While Sony and Nintendo have expanded their lead over Xbox, a dark horse console had a very strong showing in third place in November. The Nex Playground has emerged as a breakout hit, and CEO David Lee believes that one of the reasons why its been so successful is because the console has solved the Wii “problem.”
Nearly two decades ago, the Wii powered Nintendo’s post-GameCube comeback with its motion controls and unique games. Lee argues that the scope of Wii’s success made it difficult to sustain in the long term. Instead of trying to sell games like Wii, Nex Playground is offering its titles as part of a subscription service.
“One of the most important things we should do is learn from history and try not to commit the same limitations, and that’s why we have a subscription model,” Lee told The Game Business. “Nintendo expanded the audience with Wii. When you expand the audience, and they want different things, and they only buy Wii Fit, Wii Sports and not many others … that’s a bit of a problem.”
Lee was very complementary toward Nintendo in his follow-up remarks, but he added that the Wii’s model of selling only a few games to certain members of its install base was “not sustainable.”
“It’s very important that we set ourselves up to serve our customer continuously with new innovations,” added Lee. “That is how the whole system can sustain. But it started with Wii. We are standing on a giant’s shoulder.”
Nex Playground reportedly accounted for 14% of all console sales on Black Friday, finishing ahead of the Xbox family of systems.