One thing that appears to becoming more of an issue for the big three gaming consoles is the Wii ability to make dollars for parent company Nintendo.
According to various published reports Sony will never make money of the sale of the Playstation 3 console. Even worse is the fact Microsoft loses money on every unit that is sold. The theory is that they will make money on games and other ways.
But the Wii makes money for Nintendo on every unit. Plus at $249 average street price the Wii is an affordable purchase for more people. The hard core gamer community is not driving Wii sales.
Certain features of the Wii make it more attractive to the new gamer which is a vast untapped market. The second controller, Wii Nunchuk, is a great design feature. That is one of the reasons why the Nintendo Wii has sold over 43.75 million units compared to to 26.49 million Xbox 360 units and 18.82 million Playstation 3 consoles.
I guess the kid in the video really wanted a Wii for Xmas. One of the more popular videos on youtube right now is this one minute clip of this kid receiving a Wii fot Christmas. Make sure your volume is low.
Looks like the Wii rolled through November in the USA. The newspaper USA Today is reporting that the Wii sold over 2 million units in November in the USA. The Xbox sold about 840,000 units in the same time period.
The big boys in the USA retail world are using the success of the WII to draw and attention to themselves. Walmart got some press regarding the fact that they have Wii units in stock online and they are selling them.
So think about that for a simple minute. Walmart sells tons and tons of things every minute. Why is the fact that they are selling Wii units a big deal. Because people really want to get their hands on units. Walmart is providing some special promotional pricing for the units with the price set at $249.24 but really the fact that the press picked up the story is a bigger deal. Walmart also has some deals on Wii games and some other Wii related products. Hopefully they are selling some Wii remote chargers at a special price. That is one add on that almost everyone should get when they buy their system.
Well any true die hard Wii fan who is thinking of what American university they should attend should start thinking about attending Rice University. Two researchers at the university recently received a research grant to study motion. The grant money came from the National Science Foundation.
The study is designed to test the ability of robotics to improve motor skills. Trying to improve your dance steps or your golf swing well these folks are using the Wii to help develop some mathematical model and how it relates to a range of motion.
The researchers have already been using the Wiimote to collect some data. The researchers figure that by using the Wiimote and other Wii products they should be able to attract students to help them conduct research. What until they get there hands on some Wii boxing gloves. The researchers are going to have tons of data and some bloody noses to clean up.
Apparently the folks at Nintendo just love that Friday Friday. According to some published reports during the black Friday week more than 800,000 Wii units moved off the shelves. Almost everry month since the Wii was introduced Wii has outsold PS3 sales and XBox sales totals.
When you look at those sale figures you have to remember that millions of units have already been sold but demand keeps on building. Nintendo expects sales to continue to meet expectations until the end of the year. I’m sure many of those units picked up were Wii bundle deals that were being heavy promoted by certain vendors. That has changed since the first introduction of Wii units. Now people know that the units are great and they want gaming options out of the box.