Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Wii Wii Lessons

My 14-year-old son has played Wii (at a friend's house) and has given the product (a new electronic game station) rave reviews. I'm in a Wii-state of mind because of this story from the Wall Street Journal.

Wii has become a surprise hit of the holiday season for several reasons and has become the darling of those seeking a frugal option to the higher priced PlayStation 3 from Sony.:

"In fact, the Wii -- pronounced we -- has proved more popular and harder to nab than Sony Corp.'s higher-tech, higher-price and highly touted PlayStation 3, which has superior graphics and a built-in, next-generation DVD player. The Sony machine comes in two models, priced at $500 and $600....The Wii, which retails for $250, has emerged as this year's biggest must-have game console for Christmas.
-- WSJ


Here are a few frugal and marketing lessons I've pulled out of this electronic drama and hype.

1. Price matters. People care about value
2. Cool commercials count. (Those Wii commercials are good!).
3. Simplicity, scarcity and hype can turn consumers into sheep.


"It may be because the PS3 is so scarce, consumers have given up looking for one and are going after the Wii with a vengeance," theorizes John Taylor, a videogames analyst at Arcadia Investments Inc., in Portland, Ore. He says that reports of Sony's production problems and consumer confusion over some of the PS3's technology has driven shoppers to the simpler and less-expensive Nintendo machine. -- Wall Street Journal


The Frugal Duchess Boutique



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3 comments:

Knitters Notebook said...

Hello! I just found your blog and I think it is great! I also have driving issues. I have two daughter's that have seemed to be ok with it? I was wondering how things were going?

Blessings to you,

Unknown said...

Was considering a Nintendo DS for my daughter, but might look at the Wii instead.

phantomdata said...

Jason, good luck finding one before Christmas!

The Wii also had the benefit of differentiation. All of the other Next-Gen consoles were the same as the Last-Gen except with better graphics. The Wii represents something wholly different and actually interactive. There were many mothers waiting on line for the Wii when I was who were saying that they were "buying it because it will get Little Johnny up and moving around".