Your Analysis Sucks

You ever heard of Sean Malstrom? He’s an interesting fellow with a gaming blog of his own that provides a very different look at the industry. While I don’t always agree with him, his very different viewpoint is appreciated. Still, one does have to wonder why he’s always so pissy. But after reading this article a friend of mine linked me to, I fully understand. These analysts are idiots!

The article in question is from Gamespot and informs us that the PS3 managed to outsell the Wii in September:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6282085.html

I would like to go on to state that none of this idiocy is the fault of the writer, he is merely reporting the stupid shit that the analysts have said.

What sort of stupid shit?

“The Wii, however, fared far worse, being beat by both the 360 and the PS3. “The Wii continues to struggle due to gamer fatigue and a lack of high-profile releases,” summarized Wedbush’s report. “The era of standard definition gaming is rapidly coming to an end, and Nintendo may have missed the opportunity to revitalize its large installed base of consumers by offering them an HD version of the Wii before Sony and Microsoft encroach with motion control schemes of their own.””

Okay, the Wii sold worse than the PS3 and 360 though all three console’s sales are down.  So why is the Wii selling worse? Because of “gamer fatigue”, which seems to mean that Wii owners are burnt out on gaming.

But, keep in mind we’re talking about system sales. As such, these people couldn’t be burnt out on gaming as they don’t own a Wii yet! People who already own a console seldom buy more! If we were talking about software sales then “gamer fatigue” may have been a reasonable response (though keep in mind few interesting titles were released in September) but hardware sales?!

Lemme give you a better suggestion: perhaps it’s because everyone already owns a Wii! No, seriously, think about it. The Wii was sold out for two years! No console in the history of gaming has ever done that! And remember that Nintendo was not shorting stores on their shipments, they were shipping Wiis as fast as they could make them! So of course the Wii’s sales are down.

They then suggest that Nintendo should have made an “HD Wii” before Microsoft and Sony could add motion control to their systems. Keep in mind the Kinect is not out yet (and I still think it will be the biggest waste of money in gaming history) and the Move’s sales are nowhere near Wii levels. I mean, this article openly states the 360 outsold the PS3 even though the PS3 has it’s motion control device ready.

What’s worse is that the analysts act like all motion control is the same. They fail to recognize that the Move and possibly even Kinect provide vastly superior motion control. As such, a Wii in HD wouldn’t really be able to “compete” with the Move and Kinect and would ultimately be an embarrassment. The Wii’s success is due in a large part to it’s low cost and vast game library and as such making the jump to HD now would be silly. The Wii already has a massive user base and Nintendo is not going to just suddenly abandon them as that would be bad business. Investors should be looking at software sales rather than hardware sales when it comes to Nintendo right now.

Which brings me to this lovely caption:

“Multiple analysts are predicting dark days ahead for the Wii.”

Multiple analysts are morons. Apparently they didn’t see Nintendo’s E3 lineup. This year Nintendo blew everyone away at E3 and they have numerous great looking games coming to their console for Christmas. Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country Returns head up their first party offerings and in terms of third party stuff, Sonic Colors is generating quite a buzz. Even if Kinect and Move make a dent with their newness, don’t forget that Nintendo has the power of Zelda on their hands with the upcoming Skyward Sword. Yes it will require a MotionPlus, but considering Nintendo can pack that in without costing more than an average HD game? I think it’s still going to pack a punch.

“Pacific Crest Securities’ Evan Wilson also believes the Wii’s best days are behind it. In his note, he said that, “September’s data is another reminder that the Wii is well past its peak in the United States. It is also clear that the peak it set was high enough that it will present a nearly impossible comparison for the gaming industry for the foreseeable future. And, now Nintendo’s partners are walking away from it. By our calculation, 26 percent fewer Wii games have been published this year. This does not mean that the Wii is finished selling units, but it does mean that this time, it wasn’t different, and we are once again on the tail of a cycle.””

This is a much more reasonable statement though and I give credit for it. Yes the Wii’s sales are in decline but in the long run it means very little. The Wii has made it’s money and the 3DS is coming. Which brings us back to crazy land because…

“The Wedbush report also predicted iPod Touch and iPhone sales will be “cannibalizing” the handheld market until the launch of the Nintendo 3DS next March, when he expects the Mario Factory’s fortunes to rebound.”

There’s a huge difference between apps and full fledged games and I think the iPhone/iPod Touch audience is almostly completely different from the DS one. PSP is a slightly different story due to it selling more to gadget hounds than actual gamers, but it’s sales have never been strong.

Not to mention they forgot to take Pokemon Black and White into account, which will be released in America sooner than you think. On a more relevant note:

“On the software front, Wedbush reported both Wii and DS software sales sank 38 percent in September, the former because of the inclusion of Wii Sports Resort and Wii Sports with every new Wii purchase. The report also called out year-to-date declines in Wii software sales (down 24 percent by $385 million-plus) and DS software sales (down 10 percent by $90 million).”

I’d really chalk that up to “not much came out on Wii and DS in September”. Seriously, look at that list. You know I’m a huge Wii/DS game monger and yet all I could find to care about was Batman: Brave and the Bold (pretty cool on both systems) and Samurai Warriors 3 (first SW I’ve actually enjoyed). Neither of which are particularly big name releases. I guess there’s some truth to software sales dropping due to the fact that new Wii owners don’t need to buy Wii Sports Resort but…I dunno…that almost doesn’t even count, does it? They’re buying it with their system purchase now!

While not as idiotic as some of the reviews I’ve read, it looks like analysts don’t know enough about what they’re analyzing.

 

But before I go, I’d like to point out a stupid comment on the article:

“On a positive note: yay for the downfall of social and casual gaming!”

Wait, social gaming is a bad thing now?! I mean casual gaming being bad was stretching it as it was but now we’re lumping “social” gaming too?! Good lord how anti-social are we!?

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