I'm not surprised, they've been going strong for years. They had to slow down eventually.

I don't get it. "Market watchers expect..." means Nintendo's profits are factually, 100% down since 2004?

In other words, they've only made 9 metric shit-tons of money, as opposed to 10?

I'm still going to get a Wii, eventually. I figure the longer I wait to get one of those and a PS3, the more good games will be available for low prices.

The Wii has "slowed", not died out. It still sold more than the 360 last month in America, so it's doing fine. The problem isn't that they lost money; It's that shareholders aren't satisfied unless a company "grows" and makes even more money than the year before.

You can't have expected them to continue selling product at such a high rate forever. Either way, they're still printing money.

@superdrybones
the wii isn't anything like the dsi where multiple consoles are bought per household and per person. generally everybody who does want one has one except for the people who don't have the money to buy it and/or can't buy one for themselves. Its also not like the PS2 where people are buying them as dvd players/game consoles or are buying them to replace their older/broken PS2s.

Profits for Nintendo aren't exclusively about consoles either. These reports could reflect an attitude towards software lineups (which Nintendo profits off of) as well. Hearing about how Dead Space Extraction, Xseed's games, and even Mad World lends many analysts to expect that the hardcore are leaving this console in droves to embrace future tech like the PS3 and 360, or are just not interested in investing on Nintendo software.

Either way if market analysts think the wii isn't doing too well after years of dominance is Nintendo's fault. Nintendo needs to keep share holders happy and investing, and I'm waiting for a press release or something exciting to come out from Nintendo.

@ manasteel88

I don't exactly get your argument. I never said it was like the DSi. also DVD players are really cheap now and the PS2 still sells so you kinda made my point. And the Wii outsells the xbox and ps3(until recently) almost every month, so a little slowdown doesn't mean everyone has one, or it would sell none.

anyway, I hope they make a big campaign for NSMBW, that should spark up sales.

Well with the DS nintendo has secured themself kings of handheld forever. Because every year, Nintendo releases a new DS(i) with a new add-on and resell it as brand new. Something the PSP will never catch on.

Only thing Sony can do for the hand held market is friggin release the PSP2 with the Cell chip! and release Ps2/PS3 quality games on the Go! and also add a internet connection thingy so I can play FF14 on the PSP2GoGoGo and I will buy one for $600.

So if Wii sales are down that means that Sony and Microsoft are scrambling for the left overs.

Had to happen sometime, even with the [urk=http://www.mywii.com.au/NewsDetail.aspx?id=4121]1800% sales rise on Amazon[/url] that is still a lot of money they still are making, the difference it's just that this year it's (a little) less that years prior which should be pretty normal considering they have been number one in sales for 3 years and the recession.

"Maybe some solid first-party games will help things pick back up"
Nope, maybe some solid THIRD PARTY games, which is what truly has been lacking during ALL those 3 years. Epic Mickey DOES seem like one of those though, so there is still (a little) hope

Instead of having 10 more cupcakes than everyone else, Nintendo will only have 9 more cupcakes. Darn.

But really, I could care less about sales as long as I have good games to play. Which I do, all across the board.

I don't trust analysts in most situations. That's not to say they aren't sometimes right, but they can only make educated guesses at best.
@Cowbay TTop
You talk as though the Wii is suddenly in the red. It is still the biggest moneymaker in the market right now for home consoles. Just because the Wii doesn't cater to your tastes, doesn't mean it has no dedicated audience. If you don't like the Wii, get a PS3 or Xbox 360. Both are fine consoles that are probably more attuned to your wants.
I personally don't think Nintendo "abandoned" the more experienced gamers. I point all blame for any supposed lack of games on the Wii at Third Party companies. Had they embraced the Wii earlier and made more of those types of games earlier on in its lifecycle, this would be much less of a problem today. Games like Madworld didn't sell as well because not enough people were interested in it. These people didn't buy a Wii at that point because they didn't see any games like this that interested them. It is a vicious cycle, and as much as the third parties whine about a lack of "Hardcore" Gamers on the Wii, they should have been making "Hardcore" games early on before those people decided that the PS3 and Xbox 360 would better provide for them. But because the assumed this little oddball console would fail, as predicted by analysts (See what I did there?), they decided to turn away from it and label Nintendo as having finally lost it. Turns out Nintendo, an old company that was apparently going the way of Sega, had come up with not just a unique console, but the most successful console of this generation.
Nintendo has been putting out as many games as it can that cater to both the more experienced gamers and newer gamers, but as much as I love my Wii, it is hard to sell a console based on just one company. If not for fact that this one company is NINTENDO, one of the most well loved, experienced, and prestigious gaming companies of all time, and a decent amount of good third-party games, the console would have died by this point. Without Nintendo taking steps to attract and supply games to this new demographic of gamers, all that would be there is some little-known console filled up with shovelware that not even the less picky newcomers would put up with anymore without a powerful central company to keep them enticed. With Nintendo, they see a higher standard of gaming. It is this that keeps them with the Wii. To say all Third Party companies and their games are this bad would be incorrect, but as far as the numbers go, the majority of them are. Perhaps when Nintendo releases their next console, which has been confirmed as HD for a long while, the third parties will finally raise their depressingly low standards.

"Wii console sales have been steadily declining, even with that recent price drop to $199."

Ah what? The sales are up since the price drop, and there up over the last month as well. So the only way there down is year over year sales, but everyone was down in that department up until September. The profit drop will only be down to $2.7 billion, so lets not start crying for Nintendo just yet, I'm sure they'll be just fine.

"I'm done caring to be honest, they made their bed, they can sleep in it. Now you can eat it, Nintendo."

LOL come back down to reality with the rest of us for a second. What bed do you think Nintendo is sleeping in? Besides one made out of $2.7 Billion! You're acting like Nintendo just went bankrupt, or something. For someone who says he's done caring about Nintendo anymore, you seem to getting some sick fanboy pleasure in hearing that they made a little less money this year. What exactly are they eating? Just because their profits are down over what they did for the last few years doesn't mean they're all of sudden in the red, or anything like that. So don't let the facts get in the way of your good made up story/fantasy.

You mean I have to buy a second Wii now? Son of a...!

Well, I didn't think the $50 price drop would spike sale much because I don't think the original price tag was really much of an obstacle for people.

$250 isn't terribly high for something you really want, and $200 fits in around the same mental price range.