Warning: Wall of Text Approaching - Or Why the Wii is Not Crashing

Recently a large number of articles have come out critisizing Nintendo. Most of these were the result of the less than steller sales of both Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars and MadWorld (the same two games highlighted by Adibobea9 just a few weeks ago). MadWorld sold about 66,000 last month and Chinatown Wars sold about 88,000 last month. This knee jerk reaction to the low sales is very misplaced.

To illustrate this I want to dissect one article that was published by Yahoo! UK and look at the strength of their arguments. The article can be found here; but I will quote their article in context as well (and put some facts that they cite into their proper context).

The articles main premise is that the Wii is starting to fall out of favor in Japan and therefore the system is destined to crash ("Most worrying for Nintendo is how sudden the interest has waned. The wave of videogame popularity usually rocks Japan first, then the US and finally across Europe and the rest of the world"). To support how much interest has wained in Japan they point out how the Wii barely outsold the xBox360 in Japan last week ("Last week Wii barely outsold the beleaguered Xbox 360 with 13,349 units versus 10,134 respectively.") What they fail to mention however is that the PS3 barely outsold the Wii last week as well (16,701 - 13,349). They also fail to mention that the Wii has sold roughly 8 million units in Japan while the PS3 has only managed to move a little over 3 million.

They also talk how the PS3 and PSP have begun to gain momentum in Japan. As evidence of this the article cites the fact that even new PS2 games top WiiFit on the sales chart ("PlayStation 3 and PSP are now pulling ahead and gaining momentum in Japan, which is still by far the most discerning market in the world for videogames. Even the latest PlayStation 2 games are outperforming Wii Fit in the Japanese Top 10"). While this is true (Suggoi! Arcana Heart 2 sold an estimated 11,000 and Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2009 sold an estimated 10,000 while WiiFit only sold an estimated 9,000) it also fails to consider that WiiFit has been out in Japan for 72 weeks. The PS3 game with the current longest reign in the top 20 is Biohazard 5 which has been on the chartz for 6 weeks but only managed to move around 7,000 units. It also fails to recognize that Nintendo has sold more units of WiiFit than Sony has sold PS3s. Yet clearly it is Nintendo that is failing.

The article doesn't stop at attacking Nintendo's performance in Japan. They also cite the Wii's inability in Europe to have any game in the top 10 besides WiiFit ("By now, and judging by the ongoing failure of anything other than Wii Fit to dominate the UK Top 10, it's fair to accuse Nintendo Wii of being a two trick pony. Folks are picking up Wii to play Wii Sports and Wii Fit and that's about it"). However, last week in the Europe/Others region there were four Wii games in the top 5 (Wii Sports, WiiFit, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Play).

The article also cites problems in America as well. Wii sales in March 2009 were down 17% compared with March 2008. There are two important points to put this decline in context. First, the Wii still easily outsold both the xBox360 and the PS3 last month (610,000 > 330,000 > 218,000). Clearly no crash here. Also last years March Wii sales were higher than normal because of the boost received from the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl on March 9th. Considering this, the Wii may even be selling better nominally than it was last year (especially considering the state of the economy).

Putting the cited statistics into their proper light I think it is absurd to think that the Wii is crashing. Are they less dominate than they once were? Yes. Is that innevitable after dominating all of the competition for nearly three years? Yes. Nintendo can still continue to build upon their success with even more innovative games in the coming years.

New Disc Golf Info

Some footage and demonstration of the disc golf mode in Tiger Woods 10. It looks like it responds realistically with the Wii Motion Plus add on.


Tiger Woods TGA 10 Disc Golf Video from Revogamersnet on Vimeo.

The most recent cover of the game also has a Pay & Play logo that hopefully indicates some downloadable courses in the future to take advantage of the SD storage solution. The box art also states that Wii Motion plus is included. It will be interesting to see what this bundle will be priced at and if the game comes unbundled as well. It looks like this game is becoming a must buy.


Edit: It looks like the bundle version will retail for $59.99 while the game only will cost $49.99. No Grand Slam Tennis bundle for the U.S. however. Bundle is the way to go since Wii Motion Plus retails for $19.99.

Help of Advertising

It is incredible what advertising can do for a new IP. This has been illustrated recently in the sudden increase in sales of Professor Layton and the Curious Village. I have been very high on this game since buying it the week it came out (over a year ago now). However, the sales of the game in the U.S. have been lackluster (sales in Europe have been amazing however). About a month ago Nintendo released two commercials featuring Lisa Kudrow being somewhat rude to another lady as they play Professor Layton.



Since the airing of these commercials on cable TV sales for Professor Layton have been increasing each week. Last week the game sold almost an estimated 52,000 copies. This is the largest weekly sales to date for the game (incredible since it has been on the market for 61 weeks). Commercials such as these really help bring new games into the conscience of the more casual audience.

Disc Golf

This info comes from the Tiger Woods 10 website:

All-New Disc Golf - Trade your clubs for discs in a fun, new game mode based on the family-fun sport of Disc Golf. Play from custom tee locations on all 27 courses in the game!

If the disc golf aspect uses the Wii Motion Plus to its full extent this would be a great addition to the series. A well done disc golf game would interest me more than a regular golf game. Hopefully they don't just tack this on at the end. I will be keeping my eye out for any new info or hands on impressions of this.