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Wii to launch with 400,000 in Japan; is it too low?
By admin | February 16, 2010
The launch number for the Wii in Japan is going to be 400,000 units, compared
with 100,000 for the PlayStation 3. This may seem like a big number, but it is a
lot smaller than it seems.
The PlayStation 2 (around 650K), GameCube (450K), Game Boy Advance (around 650K)
and DS (500K) all launched with more units, and except for the DS, all launched
outside the big holiday buying season. In 2004, Nintendo proved that it could
replenish stock quickly and sell more than a million DS units in December
despite the Game Boy Advance continuing to sell in that period (in fact, it
outsold the PS2 during a week after the DS launched) and the PSP launching, and
in the case of the DS Lite, Nintendo exceeded its target for its first month by
100,000 units. For the Wii, 4 Million are due to be shipped by the end of 2006
worldwide.
But the record-breaking DS situation in Japan proved the limits of Nintendo’s
production capacity in a given period, and even 1 Million units for Japan may
not be enough compared to speculation of a comfortable 2 Million units in North
America. The DS Lite is also destined to enjoy extremely high sales in December,
probably over 1.5 Million units. There seems to be buzz of shortages for the Wii
in Europe as well, so we’ll see how Nintendo handles this launch worldwide. From
an availability standpoint, the Wii is the only true worldwide launch, as the
Xbox 360 was plagued with shortages last year and launched without much
attention in Japan. The Wii will be the ultimate test of the viability of
worldwide launches.
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