Nintendo to sell 6 million Wii consoles until April, comments on pricing

In their most recent financial report, Nintendo has given an estimate on how well they expect the Wii to perform as a console. There is also mention of the expected price. Games Press has the details:

Nintendo Announces Wii Information, Worldwide Shipments

May 25, 2006

Following its overwhelming debut at E3 2006, Nintendo today announced the current fiscal year unit shipment forecast for its new home game system, Wii™. Nintendo also confirmed that the price of the Wii system, which incorporates unique freehand control, will not exceed $250 in America, or ¥25,000 in Japan. The company plans to ship 6 million systems to retailers around the world between its launch in the fourth quarter of 2006 and the end of its fiscal year on March 31, 2007.

The projections are part of a full-year financial forecast that sees growth of 18 percent in sales globally, based on anticipated continuing strong demand for the Nintendo DS™ portable game system, as well as a successful launch for Wii.

The company also said it expects to sell 17 million Wii games in the period. Exact launch dates, identification of the launch library of titles and details on the unique Virtual Console aspect of Wii will be announced soon.

The comments about the price were perhaps to be expected. But Nintendo seems very confident that they can sell six million consoles until April 2007 and almost three times as many games along with it. This is a bold statement. Microsoft claims to have sold just over 3 million units in about six months since launch. Given that the Wii can most likely launch no earlier than September, Nintendo would have to sell three times as many consoles to make good on this promise. A very bold claim indeed. And, in my opinion, a good indicator that there is still another secret to the system that will make it even more appealing.

EDIT It has been rightly pointed out (albeit by a complete cretin) that I mistook ´shipped´ for ´sold´. Of course, Nintendo only intends to ship that many consoles. However, I am sure that they have high hopes of selling the entire shipment by that time. As we all know, most consoles do sell out the first batch as demand is high.

Source: Games Press, Nintendo financial report

Post-E3: First Elebits screenshots

First of all, apologies for the recent lack of updates. I will post a whole lot of E3 stuff very soon. I interviewed Satoru Iwata, Phil Harrison (Sony Computer Entertainment), Robbie Bach (Microsoft), Cliff Bleszinski (Epic Games), Todd Hollenshead (id Software), Peter Molyneux (Lionhead Studios), Doug Lombardi (Valve Software) and Denis Dyack (Silicon Knights) to only name a few. If I get clearance, I will post all interviews in full right here, so please stick around.

In the meantime, I would like to give you a little taster. Here are the first official Elebits screenshots, courtesy of Konami:




There you go. Also, I still owe you the Red Steel story, which I hope to be able to share with you either later today or tomorrow.

Hi people. Just a last quick word from l.a. to clarify a number of things picked up upon in the comments to my last posts.

There is no need for the flame wars between wii and ps3 fans about graphics. Anyone who attended e3 and played wii can not be in any doubt that wii offers stunning graphics that are a marked improvement over the gamecube. As i have said before, the graphics shown at the pre-show press conference do not do the console justice.

Now, which games did sony have on the showfloor up and running? Consider heavenly sword. It looks great, but the draw distance is very low, since all is contained within a narrow arena. Consider gta hd. It is a great game, i am sure. But try to compare it to gt4 and you will see only small improvements. Sure, eight days or lair or assassins creed look very promising. But they wont be launching until 2007. The launch titles will look good, but they will not be visually stunning.

So, as far as the first generation games are concerned, wii can more than hold its own against the ps3. The graphics of games like mp3 or red steel really do make me say wow.

Also, here is some more rumour-mongering, courtesy of nbc. In their wall street journal show, they just stated that wii will launc in november for $250. I emailed them, asking them how they come to know this. I will publish their reply as soon as i get it, right here, of course.

Finally, some people were still wondering what system wii games were running on. I have said this before: all 27 games were running on the actual console. No dev kits were necessary.

Nintendo really stole the show. But dont just take my word for it. Read reports by the bbc and time magazine and see what they have had to say:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4767807.stm

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191861-1,00.html

Summarizing all this, nintendo had a great show. Sony, by comparison, has a long way to go in convincing gamers why thy should fork out an extra one or twohundred dollars to buy the ps3 rather than te xbox360 (which also had a pretty solid showing this year). In the end, sony has everything riding on the blu ray ticket. Superior graphics are NOT the relevant factor here. Certainly not in comparison to the xbox360. But neither in comparison to wii. Before you doubt my words, play and see for yourself.