There are still 50-person lines for the Wii
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 12:21pm by Staff
Via the NeoGAF forums:
“Q1 is looking like the beginning of an up-cycle year,” said Billy Pidgeon, video game analyst, IDC. “There’s good software movement, but hardware is stalled a bit by short Wii supply and stagnant demand for 360 and PS3. I believe the Wii will continue strong growth although supply continues to be a problem,” Pidgeon said. “I’d like to see Wii hardware shipping in larger quantities or mass market consumers may cool on it. Having said that, I don’t believe supply will meet demand for the Wii until 2009. Xbox 360 and PS3 need system-selling games ASAP. Halo 3 will help, as will Lair and Heavenly Sword, but that leaves a hole in Q2 which will be filled by Wii, DS and PSP hardware and software. We’ll also see more PC and PS2 software picking up the slack.”
I meant to comment on this Monday, but life outside of Infendo caught up with me and I had to stop pretending to work at my real job and actually start working.
What I wanted to mention was that on Sunday I went to the Watertown, Mass. Best Buy to search for a Wii for my family — again. There was a tip over at Kotaku that they’d be getting some stock and wouldn’t you know it, they did. However, when I pulled into the lot an hour before opening I was greeted with a sight I hadn’t seen since last November: a line stretching the entire length of the storefront complete with lawn chairs. There must have been at least 50 people standing there of all shapes and sizes.
On the phone with my sister later that day, she said she basically had resigned herself to the fact that she *might* be getting one at Christmas time. The IDC news makes me wonder if she meant Christmas 2008.
People still kind of wonder if the Wii is going to “surpass the Xbox 360″ or “win the console war” these days, but after seeing that line, at some random Best Buy in Massachusetts in the latter half of April (almost half a year after launch!), I think we need to revisit the question. It’s no longer will the Wii sell the most consoles, but when. Like it or not all you developers out there, you can bash the Wii for it’s sub par horsepower, but you can’t bash the lines I saw Sunday morning. To bash that is kind of like writing your own pink slip. And that’s just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
P.S. — Nintendo better get its act together by the time Mario Galaxy comes out, or there’s going to be PS3 violence in the streets.
April 25th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Same situation here in Chicago: there was a line on Sunday morning at my local BestBuy… They only got 18 Wiis, and half an hour after opening they were all gone. The Wiis go out the door as fast as the cashiers can scan them!
And other BestBuys around the city got up to 24 Wiis, according to an employer there.
I say, between its lack of online play and its lack of supply, Wii is in danger of stalling the whole video game industry this year!
April 25th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Move to Finland, I see Wiis everywhere I go, today when I went to a local prisma (our equivalent of best buy) I saw perhaps 15 Wiis sitting there next to 15 ps3s waiting for someone to buy them… Sad but true…
April 25th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
oh halo 3 is the only good game for 360 this year, I thought mass effect and too human and forza 2 were pretty good too, well if its an analyst saying this it must be true? damn I hate analysts, they always spoil the fun…
April 25th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Seeing this makes me feel incredibly lucky that I got my Wii when I did. I got mine Jan 21st. I’d been asking for a Wii that Christmas, and there was one under the tree … for my Nintendo-hating brother … who later gave it away to a relative he doesn’t like … because he thinks all things Nintendo are crap.
I arrived at a local Gamestop 3 hours before opening and there was a lawn chair in front of the store. Here’s where I lucked out. Because it was so cold outside all the people on the line were sitting in their cars until someone who didn’t have a car (I took the bus there) arrived.
So despite a good number of people arriving before me, I was the first in line when the store opened.
Now I occasionally visit Gamestop on Sundays and smile smugly at the people waiting in line.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
There won’t be any PS3 violence.
April 25th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I’m glad the Wii is still rockin.’ My local Gamestop still has 5.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
My husband & I finally got our Wii yesterday…we’d been looking since December! It took us calling our local Game Stop every single day to see if they received a shipment on that day. Yesterday was finally our lucky day & the guys at the store were kind enough to hold it for us until we could get there. I spent my whole evening playing Super Paper Mario…it was GREAT!
April 26th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I especially have no pity for Japanese developers who choose to not develop for the Wii. If they want their console games to sell well at home, it looks at this point like there will only be one realistic choice. The 360 is essentially dead in Japan, and the PS3’s sales and attach rates over there are some sort of twisted joke. Even when combined, their sales in Japan pale in comparison.
The sooner they learn to give us Wii owners something other than shovelware, the less painful this generation will be for them.
(Coincidence? My verification word is “wisen,” as in: “Developers will need to wisen-up if they wish to actually make profits.”)