Nintendo Claims Bubble Hasn't Burst for Wii

[John Funk]

Nintendo Claims Bubble Hasn't Burst for Wii

Despite recent claims of doom and gloom for the Big N, the House of Mario says the Wii is doing just fine.

Nintendo may be the market leader these days with its DS and Wii consoles, but for some people that means there's nowhere to go but down. Masato Kato, the man who wrote venerable Square-Enix classics "collapsed" [http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-VII-Playstation/dp/B00000JRSB].

Nothing could be further from the truth, said Nintendo of Europe managing director Laurent Fischer in an interview with MCV [http://www.mcvuk.com/] when asked if the Wii's bubble had burst. "I think you just need to look at the facts to see this is not true - we achieved global sales of 20 million units of Wii in the last financial year alone," answered fisher, who claimed that there was still a vast untapped audience for the Little Console That Could.

"Our aim has always been to expand the gaming population and with European sales of Wii now over 22 million we have taken some steps towards achieving this. However, there are still many more people out there who have not yet experienced the fun of video games and we hope to continue to provide compelling reasons for these people to consider buying a Wii."

Though Fischer didn't deny that the Wii had slowed down in the first part of 2009, he pointed to the second half of the year as evidence that the console had regained its momentum with titles like Metroid: Other M [http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=75077] in the pipeline - will help to maintain this momentum."

Naturally, part of this comes from his position as a Nintendo spokesperson. Any official company representative that answered a question with that in a "Yeah, we're totally screwed" tone would get sacked very quickly. That said, selling 20 million consoles in a year is something that is very hard to see as a failure.

While Mr. Fischer didn't outright say that Masato Kato and Olivier Comte could "bite me," he was probably thinking it.

(Via Videogamer [http://www.videogamer.com/news/nintendo_wii_bubble_has_not_burst.html])

Permalink

 

[Deofuta]

Quite a quick rebuttal for a corporation. Of course, the people doing the doom and gloom were pretty prominent people. Fire control perhaps?

But as I said in the others, Nintendo is continuing to put out excellent first party titles, and as it continues to do this it will keep the core of fans it has managed to cultivate around the world.

 

[Plinglebob]

While Mr. Fischer didn't outright say that Masato Kato and Olivier Comte could "bite me," he was probably thinking it.

And if he had, I would have gone out and bought stock in Nintendo.

 

[LeonLethality]

In your face non believers. I guess people didn't realize that the best seller on the market means that it is making money (Heck I think it is the only console that makes money on every sale)

 

[Polock]

Nintendo, I love you, but you sure are odd.

 

[theaceplaya]

If all the good games don't come from Nintendo and developers keep putting out quality games like Red Steel 2 and No More Heroes and Dead Space Extraction (great game!) then the Big N will still be on top.

Of course let's all be real here. It's the average person who goes into a store to buy family games for the Wii and sees 'Another Minigame Compilation 2' for $20 that keeps the Wii on top.

 

[Gigaguy64]

Very nice!
That was a great answer he gave.
The Wii still has a lot of potential and is still going strong.

And like he said with a lot of highly anticipated games coming out this year, they may be at the top but im sure they can go higher still.

Though one thing i loved was that he talked about Nintendo's goal.

It was to make sure people got the chance to play games.
To let people experience Video Games and have fun.

 

[RangerSERE]

Really, a company contradicting negative claims by outside sources....that is news...

 

[sougo13]

I think it's getting to the point now that nothing can beat the Wii now, isn't it? I mean, if the Wii were to stop selling completely wouldn't still it take years for Sony and Microsoft to catch up?

 

[starwarsgeek]

Yea... thats about as credible as sony trying to say the pspgo's failure was a success.

But, yes, on a purely semantic level, the wii bubble hasn't burst yet because it never existed.

They made a fad, and ditched their base to prolong that fad. Now, they either have to go back to making real video games or follow sega into the great beyond.

Pointing out that they sold 20m units is equally as credible as "it didn't sell, but we learned our lesson. Success!!!!"?

I'm pretty sure selling roughly the amount of your competition's combined consoles while expanding gaming to a larger audience counts as a "bubble", not a fad.

Also, we've got two Mario games only a few months apart, a Metroid that should come out soon, and a Zelda and possibly Kirby in the works. And they had already made Super Paper Mario, Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and a Mario Party, compared to what: 4 wii _____ titles? (Sports, Sports Resort, Fit, and Music?). They've been making games for both their long-running fanbase and the newcomers.

 

[Jared]

Well it's there own product. Never going ro admit might be sinking.

I'll be very intrested to see what happens after release of Natal and such

 

[Canid117]

Do we really expect the company who's livelihood depends on the bubble not bursting to say "Yup it is all gonna cave in on us pretty soon here." Do we really?

 

[NeutralDrow]

Do we really expect the company who's livelihood depends on the bubble not bursting to say "Yup it is all gonna cave in on us pretty soon here." Do we really?

Not inherently. I'm pretty sure Funk already covered that.

Naturally, part of this comes from his position as a Nintendo spokesperson. Any official company representative that answered a question with that in a "Yeah, we're totally screwed" tone would get sacked very quickly. That said, selling 20 million consoles in a year is something that is very hard to see as a failure.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't care what Nintendo does aslong as they don't burst my bubble.

 

[John Funk]

Pointing out that they sold 20m units is equally as credible as "it didn't sell, but we learned our lesson. Success!!!!"?

I'm pretty sure selling roughly the amount of your competition's combined consoles while expanding gaming to a larger audience counts as a "bubble", not a fad.

Also, we've got two Mario games only a few months apart, a Metroid that should come out soon, and a Zelda and possibly Kirby in the works. And they had already made Super Paper Mario, Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart, Smash Bros, and a Mario Party, compared to what: 4 wii _____ titles? (Sports, Sports Resort, Fit, and Music?). They've been making games for both their long-running fanbase and the newcomers.

You're misunderstanding whats happened with the wii.

The small handful of 'core' titles you listed were utter failures if you go by copies sold to consoles sold. They actually sold fewer copies than most wii shovelware titles. If a game experienced a similar percentage on the ps3 or 360, developers would be jumping through windows.

Wiisports and wiifit are still, to this day, the most successful "games" on the platform, and there is simply nothing left down that road. Once you start talking about "attachments" and such (wii motion plus) the average person's eyes glaze over.

The wii was always a dead end, it was just a dead end paved with platinum bricks. The fad is ending, and nintendo has to either go back to making video games or figure out a way to transition into a toy company.

Tell that to Sony and Microsoft.

And I'm sorry, once you get beyond the Wii Sports/Play/Fit, you have... Mario Kart Wii, NSMB Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, Twilight Princess, Guitar Hero III, RE4, Metroid Prime 3... the list goes on. Are these not core games? Seem pretty goddamn core to me.

News flash: If a copy sells 2 million units, a developer is happy no matter what the attach rate is. Especially since development costs on the Wii are lower. Red Steel sold a million - more than enough to break even.

 

[VirusHunter]

Even though there is tons of crap on both the Wii and the DS, the good games for these systems (especially the first-party games) completely outweigh the bad ones. The games are that good.

 

[Danpascooch]

The problem for Nintendo is, the Wii was so successful because it got non gamers to become casual gamers.

Now those people are going to start realizing the 360 and PS3 are much better, and are going to start using those instead now that the Wii has introduced them to gaming.

A Wii like console isn't a trick that will work twice.