You know you are doing good when the hardcore start throwing fits. Quotes from Iwata’s latest discussion with investors has been making the rounds. Since this discussion has not yet been translated to English, I’m not going to comment on that. I don’t trust game journalists at all to understand the business side of Nintendo. I bet there are more interesting stories in there that they are completely missing. The quotes they are pulling out are the things they can only see with their hardcore tunnel vision (like prices cuts).
So why does the Wii not dropping in price enrage the hardcore? Look at the comments or forum threads where Iwata’s comments are at. What Iwata is saying isn’t new. He has said it many times before. Price drops are also a ‘no-no’ in the Blue Ocean Strategy. Price drops are a ‘Red Ocean’ tactic.
We all know the hardcore don’t like the Wii anyway and that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are ‘better’. How do we know this? On any story Wii related, the hardcore feel free to volunteer us information on how ‘dusty’ their Wii is and how ‘it sucks’.
If the hardcore don’t like the Wii, why are they angry that it isn’t getting a price drop? Are the hardcore worried that our precious analysts might, once again, be embarrassed that Nintendo doesn’t do what they predict? No, that can’t be it.
The hardcore are enraged not because of the price of the Wii, but its value in the marketplace. The outrage is over value.
Back in 2006, when PS3 and Wii launched, the Wii sold out and stayed sold out for a couple years. The PS3 and Xbox 360 did not move the number of systems as the Wii or had anything resembling the ‘Wii craze’ as they did.
The hardcore told us why. “It is because of the price! Once Xbox 360 and PS3 come down in price, it is the end of Wii!!!”
PS3 and Xbox 360 have come down in price. But their momentum remains stagnant. Someone might say, “But the Wii sales have CRASHED because they are selling much less Wii systems now!” Crash is the wrong word (but that isn’t stopping certain “journalists” from using it). Anyone who thinks Wii is the console this generation with the ‘problem’ and the HD Twins have ‘no problems’, you simply don’t know what is going on.
The hardcore probably actually believed that Wii sold because of its lower price, and they probably believed that Xbox 360 and PS3 were a higher value simply because they cost more. You have to believe they held high value in order to shell out $400-$600 at launch.
Xbox 360 is already cheaper than the Wii. It is not improbable to imagine that the PlayStation 3 will, eventually, become cheaper than the Wii. If that day comes, oh man, the hardcore are going to blow a gasket.
The hardcore are already convinced that the Wii holds no value and the fact that Iwata refuses to lower the price enrages them. The HD Twins are doing their price cuts, why won’t the Wii?
Let me give you examples of their anger.
From Kotaku:
It’s such a rip off though! You get a weak console with a very, very limited game library and piss poor online for up to £80-90 more than a 360 arcade, which has a great game library and good online.
inb4xbot
I don’t even own a 360, I have a PS3 so shush.
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With the 360 being $200, I find very little reason to buy a Wii for $50 more unless you just have to have Nintendo’s 1st party games. In terms of what you get for the money, the 360 has the Wii beat hands down.
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And the fact that it costs $80 for a complete controller. My 360 controller costs $50, nevermind the fact that it’s constantly on sale on Amazon (right now for $32 for a black one).
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@YourFreakingMom-Yeah that’s right: Why NOT have a price cut? I mean the system is cool and all but come on,it IS just a motion controlled gamecube.They have sold millions of those damn Wii’s.It can’t/won’t be 249$ forever.
I for one would love a price cut.Just as my other comment says, i wouldn’t mind having a Wii.No way im paying 249$ for it though.Only way i would pay that much is if all of a sudden there were actually a decent amount of games for the damn thing.
My 599$ for a PS3=Justified
My 299$ for a 360=Justified
Paying 249$ for a Wii=Why?!?!?
Just my opinion ;)
Here are some comments from VG247, a site I have never heard of, who describes the Wii sales as ‘crashing’:
How about ‘Crap Wii in wake up call’ – maybe finally the fad that is Wii is over.
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“Right now,” Iwata said, “there aren’t a lot of discussions going on about what exactly to do about hardware pricing.”
Perhaps thats a discussion that might be worth having?
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Let’s look at a NeoGAF thread:
Nintendo and the Malstrom disciples have claimed that a price cut isn’t necessary, that price cuts won’t drive sales. So is it just some coincidence that the ONLY console that had a price cut in the last year is also the ONLY console that is improving year-over-year sales?
You can blame the software, but the 360’s YOY improvements come without much help in the software department as well. COD:WaW is not the success that COD4 was…..2008 had GTA4 while this year has no title that can rival GTA for moving hardware.
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I wish I could become a ‘hardcore’ so I would get to live in fairy-tale land.
Meanwhile, some people expressed surprise that Wii Music and Animal Crossing Wii sales, which are around three to two million, was considered ‘bad’ by Nintendo. This shouldn’t be much of a surprise. The purpose of first party titles is to sell the hardware. Who is honestly going to buy a Wii specifically for Wii Music? Or Animal Crossing Wii for that matter? There is a correlation of Wii sales declining not soon after they were released. In terms of keeping up the momentum, those games didn’t do the job.
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