Engadget is reporting that a trusted source has informed them that Nintendo’s little white console will be dropping $50, from $200 to $150 soon.  They report that the date for the price drop will most likely be May 15th.  The last universal price cut on the Wii was way back in September of 2009, when the price also dropped $50, from $250 to $200.

Popularity of the Wii console has diminished for the past few years.  The drop-off has been steady, with the console selling over 10 million units in 2008, down to 9 million in 2009 and most recently 7 million in 2010.  Most recently, Microsoft’s Xbox sales beat the Wii by nearly 100,000 units in February, according to CNET.

Last year, Nintendo partnered with the American Heart Association to promote healthy living through video-game-exercise.  Their seal of approval appeared on Wii consoles,  Wii Sports Resort, and Wii Fit.  This writer definitively links does not want to correlate the declining Wii sales to the fact that Americans are fat and lazy.

Adding fuel to the rumor, GoNintendo has posted a leaked internal price sheet from Kmart that also has the new Wii price set at $149.99.

Oster used the Google Earth Browser plug-in and a javascript API, and the board transmits the person’s movements to the application using Bluetooth. See it in action:

"While it’s fun to use Earth Surfer, I really wrote it to inspire others to write their own programs," explains Oster. "It’s all open source using the Apache License, so you can use the code in your own programs, even commercial ones."

This certainly provides some hope for bored Wii owners who lament a lack of new entertaining titles to play. If they know how to develop applications or know someone who does, they might be able to get some more entertainment value out of a console that is otherwise collecting dust (I know many people still enjoy the Wii immensely, but I also know some people that are a little disappointed after a year or so).

Oster notes that "Earth Surfer" and it’s source code will be available via the Google Mac Developer Playground starting next week. The program was created for Macworld.

Let’s talk about in-use operating systems first.  According to Steam’s latest monthly hardware survey, XP dominates.  Its market share, though down a bit since October, remains more than twice the size of what Vista has captured.  And PC-imposed restrictions appear to have little to do with the state of things, as dual- and quad-core machines were common in Steam’s sample.

 Steam Hardware Survey Results

If Microsoft doesn’t manage to make Windows 7 something special, the company appears ready to encounter a rather serious problem.

Then there’s the matter of searches for game consoles.  Microsoft’s doing a bit better in this regard – Hitwise says its Xbox 360 ranks third with a share of 15.6 percent.  Sony sweeps up the next four spots with the Playstation 3, PSP, PSP 3000, and Playstation 2.

But the real winner is Nintendo, with the Wii and DS Lite grabbing market shares of 36.7 and 26.4 percent, respectively.  And sure enough, if you do some early-morning shopping, these products are what most of the rabid customers will be after, too.

Maybe it just seems worse when a retail chain does it at Christmas time.

A Midwestern retail chain named Slackers was busted hiking up the price of Nintendo Wii game consoles and selling them on eBay instead of inside the store.

Ben Kuchera at Ars Technica did the busting, and quotes an employee tipster who says at his/her location, there were about 20 Wiis in stock, but none of them were placed on the racks. Instead, they were put up for auction on eBay, with an initial Buy It Now price of $499, lowered to $399 when product wasn’t moving.

The seller ended the listing early, presumably due to some bad press coverage.

The Nintendo Wii is smoking hot this holiday season after Nintendo goofed by not producing enough units. The company has gone as far as to stop advertising during the busiest shopping season of the year and to ask retailers not to force console bundles in light of the shortage.

While it seems like that might be a slick marketing move – creating rabid demand – others have astutely noted that the lack of availability may drive scores of would-be Wii owners to shell out the extra cash for an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. 
 
 

Ugg, Wii Obsess Holiday Searchers

If and when the Wii game console begins to be produced in sufficient numbers, it will slip from the top of queries made on search engines, especially around the holidays.

For now, analysis firm Hitwise has determined the Wii has been the top item searchers wanted to find, through the week ended December 8th. Uggs and Ugg boots followed it in searcher interest, with the iPod and the Nintendo DS filling in the top five most sought items in search.

Uggs outpaced Coach among luxury items, while Barbie led Build A Bear and American Girl in toys. Searchers apparently committed the unpardonable sin of looking for "Legos" instead of "Lego bricks," the toymaker’s preferred pronunciation of the building toy.

In electronics, everything else chased the Wii. Digital picture frames, Nintendo DS, and Xbox 360 pulled plenty of searcher attention as well.

"Special consoles designed for children are also popular this year, with increased searches for products like the Leapfrog Leapster TV system and the Radica IM Me Wireless Text Messaging device," said Heather Dougherty, director of research at Hitwise.

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Total sales reached $1.1 billion, compared with $643 million a year earlier. The Nintendo Wii console moved back into the top spot as the best selling console. Nintendo sold 519,000 Wiis, Microsoft sold 366,000 Xbox 360 consoles and Sony sold 121,000 of its PlayStation 3 consoles.

"What this demonstrates is that we are putting more and more product into the marketplace and we continue to sell out as soon as it hits," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime.

In September, the Xbox 360 took the top spot over the Wii, which had held the position all year, due to a surge from Microsoft’s popular "Halo 3" game. "Software continues to be a real highlight for us. We had more software sales in the month of October than the Wii and PS3 combined," Aaron Greenberg, group product manager for Xbox Live, told Reuters.

Sony has tried to increase sales of its PS3 by lowering prices and the company’s internal data showed a 192 percent rise in PS3 sales after cutting prices. Sony said it "expects a great deal of momentum moving forward this holiday and beyond."

"Remember that the PS3 price cut came in November so we’ll have to wait until our data comes out next month to see the effect of that cut on retail sell-through of the hardware," NPD analyst Anita Frazier said.

When it comes to who owns consoles, 71 percent are married and 66 percent have at least one child in the household. Because of video game ratings from the Entertainment Software Rating Board, home video games can be entertainment for the whole family.

"As game consoles have become increasingly sophisticated, families have incorporated them into their centralized home media centers, which include the television, digital recording device, digital music player, and the PC," said Carolyn Creekmore, senior director of media analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. "Video game technology will only benefit other media, since what makes a video game fun and exciting brings life to movies and music as well. Companies that can leverage these new technologies across a number of products will have a distinct advantage in the competitive marketplace."

Popular retail Web sites among game console owners include Best Buy’s video game site, which has the highest concentration of console owners accounting for 90 percent of the site’s audience. Amazon’s video game site and Gamestop.com are a close second and third with console owners comprising 89 and 88 percent of their unique visitors, respectively.

Nintendo is among the most popular game console providers and has seen the fastest Web traffic growth over the past year in large part due to the release of Wii. Unique visitors to Nintendo.com rose 91 percent from 856,000 in February 2006 to 1.6 million in February 2007. Xbox.com also saw increased growth year-over-year in February, increasing 47 percent from a unique audience of 827,000 to 1.2 million. Traffic to Playstation.com dropped 8 percent in the same period, from 1.1 million to 1.0 million unique visitors.

If this is the expected launch date, Nintendo has placed itself in direct Christmas season competition with Sony’s PlayStation 3, which is also scheduled for release around the same time. By that time, Microsoft expects to have 10-million unit lead on both with sales of Xbox 360, which came out a year earlier. Console market analysts will be watching the race closely to see which next-generation console will win the hearts of gamers worldwide. Wii will be half the price of PlayStation 3, which faced pricing problems early on due to the powerfully high-tech system specs.

The Japanese market will be a key indicator of any one console’s success. The Xbox 360 has sold relatively poorly in the Japanese market, outsold by even Nintendo GameCube. All three gaming companies have been predicting ultimate success. Nintendo, according to its financial report, expects to sell about 6 million units by Spring 2007.

Sony has been very confident, suggesting that the pricey PlayStation 3 will sell 5 million units on name-recognition alone. Microsoft has suggested that gamers skip the PS3 altogether and but both an Xbox 360 and a Wii console for the same price.

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In the financial report, Nintendo revealed that Wii will sell for no more than $250 in the US market and no more than 25,000 yen ($227) in Japan. Compared with pricey alternatives like Xbox 360 and the upcoming Playstation 3, the Wii console may be a great alternative – especially with 20 years worth of backward compatibility.

The Japanese gaming company is aiming to sell 6 million consoles by March 2007. If it does, it will effectively split the gaming market into three pieces. Microsoft says it expects to sell about 10 million of its Xbox 360 consoles this year, while Sony executives have confidently predicted that PS3 will sell 5 million units because of their reputation alone.

A Microsoft executive recently advised the gaming public interested in buying a PS3 to buy and Xbox and a Wii instead so they can have two consoles and save money. PS3 is expected to price for around $600. But if you want the real scoop, you should ask I4U’s E3 booth babes – or for no reason at all really.

The Wiimote specs have fans thinking VoIP capabilities. It comes with an installed speaker, and, according to MegaGames.com, will also feature a microphone and store a user phonebook/address book. Why does a controller need VoIP? So online players can communicate with each other. Adding that type of functionality, some say, may boost the sales of the Wii.

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