Wii's = SC

[Kalga]

All this over the most innovative game system ever.

*goes off to sit in the 'innovative does not make it fun' corner*

[Gurndigarn]

All this over the most innovative game system ever.

*goes off to sit in the 'innovative does not make it fun' corner*

Technically, that would have been Pong. Followed by the Atari VCS, with (ooooohhh!) interchangable game cartridges and controllers. My personal favorite was in the coin-op end of things, Humpty Dumpty, which was a pinball with— get this— player controlled flippers! Woot!


OK, I'll go away and stop bugging you now.......

[Gravekeeper]

All this over the most innovative game system ever.

*goes off to sit in the 'innovative does not make it fun' corner*

Hehe. I don't have one either nor have I been on the prowl for one. I'll wait till something more substantial then pretending to bowl comes out on it. =p

Might snag a PS2 though. Sure she's a little older then her insanely overpriced dimwitted younger sister, but she's er......cheap and experienced....<cough>

Of course, I don't leave home without my DS. She keeps me warm when I'm not near my true mistress, the PC. ><

Oh god, I'm a gamer pimp. =/

Gravekeeper, have I ever told you how much I love you...

And how much you get me in trouble at work, when I laugh over the police radios...

Not that I recall no. Are you backwards compatible with DS carts? ;p

[lordlundar]

GK you have to consider that every sold is at a profit, so Nintendo can either put it into increasing supply steadily or sitting on the cash. So yes, they announced that they were going to 1.8 million per month, but this is for worldwide distribution. And now they're debating another increase? To be honest, if they kept putting the profit into steady increases in production and games, odds are they would have kept up with the demand.

Consider WoW, with 10 million accounts and still increasing. These require almost constant upgrades to maintain. If they went the same approach that Nintendo is doing, WoW would be done, as people couldn't play due to the system in place not being able to handle it, and they would leave.

The last system nintendo had with anywhere near this degree of success was the SNES, and that was a totally different world, where things were not this expensive and people had no where near the instant gratification that they do now. Now they have 2 huge successes at the same time after two poor performers (both the N64 and GQ were in last place in their tiers) and they can't cope. But both of these are generating money with every unit sold, so where is the money going?

Do they have excuses? Sure, but I see their actions as at the very least poor management calls, and the excuses are simply to buy time.

[Gravekeeper]

They aren't debating it. Like I said it was announced in October by Aimes, so I don't know why Mori is dragging his arse around the Nintendo blog about debating it now. But then Sataruwas being a gobknocker about it too and it was clear he didn't expect the demand either. They were caught off guard and the Japanese side of the company seems to mumble incoherently about it when asked while the American side of the company seems to have straight answers.

Comparing an MMO to console manufacturing is apples to oranges, frankly. You're comparing a virtual product to a hardware product. Besides, Blizzard's server maintenance track record is awful and their supply vs demand has been outstripped numerous times ( Server queues anyone? ).

Yes, the n64 and Gamecube sucked arse. I can't help but wonder if they expected the Wii to do likewise based on their initial shipments. Yes, it is 1.8 globally. Which is still quite impressive. No other console is pulling those kind of numbers and still being outstripped by demand. Plus, setting up a new server can be done in an afternoon. Setting up a new manufacturing plant....not so much.

Of course it's bad management and time buying. They screwed the pooch out of the gate and were unprepared for the success. Now they're buying time while they get more plants up and running. I never said they didn't pooch screw.

All I said was it's not because they're sitting there, picking their ass and lacking "willpower". It's not because they just don't feel like making more consoles. It's because a pooch was screwed and they're trying to get their boy bits back out of the chihuahua. All I said is I can understand the reasons when looking at the pooch screw out of the gate and the unprecedented sales records.

I'm just being reasonable as opposed to rabid fanboi/bitter retail employee/consumer resentment types of arguments I see all the time about consoles.

[lordlundar]

Well, the WoW comparison was the business model, which is similar in several ways. And yes, blizzard's track record isn't the greatest, but consider if they dragged their feet like Nintendo has been doing. Is it perfect? no, but it certainly can be a hell of a lot worse.

You're probably right, it's not a case of will power or lack thereof, but in the business world, a lack of action due to shock (and this can be seen as such) is seen as no real different than the lack of willpower. So it's not to surprising that people see it as such.

Yes, I'm bitter. I admit it. I had lost track of how many times I had to say that I was out of Wii's with no idea when there would be more. I was shocked beyond all belief when we had actually had them in. (mainly because there was no advance notice) Heck, the only reason I have mine is because of sheer luck and insane planning begging.

[Kyree]

Besides, Blizzard's server maintenance track record is awful and their supply vs demand has been outstripped numerous times ( Server queues anyone? ).

Thank you. Server crashes, maintenance that goes hours after it's scheduled time, only to break the server worse and having to take it down to fix said server. Patches that don't work right, enormous amounts of bugs. Mobs that evade, and have evaded since I started playing two years ago. Oh! You can also Fall through the ground . Holes? No. You can just be running on solid ground, and your character can fall through it. Does blizzard fix ground? No, their solution is "We made it so you die instead of falling through air." Awesome, we have to take a death, which costs us money. The expansion pack was released how long ago? A year. And they're still fixing it because they knowingly released it with so many bugs that it was barely playable when it came out.

I played FFXI: Online for 4 years before getting WoW, and the amount of bugs WoW has in a month was more then FFXI had the entire time I played it. The only reason most people still play WoW is because there's nothing better out there right now. /end rant

[LiberryWorker]

Console production is a manufacturing issue, you know. Nintendo can't just wave their magic wands and magically create more capacity. More capacity doesn't just require money. You need contractors to make the parts, factories and assembly lines to put the widgets into the doodads (ooh that sounded dirty ), and so on and so forth.

It get worse if your current suppliers are already at capacity, and the parts you want are proprietary / hard to license.

Moreover, it might not be the best choice. If they open up a couple of new factories, and sign new supply contracts, what happens when everyone who wants one has a Wii? Now you have workers and machinery sitting idle because you don't need the extra production.

[Andara Bledin]

Ok, anyone that thinks Nintendo is "sitting on their asses" and not addressing the shortage issues needs to get off their own asses and do a little more research.

First off, when the Wii was originally produce, there were quite a bit fewer than 1,000,000 per month being produced. They quickly learned that it was way too few. As of January 2007, they boosted their production to a cool 1,000,000.

Consider the fact that the Gamecube, the system they produced right before the Wii, sold a grand total of 22,000,000 units over it's entire lifecycle. The fact is that the popularity of the Wii far oustripped even their fondest wet dreams. Wiis have outsold the Gamecube, and we have yet to see any signs of a slowdown.

Also, note that it takes about 5 months to cycle up new production facilities. So you can only really expect ramps in production a bit less often than twice a year. Because they can't predict whether or not the new supply totals will be enough to satisfy demand until the latest ramp has been on full production for a few months.

It is now 2008, and they have ramped up production by November, 2007, to the point where they are producing 1,800,000 per month. That's nearly double what they were cranking out at this time last year, and they are still flying off the shelves as fast as they get there.

Meanwhile the PS3 is still in the corner crying because no one has asked it to dance. ;p

Might snag a PS2 though. Sure she's a little older then her insanely overpriced dimwitted younger sister, but she's er......cheap and experienced....<cough>

Well, now that Bluray has "won" the format war, I expect PS3 systems to start selling a little better, as they are a decent Bluray player, and they play games at the same price point as other just players.

^-.-^

[marasbaras]

Did I blame Nintendo for not getting right out of the gate? No. Nobody expected this. Wii was supposed to be some niche, weird system that only a small part of the market would want.

Did I say that they could just quickly turn around and increase production? No. I did not. I said that BY NOW, 18 months later, they should have a better handle on it.

However, given the speed at which these units cleared the shelves in stores ... it was pretty moronic to increase production to the level which they did. If a store's monthly shipment disappears in hours, perhaps a mere doubling is insufficient.

Stop apologizing for them. Nintendo are big kids.

[Andara Bledin]

However, given the speed at which these units cleared the shelves in stores ... it was pretty moronic to increase production to the level which they did. If a store's monthly shipment disappears in hours, perhaps a mere doubling is insufficient.

There is something called a saturation point. Nobody knows what that point is, or how close the Wii is to reaching it.

It takes almost half a year to get a new production factory online, and that doesn't include anything about finding the location or employees.

It would be financially suicidal for any company to quadruple production for something that may reach market saturation before the factories even go online. They owe that much and more to their investors. It's a shame it's inconvenient to consumers (I want a Wii, too, you know), doesn't make them stupid.

^-.-^

[Trayol]

Not really wanting to tread these waters but I will say that at the rate that this conversation is going, it seems to me that it may get closed down. Maybe everyone should take a nice breather, clear your mind of bad thoughts, think of your favorite SC pwning story, then return. Or fratch it up.

Just my

[Kogarashi]

Derailing from the Nintento discussion....

Thanks to selling lots of art at a recent convention, I only just procured enough funds to get myself a Wii (which I've been wanting ever since last May when I played one at my former roommate's home), so I am now officially on the prowl. Unfortunately, pickings are nonexistent around here right now.

Anyone have any recommendations for how I might find one? Stores more likely to have them for longer? Times to go to said store? How to talk to the employees so I don't come across as a lunatic SC?

[marasbaras]

How to talk to the employees so I don't come across as a lunatic SC?

Given the emotional battle scars most employees must have now about Wiis, I'm not sure this is possible.

The only way to reliably get one is to go to the store every morning and ask if they have any. And that, I'm afraid, will make you look like an SC.

[Gravekeeper]

Given the emotional battle scars most employees must have now about Wiis, I'm not sure this is possible.

The only way to reliably get one is to go to the store every morning and ask if they have any. And that, I'm afraid, will make you look like an SC.

The stores around here are pretty good about it. I've had them tip me off when I haven't even asked. Plus a lot of them, like Futureshop and Bestbuy, let you check individual store stock online. So you know whether or not to bother heading down in the morning to begin with.

Toys R Us is surprisingly helpful about it. I've head them mention off hand when and where ( 30 units arriving at noon to be exact ) just because I glanced at the Wii box when I was paying for my DS games. -.-