Sooo...
...they've just killed demand for the Wii when it's replacement isn't out for at least 8 months? Smart.
Nintendo's next home console will be out in 2012, the videogames pioneer has revealed, though the 'Wii 2' - or whatever the machine will be called - is expected to be shown off at the E3 games industry show in June. The Japanese company posted its latest financial data, for its 2011 fiscal year, which ended on 31 March, this …
The rumours have been out and about for weeks; there's no point pretending. Aside from anything else, it's been well known that the next Zelda is: a) Well along in development, and b) will be released on Wii and Wii2 (WiiII?). So even if five years an a dropping sales rate isn't enough of a hint, it's obvious that WII2 is going to be this year sometime.
demand was already on the slide, and with only 1 holiday season (when the large share of these things are sold) left in the Wii's life they have probably decided to push the 3DS this year and then launch the Wii 2 into the market and push it holiday 2012.
Sounds like a sane strategy to me, the Wii is getting a little 'old' and needs a revamp and some new ideas, meanwhile the 3DS actually has new ideas (well 3D is old ideas rehashed with new technology but nevermind).
The naysayers said it was stupid of Nintendo to have the Wii only support 480p while the others were 1080i or p, and yet it was still a money machine for them. I doubt this will sway potential buys that much.
Besides, how is that any different than any other next-gen console announcement?
Demand for the Wii has been down for quite a while anyway. It's still king of this generation of consoles on the strength of sales for the first couple years it was on the market, but PS3 and XBox360 have both been outselling it for at least the last couple years. Most people who wanted a Wii have one now and since the things don't randomly die like certain other consoles (*cough* red ring of death *cough*) they aren't likely to buy another. They aren't likely to do much harm to their bottom line by announcing the next generation now.
agree
Know people with Xbox 360's and PS3's
out of 2 people with a PS3 one is on their 2nd other is on their 3rd
5 people with xbox 360's all are at least on their 2nd xbox, 1 is on a 3rd, and think one is on their 4th...
all have wii's all on their 1st wii (cept my one cousin, but that was due to the wii getting stolen when their house was robbed)
My Wii I've used alot, and have had 0 issues with it. I have owned it since launch
...when your moneymaker is approaching the point of Market Saturation. Demand's on the slide since nearly everyone who wants a Wii has one already. There are tons of used models being hocked off by people who've gotten tired of it.
The same thing happened to the Atari 2600. The market became saturated with it and the clones, and Atari needed to pick up hardware sales. It was its poor execution that led considerably to its collapse during the Crash of '83.
lets hope they have learned from the mistakes that they made with the wii..
the pathetic storage space, poor use of the sd card, it should have been used to expand available system memory. and most important, online gaming was poor at best due to the complex system of joining up with friends for online games.
i was wondering when they were going to replace the wii as it now has been totally pwned by the hackers and crackers. They know just as much about the wii and its security as Nintendo does.
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"I can't think of a single dedicated games system that was expandable where the expansion a) dramatically increased the capabilities of the machine and b) achieved sufficient market penetration to be considered commercially successful."
What about the light gun for the Nintendo Master system? Wasn't that also the first machine to use 3d?
Compared to the entire NES/Famicom library, the number of lightgun games was pretty paltry. It wasn't as if the Zapper made a paradigm gaming shift but rather provided an alternative line of games to play. Much like guitar controllers and dance pads of these days--you can play certain games with them, but they're not going to do much outside their niche.