@feelmyring, Sorry, forgot to add: If we forecast the Wii to sell 350k consoles, it's not unreasonable that we should be forecasting 270k for Wii Play.
On a related note, I still think the stock is low, based on our forecast of the Wii. We're predicting a 10% attach rate, when this game has over and over again demonstrated a rate of at least 50%.
@judge_khan, I don't think the sales are as closely tied to MP8 as they are the Wii itself; that as the sales of the Wii rise due more to availability, so will the sales of Wii Play. Every time I've been at a store and have seen a Wii sold, they also sell Wii Play with it, based on the "it's an extra $10 for an extra game" ploy. MP8 certainly is a factor in the sales, but not nearly as much as the console itself.
I'm surprised the trading on the Wii Play July future is still so light compared to the other futures. Do those who use advanced trading know this future IPOed into the price determination phase like 2-3 days ago?
I think the NPD number for Wii Play in June was (at least to some extend) a direct result of Mario Party 8. MP8 is a multi-player game, which means Wii owners will need extra controllers. And between buying just a controller, and paying a little extra for some games as well (albeit crappy), I think 293K Wii owners thought it was a good idea to pay that little extra.
This kind of phenomenon could happen again when a quality (read, big name) multi-player game is released, most noticeably Super Smash Bros. Braw. Granted, lots of MP8 owners might buy SSBB as well (which means they already have extra controllers), but I still think that there will be enough new Wii owners snapping up SSBB that will buy Wii Play.
The interesting thing is that sales of Wii Play is affected by sales of other multi-player games. As evident in June, sales of Wii Play increased as gamers buy MP8.
I think Wii Play sales will continue to grow strong. The main selling point of Wii Play is the controller, not the games. There won't be a Wii Play 2 as Nintendo continues to shift their focus onto first party games.
@ErikAston, Shouldn't this be up in the thousands, by now? I'm not going to use a 77% attach rate for the lifetime sales, but I don't think 40% is unreasonable, considering what it is. VGChartz has it as a 41% attach [3.93/9.36].
Either this is undervalued, or the Wii is overvalued. Probably a little bit of both, but even if the Wii is overvalued by half, this is still undervalued.
Even if the Wii sells 50 million, and Wii Play has a 25% attach rate, it's still 12.5 million units. I think there's another couple hundred dollars to go until this thing gets close to where it should be.
According to the recently released NPD data, Wii Play was the #2 game of June in the USA, selling 293K copies on 382K Wii's sold. That's an attach rate of nearly 77%.
I can't possibly imagine Nintendo replacing a controller pack-in that has a 77% attach rate in its 5th month of release.
There is one scenario where the price of this stock will fall. And that's if more one player games are released. If that's the case, then gamers won't need the extra controller.
However, looking at the game line up for Nintendo, that is unlikely.
So all in all, Wii Play will continue to sell well into the foreseeable future.
1
Another 256k in August....