The Nintendo Wii remains a force to be reckoned with in the video game world and new survey statistics along with new revenue streams suggest that Nintendo has still has something up it's sleeve.
New survey data from Lottay, an online wish-list and gift giving site, shows that the Wii and its associated accessories will regain momentum during this year's holiday season.
The Wii and Wii-related gear were wished for twice as much as the Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 combined though 38 percent of people wanted something other than products--namely cash, and in one case, Satan (I assume for a visit, not as a full-time family member.)
And while a wish, or a request for a gift, is no guarantee that a product will actually sell, there is a dearth of exciting gifts for this holiday season, leaving room for the Wii and other less-new products to be successful.
Just a few weeks ago, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello commented that the "Wii platform has been a little weaker than we had anticipated" but Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway was extremely positive about the current sales and the future growth.
But, the focus in the U.S. remains on selling more titles and accessories, not branching out into additional services such as we've seen with Microsoft's Xbox Live, which provides access to Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm through the console.
Services supporting the Wii are much more sophisticated in Nintendo's home country of Japan, where the company previously launched an advertising program to turn family time into a commercial endeavor and a catering channel that lets users order food from a variety of vendors directly through the console, delivered directly to their front door.
This weekend Nintendo added to the Wii's variety of interactive offerings, with a paid video download service for Japan. "Theater no Ma" will offer a range of movies, anime and other paid content from providers including Walt Disney and Sesame Workshop.
Downloading rental content onto game consoles and set-top boxes has been common in the U.S for awhile, but the reason this service could prove meaningful in Japan is because Nintendo researchers previously found that 87 percent of Wii users use the console on the biggest screen in the house, which is still the one in the living room.
It's no secret that Japan has better mobile phones than the rest of the world. The country has also had access to better phone-based Internet services since the launch of NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service all the way back in 1998.
Recent data from japan.internet.com (translated by whatjapanthinks.com) suggests that Japan's mobile phones offer users enough functionality that 49 percent of the respondents to a recent survey say a "mobile phone is enough" when asked what kind of mobile device they would most like to carry.
- Mobile phone is enough 49.2 percent
- Smartphone 22 percent
- Netbook 16.3 percent
- Notebook computer 8.9 percent
- MID/UMPC 0.3 percent
- Other 0.3 percent
- Don't want to carry anything 3 percent
In addition to the wealth of services and games, with the character-based typing you really don't need an iPhone or other smartphone unless you need to access corporate e-mail. While this can also be delivered directly to mobile phones, in my experience most companies don't allow access unless it's through a VPN.
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Despite some recent troubles, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has predicted that Wii Sports Resort, Wii Fit Plus, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii could each sell 10 million copies this fiscal year. Considering estimates that more than 2 million copies of Wii Sports Resort have already sold, the company should be able to achieve those targets without too much difficulty.
What's less clear is if Nintendo can maintain margins to meet sales goals, or if it will resort to dropping prices to hit the big numbers.
Nintendo has consistently introduced good games and interesting accessories and kept both at price points that feel acceptable to pay even in the down economy.
But Nintendo's pricing strategy won't necessarily continue to work as consoles like the Xbox 360 move heavily into digital distribution, allowing for on-demand, variable pricing that can easily shift sales in real time.
The new Xbox 360 Games On Demand service is set to launch on Tuesday and will offer a library of downloadable older-title games. The big issue is not about consumer acceptance, but of disk space--as most players don't have the available hard drive room to accommodate a huge number of new games.
... Read moreMobile services continue to mature, and the things you can do on a phone keep getting better even when we are forced to suffer with inconsistent and occasionally terrible quality from mobile carriers.
The vast majority of new services we see in the U.S. have some basis in the DoCoMo i-Mode service from NTT Japan. If you're looking for mobile opportunities, take a gander at Japan and Korea to see how mobile devices shape lives and society.
I spoke with Gerhard Fasol, head of Eurotechnology Japan about a recent report discussing Nintendo and Japan's gaming industry are effected by new devices like the iPhone and services like the App Store, as well as how Japanese electronics manufacturers are trying to make their console/device the center of user's lives.
Since DoCoMo's i-Mode started mobile phone games in 1999, "online and mobile phone games combined have outgrown the video game software sector and are certain to grow much more in coming years. The iPhone, for example, is not slowing mobile phone based gaming down...those who only count video game cassettes and consoles, certainly don't see the rapid mobile and online growth--and complain about shrinking markets."
But really what vendors are feeling is their shrinking control--game vendors and carriers have pushed their own walled gardens, which works fine as long as they can provide what people want--and sooner or later then can't. Think AOL versus the Internet if you need more explanation.
According to Fasol, games of all kinds used to be played in game parlors, and some of Japan's game giants were originally (and still are) game parlor machine makers (a round of Dance-Dance-Revolution anyone?)
These game vendors then moved on to consoles, cassettes and handhelds, taking the momentum out of game parlors, and establishing a pattern of growth by generations (today we are in the 7th generation).
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Studies that look at the effects of video games on kids have been mostly positive of late, with a focus on safe virtual worlds, and devices such as the Nintendo Wii that encourage physical activity.
The new report "Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health" (PDF) urges educators as well as government and the health care industry to look beyond the stereotype of video games as harmful.
Video games have been shown to help children learn vital foundational and 21st-century skills, including:
- Content (from rich vocabulary to science to history)
- Skills (from literacy to math to complex problem-solving)
- Creation of artifacts (from videos to software code)
- Systems thinking (how changing one element affects relationships as a whole)
The Nintendo Wii has already changed the face of video games and recently started breaking new ground in advertising and social gaming. With the recent launch of the Wii-no-ma service in Japan, Nintendo has figured out how to make gaming a family event.
According to Cyber Media Japan, Nintendo researchers found that 87 percent of Wii users use it on the biggest screen in the house, which is still the one in the living room.
Accordingly, Nintendo believes that new forms of advertising--especially those encouraging togetherness in viewing ads and watching videos on the Wii--are bound to make money.
I didn't think much of the initial announcements, but after talking to a friend in Japan, I realized that Nintendo may have figured out how to become the entertainment consolidator that so many other companies have been gunning for.
Cable companies, Tivo, Yahoo, and AOL all come to mind as groups that have tried to consolidate content and games, but the diversity of user experiences along with the way people choose to consume content has proven to be difficult to manage.
Nintendo is looking to broaden the variety of things you can do with a single gaming device by establishing the Wii as the machine that provides more options than those available from a handheld device like the DSi, or a more gamer-oriented product such as the Xbox. (I wrote about the Wii catering channel here.)
... Read moreVideo game sales were down by 23 percent in May, according to the latest data from NPD Group. The bright spot of the report is the ongoing domination by Nintendo, whose hardware and associated games outsold the competition by nearly 2 to 1.
As CNET's Lance Whitney reported, "NPD blamed most of the decline on the lack of blockbuster games rather than the weak economy. The report noted that last year's sales were boosted by the launch of popular software titles such as Grand Theft Auto IV. Nintendo's Wii Fit also was a hot commodity in 2008."
While there are a wealth of new games coming in 2009, including what appear to be some winners for PS3 and Xbox, Nintendo platform games made up just shy of 50 percent of the top 10 sales in May:
- UFC 2009 Undisputed(THQ) Xbox 360 - 679,600
- Wii Fit(Nintendo) Wii - 352,800
- EA Sports Active(EA) Wii - 345,800
- UFC 2009 Undisputed(THQ) PS3 - 334,400
- Infamous(Sony) PS3 - 175,900
- Pokemon Platinum(Nintendo) DS - 168,900
- Mario Kart(Nintendo) Wii - 158,300
- Punch Out!!(Nintendo) Wii - 156,900
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged(Activision) Xbox 360 - 120,700
- Wii Play(Nintendo) Wii - 109,800
Total other vendor software: 1,310,600 ... Read more
The new Japanese Wii Catering Channel (Demae Channel) lets you point and click your way to food delivery right from your Nintendo Wii.
Take a break from Wii Fit to order a pizza!
(Credit: Wii Demae Channel)There are categories for pizza, noodles, sandwiches, curry, burgers, chicken, and many other snacks, complete with visual menus that let you select toppings and save your orders for next time.
Food is a national obsession in Japan, but as far as I know delivery isn't as common as in other big cities, such as New York. I suspect Wii players will be able to easily rationalize ordering a meal to augment all the calories they burn off in a rousing game of Tennis.
These type of tie-ins seem like logical extensions to gameplay (even if they aren't necessarily the healthiest) now that most consoles have Internet connectivity. Sadly, most console manufacturers maintain the walled-garden approach and it will be awhile before we see an ecosystem of third-party providers crop up.
(Via Destructoid)
Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom
The Nintendo DS series has become the fastest-selling home game console ever, Nintendo claims. Unit sales reached 100 million as of March 6, 2009, just four years and three months since its release on November 21, 2004.
Nintendo's original portable game console, the Game Boy, took 11 years and two months to achieve 100 million sales, according to the company.
I'm sure that the recent decision by the Board of Education in Osaka, Japan, to distribute Nintendo DS systems to 10 elementary and junior-high schools in the region will only help the numbers grow in Japan. Those systems contain educational applications and are subsidized by the government. They are rented to the schools rather than sold--which means that parents can buy kids their very own, when the time comes--seeding the next generation of addicts.
Check out CNET's coverage of the Nintendo DSi, coming to the United States in April.
You can follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom
The big shocker in the 2008 numbers is the fact that Nintendo sold nearly as many DS units as Wii units. DS sales accounted for nearly triple the amount of PS3 units sold. Who would have thought that Nintendo would become a dominant force again?
Total U.S. hardware sales for 2008
- Wii - 10,224,400
- Nintendo DS - 9,951,500
- Xbox 360 - 4,735,200
- PlayStation Portable - 3,829,300
- PlayStation 3 - 3,685,000
- PlayStation 2 - 2,106,100*
Lifetime U.S. hardware sales, as of December 2008:
- PlayStation 2 - 43.22 million
- Nintendo DS - 27.60 million
- Wii - 17.60 million
- PlayStation Portable 14.30 million
- Xbox 360 - 13.89 million
- PlayStation 3 - 6.94 million
Via Shacknews.
