While this may be a blog about social media, search engine marketing, etc., I couldn’t help but notice today the dominant position Nintendo and their Wii and DS have taken in the battle against more upscale machines like the XBox 360 and Playstation 3, proving that Nintendo’s decision to maintain their niche was a brilliant one.

When the Wii came out around the same time as the other machines, many expected the high-powered X-Box 360 and Blu-Ray capable Playstation 3 would knock the gimmicky-looking Wii out of the water.

However, this last April, the Nintendo Wii sold more consoles than PS3, PS2, 360 and PSP combined. Add to that the strong sales of the hand-held Nintendo DS, which was the second highest selling gaming system, and you have complete, utter dominance by Nintendo.

Not even the excitement and massive sales of Grand Theft Auto 4 could move the numbers up. While the Wii sold 714,000 units, the 360 moved 188,000 units, which was slightly ahead of last-place Playstation 3.

Admittedly, the higher prices charged for the 360 and PS3 units give them an added advantage, and if you add the online subscriptions (especially of the X-Box Live, which boasts 12 million global subscribers), there is a lot more money in each machine sold by Nintendo competitors. But Nintendo also has very lucrative game producing wing. The most popular games for Wii are made by Nintendo, where as GTA4 was made by Rockstar Games, so Nintendo gets a big piece of that pie as well.

Well played, Nintendo. People still love the cutesy Mario/Link characters, parents are very comfortable with it, it crosses generational boundaries more easily than other consoles, and doesn’t pretend to have any interest in competing for the hardcore gamer. There is a value in playing the cards you have and not trying to be something you aren’t in the marketing world.

Thanks to Ben Kuchera at Ars Technica for the story.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 11:55 amand is filed under Business, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.