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While Sony is desperately looking
for more strategies to improve the sales of its PlayStation 3 and Microsoft is
thinking on how to improve its Xbox 360 gaming console, Nintendo is taking over
the world.
After it has reached a new sales
record in November with 981,000 units sold only in US, Nintendo of America
announced a new raincheck program with video game retailer GameStop Corp.
for consumers looking to buy the company's popular Wii gaming console.
According to Nintendo, the customers
who won’t be lucky enough to buy a Wii for Christmas, could pay the full $249
price in December and the delivery of a Wii system by the end of January will
be guaranteed.
"We understand and sympathize
with the frustration felt by consumers," Nintendo of America
President Reggie Fils-Aime said Friday. "A shortfall benefits no
one."
Nintendo has increased its
production capacity to up to 1,8 million units per month, but the gaming
console is still tough to find.
Thanks to its Wiimote, which
resembles to a TV remote, Nintendo has practically reinvented the gaming.
Motion sensors let the Wiimotem act according to requirements - anything from a
steering wheel to a sword or a tennis racket. Players do not have to master a
dozen buttons to play a game. Instead, they just take the device and swing it
like a golf club.
According to Fils-Aime, the company
itself is surprised by the huge demand. "We expected the Wii to perform
extremely well within historic launch parameters in video game history,"
he said. "What we didn't expect was to re-write that history."
Fils-Aime said that major retailers, including Sears, Kmart,
Target, Circuit City, and Best Buy will be releasing a
big supply of Wii consoles to coincide with this Sunday's newspaper ad
circulars. Wal-Mart will also have a "massive" supply of systems
available throughout next week.
Also in a phone press conference, Fils-aime said an internal
Nintendo research puts the average age of Wii players at 29, which Fils-Aime
said is evidence of the Wii expanding the demographics of game players. He said
research previously has shown the average age of console players to be in the
vicinity of 21-22, as opposed to an age closer to 30 when the research includes
casual game players using PCs.
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