Nintendo Wii sales plummeting

Nintendo Wii sales plummeting - Yahoo! News by Christopher Null

Everyone loves that Nintendo Wii, don’t they? Why, just this weekend I went to a housewarming party, and sure enough, Wii Sports was up and running for the kids to play with. You can’t get away from it. Wii is everywhere.

And perhaps that is why no one is buying any more Wii consoles. Nintendo is now in a bit of a pickle, as its Buddha-belly-sized coffers are shrinking, thanks to rapidly decreasing interest in the Wii.

According to Bloomberg Businessweek, for the second year running, Wii sales have fallen, and the company is now missing sales forecasts. Nintendo's net income is declining, too, estimated to fall 13 percent this year, on top of an 18 percent drop last year.

Why the disinterest? Aside from the obvious issue that these consoles have already saturated the market, the Wii continues to suffer from a lack of good games. The only really hot titles are still those produced by Nintendo itself — mainly continuations of the Mario and Zelda saga — and there’s really only so much milk that can be squeezed from that teat.

With Wii-mania fading, the company is now focusing on its upcoming 3-D DS handheld console, which was announced earlier this year and has a targeted release date in early 2011. Nintendo launched the original DS in 2004 and has tweaked it bit by bit ever since, but it hasn’t seen a major upgrade since the start, and the no-glasses 3-D capabilities of the new handheld could be a compelling sell.

Unfortunately, Nintendo, once the leader — by far — in a two-horse mobile-gaming race alongside Sony, now has every cell phone to deal with as competition, as players have turned to iPhones and Droids to game their way through flight delays and post-office lines. And now there’s the iPad to contend with as well: It’s not just a Web browser and e-book reader; it also makes a pretty good gaming device with a giant screen.

So while its work is cut out for it in the portable space, what does Nintendo do with the home-game-console market? The Wii isn’t dead, but it’s already looking like it needs an upgrade, and a big one. Something to attract serious gamers, developers, and even more of that casual market. What about 3-D? Why not extend what’s going on with the handheld into the world of the television ... or is that just not possible?