Even Wii isn't immune to recession, says analyst

Posted Nov 18, 2008 at 11:01AM EST by Glenn M.

Listed in: Wii, Nintendo DS Tags: Piers Harding-Rolls, Screen Digest

It's thanks to the casual market that the Wii and DS are on top. But this threshold of buyers is more prone to a recession than the usual gamer market. Screen Digest's senior games analyst Piers Harding-Rolls explains why.

He points out that the games market is relatively less affected by recession. "The market is very much driven by its own hardware cycles, and that previous cycles have not been significantly impacted by recessions," he said.

The core gamer demographic has always been males 18-35 years of age - people with time to play and money to spend. During a recession, this market would stock up on games and hibernate in their livingrooms instead of going out where they are likely to spend more.

Unfortunately for Nintendo, this is not their market. "The new mainstream consumers that play lifestyle and social games on the Wii and DS are more likely to be outside that core demographic and may be impacted more by a recession," Harding-Rolls said. In fact, Nintendo's casual-gaming market does not consider games to be top-priority purchases.

So even with all the success they're having, there's no guarantee that the Wii and DS will not experience any difficulty. Other consoles, like the PS3, continue to hurt as economic turmoil plagues the industry.

NPD US: Wii still king, Xbox 360 outsold PS3 in October 2008

Via Edge

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Yes I agree that the casual market don't see games as an essential. But I don't agree that a recession is definetly going to harm the Wii.

It could possibly even help it.

In a recession, people revert to cheaper, longer lasting forms of entertainment, as opposed to luxuries.

It's very possible that as opposed to days out and stuff, familys could decide to buy things like a console, where a good game can hold a lot of entertainment for a number of people. And can keep being revisited periodically without more money having to be spent on it.

It's tough to say really, there hasn't been a console with such strong casual influence before, it could work either way. It all depends on how reasonable the casuals consider the price of games for the time they last. Nothing to do with essentiality.

# WTF!?!?!?!?! — ISOHaven 2008-11-19 07:32

Well put. I was going to argue that a recession would not hurt the Wii MORE seeing as how more expensive consoles are going to take a major hit based on that alone.

I'd say money is a greater threat then the TYPE of game.

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Even Wii isn't immune to recession, says analyst

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