Oh, BTW, you know that Nintendo uploaded some WiiWare demos a couple of weeks back like this time last year?

In europe the games were Jett Rocket, Thruspace, Zombie Panic in Wonderland and Furry Legends. I was expecting that to be it and for that limited set to disappear soon after the new year.

Well today I logged onto the shopping channel and they added demos for two additional games: Chronos DX which is a pile of shit BTW. And the new Bit Trip game which is actually pretty damned cool and has piqued my interest in the series.

But the big story is that, well you know Nintendo is an anachronistic old man when it comes to stuff like this - they have actually added new demos and hopefully, will continue to do so and not just cut them off.

Someone check the USA Shop channel and see what demos are up now.

Iga_Bobovic said:

OMG I am so hard right now!

Carry on my wayward son! Carry on!

ASK_Story said:

What? GT5 installs while you play?

I'm scratching my head on how that'll work.

Of course it does, it also does all your christmas shopping.

Dvader said:

Best year of Wii software and you get the worst sales the Wii has ever had.

Yeah, that kind of sucks. But I don't know, even if the Wii was selling like past years, I doubt we'd see huge numbers for Kirby, Metroid, Donkey Kong, or GoldenEye 007.

But I am a little surprised Wii-Party didn't sell that well. My theory is that families already have Mario Party for the Wii, so maybe they thought that was enough party games. I think Mario Party 8 sold over 7 million copies and it's the 10th best selling Wii game. But Wii-Party sold a lot in Japan. Maybe it'll pick up during this holiday season.

Also, I think the Mario red Wii is selling like hotcakes according to reports. Maybe people were waiting for that.

Dvader said:

Meanwhile in 360 land

Its like its gotten its second wind. No need at all for a new console from MS. 360 is killing right now.

Who the hell in their right mind would buy a 360 THIS late in the game?!

Idiots!

Huh? its "second wind" shows sales at about equal level to Wii for this year...  The chart only looks so different because the rest months' grey area only extends to 6, while in Wii's case it extended to 11... so, while the Wii has had an obvious decline (but not far behind 2007's sales) from ludicrous numbers, it's not in bad form, especially when another company's more or less equal sales show a "second wind" that means there's "no need at all for a new console" from them... And is this US only? If so, you could add another 1.1 million from Japan to Wii then, and 170k for the 360 (for this year, cba to check back to previous years for that). I have no idea about European sales, it kinda sucks for overall numbers, all I ever see is a few country specific top ten charts and crap...

But anyway, the race is not over or anything and these are still just snapshots. Microsoft is supposed to be doing insane marketing for Kinect this holiday season, right? If that pays off for them they could very well have their best year by some distance. That in turn means it's very possible that the year after that they'll also show a decline if they have nothing as big as the Kinect launch. That won't suddenly mean the 360's end or anything.

What I do see here is that Nintendo failed to capitalise on certain things they did in the past. They only had sort of core offerings lately, things for a portion of existing owners to enjoy and little to attract a major surge of mainstream sales with, like Wii Sports, New Super Mario Bros Wii and Wii Sports Resort could. 3D Mario doesn't tend to do that, despite selling millions itself, and Wii Party, while it did good for what it is (in terms of development cost and what not) underperformed compared to such titles. There's also been no sign of the Vitality Sensor which could have been their next big thing in that area, so if they cancelled it, that's another set back to recover from. Software and hardware, it can all go wrong and mess up plans, release lists, etc, but they recover from it.

I don't think any of this spells the Wii's doom. If they thought like that then the N64 and GameCube wouldn't have made it past their first or second year. The Wii's in a much better position than they ever were and let's not forget Nintendo was profitable even during those eras. There's still a lot of profit to be made from Wii, if they wish to do so. Which they may not, timing wise. After all, the DS was still doing great when they announced the 3DS. It's all up to their own strategy which probably goes beyond most people's in terms of time frame. If they will continue with the Wii as they have hinted in many recent talks and interviews (not just Reggie who doesn't know shit anyway), or if they want to go ahead with a new system in the next couple of years, either possibility has little to do with what the media and forum goers cry over, whether that's their lowered performance, HD, or whatever.

Someone just gave me a $25 Wal-Mart gift card. Should I get Donkey tomorrow? I'm still deciding if I want to or not.

ASK_Story said:

There's a huge advantage in buying a system later. All the great games are cheaper, the console is cheaper and has all the latest upgrades, etc.

I'm going to get a 360 the day the 720 comes out.

Dvader said:

I'm going to get a 360 the day the 720 comes out.

I've been thinking about getting a PS2 lately; 10 years after it came out!

PCSX seems to be a good alternative these days, if compatibility is good. I played a bit of FFXII on it and it was pretty much flawless. But maybe other games like SOTC or whatever else have glitches or performance issues (although SOTC had those on PS2 anyway, heh), I dunno.