Remember When You Couldn’t Get A Wii
So I was cruising around town this evening because the missus had the day off from work. It was a lot of fun, and because our coffers had a bit extra in them this week, we did what most responsible adults would do, spend it at Target. While walking around and picking up a good deal on The Bourne Identity on 360 ($14.98), Darkstar One ($4.98), and skipping on The Last Remnant ($29.98).
My bargain hunting also took me past the Wii aisle where I saw a stunning site. There on the bottom shelves stood about 12-16 Nintendo Wii’s just staring at me. I kept looking around for the throng of people that would steamroll me at any minute to crash the cage and take them home to a ton of waggling fun. But the throng never came, and it finally dawned on me that we might have found the cresting point of the Nintendo Wii’s wave of domination.
It is not just Target where Wii’s are starting to stack up on shelves. You can walk into Walmart, Gamestop, Best Buy and pretty much any other retailer and grab a Wii with nary a comotion. Three months ago, the Wii was still a big box made of gold and dreams, while here, near the beginning of March, it is a box of has-been and been there, done that. Most of us realized the Wii would not continue to steam roll from launch to end of production, but the turnaround seems so swift from when there were none, to when there were plenty.
Now I was not a Gamecube owner, but something about this reminds me of something people told me about Nintendo and that console. If I am correct in what I was told, the Gamecube was severly overproduced after a shortage at launch. Then the overproduction stripped demand by leaps and bounds, leaving Nintendo with huge stockpiles of Gamecubes. That happened right after launch, where with the Wii, we are seeing it after nearly two years of intense demand.
So what is the cause of this sudden decline in want and need of this crazy little console? One might look at it as a point of saturation. Remember when the iPods fueled a ton of demand for Apple? It was because the market loved the new device and no one owned it. After a couple of years, sales started to flatten, and at one point decline for sales of iPods. Apple reached a saturation point of its audience at the time. The Wii could only sell its console to so many elderly, kids and normal people that woulc say they are non-gamers. Nintendo reached a point where they filled all the rows of their auditorium and everyone else decided to go home. Competition could be the other issue as well. Microsoft has been pushing the hell out of their $199.99 bundled Xbox 360, and with the solid library of games, and an upgrade path that can grow with the gamer, it is a very enticing option. Finally, it could just be the fad of owning a Nintendo Wii is starting to peak. There was a time early in 2008 when all the stars were out and about talking up the Wii and how great it was for them to own. Fast forward and that kind of sentiment from the rich and famous is rarely, if ever, mentioned. My sister-in-law went on her quest for the Wii after playing it at our house last year. She also had friends that owned one, and she was determined to get one. After a few weeks of use, it has sat in her entertainment center becoming one with the dust.
Now don’t get me wrong. I know that up to this point, Nintendo has printed money with the Wii. They have made crazy, insane amounts of money, to the point that I am sure that Reggie and Cammie roll around naked in their offices on floors and furnitures made of real money. But now that the ramped up production seems to have caught up and surpased demand, are we about to see a changing of fortunes in the console race? No one knows for sure, but it does seem like things have started to get a bit more interesting.
Tags: Apple, competition, demand, Gamecube, ipod, Nintendo, overproduction, overstock, saturation, stockpile, supply, wii
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The Wiis at the top apear to be on sale for $39.99
That's how many of them they have. They are having to clear them out! seriously, it is just a target where the employees are lazy and tend to not take care of the game department all that well.
I still have yet to see a wii in a store. Impressive, maybe the demand is finally met…
Price decrease during market saturation is one of the reasons why I don't bother abot being an early adopter. Along with the corresponding price increase, hardware (X360 & ipod) & firmware tweaks and waiting for enough decent game releases not to be wasting time with it.
Why stand in a queue to get one of the first versions of (x) console with its questionable launch games when I could try whittling down my existing backlog?
I still need to get myself a Wii, along with RE4, Deadly Creatures, and a few others.
It's about time. Unless families start buying multiple consoles, like the DS. I can walk into my Best Buy and maybe see one or two Wiis average.
I think they've finally got production where it needs to be. We've been seeing piles of 360s and PS3 for 2 years now. It doesn't mean “everyone went home”. What are you even talking about?
I'm in Levi's boat. I have NEVER seen a Wii in the store. My mom was luckily able to buy mine due to a random phone call to GameStop on her lunch break. That was a great day for me!
That, or everyone in the United States is realizing that they already bought a Wii, so now they're starting to pile up.
There's more than just a hint of bias to this piece — almost as if the author couldn't contain his excitement at the prospect of a Wii sales decline. Not once is the possible conclusion of a heavy recession addressed.
This site is 3rd-rate.
just look at the titles on the first image and u will know why people stopped buying, i love nintendo, but not when its this low on games
I thought the exact same thing. But wait, those are some triple-A titles, right? I mean, who doesn't want to play such high quality games as Bolt, Ultimate Band, and Wall-E?
I have to agree with Joe on this one. You look in the news and hear about the American auto industry needing BILLIONS of dollars to save it, mass unemployment all over the world, banks failing left right and center, and this author is under the impression that the Wii isn't selling based on the fact that Microsoft have reduced their price (how come there aren't any pictures to show the amount of 360's on the shelves?) or that people are getting fed up of the fad.
It amazes me how people are so quick to slam on Nintendo at the first sign, these are the same people who see Platinum games with an xbox 360 dev kit and think straight away that they are making Madworld for the Wii, forgetting the fact that the same developer's are making Bayonetta (or however you spell it)for the 360.
I've just grown about sick and tired of these stupid articles of the 360 failing because of the RROD or the PS3 failing because it isn't selling enough or the Wii finally and so happily not selling enough because it's a fad blah blah blah i'm hardcore and hate them. If it's not that it's about the sodding iphone overthrowing the psp and the ds or the psp being naff because of the umd or the ds being a bad choice for the next GTA. Please shut up!!!
I'll end on one last thing though, i'd like this author to come back after the NPD sales data comes though and have another article about the sales of the Wii.
So the wii is finally meeting demand and that's a bad thing?? Sorry but your article filled of anectodical evidence is quite bad.
Great! So Nintendo is finally catching up to demand. The so-called Wii fad doesn't seem to be declining when it is still outselling the 360 and PS3 combined. Oh, and the Wii is still outpacing the PS2 in sales when compared 2 years after launch.
Yeah…. just because you can actually find a Wii these days, that doesn't mean that Nintendo has finally rolled over. If that's the case, than Sony and Microsoft have been colossal failures since four months after launch. Are you saying that there is no demand for 360s and PS3s as well, since you can buy them anywhere as well?
It seems to me that what has happened is that we finally have a balance between production and sales. That's not a bad thing for Nintendo at all. It's a good thing because now Nintendo can start to appease the folks who have been on the fence and turned off by the mad holiday chase… people who until now have maybe had to satisfy themselves with the basement 360 model or, *shudder*, PS2s.
The Wii is so far out in front that Sony and Microsoft would need to start selling their consoles for $50 each to catch up. There will be no changing of fortune this generation.
For anyone that has been following this topic, we expand upon it quite nicely in this week's podcast. check it out if you are not a subscriber. Hopefully the point I am making becomes clearer after that.
I've seen Wii consoles in stores much more often, lately. I still get excited, though…like it's a stack of porno mags or a bag of secret treasure.
“OMG, they have WII! HERE! IN THE STORE, RIGHT NOW! INCREDIBLE!”
I feel naughty for not calling people and telling them I'm seeing a Wii on a shelf.
I eagerly await the next big Wii “fad” game, which will sell a zillion more systems!
Oh, and as for the last line about things getting “interesting,” I thought Nintendo “inexplicably” DOMINATING REALLY, REALLY HARD when most “hardcore” gamers have already turned their backs on the system and written it off as crap was pretty entertaining!
It's still sold out in some areas, surprisingly. Seems like supply has finally met demand.
One HUGE reason for early adopting games is the entertainment of playing the new generation's games. Instead of waiting 5 years for it to come down in price, you can spend those 5 years enjoying the titles that come out. It just matters how much you want to play the games.
Can you contain your Nintengasm?
Hey, he said we were third rate. That is a step up. We thank you sir.
As for bias, I am not sure how. I own a Wii, and a fair amount of games for it. I am excited for Mad World, No More Heroes 2 and that new House of the Dead Overkill. I just felt that the supply is starting to outstrip the demand. I was not looking to put a pox upon the house of Nintendo.
There are signs that there is an overstock of Wiis starting to appear all over the US. They have had a great run, but I was wondering if we were starting to see a reverse of the trend.
One HUGE reason for early adopting games is the entertainment of playing the new generation's games. Instead of waiting 5 years for it to come down in price, you can spend those 5 years enjoying the titles that come out. It just matters how much you want to play the games.
Can you contain your Nintengasm?
Hey, he said we were third rate. That is a step up. We thank you sir.
As for bias, I am not sure how. I own a Wii, and a fair amount of games for it. I am excited for Mad World, No More Heroes 2 and that new House of the Dead Overkill. I just felt that the supply is starting to outstrip the demand. I was not looking to put a pox upon the house of Nintendo.
There are signs that there is an overstock of Wiis starting to appear all over the US. They have had a great run, but I was wondering if we were starting to see a reverse of the trend.