Whereas Sony and Nintendo have expanded their lead over Xbox, a darkish horse console had a really robust displaying in third place in November. The Nex Playground has emerged as a breakout hit, and CEO David Lee believes that one of many the reason why its been so profitable is as a result of the console has solved the Wii “drawback.”
Almost 20 years in the past, the Wii powered Nintendo’s post-GameCube comeback with its movement controls and distinctive video games. Lee argues that the scope of Wii’s success made it troublesome to maintain in the long run. As a substitute of making an attempt to promote video games like Wii, Nex Playground is providing its titles as a part of a subscription service.
“One of the crucial necessary issues we must always do is study from historical past and take a look at to not commit the identical limitations, and that is why we’ve got a subscription mannequin,” Lee informed The Game Business. “Nintendo expanded the viewers with Wii. While you increase the viewers, they usually need various things, they usually solely purchase Wii Match, Wii Sports activities and never many others … that is a little bit of an issue.”
Lee was very complementary towards Nintendo in his follow-up remarks, however he added that the Wii’s mannequin of promoting just a few video games to sure members of its set up base was “not sustainable.”
“It is crucial that we set ourselves as much as serve our buyer repeatedly with new improvements,” added Lee. “That’s how the entire system can maintain. However it began with Wii. We’re standing on an enormous’s shoulder.”
Nex Playground reportedly accounted for 14% of all console gross sales on Black Friday, ending forward of the Xbox household of programs.