Nintendo gearing up for the War of Consoles

Nintendo is all set to boost its global budget by $85m and give its Wii a lead over Sony’s recently launched Playstation 3.

The move by Nintendo is further signaling the industry observers of the forth coming expensive console war ever fought in history.

As per plan, Nintendo plans to promote the Wii in the domestic market by showcasing 10 different television advertisements, hiring vast conference halls for “Wii Experience” shows for the public, and setting up of expensive demonstration booths at retailers throughout the country.

Sony’s limited stock of 80,000 consoles gave an opportunity to Nintendo to do better than its competitor, and it is all set to ship its launch stock of 400,000 units.

KBC Equities games analyst Hiroshi Kamide said Nintendo’s campaign meant Nintendo had “a chance to put its machines in customers’ hands far more quickly than Sony can at this stage.”

Analysts said that Nintendo increased its promotion budged by 20% to avoid bad experiences it had in the past.

The move by Nintendo has already started yielding good results. Last weekend, a Wii show in the city of Osaka pulled about 180,00 people and fans queued for more than four hours for a 10 minute turn on “Legend of Zelda” – a game tipped to help drive initial sales of the hardware.

Nintendo informed that the big leap in the promotion budget came because this time they plan to target a wide range of customers. Previous Nintendo consoles, which had been directly aimed at younger gamers, attracted middle-aged enthusiasts as well. Nintendo is now aiming the Wii at the whole family, and accordingly buying expensive TV advertising slots in evening prime-time.

However, some analysts believe that despite expensive campaigns, Nintendo will not be able to win the war of the consoles because while it is still busy pitching at an audience of a wide age group, Sony has already launched its PlayStation 3 in the market.

Nicholas Spratt, an analyst at Lehman Brothers, said Nintendo faced a “significant risk by capitulating in the competition for the highest specification console – a move that may drive third-party games makers onto the PS3 or Microsoft’s Xbox 360.”