Reggie – Wii Channels, dev costs & last week sales

Channels:

The company has created a service in Japan that lets consumers get TV listings via the Wii, Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, said at the Dow Jones Consumer Technology Innovations Conference taking place here this week.Nintendo went forward with the project because a TV Guide Network-like service similar to what Nintendo is offering didn’t exist. (TV in Japan is notoriously weird: in the past, PCs and TVs had to be fitted with an array of tuners to get all channels).

There are no plans to bring something like this to the United States at the moment, he said, but Nintendo is always looking around. “There are other channel opportunities,” he said. “They may look like games. They may not look like games.”

Dev Costs:

Nintendo also spends less on its games than its competitors do.Developing a game for the DS costs a few hundred thousand dollars. Thus, Nintendo has to sell 100,000 only copies of a game to make money on it.

Wii games cost a little more. Developing a game for Wii might cost $5 million to $10 million, including all of the marketing costs.

By contrast, developing a game for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 can cost $20 million to $50 million, Fils-Aime asserted. As a result, a developer needs to sell 1.3 million to 1.5 million copies of a game to turn a profit, he argued.

Biggest sales week ever:

Two weeks ago, the company had its biggest sales week ever. Last week, it surpassed that record, he noted. As a result, the console is tough to find for a second holiday season in a row.

Via c|net

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