1 in 5 projected to buy a peripheral no matter how you slice it, is quite a bit. I firmly believe you can't achieve that kind of penetration without core gamers or a system pack-in in this market (128 million ,which I also consider inflated?). I have yet to see anything but speculation that there is some killer app for the Wii+Balance board.
Deft, respectfully, how can you compare Brain Age to Wii Fit? They may be aimed at the same market, but Brain Age has access to a broader install base and generally most adults have time to play during the ole commute. A great fit (no pun intended).
Last I checked we projected Brain Age 2 at 1300 DKP and the DS at 148 million. Vgchartz estimates Brain Age sales at 13 million, *currently*. Yes, it has slowed down somewhat, I reckon, but it still has legs for another couple million. That aside, the brain trainer gold rush of 2005 has passed us by! The market is saturated. You heard it here first.
But that's the best Brain Age could do, despite having the largest demographic and install base in the DS is still nowhere near what we predict for the Balance Board.
...and yet here we are, flying in the face of the first rule of peripheral add-ons to arrive at an optimistic 1700 DKP for Wii-Fit, retailing 90$ when regular people (not core gamers) are more worried about 4$/gallon.
Nintendo markets WiiFit to several demographics, not necessarily as a game, but as a Lifestyle product. Every economic indicator has show consumers in North America have lowered their Lifestyle related spending dramatically in the past couple of months. Maybe all those broke Yoga addicts will forgoe the Yoga for a Wii and a Balance board as a cost reduction measure...or maybe they'll just buy a DVD.
Please forgive me but I respectfully disagree with your position. Time will tell :)
Btw, Here's the games listed for the balance board. Sounds pretty B-list to me. http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1630
@apujanata, The wireless part is relatively cheap as it relies on Bluetooth - a rather cheap thing to implement these days with the number of Bluetooth devices.
A third party could use a lower quality sensor or they could just develop their own cheaper sensor though different means.
There would be low R&D costs due to the fact that they would be basically copying what Nintendo did.
Nintendo generally relies on other manufacturers for the basic parts and the economic size advantage would not have a large effect when a 3rd party could purchase similar or the same components from those first manufacturers. Even if they could not, economic benefit of scale would not play much of a role in this situation because of the fact that the balance board does not rely on any type of cutting edge type of tech (where economy of scale is much more pronounced).
The brand name advantage only exists when the other options are the same price or close to the same price. A thirty to forty dollar difference would be enough to steal away any type of consumer who is not interested in Wii Fit but only wants the balance board for other games (e.g. one group being hardcore or mainstream gamers who want it for their sports games).
The possibility of a 3rd party manufacturer creating a competing balance board for the Wii was not my original point in my original post (you would notice this if you checked) - I was simply pointing out to deftangel in his new post that a 3rd party has already managed to come out with a premium alternative to the 1st party balance board and that 3rd party balance boards are indeed possible.
@lstormy10, "another 3rd party manufacturer could easily create a 50 dollar balance board"
The bolded part is where I don't agree with you. If you read Iwata ask series on Wii Fit, you will notice that : - It is not easy to made the Balance Board, since it also have wireless part (it act as fourth controller), unlike Nunchuk, classic controller, which didn't have wireless part. - Nintendo is a "cheap" company, and they tried to minimize the cost of Balance Board by reducing the "sensor" (page 2 of Iwata Ask), and they failed. Unless the third party uses a "less quality" component, it is not easy for them to reduce the cost. - Economic size advantage. Nintendo has manufactured 4 million Balance Board, so they have economic size advantage to any new comer. - Brand Name advantage. As a consumer, will I pay US$ 90 for Wii Fit + BB from Nintendo, or will I pay US$ 80 for BB only from other third party (Njoy, Nyko, etc) ? I am quite sure lots of people (including casual) would prefer to buy Nintendo branded accessories, if the price difference is not significant enough (50%+ at least, IMO). I know I would choose Nintendo in the above mentioned price example.
@deftangel, Njoy, a third party manufacturer already has made a 3rd party balance board that is to be used with the Wii. Njoy's product is currently aiming at the premium buyers, but nonetheless, another 3rd party manufacturer could easily create a 50 dollar balance board (which would undercut Wii Fit by a significant margin).
Because you're missing the point. This title has NOTHING to do with core gamers. Therefore different rules will apply. If you don't believe the new markets that Nintendo are opening up with this product will drive sales to 17m, that's one thing. But comparing it to Mario or Doom is just wrong.
Doom 3 sold 3m copies, Wii Fit is way way past that already, it's practically that far in Japan alone.
Look at Brain training, that's an equivalent comparison. It's been around for years yet still charts very highly with no signs of slowing down.
Nintendo won't allow 3rd parties to make a balance board Wii compatible. Even if they did, there would be no money in it for them because they would either have to massively undercut Nintendo or invest heavily in some compelling software to bundle in.
@zeromous, I see your point, but I believe that he (deftangel) is saying is that he is betting on the Balance Board not becoming available without buying the current package of Wii Fit and the Balance Board (or that if it does become available, it still makes more sense to buy the Wii Fit package due to little difference in pricing between Balance Board alone and Balance Board with Wii Fit). If that is the case, and new games supporting the use of the Balance Board continue to be announced/released, then the Balance Board will remain in demand - leading to more Wii Fit sales. Simply, people are looking at the need for the hardware side of the Wii Fit bundle to drive most sales - not the software - and that the Balance Board peripheral will become an integral part of the Wii platform.
This is why I posted an article recently of the first 3rd party manufacturer coming out with their own Balance Board (that obviously does not include Wii Fit). If 3rd party manufacturers are able to bring out a quality, lower cost version of the Balance Board than the current Wii Fit package, then the sales that may have been gained from people buying Wii Fit for the Balance Board would be lost or decreased in number - leading to a lower lifetime sales for Wii Fit. At this time however, neither Nintendo or a 3rd party has released or announced a Balance Board that will be sold by itself without Wii Fit and that is just as good as quality as the current Balance Board and cheaper than the current Wii Fit package.
But not as WiiFit, which is what we are bidding on here- not the balance board across all possible SKUs.
How is it a bad comparison to compare to some of the best selling titles ever made? How do you expect to acheive on the WiiFit SKU to those levels without core-gamers. 1 in 5-6 Wii owners people would need buy WiiFit in order to acheive this....and that's with the best projections for Wii's install base...
So again I state....
PUT SOME FACTS BEHIND 17 million Wii Fit copies in 17 million homes, or its way too high.
Yup, a title that most core gamers could care less about, and that sold 687,700 copies in May 2008, and is suffering from shortages will certainly reach the plateau of 17 million copies sold worldwide- A plateau previously reserved for:
*Mario 1 through 4 *The Sims *Every Doom ever made
Yessir, good luck reaching 17 million sold anytime soon.
1
1 in 5 projected to buy a peripheral no matter how you slice it, is quite a bit. I firmly believe you can't achieve that kind of penetration without core gamers or a system pack-in in this market (128 million ,which I also consider inflated?). I have yet to see anything but speculation that there is some killer app for the Wii+Balance board.
Deft, respectfully, how can you compare Brain Age to Wii Fit? They may be aimed at the same market, but Brain Age has access to a broader install base and generally most adults have time to play during the ole commute. A great fit (no pun intended).
Last I checked we projected Brain Age 2 at 1300 DKP and the DS at 148 million. Vgchartz estimates Brain Age sales at 13 million, *currently*. Yes, it has slowed down somewhat, I reckon, but it still has legs for another couple million. That aside, the brain trainer gold rush of 2005 has passed us by! The market is saturated. You heard it here first.
But that's the best Brain Age could do, despite having the largest demographic and install base in the DS is still nowhere near what we predict for the Balance Board.
...and yet here we are, flying in the face of the first rule of peripheral add-ons to arrive at an optimistic 1700 DKP for Wii-Fit, retailing 90$ when regular people (not core gamers) are more worried about 4$/gallon.
Nintendo markets WiiFit to several demographics, not necessarily as a game, but as a Lifestyle product. Every economic indicator has show consumers in North America have lowered their Lifestyle related spending dramatically in the past couple of months. Maybe all those broke Yoga addicts will forgoe the Yoga for a Wii and a Balance board as a cost reduction measure...or maybe they'll just buy a DVD.
Please forgive me but I respectfully disagree with your position. Time will tell :)
Btw,
Here's the games listed for the balance board. Sounds pretty B-list to me.
http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1630