average joe is going to be impressed by something that's a bit more immersive than a few more polygons imo, so imo the wii will probably do well. Im not going to buy any next gen console in the near future, wow has me happy enough.