1/04/2012

What a difference a few months makes...



Well as usual, Nintendo has proved the doomsayers wrong once again. Not that it didn't take some drastic action and a lot of hard work, but basically in the course of a few months they've managed to sell over 4 million 3DS units both here and in Japan. To compare that's actually more than the Wii sold in its first blockbuster year, though a  key difference may have been 3DS supplies being plentiful whereas Wiis were scarce for like the first 2 years. Hopefully Nintendo really keeps us this momentum with lots of key first and third party releases. And as I've said before, only top AAA titles should be at the $40 mark, keeping most other titles in the $20-$30 range would certainly help attachment rate for games that don't have "Mario" in the title.

The Wii actually sold half a million over that for the year as well, proving though everyone seems to be writing the system off in the pending release of the Wii U, there's still an audience if somebody actually wants to make games for the thing. Though frankly as long as Last Story gets a US release, that would be enough for me.

Speaking of the Wii U, let's hope they realize that it will not sell on concept alone. They tried that with the 3DS and quickly had to go back to the drawing board. To really succeed the Wii U will need to convince people it's something worth investing in so it will need an attractive price point (probably no more than $250 frankly) and compelling software that shows off the different capabilities right out the gate. And yes, clearly slapping "Mario" on at least one of those titles would be a safe move.

That's all for today, I should get another post up tomorrow or Friday. Until then, here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: The Innkeepers

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