Wii software sales have fallen from last year, despite a significant rise in its install base.
Do you think that there aren’t enough good games on the Wii? Well, analyst Michael Pachter agrees with you, and thinks that the reluctance of publishers to support the console makes overall industry growth very difficult.
“Wii software sales were down 19% year-over-year and DS software sales were down 13%,” Pachter said. “We think this is remarkable, given growth in the Wii hardware installed base of 44% and growth in the DS installed base of 33% over the last 12 months … In our view, this indicates that Nintendo’s customers either are not finding enough software to satisfy their needs, or need less software than the typical Sony or Microsoft customer.”
“We think that Nintendo will continue to dominate sales on its console, with its first-rate lineup of games, but fear that other publishers have prematurely abandoned the very large Wii audience, and see further year-over-year software sales declines for the Wii for the next several months. These declines will make year-over-year industry sales growth difficult to achieve.”
With an install base greater than the either Microsoft or Sony, it seems strange that publishers are seemingly so ready to ignore the console. While there is obviously a very large number of casual gamers who own a Wii, there are also hardcore gamers who own them, and would welcome games from quarters other than Nintendo itself.
Source: Industry Gamers
