Written by Iun

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts."

Courage is something that Nintendo has in spades: faced with two consoles that played second fiddle to much more successful competitors, the company was faced with incredulity and derision from the competition when they finally revealed the unique Wii to the world. Having not led a console generation in more than 10 years, the (relative) disappointment of the N64 and Gamecube was still fresh in the minds of the industry and critics.

The failure was never fatal for the company who forged ahead with their own vision of how the console war should be fought. Believing right from the start that a battle tried on power alone was doomed to failure from the start, Nintendo decided that they would fight this one on their own terms, regardless of the criticism of their adversaries.

The critics were also largely divided in their opinions of the console, its abilities in the face of graphical power-titles such as Lair, Heavenly Sword and Gears of War. In truth, the difference between these games and the visuals produced by the Wii were startlingly poor in comparison. Initial reports on the motion controls focused heavily on the negative and the rumours of Nintendo's impending demise were circulated with increasing frequency. Even before the launch of the console the sharks were already circling.

All through this Nintendo ploughed on, and a year later they are sitting pretty at the top of the console sales charts, with a fantastic 68% share of the home console market in the UK thanks to the Wii. Nintendo are contenders once again.

Practically from day one, the Wii has been consistently sold out worldwide, with consumers frequently disappointed with the lack of availability of the console. Whereas the PS3 could be found stacked high on the shelves of stockrooms of shops the world over, the Wii has been conspicuously absent, with every shipment selling out almost immediately on delivery. Nintendo literally cannot cope with demand and they must be kicking themselves that their production facilities are so slow, otherwise the sales figures could be staggering.

In the UK, the Wii sold through 1 million units in the fastest time ever recorded for a home console. Within 38 weeks, the Wii had smashed the record of the Xbox 360, which took more than 60 weeks to arrive at the figure, and trounced the most successful console of all time, the PS2, which managed the feat in 50 weeks.

This success has not come without a price though, as many gamers in the "Hardcore" bracket have felt badly let down by the company. The Wii arguably had the best launch lineup of this hardware generation, with Zelda Twilight Princess and the eternally-popular Wii Sports as a pack-in in the EU and US, Raving Rabbids and Red Steel provided good quality experiences, though were not the games that they had promised to be. Since then, there has been precious little to truly entice the hardcore into buying the console.

Until recently that is. In the last few months there have been at least 3 highly rated titles made available for the general public, Metroid Prime 3 is undoubtedly the sequel that everybody deserved since the original, Super Paper Mario was another worthy title in the famous series and Mario Galaxy has once again proven that Mario can still teach the young whippersnappers the name of the game even more than 20 years after the release of the original.

September brought the announcement from the Financial Times that the Wii had in a year surpassed the sales that it has taken the Xbox 360 to build. 9 million Wiis sold and the news keeps getting better: in the recent holiday week in the US, the Wii sold 350,000 units, with total November sales surpassing 600,000. But in the interests of being fair to Microsoft, the 360 only really sells in the US and EU, with Japan being a non-starter for the console. In unfairness to Microsoft, they have made a total loss of US 1bn on the console so far, and Sony has lost US 250m on the PS3. Just turning the screw there.

But the success is not final: and in recent weeks the console has seen a dip in sales in Japan that has corresponded to a few big releases for the PS3 and the reduction of that console. Also disturbing were the first week sales of Mario Galaxy, which while good were not as stellar as the title itself. However though the PS3 sales have been impressive, they have been declining to the level where they are only just a few thousand above the Wii, so this could easily be a short-lived increase down to the Japanese consumer seeking to purchase the console as a heavily-subsidised Blu-Ray player.

Time will tell if the console has the staying power of the legendary PS2, but for now we can keep ourselves warm in the knowledge that every time a retailer gets a Wii in stock, money magically appears in the till and the box walks out by itself. Next year we have the fan-favourite Smash Brothers title to look forward to and the courageously different Wii Fit to help drive sales up again in Japan. So it's a very happy birthday to the Wii, and hopefully many more to come.

Iun Hockley
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