Nintendo stutters with new
console By David John Kim
The hot reception given to Nintendo's
latest version of its Wii gaming console in the
Japanese company's home turf at the weekend raised
the prospect of the company recovering ground lost
to rival gadget-maker Sony, mobile devices and
online gaming options on social media websites.
Investors were less impressed when trading in the
stock opened on Monday.
Hundreds of people
lined up in Tokyo waiting for the local release of
the Wii U game console. Eager customers inundated Ikebukuro
commercial district by 8 am
seeking to become one of the first to get their
hands on the Wii U. Some, admittedly, had turned
up simply for the party.
"I have already
ordered one, but I lined up to catch this carnival
atmosphere," said a 24-year-old graduate student,
who waited overnight along with impatient Wii U
buyers. "I want to go home quickly to play the
game," AFP reported.
Nintendo was looking
for strong demand after the Wii U was outsold in
its opening few days of sale in the United States
last month by the Sony PlayStation 3. Some 400,000
Wii U units were sold in the console's first week
of sales in North America, the IGN website
reported, citing Nintendo of America's president
Reggie Fils-Aime. Other reports put the figure at
425,000. The PlayStation 3 sold 525,000 units in
the United States in the same period, the website
reported.
The Wii U undersold by 200,000 the
original Wii consoles bought by customers during
the latter's first eight days on the market in
2006, IGN said.
Last weekend, retail
operator Yodobashi Camera in Shinjuku, Tokyo,
reported that 200 Wii U consoles had sold in just
the first two hours and that was in addition to
the pre-orders for 500 units, according to the
shop's deputy manager Kazuhiro Kashiwagi.
"The turnout is what we have expected. We
can feel the Christmas sales war is near at hand,"
Kashiwagi told AFP reporters. "The Wii U business
has been mostly handled through pre-orders at our
outlets and competing stores."
The game
console is being viewed as one of the must-have
Christmas goodies and Nintendo is keen to see a
repeat performance on the level of the original
Wii, which has sold some 97 million units
worldwide since its 2006 release.
Investors, however, were less than
enthusiastic this week. By Tuesday midday,
Nintendo shares were down 9% since Friday. The
stock is languishing at less than four-fifths its
value before the 2009 global financial crisis,
after recovering about 7% from a five-year low in
late July,
The gaming company aims to sell
some 5.5 million units of its new console and 24
million software packages by the end of March
2013, as it seeks to reverse its first-ever net
loss, of US$530 million, reported in the financial
year to March 2012.
Nintendo hopes its
portable Wii U consoles will help it battle back
not only against social media gaming but also
against the many options now being put forward by
other mobile technologies.
The increasing
dominance of social media sites like Facebook and
Twitter over the period since Nintendo's last Wii
console release has dramatically changed the games
sector. Where people had readily bought a
specialty console technology in the form of a Wii,
a diverse range of gaming options are now
available without the need to invest in a special
console.
Instead, gamers can use their
existing technology in the form of computers,
tablets and smartphones to access games.
Nintendo is not giving up easily, with a
large library of offerings helping to support
demand for a Wii game console.
New Wii
GamePad technology aims to take the lead in a
trend known as "asymmetrical play", which allows
multiple players to take on unique views and roles
in the gaming environment. These developments are
viewed as one of the ways that Nintendo can ensure
that specialty gaming consoles hold their own
against tablets and mobile devices, while offering
games that appeal to older generations, business
people as well as college students.
David John Kim is an Asia-based
writer and technology geek.
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2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights
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