@zeromous, At this point in time, there will never be a market for 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Balance Boards unless Nintendo comes through with an improbable firmware update for the Wii. Nintendo has already stated that the Wii is currently not able to connect to more than 1 Balance Board at a time.
Thank you, I would do the same, however I am being actively excluded from participating in comment bidding by the ever democratic TSE for having the gall to believe 3 consecutive Loaldar posts weren't worth the bits they were written with (not to say *all* of his posts are this way, just those three).
Back to the discussion....
I agree, with the relationship between recession and home entertainment. Where I make the differentiation is the way Nintendo markets the WiiFit package (and in some ways the Wii iteself) as a Lifestyle device - specifically for fitness (and maybe some b-lister games later).
In recession times, fitness sectors don't do so well? Why? People are depressed, financially and emotionally. They simply can't be bothered.
WiiFit sits somewhere in the middle here, which is why I truly believe it cannot meet our incredibly high expectations in the market.
Another interesting perspective is the history of sports related games and peripherals. Is anyone aware of Sports/Activity genre SKU that has gone on to sell 10+ million copies? (no 20 years of madden do not count).
I can think of Links386 (which at least 10 million pirated) and ummm, not much else. :)
I bid up your comment as whilst I too respectfully disagree, it was very well put.
As far as the credit crunch goes, the games industry has shown no signs of being affected. In fact, a popular theory goes that people spend more of their entertainment budget on home entertainment as opposed to eating out, movies etc.
I'm not arguing that 1700DKP is a "low" estimation, it isn't. I just don't think it's an impossible one.
@zeromous, Actually, 1:3 is for Japan LTD (not new). Since Wii Fit is out, there is about 1.8 Million NEW Wii sold (not 6.4 Million).
For New Japan Wii buyer, the weekly ratio is significantly higher (78%, or roughly 2:3). I agree with you that we couldn't use new buyer ratio, which is why I mentioned Japan's LTD (since Dec 06 for Wii).
Since US's market is still too new, it is too early to compare their LTD.
@Mushashi, There is uncertainty in Wii Fit, because it's leg in non-Japan country was not as proven as Wii Play (as you mentioned). Which is also one of the reason why Wii Fit current price (1729.70 DKP) is significantly lower than Wii Play's price (2462.62).
It is also one of the reason why I didn't made any significant investment in Wii Play and Wii Fit, because any bad things in the future (possible cheap third party BB, possible new wii-mote bundle that replace Wii Play) made this stock a little bit too risky for my stomach.
You are using a constrained and different market to make future predictions linearly.
Sorry it just doesn't work that way- Your also using Wii Fit sales with current Wii sales data to show some sort of relationship with market penetration.
Your argument robs peter to pay paul, you haven't proven anything other than 1:3 people who bought a NEW Wii Also bought WiiFit since WiiFit came out. The same could be said of other blockbusters that won't reach 17million in sales this gen.
And Wii Fit is almost at same LTD as Wii Play in Japan, so should the GLS not be projected to be same or better than Wii Play GLS? Japan is an indicator, but popularity in one country does not mean equal popularity in others.
-1
Firmware is obviously not insurmountable, and if a blockbuster requires it, it would be sure to come- but thanks for pointing that out! :)
Consider the source but:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54097