As market signs point to Nintendo's continuing challenge to restore the peak days of the Wii hardware sales boom, the company's $50 console price cut late in September played a key role, the company says.
Sales and marketing VP Cammie Dunaway
tells the San Francisco Chronicle that since the global price reduction, which
put the Wii at $199, sales of the console have been up 85 percent on a weekly basis.
Although its DS handheld platform continued to perform strongly throughout the year, Wii sales have seen declines for much of the middle of 2009. September was the first month in three years that Wii failed to top the monthly NPD hardware sales charts, led by the DS and the PlayStation 3 on the strength of Sony's own price cut.
But following the Wii's price cut in October, the console experienced a turnaround, surging to 127,000 units per week versus 93,000 units per week in September.
Analysts have
turned a sharp eye on declines in Wii hardware and a contraction in its software market; after Nintendo's explosive 2009, much of the industry's overall growth this holiday depends on whether Nintendo can sustain its momentum.
