Can You Blame Them?
January 30th, 2009It’s quite possible the Wii momentum is starting to slow, but it seems a little weird to blame Nintendo for this. The console’s been out for a while, and it’s been selling ridiculous amounts ever since launch - obviously, at some point, people are going to stop buying them. But that’s because everyone owns one.
Strangely, analysts seem to be in the position of criticizing Nintendo for being way too successful. I’ve previously hammered the point that Nintendo can’t possibly sustain these expectations forever, and this seems to be bearing that notion out. But the criticism is misdirected - had the firm been only half as successful, it would still have beaten previous expectations. A better concern would be how the Wii’s success can be kept up, if indeed it can; yet let’s not lose track of the fact that we’ve moved the goalposts in the middle of the game.
Posted in Geoff, Nintendo, Wii |
January 30th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Yeah, there was no way they could keep up the pace. The question is how far things will fall before they plateau into a nice stable business for the second half of the generation. Will they maintain a strong sales advantage or will it weaken significantly? I’m not sure. There’s also the risk of backlash. Any time something becomes too popular too fast, it’s possible for it to happen that people suddenly shun a product. I think we’ve seen this happen in the gamer community to a certain extent but the potential exists in the consumers at large if things go just perfectly wrong.