Nintendo Wii Sales

The Japanese console giant Nintendo aims to recover the top spot in the gaming industry through the release of Wii. Released in mid-November of 2006, Wii enjoyed a month end sale of 476,000. As of December 2006, Wii has sold more than 1 million units worldwide, pushing Nintendo past rival Sony to the number 2 slot.

Wii is pronounced as “we”; initially named as the Revolution, Wii seeks to revolutionize home consoles by focusing not on what the gamers are playing but how the games are being played.  The Wii design is sleek and very portable; it measures roughly around the same as 3 stacked DVD snap cases. Riding on the wave of iPod inspired toys, the console comes in classic white with silver and metallic gray accents.

There are four things that make the Wii sell like hotcakes; the first is the innovative play made possible by sensitive infrared detection and accelerometers. The Wii Remote or Wiimote uses Bluetooth to connect to the console. It closely resembles a TV remote more than anything else. 

The Wiimote allows players to play games through the usual push button play or physical gestures; for example, if the game being played is as shooting game the player has the option of mimicking shooting motions instead of pushing a button to play the game.  The Wiimote is complemented by the nunchunk, an attachment that enhances the moves created by physical gestures on the Wiimote for certain games. 

The second selling point of the console is its backward capabilities. Although new games have and are set to be released specifically for Wii, classic games and accessories from previous Nintendo platforms are fully playable.

The third selling point is the expandable memory. Wii has an internal memory of 512mb; it also provides an SD slot. Whereas consoles tend to be proprietary when it comes to peripherals, Wii is generous enough to provide an SD slot instead of more costly platforms of portable storage.

The fourth selling point is the price tag. A unit of Wii costs only $250, a small fee compared with the heftier price tags of its competitors – an Xbox retails for more than $400 and the PS3 retails at around $600-$1000 a unit.

In terms of speed and processing power, the Xbox and PS3 consoles outperform Wii. What it lacks in power it makes up in innovation, creativity and over-all fun factor. At $250 a pop, it makes an extremely satisfying and best value purchase. To play Wii is to realize the fulfillment of Nintendo President Iwata’s promise a few years ago: “The key here is not what you are playing but how you’ll be playing it.”