Sony sez Nintendo Wii is an "impulse buy"
By Darren Murph 
posted February 1st 2007 8:39PM
posted February 1st 2007 8:39PM
Here's one that's sure get at least half (or so) of you fired up. In speaking with the New York Times, Sony Computer Entertainment of America spokesperson Dave Karraker was boasting about how "100,000" PlayStation 3 units were being shipped stateside each week, and were continuing to "sell out" nationwide. Aside from the fact that a large majority of the country can find, secure, and purchase a PS3 now without worry over being shot up or forced to pay ridiculous prices, Mr. Karraker proceeded to dig himself a little deeper by insinuating that Sony's latest console is "much more powerful and should therefore be regarded as being in a different category." As if sparks weren't already about to fly, he then stated that Nintendo's Wii "could be considered an impulse buy more than anything else," simultaneously slamming any citizen who doesn't consider $250 a drop in the bucket and indirectly proclaiming that millions upon millions of Americans are still unable to resist their "impulses" by snapping up Wii units as quick as they arrive. Of course, he attributed the vast shortage of Wii consoles to Nintendo's stingy shipments, but the Big N's vice president of marketing, Perrin Kaplan, simply deemed that "absolutely inaccurate." So, inquiring minds are dying to know: was your Wii purchase well-planned, or are you still coping with buyer's remorse?
Sony just keeps thrashing about don't they?
In the meantime, Sony just released an iPod dock equipped powered speaker.
Fortune teller to Sony: I see an Apple in your future. . . But it's not a poison apple, it will actually save your life.
I guess my purchase was an impulse buy seeing how rare they were to come buy. I figure though, I'll hang onto it. Come on Super Smash Bros. Brawl is enough to make me purchase this and play people online.Metroid and Mario is a plus. Disappointed with the control method in zelda, what can you expect though, it was originally made for the gcn and ported to the wii...
So far with the three wiimotes and two nunchunks every one in my dorm room area loves my wii.
I dropped $550 so far, and I'm still loving it! (Wish I had more time to play however, but I am NOT regretting the Wii)
Mine totally was an impulse buy. The problem came in when I couldn't fulfill my impulse for a good 2 months. They're nowhere to be found... It's at the point around here that you have to step over the stacks of PS3s to get to the empty wii displays.
What's wrong with impulse buyers? Ever notice all the little displays of crap around the registers at stores? Those are specifically targeting impulse buyers. "hey, that looks kinda cool" = a sale.
i think i did buy my wii as an impulse and it might be that same impulse that makes me play it every day after work, i don't know why the neighbors come over once a week to play that might be an impulse to kick my ass at bowling but i don't know, just from reading this my impulses are telling me to go home and practice
"My guess is that 80% of the Wii's out there will be collecting dust in the basement/attic soon beacuase the novelty of the Wiimote will wear off.
That is what it is a novelty, a fab that is bound to die."
I remember people saying the same thing about the DS. We all know how that turned out.
The Wii will die if good games don't come out for it. The same thing can be said about the PS3. These are video game systems. They will be popular if they have good (exclusive) games.
I feel pretty confident that the Wii will be way more successful, ultimately, than the Gamecube due to it's innovation, novelty, focus on party gaming (which is a huge niche) and casual gaming (which is a bigger market than hardcore gaming).
This doesn't mean that the PS3 won't also be successful, however. But they really do appeal to different groups. Casual gamers are just not gonna spend the $$$ for a PS3 in most cases. Maybe in several years when it's dropped, but not now.
Personally I don't have any next-gen systems. The PS3 is a bit too much for me to buy now, considering there aren't any games I want, and I'm not gonna wait in line for a Wii. I am leaning towards getting a 360 soon, then I will likely buy a Wii (yes as an impulse) once they are regularly in stock - I won't be researching shipment schedules or waiting in lines on a workday for one.
If the Wii is an impulse buy, than the PS3 is an idiotic buy. This makes me both impulsive and idiotic.
My PS3 is the WORST console I have ever owned. It isn't fun, it's over-complicated, it isn't useful, Blu-ray is a joke format for movies (unimpressed by the movies we've purchased), the controller disconnects way too often, the online is boring, and none of the 5 guys that live in our house have any desire to play it what-so-ever. I only hang onto it for FFXIII. Everything else will be on 360.
The Wii gets played every day, and the 360 will get more play once Wii Sports and Zelda have worn off.
As far as I'm concerned Sony is in last this round. They don't have any games worth buying, and it looks like that trend will continue for the rest of the year, sans a couple "maybes" (ninja gaiden sigma, lair).
i personally dont understand why peopel continue to bash to ps3. The fact of the matter is the games will be good this time next year when manufacturers fully learn how to use all of the ps3 capabilities. The xbox 360 has been out a full year so comparing the sales is stupid. The wii is only 250$ I mean any idiot can afford that. Minimum wage can afford that. I think the wii will die down after a year people get bored with it and then ps3 will most likely be in full force with their games and reclaim its throne. This is my opinion but I really think its too early to bash anyone. Time will tell who the true champion is. Lets all come back in a year and see who has won.
I dunno, I definitely feel like I understand why they are saying that it's an impulse buy, their own console costing roughly 2x more than the Wii. With the PS3, you really have to sit down, figure out how much you are spending on bills each month and then see if you can buy it or else you have to save up. Combine that with the fact that you'll probably have to save up about 2x THAT amount to get a TV capable of putting out the quality that they provide with the PS3, and you have a string of purchases that have to be well-thought out to pull off without getting the electricity necessary to actually play the thing cut off. That means that this is not an impulse buy; it takes a long time mulling it over and planning to actually get one in your hands (unless you're well to do, in which case it becomes more of an impulse buy scenario because you probably already have a hdtv or some such thing).
Whereas with the Wii, you could probably break open your piggy bank and find nearly enough to buy it (if you aren't really poor).
So, in that sense, being able to simply go out and buy a Wii because more people can afford it makes the Wii an impulse buy, but only when compared to a PS3.
Which leads me to my next point. Sony really wants to make this into a class war. You can either A) be cheap and buy the Wii which has inferior technology you poor bastard or B) you can buy the awesome technologically superior cutting edge PS3 you smart consumer you!
two words: twilight princess. that's the only reason i bought it :P
It would be an impulse buy if I could find the damn thing anywhere. I'm constantly walking around PS3s in my local GameStop, Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, etc. to ask if they're ever going to get Wiis in stock again.
That said, enough with the PS3 bashing already. It's a technical powerhouse that hasn't been pushed anywhere NEAR its potential yet. The least some of you could do is to wait for some games to come out before you start dancing on Sony's grave.
Or is it $ony? I can't remember what's cool these days.
I see at least three PS3s in every Walmart & Target store I go into and you can see dust settling on the boxes. I think it would be great to have a PS3, but I'm not going to lay down that kind of money. Unless.....it came with a Super Mega Guitar Hero game with an included 4-neck guitar so I could rock your socks off!!
I waited two hours in line to get a Wii. Can't find them anywhere here. Well planned and no remorse. Anyone having trouble finding a PS3? If so, I could probably get my hands on about 20 units around town.
I remember when the Nintendo DS came out, Sony was saying the dual screen and touch screen would be only a novelty act and no one would dedicate resources to program games to take advantage of it. Also the DS was getting bought by alot of non gamers or first time gamers, and Sony was saying those people buy the systems but not the games. Fast forward a couple years later and the DS has sold more than twice the units than PSP worldwide, and many times more games for the DS than the PSP because the casual nongamers actually bought more total games than the hardcore gamers. Imagine that!
I've owned a Wii since around Christmas and I think it is the funnest system I have ever played. My brother, who has never been a gamer all of his life, plays the wii tons since I bought it. I think that Nintendo has come to a good gaming philosophy.. fun over eye-candy.. social games instead of isolated in the dark games.. and new inovative ways to enjoy games.
The Dreamcast may have been Sega's last system.. but the games were all so much fun. I think the Wii will top the Dreamcast for fun... I hope that others find it fun the way that I do.
I Had been looking for a Wii for about 3 weeks when i found on PS3seker.com/wii that a shipment was made to my local Wallmart.
Fully hoping the report to be false, i traveled to the Store expecting them to be out. After asking the Clerk about it, he smirked and said they just got a shipment of 28 in. He proceeded to the back and brought out the boxes and handed me one.
It was an impulse buy of sorts: i have wanted one since they came out, and i bought the first one available on an impulse.
I was at circuitcity about 1.5 months ago when ps3 was huge and crap. Bang they got 6 ps3s and I saw them come in. I had to buy one just because of all the hype it was getting! (now thats an impulse buy) ps3 60 gig = $600, 4 games = 240, CC Warranty = 160, 2 extra wireless controllers = 100, HDMI wire so you can play the fooking HD console in HD! = 100. Grand Total: $1200 + NJ 7% sales tax = 1284.
40 days later I returned it all because it as freezing up all the f00king time!
It seemed every new firmware update I got, it would make it freeze more. The last straw was when I had the newest update, and could not even play a game because it would freeze less then 5 minutes after turning the console on! Even movies froze 5 min into the movie! And from hard-resets (what other choice do you have when the damn thing freezes) all of my saved games were corrupted. Sony sux! and PS3 is garbage. Thank god Circuit city is awesome and I bought their $160 extra warranty, they refunded all my money without much hassle, being it was 10 days after their 30 day return policy.
Haha,that's funny. PS3's are collecting dust in the back of EBgames and Gamespot. While you're shipping out 100,000 consoles a week, you might wanna ship out a great game to sell it. They don't have the grace period of th 360's because there are two other next gen systems, which each have at least 1 must-have game (and they're also cheaper).
It was a no brainer for me to get the Wii especially with it's pricing; I would've easily paid $300 just because the console incorporates this deep-level of motion control.
Let me reiterate that these are game consoles. You can talk about playing dvds, surfing the web, but I bought this to fill the niche of 'virtual' entertainment. The Wii starts off with the game of the year, and it's just scratching the surface of it's potential. I don't need to talk about Gears of War; just look at it. Sony stop trash talkin and get back to work on GT5, DMC4, etc.
impulse buy huh? well i planned on buying mine (truthfully because i couldnt afford a PS3 at the time) and am very happy with my decision. but the thing that gets me is that whether its an impulse buy or not.....its still bought. and with the mounds of PS3's all over the place i think Sony is missing the point of putting out a new console. they need to be sold one way or another. do wat you have to to get them off the shelves.
Another thing, get a new commercial! It atrocious when it first aired and regressed to a 'channel changer.'
Looks like Sony execs are simply blowing smoke up everyone's ass. I saw how fast the PS3s sold, I saw the price jumps on eBay. No one ever gave a crap about the games, it was all about making the moola! On the other hand, Nintendo fans flocked.. as well as old and new.. for the Wii. From many places, I saw a lot of positivity for it. On the other hand, the PS3 was criticized for the lackluster launch titles.. and how bad eBay looks for the entrepreneurs; not to mention, the technical faults, such as how the PS3 down-scaled for some TV sets.
The Wii pushed out a cool, new intuitive product. It did something new for once. That doesn't mean I really like it over everything else, I just want to commend Nintendo somehow by making something special. The Wii is cool, but in the end, you'll miss those HD graphics.. and an Xbox Live-esque online community. I'm just tired of seeing everyone waving the flags of their favorite systems/companies all the damn time; "fan boys" is it?
I'm just disapppointed that these high-profile people are behaving like school children, lol. But, I guess we wouldn't have any interesting news items then!
To throw my 2 cents in..
It's surprising to me that there are still so many diehard Sony fans out there. I'd expect this sites demographic to be people that are technology aware and research things before they buy them.
Take an objective look at everything Sony invents and come to the realization that they produce proprietary, overpriced technology that includes planned obsolescense.
Sony Super Audio CD. Sony Memory Stick. Sony Blue-Ray. The list goes on. Doesn't it make you scratch your head when they invent their own formats when there are perfectly good, standard formats that already exist?
I understand that all technology is going to go to the wayside sooner or later, but I'd rather not put my hard earned money into a company that sets out to screw the consumer by making everything proprietary. On top of all this, they manage to produce the most expensive game console on the market, and apparently they lose money everytime they sell one. !?! I used to be a die-hard Sony guy, but I think the company is going in the wrong direction. As far as their snippy comments directed at Nintendo? Just a marketing ploy to try to kill the laws of supply and demand that are helping the Wii's sales stay going.
To those of you that aren't terribly impressed with your Wii - Go buy Warioware and a case of beer and invite a couple friends over.
I couldn't be happier with my Wii and love the games so yes I'd wait again in line to get one. Nintendo did it again with a great system and I for one will be playing it for many years to come. Some times it’s just nice to play a game that you don’t have to think so much and can just play and have fun. Yes the Wiimote can get a little tiring from the steady movement of the Wiimote but it's perfect for parties or if you just have a couple of friends pop over. Also it’s new and we have yet to see more Nintendo games and third party games hit the shelves. Yes I'll be buying a PS3 once they put out some real new titles that show what it can do.
I remember when folks were saying the DS was only a novelty act too... well, so much for that, even the usually pro-Sony gaming magazines has admitted that they were wrong before when it came to calling something a short-lived novelty item. I think Nintendo is working off of what basically amounts to one of the biggest handheld coups and seeing how well it transfers over to the console market. So far, looks like Nintendo made a very market tenable gamble. Besides, if you guys think about it, the Wii is almost like a next generation DS.
Oh, and Matt, it was vice versa actually, stores get 25 Wiis and they all sell out with demand remaining... whereas the PS3, they get 3 and sell those out... but after awhile, they start to end up with more, returned or unsold.
ha sony sounds like its given up
http://www.wiiyou.com
Very much in need