November 19th marked the launch of Nintendo’s newest console, the Wii. After finishing in last place in the most recent “console war” with the GameCube, with the PlayStation 2 finishing first, followed by the XBOX in second, Nintendo looks to rebound and regain its place as the number one console maker in the world. The Nintendo Wii definitely has a good chance. The launch success of a console does not always determine the overall success of the console, but it sure does answer many questions.
Information about the Nintendo Wii was first announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2005. Little was known about the system at that time, but Nintendo made it very clear that they planned to stay in the console wars for some time to come. This came after much speculation that Nintendo would bow out of future console making to focus all its attention and resources on its new handheld, the DS. Fast-forward a year later to E3 2006. Nintendo took the gaming world my storm by unveiling playable Wiis for the very first time. The new controllers were revealed and Nintendo stole the show. The launch date and price were unveiled a few months later and the countdown to the Wii launch began. North American was going to be the first place in the world to get their hands on the Wii console, followed by Japan and Europe thereafter.
The official North American launch party was not held at the Nintendo World store in New York City, but rather at the Toys R Us in Time Square, a few blocks down. The number of Wiis available at the Toys R Us was estimated at 10,000. The Nintendo World store had roughly 2,500 units available for sale. This is a far cry from Sony’s official launch where only a few thousand units were made available for the Launch Party.
Since the official launch was at Toys R Us, it opened its doors at midnight for the release of the Wii. The Nintendo World Store however, opened its doors at 8am. Die hard Nintendo fans waited in line as early as Wednesday to get their hands on the Wii (November 19th fell on a Sunday). Lines at the Toys R Us store were estimated to be over 3,000 people long, and the Nintendo World Store has its lines reach over 1,000 people. Nintendo’s Launch Night was the most successful of any other console in history.
Amazon.com and several other online retailers saw their servers crash when they were overloaded with customers ordering the Wii and its accessories. This is after they had taken precautions and made updates to their servers in an attempt to meet the huge volume of people.
As far as launch shipment numbers are concerned, Nintendo had first announced that they planned to ship 4 million Wii units worldwide by year’s end. However, recent reports have pinned that number closer to 4.75 million units. This makes the Sony PlayStation 3 number of 500,000 units seem like a joke.
The weekly shipments since the Nintendo Wii launch still aren’t enough to quiet the demand. The shipments are still selling out within a day of their arrival on store shelves. Nintendo estimates that they will need to continue with weekly shipments until February of next year before things start to quiet down.
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