Why Was the Wii so Successful?

Artura looks back at the Wii

- Artura Dawn

The Nintendo Wii is an absolute behemoth of a console, with 101 million units sold—no small feat for Nintendo. And although it didn't get to be the best selling console Nintendo has ever had—with the Nintendo DS family and the Game Boys beating it—it is undeniable that to some extent the Wii was one of, if not the biggest, console Nintendo has had. Let's learn why!

The Wii suffered from a familiar problem we're facing nowadays. Throughout its first year after its release, there was a console shortage because of how many people wanted it, and thus a lot of people bought the console between the prices of $450-$500. Sound familiar?

The Wii's original pricing was much more forgiving, however, being sold at $249.99. Nintendo didn't anticipate the success of the Wii, and so production rates were lower throughout the first year of release. Despite this, its November release was Nintendo's biggest ever in the Americas, Japan, and Europe.

The console even outsold the combined sales of the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 in several regions during its launch period, and by the end of 2006, 3.2 million units had been sold worldwide the Wii even surpassed the Xbox 360 in sales by September 2007. To meet the demand, Nintendo increased production rates by around 50%, from 1.6 million to 2.4 million units per month in 2008.

So what led to its success? I mean, Sony had just had their absolute beast of a console released, breaking records still set to this day such as highest number of units sold on their PlayStation 2 console, and Microsoft had joined the fray just a generation ago with the debut of the Xbox, and their massively successful Halo franchise. Meanwhile, Nintendo had recently struggled with their GameCube release, with several of the reasons such as the lac of online features and the mini-disk that it used, limiting game developers by the memory availability within it.