Why the Wii Won't Sell


by Omar Aug 29, 2006 fileunderFound in Nintendo Wii


With every console released since the original Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo has seen their slice of the video game pie regularly decrease.  Now with the impending launch of their latest home entertainment device, The Wii, Nintendo, pundits and fans are proclaiming that the emperor has come back to take his throne with a revolution.  This article is written to show that this will not be the case, Nintendo will not regain their lead position with the Wii, and that the biggest fans are setting themselves up for disappointment all over again.

 

The Final E3

The scene: thousands of eager gamers form massive lines waiting hours for the chance to be some of the first to play the latest franchise offerings out of Kyoto.  All those who play the games proclaim that "Nintendo is back" and mount nothing but piles of praise upon their short experiences.  After the show media pundits everywhere opinionate and editorialize about Nintendo's latest offering, and how they're turning things around, making games fun again, and the classic "Nintendo is back".  Even the developers and publishers get on the bandwagon.  After the overwhelming at the show massive publishers like Electronic Arts start advertising an increased effort towards Nintendo's console and dramatically pumping up the numbers of planned released games.  Nintendo is back.  This isn't the current year 2006.  The year is 2001.  E3 2001 is the first massively public showing of the Gamecube where it receives the greatest of praise.

Check out this quote from 2001 from UBS Walburg analysts:

 

This should all sound extremely familiar.  Wii wins E3.  EA Ramps up Wii Production.  The point:  E3, analyst comments, and even publisher reactions this early in the console's life don't mean much.  Even if there's a lot of enthusiasm for the machine at the beginning, if real-world numbers don't pan out, things can change very rapidly.  We saw it happen with the N64 and the Gamecube.  And the opposite with the Nintendo DS.  Which brings us to the flip-book wonder.

 

Nintendo DS Does Not Equal Wii

The ridiculous and unprecedented success of the Nintendo DS has led many people to predict that the company Yamauchi built will find a similar response in the console market.  Nintendo is back.  Well not so fast.  Every single Nintendo handheld ever released (Virtual Boy doesn't count as a handheld) has been a runaway success.  The original Gameboy, the Gameboy Color, and the Gameboy Advance.  The Nintendo DS is simply reinforcing the truism that has existed for the past 15 years, Nintendo makes great handheld devices.  There's another history lesson to be found in those numbers, the performance of the handheld has had very little impact on the performance of the console.  If success in one market led to success in the other, then the dominance of the Gameboy Advance would have given the Gamecube quite a boost right?  Especially if there was some kind of tight integrating between them, and it even had a special name: Connectivity!  Now, what did we see.  The Gameboy Advance became the number one selling handheld ever, and the Gamecube the worst selling Nintendo console ever.  There was no correlation, causation, or anything whatsoever.

To reinforce the market divide even further, let's look at the Playstation platform.  The PS2, the most successful console ever, reaching the 100 million units sold faster than any game device before it, THE standard when it comes to home based entertainment.  One would think that with a brand like this, releasing a handheld would pretty much guarantee Sony take over Nintendo's throne, just like they did in the living room.  Enter the PSP.  A year and a half later and it's performed substantially below expectations.  It's not a disaster, or even a failure, but it's not a massive success, kind of like Xbox or Gamecube compared to the PS2.  And this is with substantially greater hardware capabilities than the DS, far more functionality (media, internet, etc), and the Playstation brand!

Now, back to the DS.  How has this little wonder become such a phenomenon?  As is always the case in this industry, it's the games.  Nintendo released a flurry of blockbuster releases that appealed to a broader, wider audience.  Nintendogs, Animal Crossing, Brain Age, all of these titles were new and different and roped in a completely new demographic: girls.  Will this new audience bite into the Wii?  I don't think so.

 

Women don't want the Wii

What does the DS prove?  The Nintendo knows handheld gaming inside and out.  They're the rockstars at it, they're the Einsteins, they ARE handheld gaming.  Now when it comes to the console scene... not so much.  Now just a moment ago I stated that the DS appeals to the female gender, why can't the Wii?  You have to consider a few things when looking at the DS' success and why females aren't going to jump on the Wii.  The DS is a handheld device, we've established that, now where do you play handheld machines?  In a variety of places: at the park, on the subway, waiting for a late friend at a restaurant, at your work desk, etc etc  There are literally hundreds of places that a person can play with their DS, places that women (and men) frequently find themselves.  In these situations the DS has to compete with traditional light-weight distractions such as books, cross-word puzzles and the overnight success of Sudoku.  The DS replaced these activities with comparable experiences in the Brain Age series of games, and then extended that with Nintendogs and other traditional offerings. 

It's extremely easy to imagine a woman sitting on her bed using her DS and getting some Brain Training in.  Can you imagine that same woman sitting in bed and playing with the Wii?  It just doesn't make sense.  Home entertainment consoles have a very specific position and location in the household, and that's in the living room underneath the tv.  Now this brings in a whole new ball-game.  When that machine is sitting under that nice television it has a whole new set of competition for women's time.  And remember, time is extremely precious, many professional people have very little time to watch more than an hour of television a day, if that.  So in that precious hour of tv time would 20+ year old women really play Super Mario Galaxy over watching Desperate Housewives or Grey's Anatomy, and starting tonight, Prison Break?  And in that same hour would women really want to play some Super Smash Brothers, or whatever new games Nintendo comes out with, over watching Hugh Grant's smile disarm his romantic lead? 

All of those situations involve sitting down and really concentrating in front of the tv.  Most of the time tv is used as a filler, it doesn't take much attention so you have it on as background noise as you complete other tasks.  I usually have the tv on while doing laundry, or even doing dishes.  Video games require a substantial time investment, even if it's 15 minutes at a time, the interactive experience requires total concentration and attention.  These are requirements that are just too demanding for most non-gamers.  Too much investment is required to extract the necessary amount of enjoyment that makes playing the Wii a better experience than watching some tv.  When it comes to these solid uninterrupted blocks, we're talking only a few hours a week.  When it comes to time commitment and tv watching most people only have enough time to track 2-3 shows at most.  You never hear people say "Sorry, I have to watch Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, American Idol, Prison Break, Law & Order, Entourage, Deadwood, CSI, 24" it's maybe 2 or 3 of those.  This is precisely why Fox doesn't air Prison Break at the same time as 24, because people don't have enough time to dedicate and one show would cannibalize the other.

These statements aren't an indictment about the Wii precisely, but more a general observation that women are not, and most likely never will be considered console gamers.  For as far as I can see games in general just aren't going to be able to compete with television and movies when it comes to the female demographic.  Therefore I don't think Nintendo, or any game company should bank on a massive and widespread adoption of female home console gamers.  Handheld, and PC at work is already very successful, stick with that.

Well about using the Wii as the ultimate party game device?  It's a limited market.

 

Partying with the Wii

Make no mistake, the Wii is an incredible party-game machine.  It will undeniably be a riot playing some Wii-sports and all the crazy games Nintendo will release with friends and family, young and old, guys and girls.  But how big of a market is that?  And is it worth it for me as a gamer to invest in the Wii just for those rare moments and get-togethers?  Mainstream party games aren't anything new.  They've been around since the NES, and in recent incarnations have taken the form of pure party games such as the Mario Party Series and Fusion Frenzy, or the ultra-approachable Karaoke and EyeToy games.  While these games are greatly popular, even if we add up all of their sales together they don't constitute close to a successful console.  We're talking about the 10-20 million range, and that's not including the overlap when it comes to sequels and all of that.  Even if the Wii captures the entire party-game audience for next generation, which looks doubtful considering Sony's lock on the Singstar series in Europe, this won't be enough of a market to establish the Wii as a super-star console.  Not even close.  As for traditional console games, the Wii doesn't stand a chance.

 

Graphics DO Matter

In the world of 720p and 1080i, 5.1 surround sound, the sights, sounds and emotions they evoke matter.  They make a difference.  While examining the women-market I made mention of the limited amount of time people have, this is just as true for the traditional male gaming demographic.  6 years have passed since the PS2 launched, many of those people sucked into the world of Metal Gear Solid and Madden football now have careers and high-paying jobs, and the toys that go along with them.  And in this world video games have to compete with the latest and greatest shows from HBO, Fox and the Spike network.  A show like 24 has a massive production budget and it's obvious.  For 24 episodes audiences were treated to non-stop action, and even if it got kind of lame around episode 18 this season, every week for that hour we all watched Jack Bauer blow things up and kick ass.  This kind of visceral experience is what games are competing with, and this is a place that the Wii just can't compete.

It's not just pretty pictures that make for a more compelling experience, it's what you can do with the world that is more important.  To get an idea of what next-gen tech can do check out this trailer of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter

 

 

 

I tried to find a video of the current-gen version of the game, but I was unsuccessful.  Anyway, the capabilities and differences are readily apparent, the amount of crazy action going on the screen, the quality of the visual effects, the lighting, etc all of these come together to form an engrossing and exciting environment.  The first time you fly over Mexico city in the helicopter and see hundreds of buildings laid out in front of you with the sunset in the distance it's an extremely impressive vista and creates a very real and strong emotional response from the viewer, and it's something that the Wii won't be able to do.

Another example from an upcoming game Kane and Lynch.  I just think this footage looks so sweet

 

 

Just look at the beginning of the clip with the nightclub scene.  Hundreds of people, great lighting, a smoky atmosphere.  It actually looks and feels like a club, not some weird cheap imitation of one.  And again this kind of effect just won't be possible on the Wii.

Developers for next-generation games are going to be spending super multimillion dollar budgets to raise the bar higher and higher to compete with the new and improved sophisticated television shows and movies.  Nintendo has publicly proclaimed that this is not the direction they're taking their device, fine, but in the process they're going to be losing out on a very large and lucrative market.  And this is a market that did purchase the Gamecube, especially in the early days with beautiful games such as Rogue Squadron, and later on in life with Resident Evil 4.  These people are the ones that Nintendo is going to lose, and precisely why the Wii is going to sell less than the Gamecube.  Well if the games are so expensive, then won't more developers will just end up making games for the Wii?  The short answer: no.

 

Nintendo Land

While games developed for the Wii will probably cost less than half that of developing for the next-generation consoles, the potential market is much less than half as well.  For 3rd parties when they develop a next-gen game they're going to be developing for the 360/PS3/PC.  No matter who "wins" in that console space, developers will have a very large market and audience to sell to.  Furthermore, on those other consoles they don't have to compete with Nintendo.  Since the Nintendo 64 and beyond, in both the console world and handhelds, Nintendo has consistently developed and produced the most compelling software for their hardware.  Nintendo is just a fantastic software developer easily in the top 3 in the world.  Just look at any of the game sales and you'll see Nintendo games taking a very large piece of the software pie on Nintendo hardware.  This doesn't seem to change with the Wii.  Look at anything the fans are saying, or the media themselves, and almost all of the games that are anticipated, Super Smash Brothers, Zelda, Mario, etc are all Nintendo games.  The only 3rd party games that have received some marginal attention are Red Steal from Ubisoft which got less than a lukewarm reception, and Rayman, again from Ubisoft.

Now, because of the similarity in capabilities it's possible that many developers will publish games for the Wii plus current generation consoles such as the PS2 and Gamecube.  We're already seeing this happen with the new Dragonball Z game coming out for the PS2 and Wii.  The PS2 is an absolutely enormous marketplace that is continuing to grow at a very nice clip, so the overall market there is extremely large.  However, the problem with developers making games for both of these systems is two-fold. 

  1. The PS2 has a massive library of games with dozens upon dozens of classics that can be had for a very cheap price.  This back-catalogue of great titles can prove to be a very difficult form of competition for newly released games, especially when taking the price-point into consideration.
  2. Titles developed with current-generation consoles in mind aren't going to be designed to fully exploit and use the Wii's unique capabilities to their full extent.  And since you know Nintendo will be releasing quite a few games that really flex the capability of the Wii, just like they did with the DS, fans won't settle for half-assed efforts.

Taking all of these things into consideration is the potential market for 3rd party games large enough to reward developers committing the resources?  It's impossible to say for sure now, and we'll see what Ubisoft's early experiments will show, but for the reasons I just outlined I don't think it's likely at all.  So does that mean we're going to be stuck with creative stagnation in the industry?  Hell no!  Why?

 

There's no need for a Revolution

Games today are more enjoyable experiences than they've ever been.  Games are absolutely incredible nowadays and they're only going to get better.  And the people love their games.  Just look at the sales numbers, they're gigantic.  The PS2 is on the way to dwarf all video game hardware before it, the software sales on the system are completely unprecedented.  It's not just one type of game that achieves success either, all 3 current-gen consoles have treated the world to a large variety of compelling experiences.  And this is coming from someone whose tastes are very far from the mainstream.  The same type of people who proclaim that the game industry is creatively bankrupt are just the video game equivalent of movie and music indie elites that think the mainstream are misguided sheep.  When it comes to movies I actually agree with them.  This kind of jaded bitterness isn't an indictment against the industry, it's more a fact that games have matured and are actually mainstream now, as a result there's a small group of very vocal people that shout their criticisms from the rooftops.  And just like those other industries the jaded crowd forms a large part of the media which makes the whole problem seem far larger than it actually is.

Let's be honest here, while the Wii's controller is intuitive and fun, it's not going to dramatically change gaming.  Here's why.  The most engrossing game experiences happen when you forget you're even controlling a game, when you stop thinking entirely of that plastic between your hands and you concentrate entirely on making that virtual avatar obey your commands.  This is actually a well-known feature of user interface design and how people learn new interfaces.  On page 7 of these UI notes, you can see the 4 levels of user-comfort listed out.  By the 3rd and 4th levels, the actual mechanics of controlling the interface have gone to a subconscious level and the user concentrates on higher-level goals for instance "I need this key, to open the door to get to the next level"  how they get the key is just second nature.  For immersive games the Wii can make this process quicker for people who are unfamiliar with gaming, but after the first hour or so the method of control is irrelevant.  And for people who have grown up on traditional controllers, the learning process will take a bit longer, but ultimately the end result is the same.

The other main area where the Wii controller affects the gaming is in the way the game is played, where a lot of enjoyment is derived out of the physical act itself of playing the game.  This is most evident in the Wii sports titles where the player performs the real-life motions such as swinging a bat/club to hit the ball and not just pressing a button.  In the future it will be exciting to see if this concept can be taken further than just one-directional motions such as swinging and hitting, and we get some cool sword fighting games.  However, I'm still uncertain about how the actual Wii technology works, so I think a full motion-controlled virtual sword fighting game may not be possible with the Wii, or it'll be very difficult (update: Red Steel might have 1:1 control, but I'll have to see it to believe it. link).  For these games where the control is the game, how deep can these games really be?  Will they ever extend beyond a gimmick?  I don't think so.  You're going to see some cool applications to the controller in party games and that kind of thing, or in mini-game situations, which IS cool, but you're not going to see an entire GTA centered around doing silly motions with the controller.  It just isn't feasible, and these large actions aren't conducive to extended continuous play periods that occur in these kinds of games, people will just get too tired.

 

Wii360?

Well the Wii is going to be cheap enough such that it can be purchased as a second console to compliment Microsoft's or Sony's conventional offerings.  In this case the problem isn't money, it's time.  People don't have enough time to support more than one console, and to use the Wii as a party machine, it makes more sense for people to purchase an EyeToy or whatever peripheral MS comes out with and a couple more controllers.  The Gamecube showed that pricing yourself low enough to be non-mutually exclusive isn't a successful strategy.  For a long time now the Gamecube has been at $99 and contains a lot of fantastic Nintendo games, and is perfect if people want a 2nd console to play some unique titles on.  As we see, this strategy just hasn't worked.  There may be people who have purchased the Gamecube to use in this manner, but it's obviously not enough to have a significant impact on the overall sales of the hardware.  Considering how expensive the next generation consoles are, and the abundant ways to play with them, the likelihood of someone purchasing the Wii as a supplement is diminished even further.  It's just not going to happen.

 

The Nintendo Point

Nintendo is doing what it does best, catering to its audience.  Fans of Nintendo games are going to have a ball with all of Nintendo's offerings and remixes of its old franchises.  The built-in wireless networking is going to go a long way towards letting people play multiplayer quickly and easily, as well as offer up a seamless way to download the latest demos and content, and get access to that virtual console.  The problem is that the Wii doesn't actually do anything to entice new people, the people that bought the PS2, to switch over and pick up a Wii.  The people that want to play all the old N64, SNES and NES classics are the same ones that are already going to buy the Wii for all the great Nintendo software they know is going to be released.  Those people look so fondly to that bygone era precisely because it's the time when Nintendo was pumping out classic after classic, and the big N was synonymous with video games.  But we have to realize that is a bygone era.  There's nothing that Nintendo is doing with the Wii that will catapult them back into dominating the home console market.  And really, as long as they keep making those great games, does it really matter?


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note: all hardware and software sales data is referenced from vgcharts.org

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65 comments

1.  avatar millimil  Aug 29, 2006 6:22pm

chrrr.... sorry, you totally did not get the point of the wii. i 100% disagree.
2.  avatar Everyone at GAF  Aug 29, 2006 6:25pm

Your article sucks.
3.  avatar Jonk  Aug 29, 2006 6:40pm

Your article is full of assumptions which are conjecture of other demographics that you are speaking for which you do not represent or fully know. Your stances on where their market lies and their success is a vision limited to you because you do not read what their target goal is. You are establishing standards, habits and stereotypes for all that are your own personal standards and limited knowledge of those people's lives and not the whole. You represent a niche demographic comfortable with the existing way and threatened by a change or anything that attempts to be different than your way of gaming and who it is catering to. This article appears to you to legitimize these feelings for you and that your blog is one to preach it to the world where it is a minor whisper. Stay in your box and be a happy little camper, while the rest of us experience something new and refreshing over and over again for a long long time while enjoying a classic style gaming experience at the same time. We will all be enjoying multiple platforms and multiple gaming experiences while you can remain entrenched in your bubble of self-diluded thought.
4.  avatar Shin  Aug 29, 2006 6:57pm

Please don't speedread Jonk's post, Omar. Read every sentence carefully as it's own, because you'll need all his comments locked into your mind if you want to succeed in life.
5.  avatar zeromusmog  Aug 29, 2006 7:01pm

Your article sucks. You have no idea what girls want from video games, or anyone for that matter. You might have well just been called "Why the Wii Won't Sell to Guys like Me who Masturbate to Halo and Other Generic Third Person Shooters All Day" p.s. those videos you linked are boring and I personally find them uninspiring p.p.s. I see no reason why the wii couldn't do that club scene, as there is no reason a system roughly 3x the power of the cube couldn't do something like that
6.  avatar David  Aug 29, 2006 9:40pm

I think the Wii will do amazing once it hits the market. I have no desire to buy a PS2/XBox/PS3/XBox 360 because the games have gotten so complicated. The learning curve on the marque games are not worth my time anymore (to me at least). I want to pick up a game, play it for 30 minutes and actually accomplish something. I think the Wii will do just that and then some with it's innovative controller. It takes so long to learn what all the different buttons do for each game. This is also coming from someone who as a kid played FFVII for over 100 hours (not to mention the 60+ hours with Beyond the Beyond on the PS and all the other hundreds of hours mastering every game I've purchased). Now, I just want to swing my Wii controller and play some tennis or golf all day long.
7.  avatar Ry  Aug 29, 2006 9:59pm

Damn that was long........boring article btw and tbh i disagree with about everything u said.
8.  avatar Kenkaku  Aug 29, 2006 10:05pm

This is filled with absolutely nothing but opinions and assumptions, not to mention lackluster arguements caused by the everyday fanboy. Sure, graphics USED to matter, but not anymore. We don't need to see every blade of grass, tree leaf, arm hair, mole, bead of sweat, etc. just to get into a game, because, in all honesty, if you can manage to focus on these graphics throughout the duration of a game, it probably has terrible gameplay to begin with. I have played GRAW before, and let me tell you, the last thing I noticed while playing was the graphics because it was so much fun. It's such a waste that we should have to pay extra for better graphics if we're probably not even going to notice them in fun games. Household consoles appeal to women a whole lot more than you think, so drop that whole sexism theory of yours. I can list several girls from my school that have owned consoles from each company and had more than enough time to play them (so stop trying to act like you know how women are). Sure, there isn't a 'need' for a revolution, but there sure is a want. Take the PS3 for example: it has the graphics of today, but the exact same control interface (as well as the controller itself) since 1996. Why should we have to pay $600+ dollars just to play a game that has nothing innovative or compelling? Sure, the PS2 had a massive gaming library, but that links up to one factor: It's DVD player. When the PS2 launched, DVD players were incredibly expensive. However, the PS2 offered a free DVD player for an extra $100 compared to its competitor, the Gamecube, for a total of $300. It was a good deal. In the end, tons and tons of this system sold to the average household, whether it be for gaming or just watching movies. This didn't matter to gaming companies, however, because they wanted to target gamers and sell their merchandise, so they went for the best-selling console, period. This isn't going to happen this gen, however, because the player Sony is trying to sell is hardly getting a good footing in the marketplace and is already receiving terrible reviews. The PS3 is hardly, if at all, going to be a souped up PS2. The Wii, however, is offering a new control interface that just might make gaming better. A journalist that got the chance to play a mock level of Red Steel just PRAISED the aiming system; he said it was just as good, if not better, than a PC's mouse when it came to the shooter (It was a mock demo not seen at E3 and GC, so the controls were obviously different). It just goes to show that focusing on upgrading graphics over and over is just not going to cut it, especially when it uses the same control interface for ten years. To say that the Wii can't handle certain graphics is a pretty big statement, since nobody knows what the graphics processing unit of the Wii is yet, and just the dev kits were being utilized up until a few days ago. But like I said; the graphics are the last thing you'll notice in a fun game. Whatever game it was you were talking about with the mist and the night club or whatever must've been one hell of a boring game (I used this logic for the game Oblivion, and wound up returning that piece of crap game the next day. Graphics won't make up for the lack of gameplay a game has, mark my words). In short, enjoy your uber duber high frequency ultra destructo power pwnage graphics while they last (which probably won't be a few years, since graphics cards are updated very frequently), because the control interface won't be all that different. Cheers.
9.  avatar Imokru  Aug 29, 2006 10:35pm

Any interesting read, however, wildly misguided. Here are just a few problems: 1. "Nintendo DS Does Not Equal Wii" This is irrelevant. In logical argumentation the absence of positive proof does not equal a negative proof, which is what you seem to be asserting in this section. Because the DS won't make the Wii successful, does not mean it will cause it to fail. You may as well remove this point as it proves nothing either way. 2. "Women don't want the Wii" Oooops. My non-gaming wife is woman and she very interested. As if proof to the contrary is not enough, You gave many reasons why you think women might not play the Wii alot, but you didn't give any compelling reason that they may not be interested enough to buy one to check it out which is all Nintendo is hoping for. Once they pick it up, they may find it compelling. It was challenging to get my wife to play Mario Kart double dash but once she did, she can't get enough. You also said: "And in that same hour would women really want to play...whatever new games Nintendo comes out with, over watching Hugh Grant's smile disarm his romantic lead? " You insult women and you don't even know it. This is a supposed rhetorical question (assuming women are slaves to handsome actors on TV), however since this is a horrid generalization and we have no idea what type of software Nintendo may produce, it is unanswerable, rendering your rhetorical point moot. 3. "Partying with the Wii" Hands down the Wii will be THE place to be for party games and get togethers. The Wii is likely to cost about the same as 3 extra PS3/360 controllers, an eyetoy and a game, so why WOULDN"T you get the Wii if you have ANY interest in Multiplayer mayhem? 4. "Graphics DO Matter" You say: "In the world of 720p and 1080i, 5.1 surround sound, the sights, sounds and emotions they evoke matter." Ooops! This "world of 720P and 5.1 surround" you speak of is currently less than 12 percent of the gaming population. (A bit higher for HDTV and 5.1 separately but industry estimates of people who have both HDTV and 5. 1 surround is currently well under 15 percent. And.... THAT MATTERS. Why on earth do you expect people to buy consoles that can't be fully utilized without an expensive TV upgrade? My guess is that the PS3 and 360 will look much like the Wii on a standard television which is what most people will be playing on for years to come. A fact also conveniently left out of your "comprehensive" comparisons. Therefore, another of your points is totally wasted. Sorry but you are making it rather easy. 5. "Nintendo Land" You say: "While games developed for the Wii will probably cost less than half that of developing for the next-generation consoles, the potential market is much less than half as well." The first major and glaring logic flaw is that it would seem you have already experienced the next generation console war and you know what the market share of each console is. Unfortunately you don't know what the market share will be, so this is yet another moot point. You are making a bad habit of this I'm afraid. Also, you are considering the potential market to be as simple as the number of consoles sold when nothing could be further from the truth. Also you are fabricating your numbers. No on has said that Wii will only be half the price to develop. They have said it will be MANY TIMES cheaper. Your logic is just flying out the window now. Its very plausible that the developers won't need to make nearly as many sales to get just as much profit. Nevermind the fact your article assumes that every developer will be able to suprass the barriers of entry on the more expensive consoles. Did you ever think there may actually be a developer who could not afford to make a game for the PS3 even though they may want to? Hello Wii, nice to meet you. You will do nicely. The expense of the PS3 and 360 development is rapidly shrinking the potential development pool. This is not good. Unless you are the Wii. 6. "There's no need for a Revolution" Oh really? There is one group you have conveniently forgotten in your little diatribe....... The developers. Thats right, the people who make the games. Customers are not the only ones complaing about rehashes and sequelitus. The devs are sick of making the same game over and over again. I'm not talking about vibrant franchises where each new game is a new experience. I'm talking about games like first person shooters and mod based racing sims and sports games that have annual updates that add 1 or 2 new features. Everyone I know agrees that this is giving the industry a bad name. Think about this. If the 360 is so great and next gen, then why does everyone rave about Madden 07 on the original xbox and call the 360 version luke warm? It has nothing to do with the hardware obviously, which just goes to show its all about the games. Which is another point you conveniently ignore. 7. "Wii360? You say: "People don't have enough time to support more than one console" Oooops! Polling suggests just the opposite, that most current gamers DO own more than one console. Sorry there buddy, facts dispute your theory. You then say: "The Gamecube showed that pricing yourself low enough to be non-mutually exclusive isn't a successful strategy." The problem with this statement is that even though the gamecube was priced very cheaply, it was still a conventional console. The concept with the Wii is not only that it is cheap but it is different enough to warrant purchase of a second console. The cube was not different enough from the PS2 or the xbox to warrant 2 consoles. This is not true of the Wii. I'm very surprised you missed that. 8. "The Nintendo Point" I love the way you quickly brush the Wii's wireless online out of the box, free online, and VC under the rug in one sentence. You shouldn't be so hasty though. Particularly in regards to the VC. You say: "The people that want to play all the old N64, SNES and NES classics are the same ones that are already going to buy the Wii" Wrong. These are not the people the VC is meant for AT ALL. This may be the WORST error in your poorly put together logic trainwreck. The VC is absolutely NOT meant for the current crop of Nintendophiles (though they will probably love it). The VC is meant to entice FORMER gamers (NOT PS2 gamers as you incorrectly suggest); people who used to play games but who have been lost due to age/responsibility/kids/ etc. The funny thing is, this is where you are right about one thing, however it proves the opposite of what you think it does. People ARE very busy. Thats part of the reason so many have fallen away from gaming. Games have become expensive epic productions that parents, and working folks don't have time for. In all your talk about busy people not having time for the Wii, just the opposite is true. They may ONLY have time for the Wii. Nintendo is pushing hard to bring back the pick-up-and-play style of gaming that has been lost in the currentl drive towards longer and complex gameplay. This is just the ticket for attracting lost gamers. You never mention this once and I find it to be a grave ommission. Now, those are just the rebuttals to your points. I could write an article just as long as yours, well maybe not as windy, but the point remains there is a very strong case for the success of the Wii. No one knows how the thing will turn out. I for one meet most of your criteria for being busy and what not. According to your "logic" I should NOT buy a Wii, but for some reason I don't match any of your conclusions. My guess is alot of people don't. So, in summation, your article was a bit too long, filled with logical falacies, fact flaws, and inaccurate suppositions. Other than that, not bad. Keep trying and you may actually come up with something not so easily disregarded by even a semi educated gamer.
10.  avatar Fank!  Aug 29, 2006 10:45pm

Wow, were you high on homemade crack when you wrote that crap? Or did you buy it during your trimonthly "going outside" event? Either way, stop smoking it, or whatever you do with it, and buy yourself a new PC, cause the one youre sitting behind now is tainted with stupidity! Must....contain....myself.....Must....not...end...this...with..the....word....LOL
11.  avatar Fank!  Aug 29, 2006 11:11pm

"Developers for next-generation games are going to be spending super multimillion dollar budgets to raise the bar higher and higher to compete with the new and improved sophisticated television shows and movies. Nintendo has publicly proclaimed that this is not the direction they're taking their device..." No, Nintendo said that they arent going along with the whole HD thing, cause making games is just too expensive, and it would make the console too expensive. Get your facts straight. And just because Nintendo wont spend "multimillion dollars" on games, doesnt mean that a company like Square-Enix, or HAL wont do it. And did you really had to turn women into stereotypes? I think I missed the part where you said that Mexicans prefer to sleep than playing the new Mario, and the part where you mentioned that Afro-Americans prefer to rob the local liquor-store instead of playing Mario. You might want to add that to your already dumb article.
12.  avatar nofosu  Aug 29, 2006 11:11pm

i am not gonna diss your article, like a lot of people have. I think your post is quite interesting, though i do not agree with most of your logic. Comparing the wii E3's experience with the gamecube E3 experience, is really not a good argument. My firend all i will say is, playing = believing. good health to you
13.  avatar NESJake  Aug 29, 2006 11:45pm

Well, the obvious reason why the NES sold so good, then the SNES sold a little worse, and then the N64 sold a little worse is OBVIOUSLY due to increasing competition. The NES had no competition. The SNES had Sega Genesis as it's rival. Then the N64 had to deal with both Sega Dreamcast and Playstation. It's a pattern. The number of PS2 consoles are less than that of PS1 consoles too.
14.  avatar the_amo  Aug 30, 2006 7:56am

Poor Omar, nobody thinks the same as you... We're you've been this last 3 months? On the moon? In your favor I can say that you're the most loyal sony fanboy I've known... hahahahaha, i laugh at your face
15.  avatar gnote  Aug 30, 2006 8:55am

i cant believe what you have said... the wii is going to be the next big thing, graphics DON'T matter look at the xbox live downloads of clasic games all in wich the graphics suck!! im sure that there is people that still play their snes or n64 (i know i do) and in regards that there is no NEED for a revloution, well thats right you will never need a revolution...they just happen under your feet weather you want it or not. as for the comment on women the gaming industry went on for at least 10 yrs with out them so even 3% get into it that is enough. wow i think every one has bashed ur long rant!!!
16.  avatar thunder40004  Aug 30, 2006 1:53pm

I think he is a sony fanboy
17.  avatar zerorules44  Aug 30, 2006 2:13pm

You just fly over the success of the DS and call it a fluke. "GRAPHIC DO MATTER" in that section you talk about how graphics are the reason people buy games. That only applies to consoles and not handhelds right. so the DS has less graphics than the competion and that does not count but since the wii has less graphics then it is a valid argument? Listen to everyone else and just GIVE Up you are embarrassing yourself
18.  avatar Frash  Aug 30, 2006 2:26pm

Heh. I disagree with your speech (well, kind of, since it's written :D). There would be many things to say, but I'll say the one that touches me the most: regarding the first paragraph, "The last E3", I'd say that future can be different than the past. If a kid aged 4 steps on a piece of dog crap, his mom yells at him and the next time he'll be careful to not do the same mistake (at least, if he's not SO retarded). IMHO, Nintendo has the situation under control this time. Third party developers are REALLY going to develope on Wii. And their games are going to sell just because they'll not be the "average third party shit" we can usually see on consoles. They'll be unique games such as Red Steel, Sadness and probably many other exclusives. Plus, I feel like Wii will give third parties a way to make their voice listened by people. Or maybe, they feel more important. I don't know, but I'm a person who usually buys just first and second parties games because I don't have a job yet - that means not enough money to waste on something I -may- not like. I must be sure I'll like something before I buy it (except for food). Third party games often doesn't reach my interest standards. THey seem too "cheap", in terms of innovation, to me, unlike the average first party game (from Nintendo, I'd say). Now, with the latest Nintendo news I noticed I AM really intersted in third party games on Wii. Even Rayman Raving Rabbids interests me more than any other Rayman game ever did. Is this just me changing? I don't think so. And analysts may be wrong. Especially if the society they talk about quits producing interesting games for periods of many months, leaving the market to averagely boring third party games (as we've seen on GameCube). IMHO, WIi has still got all the right factors to sell to a big mass of people. Ok, if this mass of people won't be as big as Sony's or Microsoft's, it doesn't count. It'll still sell something. And Nintendo will avoid the bankrupt for at least a good 5-10 years as it did with all the previous consoles :D (and will always do, I hope). (Oh, excuse me for all the mistakes I may've done in these few lines of text, but I'm Italian.)
19.  avatar j-hyde  Aug 30, 2006 9:59pm

If you look at all the responses you got, you might wan to re-think your post. It's not just this sight, if you look at a lot of the gaming web sights, you'll notice they are FULL of Wii support and FULL of PS3 naysay. One more point people forgot to mention, if graphics matter so much then why did PS2 outsell Xbox and Gamecube, when it is clearly the waeker of the three systems.
20.  avatar j-hyde  Aug 30, 2006 10:00pm

Sorry, I meant "site" not "sight".
21.  avatar Ry  Aug 30, 2006 10:34pm

@j-hyde Don't forget the original Playstation, outsold both the N64 and Saturn... oh yeah the Dreamcast as well...
22.  avatar j-hyde  Aug 30, 2006 10:55pm

...and SNES outsold NEO-GEO and 3DO. And even though people had positive attitudes toward Gamecube at it's E3 unveiling, it didn't break E3 records and have 3-4 hour waits for about 10min of gaming.
23.  avatar king_mushroom  Aug 31, 2006 4:40pm

while many of his points are vaguely backed up by history. I fail to see how the Wii is similar to the gamcube at all. This is something completely new whether you like it or not. And this Christmas gamers world wide will have smiles they have'nt had since they first powered on there Sega or NES. Then again we should all wait and see for ourselves.
24.  avatar sub311  Aug 31, 2006 5:05pm

omar your article is the biggest piece of crap ever. first off the main reason the gamecube did horrible was becuase it didnt bring anything new to the gameing industry and becuase of that people bought the PS2(for the dvd player) and xbox(for xbox live) but the wii will do great becuase its bring alot of new things to the gameing idustry. Plus ur article on graphics do matter is totally wrong they dont also i bet u nintendo could have given the wii great graphics(and the graphics for most of the games look ok to me) but to do that theyd have to increase the price of the wii by alot which like what will happen to the PS3 would be to expensive so that no one would want to play that much for something they probably wouldnt use 24-7. also ur article on women wont buy the wii is totally irrelavant to how the wii is supposedly gonna fail becuase if what you think is true then the PS3 and the Xbox360 wont get any consoles sold to woman so thats not saying anything. also you should stfu since like u said "I'm still uncertain about how the actual Wii technology works" you cant say something will fail if you dont know everything about it. plus this statement is completely false"Well the Wii is going to be cheap enough such that it can be purchased as a second console to compliment Microsoft's or Sony's conventional offerings. In this case the problem isn't money, it's time. People don't have enough time to support more than one console" dude me and alot of other people i know and im sure a lot of other people have more then one console and use every single one. plus the wii will doubtfully be a secondary console becuase most people dont have 400 500 or 600 dollars to waste on a gaming system and do you think people are gonna wait until they have enough money to get a PS3 or an xbox360 no they'll probably get a wii which they would be able to get at half as much and proabably half the time to wait for a PS3 or an Xbox360. plus with the PS3 at such a high price becuase of its graphics thats means people might also have to pay more on games with great graphics.
25.  avatar ccxvi  Aug 31, 2006 9:50pm

Give him a break. Unlike most "Sony fanboys" he didn't start behaving like a caps addict throwing around immature wannabe-leet comments like, "0MG NINT3ND0 IZ T3H SUX0RZ." First, think about what you guys are saying. Nintendo has really drilled this idea of "newness," "originality" into our heads. Almost everyone agrees with their inclusive philosophies, the "lets allow anyone to game" attitude. Are you sure some of you are just refusing to consider the opposite argument? After I read over, "Your article sucks," I would suspect so. For a while, I've been certain that Nintendo would "win" this console generation. It wasn't because they were adding people to the market base. It's because by merely declaring they're getting non-gamers into gaming, they got the hard-core to jump on the bandwagon. After, "We're going to expand our audience and bring new, innovative ideas to the table," everyone was saying, "Y-Yeah, Nintendo's right on! Let's do this!" It really got gamers and developers fired up. Nintendo has nearly taken the entire current gaming market, so if they fail to truly expand their market base they will not be at much of a loss. Think about it; will your neighbor really purchase this electronic entertainment device called, of all things, "Wii"? Do you think he/she will warm up to the idea of waving one's arms around like an idiot? Only the most aggressive advertisement campaign would accomplish this, and while it is possible, I don't see it happening. I believe all of Omar's arguments were made intelligently and with thought. This isn't some half-assed rant some random Sony fanboy regurgitated for us to digest. I will even give him credit for the steriotypes he outlined; honestly, I don't know any woman who doesn't live with her parents who wouldn't fit the rather loose outlines Omar provided. Unless you're still in high school, don't count on inviting a few girls over to play with your Wii.
26.  avatar silence omo7  Sep 01, 2006 6:03pm

you know what i think, i think wii will be great. Sure, u say graphics. Sure, u say the wierd controller. i think a little variety in the gaming market is a good thing. However good (or bad) the wii does in the console wars, the people who bought a wii and some games (instead of spending 600 bucks on PS3 and lookin at it for a while) will be experiencing its uniqueness and pure fun. I do not mind waving my arms around like an idiot now and i will not change that come wii's release. and personally, i am very excited about 3rd party games. i have high hopes for red steel,rayman, and many others i have been observing. as long as the wii does not totaly suck, it will be fun for years.play it, believe it. now let me get back to playing metroid, ur article was frikin long!
27.  avatar silence omo7  Sep 01, 2006 6:08pm

if u couldn't tell, im a HUGE fan of nintendo! Don't get me wrong, i love me some ratchet and clank on the PS2. i really would buy any console. but i dont have 600 bucks, and the wii looks really fun. Wii want Wii!!!!!!!!!!!!!
28.  avatar CrimsonFlash  Sep 01, 2006 8:06pm

Stating that the Wii wont sell many because each generation of Nintendo console sold less than the previous, is EXACTLY what Sony thinks, albet opposite with amount sold. Anything and everything can change. Except for your stupidity of course.
29.  avatar Jermain_22  Sep 01, 2006 10:54pm

I highly agree with many of your points. I think the Wii wont sell as well as most people think it will and it will be a big slap in the face to them when that happens.
30.  avatar Jermain_22  Sep 01, 2006 10:57pm

BTW Most of you people calling this guy stupid, you need to pull up your Nintendo Pajamas and stop crying. You are the same people whos same point the PS3 wont sell is its price tag and in actual fact a XBOX360 premium is $100 less then the PS3 core with no hi def dvd player, built in wifi. So 100 bux more is nothing since the xbox360 hddvd player addon and wifi adapter cost more then $100.
31.  avatar ix3videogames  Sep 02, 2006 5:21pm

The whole section about "girls-dont-like-console-video-game" section is completly un-true. I am a 15 year old female and been gaming since the N64 days. I, for one, can't wait for the wii to come out. PS. Jermain_22. I do actully have nintendo pajamas. Green 1-up pants all the way!
32.  avatar ix3videogames  Sep 02, 2006 5:32pm

The whole section about "girls-dont-like-console-video-games" section is completly un-true. I am a 15 year old female and been gaming since the N64 days. I, for one, can't wait for the Wii to come out. Now don't be all thinking in a "fangirl" I love playing GTA, SSX, need for speed, and many other franchises on x-box, and PS2. (I don't own a X-Box)
The reason why the Wii catches my attention, is because of the low price, yes, LOW PRICE. I don't think my dad would love to go out and pay for a $500/600 dollar colsole AND buy the games for $60 each for christmas, that CRAZY!! Graphics are not a factor at all for me. NES didn't have the best graphics and I STILL play that. (got it used) not because of the graphics, but because it's fun.
***PS. Jermain_22. I do actully have nintendo pajamas. Green 1-up pants all the way!
33.  avatar Holland909  Sep 03, 2006 7:32pm

Your article blows dude. All you said just leans me to purchase the Nintendo Wii more than the PS3. Graphics does NOT matter. What matters is the gameplay and I agree you do need some good graphics for army/war games, but other games like RPGs, Side Scrolling, or any other genre that doesn't deal with war strategy can be played whether it has good graphics or not.
34.  avatar balba  Sep 04, 2006 12:29pm

you are a retard and fail, wii owns
35.  avatar Amanie  Sep 05, 2006 4:16pm

Good to see everyone being so mature. Really, it's like a breath of fresh air.
36.  avatar Erik  Sep 05, 2006 10:37pm

Haha. It is pretty ridiculous.
37.  avatar ccxvi  Sep 06, 2006 4:38pm

"[O]mar your article is the biggest piece of crap ever." -sub311 "Your article blows dude." -Holland909 "[Y]ou are a retard." -balba "Your article sucks." -zeromusmog Uh huh. I have a feeling these guys just read the first paragraph and called it a day. Lazy bums. They didn't even try to prove the article wronge. And, if you think graphics don't even add a teeny-weeny bit of quality to a game, try playing Okami. The woodblock artistic style really makes the world feel vibrant and unique. You don't need polygons, you need style. Graphics do matter.
38.  avatar silence omo7  Sep 22, 2006 6:42pm

Everybody is being totally mature about this, I just read this article for the second time. Lots of nice new comments that are totally respectable. I thought I should state once again that I believe the Wii will reverse the trend of declining Nintendo consoles. Especially now that the Xbox360 has major problems with it, the PS3 supply has been severely cut, and its the cheapest. Sounds like Nintendo is extremely lucky about the PS3 thing, either that or they had a crack team of super pirate ninjas that stealthily enter the PS3 factory and destoy almost all of the PS3's. The few survivors will be sold for 600$ this holiday season. Enjoy. I thought PS3 would win again this year, but I'm not so sure now.
39.  avatar lucreth  Oct 19, 2006 3:36pm

Who says we aren't in need for a revolution?? nowadays it's always the same shit..sitting on your ass with your hands glued together on some elementary controller clicking buttons all day. Nintendo is once again taking it one step further and creating something great which will lead to the advancement of the gaming world. You'll see...shortly in the future ps3 or xbox( if xbox lasts) will be forced to follow once again in the steps of nintendo to keep up with the crowd.
40.  avatar Amanie  Oct 19, 2006 3:46pm

I can see your point. Eventually things need to change and why not an innovative new controller to get the ball rolling.
41.  avatar silence omo7  Oct 25, 2006 6:27pm

Heck ya lucreth! It seems all of the major companies try to follow in the footsteps of nintendo. Kind of testing the waters while nintendo is already in and swimming.
42.  avatar postwick  Oct 29, 2006 10:00am

Well, I see the comments are proving the main point about Nintendo. As evidenced by how defensive the Nintendo junkies got about this article, and any other that criticizes the Wii, the only people who give a rat's ass about this console are the hard-core Nintendo-nostalgia crowd. No big surprise Nintendo has them hook, line, and sinker on the gimmicks.
43.  avatar postwick  Oct 29, 2006 10:02am

One other quick comment...I frequently hear "Graphics does NOT matter. What matters is the gameplay." Well, how about great graphics AND great gameplay? That's what you'll get from the next-gen consoles, and not from Wii.
44.  avatar Rumar  Nov 09, 2006 10:44pm

The way I see it, with Nintendo's new controlers and innovative multiplayer line-ups, it'll deffinitly outrun Xbox and PS3 in that sence. I guess somewhat of a generilisation, but with xbox and ps3's graphics, it'll be ideal for the do-it-alone nerd who sits in the dark with his half eaten pizza and oversized gut. I'm looking for a system that'll be revolutionary in it's ways to excite me (no sexual inuendo intended) and Wii offers that sort of outlet.
45.  avatar lucreth  Nov 09, 2006 10:46pm

Yeah! down with guts, up with exciting sexual induendos! Still counting down the days...
46.  avatar archestratus  Nov 20, 2006 5:24pm

I'd disagree that the gaming industry isn't ready for a major change.

I fit the demographic of the average gamer you describe almost perfectly. I'm a white, middle class male, nearing 30 years of age. I played a lot of games from the late eighties, to the late nineties. The last major systems I bought was the Sony Playstation and the Sega Dreamcast. Like a lot of people in my age category, who have followed the gaming industry for a couple decades, I became extremely jaded after getting stuck with a large number of Sega systems that went nowhere. That experience certainly turned me into a more cautious game consumer (particularly in terms of hardware.) And while it may have been Sega's poor hardware management that turned people like me off, I think there's a lot of folks who never saw enough innovation from Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft to plunk down a serious investment for any of their systems.

The gaming industry has gone through a lot of changes since the Ataris and Coleco Visions of the 70's and eighties. One of the main changes is the budgets attributed to games now compared to then. Obviously now, they are much larger, some even outdoing the average movie production budget. But with this kind of capital expenditure on game production, and a much more saturated market of competitors, innovation suffers, because investors are far more likely to fund a game that has a "tried-and-true" formula as opposed to something completely new and adventurous. No one wants to fund something refreshing and innovative, when they can maximize their investment with the latest shiny FPS. And sure people are buying these games. The vast share of marketing in the gaming industry is going towards promoting these carbon copies. And without the same climate of development that we had in the early days of the gaming industry, when maverick programmers bucked conventional trend and come out with innovative milestones like M.U.L.E, or Starflight... large software developers are going to continue to go with the "safe-bet" games like Call-of-Duty 27, and "Heroes-Without-Arms 16."

In many ways, this is what has lead to recent growth in interest of retro games. Many gamers in my demographic ARE getting tired of the same old FPS, survival thriller, or racing/sports sim - regardless of how shiny it is. To a lot of us... graphics really DON"T matter as much as the fun-factor of a game. A friend of mine at work who's in his 40's, and has even more experience watching the industry than I do recently said to me...

"You know, if I wanted to watch something so real I thought it was a movie... I'd watch a freakin' movie." Nintendo's "Ice Hockey" for the NES, and EA's "NHLPA hockey" for the Genesis in 1992 aren't classics because we couldn't tell if we were watching a real hockey game or not... they rocked, and continue to rock cause they're so freakin' fun.

In many ways, I think it took Nintendo getting battered from the undisputed leader of the industry 20 years ago, to third place today, to figure this out. If it were still profitable for Nintendo to pump out cookie-cutter games like Microsoft and Sony do... they would. They're in a unique position right now, however where they've got a lot of talent left over from their heyday, combined with a waning presence in a market they helped shape, which has forced them to take some innovative risks.

Does this insure Nintendo's reclaimation of the gaming industry's throne? Sure doesn't.

Both Sony and Microsoft have a lot of money to throw around. Both can afford to take losses for years, just to starve competitors out and dominate by attrition. Right now, Nintendo has to rely on new ideas and innovation... and that only spells positive things for gamers.

I think the Wii will sell better than the GameCube for the same reason a game like Guitar Heroes is such a mad success today. I also think it's a bit of a longshot to assume that Nintendo will overtake either Microsoft or Sony in terms of market share during the lifetime of the three most recent consoles.

But most importantly, I think both Sony and Microsoft will find themselves emulating a lot of innovations Nintendo has developed in an attempt to keep Nintendo in third place.

Incidentally, (and sorry to end this with a complete non-sequitor) this article strikes me as an op-ed piece written by a PR person from either Microsoft, Sony, UBIsoft, or some other large company largely invested in the development of cookie-cutter FPS type games, with the intent of taking the shine off of some innovations that may threaten the status quo of which they are currently benefiting.
47.  avatar silence omo7  Nov 20, 2006 7:36pm

archestratus...long article...good points...I dont think the author of this article is a PR...I think nintendo is doing something good this time around...I do think they will still place in third...I do think that Microsft and Sony will copy Nintendo (sony already has tilt sensitive six axis controller-analog stick)...games have to be fun and not just pretty, though both would be nice...I love this article even though Im a Nintendo fanboy and some of the things mentioned are a little off
48.  avatar archestratus  Nov 20, 2006 10:28pm

yeah... have to admit I was kinda fishing with that last bit... but sometimes you just gotta cast eh?
49.  avatar wolfgirl7  Nov 22, 2006 2:28pm

Ummm...I am a woman...a very pretty one my boyfriend says...and I want a wii...I am that same woman playing the DS and the wii....Don't be stereotypical man...I luv games!
50.  avatar lewis  Nov 29, 2006 6:05pm

i do not agree with this at all, using normal controllers on a system has been around for way too long, it's time for a change. Im from england and all pre orders for the wii have been sold out almost instantly and have broken records with the speed of sales. Im sure a lot of people have viewed this website before http://nexgenwars.com/ this website shows the sales from the next gen consols so far. This nintendo wii has doubled the number of sales and is rapidly selling faster than the other 2. So i think this is hard proof that the wii is starting its domination.
51.  avatar hangshot182  Dec 11, 2006 9:40am

Wow, so the fact that all the units on amazon sold out in a minuet has nothing to do with Nintendos impending doom huh. No need for a wii ay. Wow spot on, incredible prediction. Your right, no girls want the wii. Well except for my girlfriend, and probably a couple other girls out of the 600000 units sold. That fact that I've been trying to get one for 3 weeks now and cant unless I pay triple the original price tag, huh that must be a figment of everyones imagination. Were all idiots and your the smart one thats for sure. Well bang up job old boy, way to go. I'm sure I will be looking forward to all other predictions you make in the future. Congratulations
52.  avatar womenlovethewii  Dec 11, 2006 5:33pm

As a non gaming female, I can guarantee your theory that women will not embrace the Wii is garbage. Yes, initially, I did not see what the big deal about the Wii was, but when I went to my brother-in-law's home and started playing tennis and baseball, all I could think about is finding out when GameStop will be getting their next shipment of the already sold out Wii! And I have to agree with the person above... sorry buddy, but graphics are not that important if the game is fun. I could care less that the characters in the baseball team looked like cones with no legs.. I was enjoying myself too much!
53.  avatar timmy  Jan 02, 2007 10:45am

Surprise, surprise. Its Jan and you cannot find a wii. Yet I have had the opportunity to by ps3 multiple times. Wii has clearly dominated this christmas, even their strap flap turned into positive PR. I cannot tell you how many people I have run into that are waiting to get their hands on a Wii. I guess hindsight is 20/20 but your article appears to have been completely wrong.
54.  avatar Omar  Jan 02, 2007 11:33am

We'll see timmy... we'll see.
55.  avatar Anonymous  Mar 22, 2007 7:26pm

Dude, you need to get a reality check. I've been looking for a Wii since December, if the Wii "Won't sell" then why haven't I been able to find one for 4 months?
56.  avatar Amanie  Mar 22, 2007 7:31pm

Touché
57.  avatar Erik  Mar 22, 2007 8:00pm

Why the Wii won't sell? Because they ran out of Wiis from selling way too many!
58.  avatar P. Cortinello  Mar 23, 2007 7:55pm

Haha, I bet this guy feels stupid, so far this year between Japan and North America (from Mediacreate and NPD): Wii - 1,516,502

PS3 - 589,725

360 - 584,010

Numbers don't lie, Wii is destroying the competition with over 55% of the market. That means Sony and Microsoft combined have less than 45%.

59.  avatar Bodhesatva  Jun 22, 2007 6:19am

Just in case you wanted to know, Omar, this post has become a symbol of erroneous pre-release predictions. It's as if you made a map of all the reasons why Sony missed the point.

Every time someone posts a thread about all the "Sony will dominate again this generation" predictions, this is always one of those listed. Congrats!
60.  avatar irocz28  Aug 10, 2007 2:52pm

That article is so funny to read now in retrospect. This article is like saying the Atari 64 was going to overtake Nintendo and Sega back in the 90's. Please, next time do some actual research opposed to making assumptions.

I some how ran into this article while searching Google. Wii is almost a million shy of taking over the xbox 360 that has been on the market for two years (August 9th, 2007). Guess Omar can't tell his friends "Told ya so!" and link them this page on AIM or myspace.

The reason why it's selling so good is because its so different. If someone has a 360, they are going to get a Wii because its so unique... they won't go buy a ps3. Of course, die hard gamers they will get all 3. For every person with a PS3 and another with a 360 you have 2 Wii's in between them.
61.  avatar deadpixel  Aug 24, 2007 7:03pm

HA! This is hilarious! Now that the Wii is the best selling system this generation, and is still in such high demand nearly a year later that it's still almost impossible to buy, the author must feel pretty dumb.
62.  avatar dialupinternetuser  Sep 22, 2007 2:11pm

Wow. Everyone really does hate Omar...
63.  avatar dkplayer  Nov 06, 2007 7:28pm

give the guy (or girl) a break. this was written before the Wii came out. still im female and wii is my favourite!
64.  avatar rciafardone  Mar 05, 2008 12:27pm

ok Omar. its been more than a year since your "We'll see timmy... we'll see." answer to timmy. well

we DID see Omar, we DID see :p
65.  avatar Erik  Jul 18, 2008 4:40pm

Perhaps Omar can officially be considered wrong as of today?

http://www.joystiq.com..npd-wii-hits-10-9m-us-sales-becomes-console-leader
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