US: Continued Wii Dominance Over HD Consoles

4/20/09









4/20/09

8 comments:

Crawford said...

Wii weekly sales fell sharply from about 180,000 per week in Feb to about 120,000 per week in March, once supply overtook demand in March.
I think monthly Wii sales are going to continue to drop between now and September.
With or without PS3 price drops, the HD consoles combined will be outselling the Wii by August if not earlier.
Let's not forget that the PS3 is still selling at $100 higher than the PS2 launch price of $300. 100% of PS2's were sold at $300 or below. PS3 sales will inevitably shoot up when the PS3 price drops to a more affordable price at some time this year. I just don't see the Wii ever overtaking the HD conoles.

Damian said...

Well you have to consider that the wii can reduce its price too to $200 and to the sweet spot of $99 sooner than the ps3 atleast. Articles these days say that Nintendo is making quite a bit off the sales of the wii. Then again i dont see a price drop soon considering how well it is selling now.

Crawford said...

@ Damian, well far from reducing prices, Nintendo only increased Wii prices to retailers in the UK, so I don't see Nintendo cutting Wii price this year.
Plus of course the Wii was already launched at a mass market price from the get go, so its' not gonna get much of a boost in sales from a price cut. The PS3 on the other hand, is still selling at a higher price than the PS2 launch price, so it's almost guaranteed to get a big boost in sales froma price cut to even the PS2 launch price of $300.
By August/September, the HD consoles combined will be easily outselling the Wii by a considerable margin every month.
The PS3 has already overtaken the Wii in YTD sales in Japan, and the HD consoles combined are comfortably ahead of the Wii there. Same will happen in the US.
The PS2 outsold the XBOX and Gamecube combined by a massive 3 times worldwide, but the Wii will never even outsell the HD consoles combined, in the US or worldwide. Ever.

JoshuaJSlone said...

How do you decide that there's a magic $300 barrier which will boost PS3 sales, but no drop below $250 will boost Wii's? PS3 is still more expensive than PS1 and PS2 launched at in the US, but so is Wii still more expensive than what NES, SNES, N64, and GCN launched at.

Crawford said...

@ JJS said :"How do you decide that there's a magic $300 barrier which will boost PS3 sales, but no drop below $250 will boost Wii's?"

It's like a reducing the price of a BMW 5 series to say $30,000, as compared to a Toyota Corrola selling for $20,000.
The BMW which was previously selling for say $45,000, will of course get a major boost from a price drop to $30,000, even if it's still selling at a higher price than the Corrola at $20,000.

JJS said :"PS3 is still more expensive than PS1 and PS2 launched at in the US, but so is Wii still more expensive than what NES, SNES, N64, and GCN launched at."

Correct. But then the Wii still launched a mass market price of $250. There is no "coming down to mass market price' for the Wii. It's there already. It's not gonna get anywhere near as much of a boost from any price cuts as the PS3 is gonna get, because the PS3 is still selling at a very expensive $400. No console sells much at prices like that, or at the even higher PS3 launch prices of $500 and $600. Just go ask 3DO.
Plus Nintendo is if anything increasing Wii prices in the UK to retailers right now. Don't sound to me like they are gonna cut Wii prices anytime soon, with actions like that.

There is no question in my mind the HD consoles will be outselling the Wii in the US by August/September.
When you add US/Japan sales, the HD consoles already outsold the Wii in March, and will outsell the Wii in April as well.

JoshuaJSlone said...

It's not like they're increasing prices in the UK to be tools or because they hate price cuts with a passion--it's the reality of changing exchange rates and that they still have no problem selling the thing.

If they stop having the best NPD year ever, and start selling hundreds of thousands of machines fewer per month than they can produce, there's no reason to believe they wouldn't cut the price. It's going to happen sooner or later, and now that Wii actually seems to be out of shortage in the US it's at least a reasonable thing to imagine happening.

Crawford said...

@ JJS said...
"It's not like they're increasing prices in the UK to be tools or because they hate price cuts with a passion--"

You don't increase prices when you are about to cut prices, higher exchange rates or not.

@ JJS said... "it's the reality of changing exchange rates and that they still have no problem selling the thing"

They are not the only console maker suffering from exchange rate fluctuations are they?
Sony is Japanese too, and they experiencing the same exchamge rate losses from the weak pound as Nintendo is, and they haven't raised prices. Plus when the pound hit very high levels, in 2007, Nintendo did not cut Wii prices in the UK did they?
Why raise proces when the Pound falls then?

JoshuaJSlone said...

Crawford: "You don't increase prices when you are about to cut prices, higher exchange rates or not."
They don't make price cut decisions on a worldwide basis. What they choose to do in Europe has nothing to do with what pricing choices they'll make in North America, Japan, or elsewhere.

Crawford: "Why raise proces when the Pound falls then?"
Because it's in their best interest to keep making as much money as they can, and they think demand is high enough that they can get away with it this time. If sales in the UK were tapering off like they have in Japan, no way they'd do this.

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