Wii World

The Wii took the world by storm in November of 2006. It caught everyone by surprise especially Microsoft and Sony. It launched with cheesy comercials that could have been taken as a spoof. But Nintendo did something that no one had accomplished yet in gaming, go mass market. They did this through a little innovation called the Wii Remote/ Nunchuk. This little device made the Wii a must have product that made it go on to sell over 35 million units world wide.

With all the success the Wii has brought Nintendo, they still are not fully realizing the opportuntiy and taking advantege of the mometum. Supply has been one of the Wii’s biggest missed opportunities. The demand has always outpaced supply and even last year you could not find a Wii any for Christmas. Now, two years later instead of the Wii console being the #1 seller on Amazon its not its the Wii Nunchuck controller. The Wii console is sold out again on Amazon.

The next miss step Nintendo made was not making the Wii fully support HD TV. With sales of HD LCDs and plasmas increasing dramatically people get a poor experience and its not merely a software update to support higher resolutions. The last and most important mistake was not taking full advantage of the massive online community that could be created with 35 million people. Just like Sony missed the boat on building world class online service, Xbox Live has really set the bar on this one and it has proven to be a real competitive advantage.