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[Biker19]

It's intellectually lazy to conflate things into "HUGE PENT UP DEMAND" or "NO DEMAND WHATSOEVER" and completely unrepresentative of real life.

You can continue throwing around terms like "anyone with common sense" and "deluded" while cowering inside your absurdly reductionist binary totality all you want, but it makes your analysis piss-poor.

The WiiU obviously has some demand. More so than a PS3 on Amazon UK right now.

Demand isn't purely a function of cost. Some people paid full price for the premium day one, and were happy with it, some people will never ever buy a WiiU at any price.

The PS3 never recovered its sales because it had one big must have killer app that everyone could point to; it recovered due to building sufficient amounts of small reasons to own one for most people over time. That's how the market usually works.

Seeing what both Ps4 and Xbone are offering are some "small reasons" that will have persuaded some consumers that were closer to the fence to now buy.
A price cut (that's been seen before at other retailers, and at a greater amount) from Amazon is also a "small reason".
Sticker shock when the other consoles finally show their hands are also "small reasons".
Pikmin 3 getting released will be a "small reason" for some.

This isn't Rocket science. You might want to decouple your own perspective of the WiiU - which is obviously that you see no point in buying it - from a broader perspective that the majority of consumers do not have enough reasons to buy it.

Whether they ever do is not something that can be predicted on current information, but I would expect to see an NPD and Medacreate uptick now that the wiiU is actually competing against products and not dreamlike-wish-fulfillment-vapourware.

EDIT:
actually probably not mediacreate, because the percentage of people who would have cared about the xbone in japan falls into the "margin of error" percentage of consumers.

This. Many consumers went Wii &/or 360 only when Sony screamed the "$599 U.S. dollars" pricetag. Same can happen between Wii U/PS4/Xbox One in which many consumers may wind up going Wii U only due to bizarre news like "blocking used games" on other consoles.

 

[Krelian]

Kind? Where has this occurred, because I certainly haven't seen it.

I think he meant it ironically.

I've just seen the Amazon.de price for the Wii U base pack. Damn, it's only €198. I think I might get weak...

 

[FonkyByNature]

Ok this is the best gif ever !!!!!! I was laughing for like 5 minutes non stop !! My gawd LOL....

 

[shinra-bansho]

Lo and behold, it moved down to position 95 after a day back at 270 pounds. Funny that.

The price has now again been reduced to 230 pounds now. I wonder how the marketplace will react, since price has never proven itself a major determinant of how well product sells.

I really don't see why people seem so incredulous to the idea that a price cut was largely responsible for this sales increase rather than some nebulous notion of disdain towards the XB1.

Its a £20 price cut over the price it was at a month ago.

Yes, I would imagine a majority chunk of these sales are of people who have now rejected the possibility of purchasing an xbone outright.

My most likely scenario would be people who anticipated buying 2 consoles, and have decided to go with a wiiu / PS4 combo instead of a xbone / ps4 combo are these buyers. There is not a significantly big enough price discount for these purchasers to be impulse buying (£20 is a meal at a restaurant money), and there are not any software announcements to justify 'single console' purchase groups.

The group buying as a result of xbone announcements are likely medium-savvy early adopters with disposable incomes looking for their 'next fix' gadget, hence my belief its the 'I was going to buy 2 consoles anyway" crowd, who've decided they might as get one gadget while they wait for the next.

I seriously don't even know how to respond to this. You've concocted this scenario based on essentially nothing.

It isn't a 20 pound drop, it's a 70 pound drop - or if you prefer a 20 pound and then subsequent 50 pound drop in rapid succession. The positional movement the thread refers to isn't a delta from now and over a month ago. The price a month ago is irrelevant. If you have positional information from a month ago, do share it.

 

[FroJay]

Now if the Wii U just had enough power under the hood it would be viable for the next 5-7 years as a platform for devs. Nintendo could have really taken advantage of the self destruction on display by MS.

 

[Dave Meltzer]

Lo and behold, it moved down to position 95 after a day back at 270 pounds. Funny that.

The price has now again been reduced to 230 pounds now. I wonder how the marketplace will react, since price has never proven itself a major determinant of how well product sells.

I really don't see why people seem so incredulous to the idea that a price cut was largely responsible for this sales increase rather than some nebulous notion of disdain towards the XB1.

People want to position it as being some sort of sign people are "choosing" Nintendo and they've won hearts and minds, because it makes them feel more confident in the future of a platform that's had an atrocious start.

 

[SmokyDave]

Lo and behold, it moved down to position 95 after a day back at 270 pounds. Funny that.

My goodness. Truly, I'm shocked.

I can only assume there has been some good Xbone news.

 

[Zornica]

I really don't see why people seem so incredulous to the idea that a price cut was largely responsible for this sales increase rather than some nebulous notion of disdain towards the XB1.

And I really don't see why you are so reluctant to accept that there are people out there who'd like to check their options first, before the make their decision on what system to buy.

If they wanted to buy the wiiu for that price, they could've done so for more than 2 months.
with the recent drop, only 2 parameters changed:
- the nintendo direct with the 3 wiiu exclusive sonic games happened
- all 3 systems are real now

 

[shinra-bansho]

And I really don't see why you are so reluctant to accept that there are people out there who'd like to check their options first, before the make their decision on what system to buy.

If they wanted to buy the wiiu for that price, they could've done so for more than 2 months.
with the recent drop, only 2 parameters changed:
- the nintendo direct with the 3 wiiu exclusive sonic games happened
- all 3 systems are real now

I'm not reluctant to accept there are people out there who are "checking their options." I've already noted that there are some. That doesn't mean that the primary reason for the upwards movement wasn't a large price drop.

Why exactly do people keep referencing two months ago, as if it's remotely relevant to this particular topic, when the only metric that there is in this thread is positional movement in the last few days? Do you have positional information about the Wii U for when the price was 250 pounds? If not, then stop talking about it and trying to draw parallel, when the relative positions in question aren't from then and now.

This uptick doesn't need associated factors, it doesn't need to be primarily due to Sonic announcements any more than it needs to be primarily due to Revelations release any more than it needs to be primarily due to the XB1 announcement. When the primary reason is staring everyone in the face.

Do you have any additional metrics or data to draw upon to show that there's any major effect that extends beyond Amazon.co.uk's pricing decisions; can you show a broad effect?

 

[Slayven]

God I wish we had numbers.

 

[TunaLover]

MS manage to sell more WiiUs than Nintendo.