Ok, the wii is doing fantastically this generation - expanding what was a niche to what is now an entire platform. The thing about this is, the major contributing factors of this astounding success may well change in a couple of weeks;
- Positive Press
Positive press for the Wii has greatly assisted the ever expanding wii adoption rate. However, positive press has been generated thus far by the rather lacklustre performance of the PS3.
Why just the PS3 and not the 360? Thats exactly my point.
If you consider the press, as it currently stands, any mention of Microsoft brings around mention of Sony, and visa versa. What this leads to is a surprising exception to the old rule "there's no such thing as bad publicity". Negative press towards the PS3 has transformed conversations in the mass media to 1~2 sentences about the X360, followed by a minute on how poorly the "old king" is performing, proceeded by a minute about how the Wii is such a smashing success.
With E3, we can assume that this will all change. This is not to say that MS or Sony will win E3 - but rather, the sheer amount of positive PR surrounding all three consoles will change the current media stance from "Ms.... well, the ps3 sucks and the wii rocks" to "the console race is heating up!". Thus, mention of any of the three consoles will (assumably) no longer extend to a discussion of the entire war as currently standing, but rather, be a more concise statement on their general condition.
Further, from this influx of positive PR for all three consoles, the current element of excited exposition in the media's dealings with the consoles will wane. Hence, we will see a dip in articles in the Money section of X publishing concerning current predictions of the console war.
- Initial Adoption
Of the (lets just say) 10,000,000 sales of the Wii console thus far, it is currently unknown how many of these purchases have been console owners converted to the Wii, Nintendo die hards and general consumers caught in the hype.
Taking the GameCube as an example, initial sales for the unfortunate box were very promising, however, once all the people who were already going to purchase the console had purchased it - the demand halted. Furthermore, the vastly higher figure of this initial adoption period may well be effected to an unknown extent by the growth of the gaming industry in general. How many of those 10,000,000 are this generation's equivalent to the nintendo die-hard fan who bought the Cube on release?
- The iPhone
As mentioned previously, two major contributing factors in the abundant wii sales have been the media, and more importantly, hype. The question of how many people bought the Wii because it was the 'hip' thing to buy is currently going to be answered - by the iPhone.
To give an example, the CNET consumer electronics editor made 10 predictions of what major events would happen in 2007. One of these was (in effect) "the iphone will receive rave reviews in spite of being a fundamentally flawed product". His prediction came true with CNET awarding the iPhone an 8/10 and the obsurd sales of said product in spite of its price, as noted by many a useless thread.
As mentioned previously, due to the negative press surrounding Sony and the wonderfully low price-point of the Wii, Nintendo enjoyed a huge amount of consumer demand sprouting from media spin. The Wii became the next big Fad in sales, with everyone and their dog buying the wii.
The counter-argument to this is, of course, that the Wii formula simply worked and that the media hype machine was only a small contributing factor. However, one must consider the speed of the adoption. If one considers the current success of the Wii mostly being due to the fun factor and how people are seeing their friends play with the Wii and suddenly want one, you still do not have anything near the current consumer demand.
Why? The relationship between supply and demand. Example;
Say you invite your friend to your house - we all know that what you'll end up playing is not your X360 or PS3, or PC, but your Wii. Now say they had so much fun that they all went out the next day to buy a Wii.
They get to the store - and there are none in stock. Or perhaps one or two of them gets a wii, and the rest do not.
Now, this initial let down serves to dispel most of that initial hype which drove them to buy a Wii in the first place - generated by the initial experience. So those same people who rushed out to buy the Wii on the very next day will now say "oh - I'll check in later" - and we all know, most of these people will have forgotten by then, because they prob. weren't too into gaming to begin with.
So one month later, another party is thrown in your house - but this time you either play the same games you played last time they came over on your Wii, or you play with your 360/PS3. Why? The current drought in games.
Supply and demand. The current rate of expansion in wii sales simply cannot be purely because of those parties, simply because the Wii has been out of stock for a large percentage of this period, and games have been hard to come by. Your convincing those people that gaming is fun does not invoke the amount of hype required for that person to go out of their way to get a Wii (via lining up / calling in before going to the store over a couple of weeks).
The expansion through this method does exist, but simply cannot account for the current drive in Wii sales.
So, lets extend the previous analogy. Say those friends did indeed come over and play those wii games - then proceeded to fail to get a wii the next day. Then what happens? The Wii is on Good Morning America the next day (or whatever people watch in the morning) - and so the hype stays with them.
So that amount of positive press + those people who are purely effected by the Wii being the 'it' thing does indeed account for the extreme sales.
Then comes the iPhone and E3.
what do you think happens now?
(I'm not saying the wii is doomed or anything, I actually want your collective input)
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