For the mainstream, the only part it plays is if the game they want to play is on it or not. Forumites care about GFLOPS and GDDR5, because they think that will result in the games that they want. (Think of the people that bought Vita due to the hardware for the hope of games that may or may not come to fruition, at this point.) The regular mass-market just cares about if the game they want to play is on the system, and in the online connected world, what system they have to buy to play with their friends. However in both cases, the system itself is just a means to an end.
Typically early adopters =/= mass market though? And even for the mass market something must drive transition; when I talk about hardware being important, I'm not necessarily talking about consumers caring about FLOPS and RAM
per se. I'm talking about the hardware serving as a basis for new software that goes beyond current software and/or as a basis for expectation of greater things in the coming generation.
Even talking minimalist GameCube type levels, Mario Kart, Zelda, and Smash Bros. all sold > 2 million on the system. Smash Bros. came out at $200, Zelda at $150, and Mario Kart at $100 for the system price. Mario Kart would be the most mainstream of those three, and it also came out when the price was lowest. So even looking at GameCube for a reference point on bigger games, those three would seem to be games to add to a catalog to drive demand, but the price is still just too high, right now. As discussed in the MC thread, my concern is that if those games come out before the price is significantly lower that they'll just be muted in their effect. These are not "must buy the system at any price to play" games.
I don't dispute that a price drop and these software releases will definitely help the system. It will most certainly provide more of Nintendo's fans with a sufficient value proposition to purchase the system. But whether that value proposition extends beyond Nintendo's core fanbase is the question mark, and how much it extends.
Coming from the Wii, more people are familiar with these games, and especially Mario Kart. If you asked the average Wii owner if they would want to play another Mario Kart, I'd imagine they'd very likely say "yes." That does not mean that a Wii U Mario Kart would sell 10m in the U.S. like it did on Wii, but brand familiarity combined with an acceptable entry price (obviously that's subjective, but $200 has typically been thrown around; I'm just wanting a $100 drop to $250.
)
can lead to that system purchase.
I'm not talking about people leaving Call of Duty to play Mario Kart, but rather the Mario Kart people who couldn't care less about GFLOPS and GDDR5.
I don't dispute that mindshare may have grown due to the Wii, but at this stage it's very difficult to quantify - and given NSMBU, has been previously somewhat overstated.
I took the liberty of examining the Wii weekly hardware in a similar manner to the earlier PS3 chart for the first 4 years:
The lower sales for 07 I imagine may be due to shortages. There seems to be a spike around the launch of Mario Kart Wii, but I'd imagine there's also an effect of improvement in supply there that's difficult to delineate?
It's difficult to ascertain how much of an effect Mario Kart had; but I don't know how it will result in an effect sufficient to meet the expectations I see on here.
For some perspective, we're talking about a
sustained doubling of current sales just to reach PS3 07 and 09 pre-Slim doldrum levels.
And a
sustained quadrupling or more to reach PS3 08 and post-Slim levels.
I don't know if there's huge precedent for that.
Nintendo ain't selling to their usual core demographic, right now. Maybe you think that usual core demographic that buys a Nintendo system early on died with Wii, but I'm thinking that launching $100 higher than last gen and $150 higher then every gen before (inflation now doesn't change what was paid then) is going to make a lot of people think twice about if they really want the system. PS2 was coming off PS1 (and included a DVD player, when those were still new), and 360 started slow, too.
I'd actually say, on the contrary, that Nintendo's core fanbase are the only one's really buying the system right now. They caused the initial spike in sales at launch, I imagine. The 360 started slow, but not
this slow.
In these post-launch months, beyond there being Nintendo core fans buying the system, the sales have to me implied a system competing for relevance against the PS3 and 360 - laggard adopters of a similar vein to the people who bought a PS2 this generation.
PS1 started off horribly launching at $100 more than the previous generation. I have it selling ~500K in the first four months (Sept-Dec 2005). Not exactly an example you'd want to mimic at the start of the generation. Not sure when it dropped to $199, but I seem to recall it was pretty early.
Wasn't aware of this, learn something new every day. The more you know.
