Harrison: Wii lifecycle may exceed five years
by JC Fletcher 
{ May 29th 2007 at 9:45AM }
Chris Kohler of Game|Life interviewed Nintendo of America VP George Harrison about the future of the Wii system, and his responses were, well, generally unsurprising. We wouldn't expect Nintendo to suddenly change their strategy in the midst of such success.Harrison said that because of the high prices of the Wii's competitors, he expected the Wii to have a lifecycle longer than the traditional five years. (Would that mean more than 35 million installed units in the US?) And it'll continue to have a pack-in for some of that lifecycle, since Wii Sports is a "cultural phenomenon" that is helping to draw people in to the system.
Harrison also mentioned that more Wii software targeted at Nintendo's new "expanded" audience would be revealed at E3, and that a game download channel is in development.
There's more, including some weird comments about localizing Virtual Console games and a response to the continuing shortages. Go read the whole thing, if you are so inclined.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tuleki @ May 29th 2007 10:50AM
Something I have thought about, is how they want to reach out to a new audience, and still haven't localized the Wii dashboard for lots of more languages. It's even easier now when they can send software updates.
AJ Vaynerchuk @ May 29th 2007 11:00AM
I can see the Wii lasting more than 5 years as long as technology doesn't get too far ahead of the wii. If something comes out that is basically the Wii, but much much cooler, than the Wii is out of luck.
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Dan @ May 29th 2007 11:18AM
Don't get me wrong, the Wii is doing fantastic and will likely continue to do so (if the good software keeps coming)... but Nintendo would be making a big mistake if they weren't already thinking about 2011 or so. They would at least need to come up with some sort of add on to extend the life of the Wii. I'm not that confident in PS3, but even a retard could come up with a few really dope games on a high graphics system in 5 years. And with their price point coming down, Nintendo might not have so many advantages anymore.
Rubang B @ May 29th 2007 2:35PM
I'm sure Nintendo (and everybody else) is already working on their next system by now, but the Wii can definitely last more than 5 years. The Game Boy lasted 9, even as a more powerful handheld came out every few years. It was too late, the Game Boy was too powerful. If something comes out that's better than the iPod, nobody will notice that either. These things sometimes just get too much momentum. That may or may not happen with the Wii. It sure happened with the PS2 and that's actually hurting the PS3 (but not as much as the price).