14 DAY TRIAL // Despite the coming launch of the Wii U home console, hardware maker Nintendo is still investing in the older Wii and plans to keep it relevant for another few years, with millions more players expected to buy the device.
Regie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, states, “The broad marketing for the Wii is not going to change. The Wii is focused against today the late adopter, the consumer who is spending $149 or less to have a gaming experience.”
“And we believe – not only in the US but through all of the Americas – there’s still millions of these types of consumers available. So it’s a sizable opportunity. But that’s a different consumer than who is going to look at the Wii U and get excited by the latest graphical capabilities, all of the services that are included, and new types of games. We see these as two different market opportunities,” he further says.
Sony has done something similar when it launched the PlayStation 3, dropping the price of the older PS3 and launching a number of content collections that kept the console relevant.
Regie Fils-Aime admires the way Sony has managed to keep two home consoles relevant at the same time and says that Nintendo is able to do the same on a worldwide level in the coming years.
The Wii was the first home console to support motion tracking, and that made it the sales leader of its generation, despite the fact that it offers less computing power than the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.
The new Wii U is designed to offer more power for the types of hardcore games that were not available on the original Wii while also innovating via the new touchscreen-enabled GamePad.
The new device will be launched on November 18 in North America, November 30 in Europe and eight days later in Japan.