Fit!

I bought a Wii Fit a little while back, in part simply because I was fascinated by the demographics of it. The product is aimed at middle aged women (urp!), probably a first for a video game. The launch was handled very differently from the normal run of highly hyped new electronic product--there was very little advanced advertising, no attempt to generate long, splashy lines to be filmed for the news at eleven. Their target demographic doesn't have time to spend standing on line for five hours, and (they think) would have been turned off by that sort of ubergeeky atmosphere.

It seems to have worked; the product is doing well enough to be selling on Amazon at several times what I paid for the one I pre-ordered shortly before the launch. And I have to admit, it's pretty great. With good evolutionary reason, I loathe exercise; I can't say that the Wii fit makes it as much fun as, say, an afternoon at King's Dominion, but it's vastly more bearable while playing a video game. Moreover, the Fit focuses on four areas--aerobics, strength, flexibility, and balance. Since I'm the least flexible person on the planet not suffering from Fibrodysplasia Ossificans, and my balance is if anything worse, I feel like it's actually making a notable improvement in my physical abilities.

I am very interested to know why Nintendo ramps up these launches so slowly. The Wii has been an astoundingly successful product, but it took over a year for them to get enough to market to get the standard price down to the MSRP. Now the Fit seems to be following the same trend. I would have thought that this was exactly the sort of thing they were trying to avoid--making women feel as if they were running after a children's toy. On the other hand, if it's selling at $172, I guess it's hard to argue with success.

Comments

I really enjoy my Wii Fit and I'm the target market. I have my criticisms: there isn't really a plan to get fit, so you have to know what you're doing; the exercises seem randomly varied in difficulty rather than starting with easy ones and unlocking harder exercises as you improve; and because switching between exercises takes time and you can't choose how long to do most of them (preset time limits), it usually takes me 45 minutes to click up 30 minutes of exercising.

But it's fun and I've gone from almost no exercise to routinely doing 30 minutes a day on the Wii Fit.

Posted by Kai Jones | June 30, 2008 9:27 AM

Just a guess about supply: IBM makes the MPU for the Wii, as it does for the Xbox and the PS3. (Nice, eh?) Having worked for IBM Microelectronics (and now IBM Systems & Technology Group), I can guess that the reason it took so long for the units to meet demand would be chip yields. The chips in these units, silly as it seems, are made with the latest and greatest (or next-latest and greatest) 65 nm process.

The processes used must meet some yield target, which means that some target percantage of chips made must translate into usuable devices. The yield targets are tied to projected demand for a given product line.

Getting the yield numbers up where to a point to make the customer happy is no walk in the park. The more advanced the process, the more can go wrong. And problems in manufacturing constantly push the envelope in terms of science and computing, which is why the typical engineer has a Ph.D. The solution to such problems take huge investments in time and resources.

Any suspicion that this is abstract hand-waving should be referred to the case of Apple, who, frustrated at the pace of getting their promised yields on their 3 GHz G5 MPUs, terminated their manufacturing relationship with IBM and went to Intel, with whom they are still making chips for their computers.

Anyway, my point is that, with advanced technology like the Wii, manufaturuers can't just snap their fingers and meet demand. It's not that simple. I'm suprised they got it in a year.

Posted by rlgordonma | June 30, 2008 10:45 AM

I think part of the problem has to do with manufacturing overhead. With high-volume custom hardware and only a few products a year, overbuilding capacity could be a sink-the-company error. Worse, it's hard to tell what's an initial surge in demand and what's sustained in a partly novelty-driven business. I don't envy the managers making those decisions.

Posted by Mike Earl | June 30, 2008 10:46 AM

I'm a 38yo man, and my kids (10/8/5) and I have had a great time with the Wii Fit. Yoga is a lot more fun when there's a balance dot to keep inside a circle. And I love kicking the trainer's butt at the Plank Challenge.

My wife, on the other hand (same age as you) will not touch it. Perhaps she thinks it will distract her from her marathon training, but I suspect she is just self conscious about her balance :)

As far as the strategy - I suspect that Nintendo figures there's tremendous value in buzz and jealousy. The fact that it's hard to get makes it seem more valuable and/or exotic?

Posted by jb | June 30, 2008 11:01 AM

I remember reading somewhere that the low stock of Wiis and Wii fits is due to the exchange rate. They charge substantially more in europe for them, and thus they try to saturate that market before going to the less profitable american market. For example, Amazon UK has a the Wii for GBP180, which is about $360.00 US. If they can make $110 more per unit in Britian, I imagine they'll ship there til they have met demand before the US.

Posted by Peter | June 30, 2008 12:53 PM

I am very interested to know why Nintendo ramps up these launches so slowly.

Because you can't find the Wii on the shelf? I've looked for them in Fry's, Best Buy, and Circuit City without success. Since before Christmas.

I'm beginning to think it's a Snipe hunt perpetrated by a multi-national tech company.

As for the lack of ramp up - Nintendo knew that the target market was not hardcore gamers. And the computer/videogaming press caters to hardcore gamers, so there was a huge "Meh" when it came to the early games in many circles. The fact that it was a fit for families with little kids puts off the hardcore. To use an auto analogy - XBox and PS3 are sports cars, the Wii is a Minivan.

Posted by ech | June 30, 2008 12:55 PM

I don't know about the Wii Fit, but the original Wii's production was not ramped up all that slowly. As I recall, their monthly production went from around 700K units at launch to 1.8M units by the end of the first year. That's a more than doubling in production rate in a year, which isn't bad. Problem was it still wasn't enough to meet demand. But as another commenter already noted, you don't want to radically overshoot demand.

Posted by Bob | June 30, 2008 1:32 PM

Let me know when they've got a surfing game.

Posted by themightypuck | June 30, 2008 1:36 PM

I don't believe you have a Wii fit. A video of you using the equipment would suffice...

Posted by UWSguy | June 30, 2008 10:42 PM

Megan there's no way you are the least flexible person in the world. I already took that title. For example, I have NEVER been able to do toe-touches. Not now, not when I was a serious soccer player, not when I took ballet for 7 years as a little girl. And unlike you I'm only 5'6" and don't have long legs.

When I was in middle school I could meet or exceed the standards for the Presidential Physical Fitness award on everything BUT the V-Sit and Reach. I think the threshold I had to meet was +7, I got -9. Luckily my gym teacher thought the V-Sit was stupid and faked my score so I could get the award anyway.

I took yoga a few years ago in the hope that my flexibility would improve. Instead I just humiliated myself by remaining less flexible than the women twice my age in the class.

Btw, I hear Dance Dance Revolution is a great way to exercise too. And it's actually available at a reasonable price!

Posted by Christina | July 1, 2008 11:15 AM

UWSguy, I kind of agree with you here.

But I was looking around and found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v31qxrXsxv0

You can't see her face, but she looks kind of tall....I'm pretty sure it's her.

Posted by Jens Fiederer | July 2, 2008 12:01 PM