Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has admitted that "the Wii is in the most unhealthy condition since it hit the Japanese market," but has ruled out a price cut for now.
Since the Wii released in November of 2006, it's progressively become a more profitable venture for Nintendo. Not just because it has been constantly flying off retail shelves, but because Nintendo has managed to drastically cut down manufacturing costs during its life, Koya Tabata of Credit Suisse suspects. In fact, Tabata says costs are down a whopping 45%, which could mean Nintendo is banking much more than the previously reported $6.
@kooistrak1, Interesting item from article : "Koya Tabata of Credit Suisse said in a recent note to clients that the cost to Nintendo of producing a Wii has fallen by 45 per cent since its launch. That would give Nintendo the scope to cut the price of the console if needed to stimulate sales." I am sure Nintendo would do different color first, and price drop later (as last resort).
TOKYO - Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 outsold Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii in March for the first time in 16 months in Japan thanks to hot new PS3 titles from Sega Sammy and Capcom, a game magazine publisher said.
Nintendo conceded that sales of some recent titles, such as Wii Music, had not taken off but said that: “We hope to line up strong software to support hardware sales in the second half of the year.”
That sales of Wii hardware now depend on game launches suggests that the novelty of its controller, which measures motions by the player rather than button presses, has worn off, at least in Japan
The original interpretation had to be wrong. Even if the developer/publisher only gets $25 per Wii title, it should not cost $25 million to recover development, distribution, and marketing costs for the avg Wii game.
Reggie's response : Games made for the Wii can be a financial success without selling 1 million copies, said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime.
Publishers' success on the popular platform is determined by a wide variety of factors, he told Wired.com in a phone interview Tuesday, contradicting a recent report in The New York Times.
"The fact is, there's no single magic number that defines profitability for a game," Fils-Aime said. "It's all based on the level of investment, based on the price point, and so it's unfortunate that I was misquoted in that article."
The New York Times article in question, "Videogame Makers Challenged by the Next Wave of Media," attributed to Fils-Aime the assertion that Wii publishers would not turn a profit unless they sold more than 1 million units of their software. In a follow-up blog post, the Times' writer said he quoted the Nintendo executive accurately, but that the company later contacted the paper by e-mail to say that Wii games could indeed turn a profit without hitting the magic 1 million unit level.
My comment : Lol at "he quoted the Nintendo executive accurately", without providing the context and / or full question and answers. The only way it could be true is if Reggie speak when he was drunk (if Reggie drinks).
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Hmm good question!