Wii Outsells 360, PS3 Worldwide

Wowzer writes "Despite confusing consoles produced, shipped or sold reports, the Nintendo Wii is now the best-selling system worldwide. Its sales exceed that of the Xbox 360 despite Microsoft's console having a year-long head start. And it's way ahead of the PS3. From the article: 'Sales figures from each console's launch date through the end of July (and the end of August in Japan) were added up, with the Wii just barely edging out the 360: 9 million for the Wii, 8.9 million for the 360, and 3.7 million for the PlayStation 3.'"

Sooooo...

Is anyone actually surprised here?

Re:Sooooo...

The game companies that thought it would fail and weren't prepared for its success.

Re:Sooooo...

And based on Nintendo's difficulty in satisfying demand, it's not much of a stretch to include them among those companies. It's easy to say something is a sure bet in hindsight, but that's not how it looked back before anyone had gotten their hands on the Nintendo Revolution.

Different doesn't always mean better, and features on paper don't necessarily describe the experience. How well has motion control worked in the past? How precise will the controller be? Assuming everything else remained the same, but the wiimote was looser, that alone could sink the console. Game controls need to be consistent and precise because that control mechanism is their only connection to the game. Plus the hardware is specced lower than the other two consoles. And their previous console came in last of the three. The Wii was not the safe bet, thus developers went with the tried and true formula on the other platforms and are now scrambling to play catch-up.

Even Nintendo didn't bet on doing this well, the numbers of consoles sold were constrained by Nintendo's supply, not demand. You can find a Wii without camping out now, after all this time, but they still get cleared off the shelves before the next shipment. When the holiday season rolls in they may be a chore to find once again.

But the upshot through all this, is that it's indeed the most prolific console now, and though developers may be a little late to the party, there will probably be a nice big wave of games hitting all at once as they finish their late-starting Wii games.

Re:Sooooo...

Even Nintendo didn't bet on doing this well,

Indeed, I don't think Nintendo expected cruise [kotaku.com] ships [joystiq.com] wanting Wii's or people purchasing multiple consoles for home and travel.

Out of curiosity, I talked to a GameStop employee and asked him how the Wii was doing? Long story short, he claims they get an average of 25 units a week and sell out within 48 hours. 25 units a week (for one store) and they're still selling out months later. It is pretty surprising.

Of course, the real under-rated news is not the Wii but the DS. For all the people I know who won a Wii, I know twice as many who also have a DS. People who wouldn't buy a Wii as even that is too much 'video game' for them. Those "brain" games (Brain Age, Big Brain Academy) is by far the sleeper "killer ap". Who would have thunk that someone would drop $120 just to do some math equations? =P

Though, the DS does have a lot of great (and cheap) games. The Wii? Zelda, Mario Party, Metroid, Raymon, Wii Sports/Play... I've not been impressed with a whole lot else. So, that does say something about the unique frenzy the Wii is causing. Or maybe it's because I'm spending more time playing the Virtual Console? =P (yes, I've been playing on emulators on my PC since 2000, I still prefer the VC)

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Sooooo...

Agreed, most of the games available on virtual console were great games when they were first released and are still great games. My kids (younger teens), are somewhat surprised at the difficulty level, but enjoyability of these games.

VC games are basically the same cost as a rental game but the fun doesn't end (until you beat the game).

Re:Sooooo...

There was no way they could develop a console which could beat Microsoft or Sony on sheer technical brilliance. It never made much sense to even try

This wasn't Nintendo's point of view at all. They already did that with the Gamecube, which was even cheaper than the competition. Look where this lead them. It didn't make sense to make that again, because it didn't work already. Sony had the momentum, and most 3rd parties wanted Nintendo dead. They could never recover by providing the exact same experience as Sony, without any differenciation.
Besides, your view of the situation is very limited. The main concern of Nintendo was that their core market, the japanese market, was dangerously decreasing. Nintendo stated countless times that they had to revitalize it to survive.
The DS and the Wii were made for that specifically, and succeeded. Just look at the software sales since the DS was out. It's pretty obvious that the DS started monopolizing the charts, with a fraction of the PS2 marketshare.

1. Continue to focus on the younger market with a rehashed Gamecube.

Nintendo never focused on the younger market, that's a NA originating stigma that stuck to the Gamecube.
Nintendo games are for everybody, not just for the younger market. That mantra comes from the "hardcore" that believe that a game rated E means younger, when it means everybody.

2. Broaden the horizons by looking to a target market which didn't actually happen to be that bothered about the latest FPS (exactly the same as the last one but with a slightly bigger gun)

Very narrow view again. Must be why one of the launch game on Wii was a FPS, that happens to be one of the best 3rd party seller on this console ...
Anyway, you could apply what you said to nearly any game genre except sports.

Re:Sooooo...

Innovation is good but not universally good.

I got one for my niece and nephew, and they love it. Even my parents (approaching their 60's) can understand it better than they could understand a PS2. People in nursing homes are finding they love it. Small children can use it, and it still has appeal for the 10-40 crowd. That's the core of it's sales - it has a far wider range of appeal.

However, it's graphics capabilities are not as advanced, and games for it have trouble comparing to their counterparts on other systems. The controls are an excellent idea, but could be much better designed (for instance, NOW is the time to resurrect the Power Glove). Other consoles can and will follow suit (unless Nintendo is able to file suit - difficult considering previous art).

The Wii is doing well because Nintendo always does well, even when they're not on top. Not only do they do well, but they do well without being the most technically advanced - because they pursue a wider market, rather than competing more heavily in a single one (such as the recent widespread dedication to hard core gamers, which turned out to be a mistake as HCG's were the most vocal, but not the most profitable).

Games are like movies. The slightly improved same-old-same-old will usually make more money than the truly innovative, just as the best movies usually never become blockbusters, and the apparent fact that you can make artistically great music, or you can make wildly popular music, but you can very rarely ever do both.

The Wii was a great concept, and if they don't blow it they could dominate - but it will be difficult to maintain that unless they upgrade their hardware as well.

Small TV sets outnumber big TV sets

The Wii graphics in "The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess" and "Resident Evil 4" look like crap on a 56 inch HD-TV.

Does your TV monitor have the same problem with other SDTV or EDTV signals? If an EDTV (480p) signal looks like crap on a 56-inch HDTV monitor but looks fine on a 56-inch EDTV monitor, then your HDTV monitor's upscaler has a defect. If you think an EDTV signal looks like crap on any 56-inch monitor, then Nintendo would be glad to sell its hardware to the vast majority of people who have a TV monitor smaller than yours.

If Nintendo wants to sell me any more games, they need to release a Wii that supports HD-TV.

If Nintendo wants to make money [gonintendo.com], they need to write you off (sorry :( ) and sell hardware and copies of software to people who are happy with SDTV or EDTV. Notice that among lockout-chipped consoles, Nintendo's EDTV console has outsold each of the two HDTV consoles as of this month.

Re:Sooooo...

"The Wii controller was a good idea, not supporting HD-TV was a bad idea."

Not supporting HD meant the Wii (1) cost less for consumers to buy, and (2) cost less for developers to write titles for. Throw in the fact that HDTV is still a minority in all of the world's video-game markets, and there's no compelling reason for Nintendo to support it other than to satisfy the resolution-counting techno-geeks.

Just barly

I wouldn't call 1% just barly edging out, especially with 1 less sales. If only they released some more games now. Wheres Earthbound on vc but atleast they have Breath of Fire now.

Re:Just barly

You're missing the point. The Xbox 360 has had a significant advantage time-wise over both the PS3 and the Wii. Nintendo, in about 10 months, has caught the 360 which has been on the market a full year longer. Not only that, but just do a comparison at your local store. When was the last time you saw a Wii sitting on a shelf anywhere? Sales of the Wii show no signs of letting up any time soon. So in short, Nintendo is murdering their competition.

Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

On the one hand, it's just a continuation of a year-long trend of Wii kicking the other consoles' butts hard. They're still hard to find because they disappear off the shelves as soon as they get put there. Anyway, this was all predicted a while ago and so isn't a surprise in that sense.

On the other hand, I find it QUITE surprising that the Wii can so handily outsell the 360 when its game library is, all things considered, horribly outmatched. This is a very strong example of the fact that games do NOT sell the system, as many gamers like to think. Advertisements and price tag do a LOT more than the shelves of dvd-size plastic boxes with the console's logo on them, it seems.

Re:Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

I know my opinion isn't really worth any more than the next guy's opinion, but I do own all three 7th-gen consoles so I suppose that gives me a bit more "hands on" experience with them...by far, out of the three my 360 gets the most playtime. To me, it has the most comfortable controller, the best overall "feel", and, again, in my opinion, the best games.

Many games on the 360 eventually came out or simultaneously came out for the PS3...just for grins, if I bought the game for one console, I would rent it for the other...you know, just to compare the two. In all honesty, I would rather play those multi-system games on the 360. It's not just the controller (although that does have something to do with it) but it's just how it "feels"...I can't really describe it any better than that. Not to mention graphically with multi-system releases, I find the 360 looks SLIGHTLY better than it's PS3 counterpart.

That said, all three consoles are fantastic fun and I highly recommend people get all three if they can afford it...the Wii60 combo is the best bet if you can't afford all three, but the PS3 is no slouch either. While it does lack a good selection of exclusives for the moment, that will change down the line (and I liked Lair, so there!) Ratchet and Clank, Metal Gear, God of War 3, etc.

That said, the 360 has it's own lineup of exclusives coming for it (some also coming to PC)...Fable 2, GoW 2, Mass Effect, Too Human, etc.

The Wii has some awesome games coming to it as well...Mario Galaxy, the new Mario Kart and Smash Bros, etc.

If I HAD to choose a favourite this gen for me, it would definately be the 360...but in all honesty, all three of them are worth your hard earned dollars.

Play as many games on as many different systems as you can.

Re:Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

>Play as many games on as many different systems as you can.

Lalalalala, I can't hear you! I can't hear you! You sir, have commited BLASHPEMY! Video game consoles are a religion, and if you don't pick one and beat people over the head with your brand of Truth (TM), then you're a sicko deviant who deserves to be burned at the stake. Discussions about games aren't for talking about what you like to play, its more about what you _won't_ play on other systems. I don't know whether to label you a frat guy jock, a kiddy gamer, or an drooling I'll-buy-anything-Sony idiot. You confuse and anger me, and I'm going to go on the record saying that I just plain don't like you.

I'll close with a reading from the book of Nintendo:

"Lo, and the Lord said 'Let there be Wii'. And the Wii did descend from the Heavens and the people saw that it was good. And they saw that it was great. And lo did they see that no other games were fun, and the controllers turned to ash in their hands. And the Lord did speaketh 'Behold my wisdom, and the gift I have bestowed upon you. Take this Wii and take it out to the world, to show unbelievers my Truth.' And so they did, and so thusly did the Lord's profits grow."

Amen.

Re:Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

That's ok, my karma can withstand the torments and tortures of obviously incensed non-believer moderators. I may suffer now, but their eternal punishment in the hellfires of heterogeneous gaming will know no end.

Re:Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

"System sellers" is kind of an inappropriate term here, as my whole point is games aren't what sells the system. Anyway, 360 also has Oblivion and Bioshock. Mind you, these games are also like a million times better than anything on Wii except Zelda, which is not even really a current-gen title and makes no sense to me as a "system seller" since it's also on Cube.

Re:Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

Oh come on, they have commercials featuring creepy old Japanese guys going to children's houses and saying "wii want to play" with a weird gleam in their eyes! How much more advertising do you need?

Re:Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

Those games are most likely of no interest to most of the Wii's target market.

Re:Surprising in some ways, unsuprising in others

On the other hand, I find it QUITE surprising that the Wii can so handily outsell the 360 when its game library is, all things considered, horribly outmatched. This is a very strong example of the fact that games do NOT sell the system, as many gamers like to think.

I see what you're trying to say, but I respectfully disagree. My reason is that "Wii Sports" is the "killer ap" that is selling the system. A close second is the Virtual Console.

It's always been people's enjoyment of Wii Sports that they see the 'potential' of the system and the motion sense. When my old man picked up the controller and held it like a baseball bat, he thought it was the coolest thing. Like virtual reality. When my mom played bowling, she thought it was as real as you could get. Everyone enjoyed playing Tennis as a family activity.

For the dedicated gamers, Zelda helped sell the system at the start, before others had a share of the fun. Also the promise of Smash Bros., Mario Cart, Mario Galaxies, and the recent release of Metroid, had a lot of fans picking up the system in simple anticipation.

My fiancee (who doesn't like video games) is adamantly playing Zelda, Zelda 2, Donkey Kong Country, Mario Bros., etc. on the Virtual Console. Explaining to me she never got the chance to play them as a kid as her father dominated the system. She's reliving a lot of nostalgia (and showing me up that she knows more about the original Zelda games than I do).

The 360 has a lot of great games and a lot more of them, but the Wii definitely has the exclusive 'killer ap' game, Wii Sports. Even if it gets old real quick. It only takes once to get addicted and when people leave to buy the system on impulse and they find they're all sold out (still) they are overcome by the "must have" bug as the Wii is more than just a video game system now, it's pop culture.

If Andy Warhol was around, he's probably paint a picture of it.

Cheers,
Fozzy

More games please

I got myself a Wii. Just need a proper LAN multiplayer FPS and a Summer Smash Brothers, and maybe even a hardcore Mario kart.

I've actually spent hours playing Super Mario Brothers on the Virtual Console

I wonder...

...I know this term is sloshed around alot around here, but I wonder if Nintendo has shills trolling the /. boards? It seems to me most of the ones around here take the form of either Microsoft or Sony...yet you never really see any that sound like they are coming from Nintendo...curious, that.

Rewind 2 years

Who saw this coming? Be honest!

Re:Rewind 2 years

Who saw this coming? Be honest!

When I heard the idea - an overclocked Gamecube with a novelty control system involving waving one's hands around - I thought Nintendo were doomed. One U-Force was bad enough.
When I heard details of the novelty control system, I thought it ridiculous for about two minutes, then began thinking it through a little. Several words came through my mind... 'bat, racket, gunsight... fucking lightsaber...' - I thought Nintendo might have something big on their hands, especially given what the DS was doing by then.
When I heard about the name, I though Nintendo were doomed.
When I was queueing outside the store on a damn cold night playing wireless Mario Kart with the other fanboys (all of us there to get our hands on Twilight Princess) and we saw the demo installation through the big window, and we saw how many passers-by were stopping to see what all the fuss was about and seeing the guys inside bowling... I thought Nintendo might have something very big.
When I saw how many of my utterly non-gamer relatives simply would not put down Wii Tennis... wow.

I guess that means they're actuall making them

One thing that has shocked me about the Wii is how it can still be perpetually out of stock 10 months after being released. At this point Nintendo doesn't have any excuse, they need to ramp production up and they need to do it 6 months ago. I have a co-worker who is looking to get one and he's actually being told to stand in line outside of the store on shipment day still, and this was after calling just about every retailer in the area looking for one. Even weirder is when you look online and all of the available consoles are marked up over the retail price. That is crazy for a console that has been out on the market for as long as the Wii has.

Re:I guess that means they're actuall making them

Your assumption that Nintendo only wins if everyone buys lots of games is based on the idea that the console is sold at a loss. Nintendo is likely making a hefty profit off each Wii they sale. Therefore to them, every Wii sold is a win, even if the user doesn't buy a single game. This is in contrast to Sony and Microsoft who LOSE money on every console, and are relying on the fact that every person who buys their console also buys at least 4 or 5 games. . . This is just to break even, to match the profit that nintendo is making off EVERY wii sale, they have to sell a couple more games.

Additionally, I do not think most wii owners only have one or two games. There are a lot of people who are "gamers", but aren't hard core enough to pay $600 for a system. There are lots of good games for the Wii, many of which aren't available on other consoles (just wait till smash brothers comes out).

Plus, when taking profits into account, you can't forget about the profit on accessories. How many Wii owners also have at least 2 or 3 wii motes. Those aren't cheap by any means, and likely lead to more profit for Nintendo. Particularly in the short term Nintendo is dominating the field when it comes to profit. I doubt the others have even recouped their development costs.

Phil

Re:I guess that means they're actuall making them

They've already ramped production up quite a bit. I think they're leery of spending a lot of money ramping up production only to finally saturate demand, and then have nothing to show for that money... Or, worse (from their perspective), ramp up production and end up with quality control issues.

I think at this point it's fairly clear that 1.5M/month is not enough.

Re:I guess that means they're actuall making them

The year is 2078, somewhere in Heartland America Son: Dad, what's that valley over there Dad: Son, that's the valley of Nintendo Wii Factories Son: Why did they build so many, didn't they realize one day they wouldn't need so many Dad: Yes son, but some guy on the Internet thought it was a good idea. Son: But dad, that's stupid, what did this anonymous idiot on the internet know about supply chains? Dad: Nothing son, that's why we now have 84 idle crumbling Wii factories now that market saturation is long past Son: That sucks.... Son: Hey dad? Dad: Yes Son? Son: Can I get a PS27? Dad: Do you know how many Euros that is?!

And the shock comes.....

....never! The fact is, I thought that the Wii was going to flop the moment it released. But because of its world wide spread of ease to pick up and go. It had succeeded to be one of the dominent systems.

The funny thing is..

The funny thing is that Microsoft was using 'first to 10 million wins!' as their mantra, and reason for launching the 360 a year early.

Nintendo is great, but Xbox is still doing well

Specifically, the Xbox made its over all numbers largely without doing much in Japan. If you factored out Japan, I think that the Xbox still has a substantial lead.

In other words, I do not expect the Xbox 360 to become a non factor any time soon. It may be in a #2 position, but holding its current position without the benefit of Japan is a pretty strong feat. If they ever crack the Japanese market, they will likely give Nintendo some strong competition. Conversely, if the PS3 can build some decent momentum as its prices drop, it could overtake Microsoft overall with core gamers. If this does happen, it will happen very late in this console cycle (no earlier than say, 2010). And if it does do so, it will not overtake the 360 in the US.

I had been saying for some time, before the Wii's launch, that it probably had at worst, the #2 slot locked up in the console war, and a real threat to be #1.

I would say that right now, Nintendo is #1 over all, but only #2 with respect to hard core gamers. While a broad market strategy may be a good one, the core segment has proven consistently strong, and not one you want to cede to a rival.

If the Wii is ever going to get a grip on the core segment of the console market, they have to do it within the next year. Developers of titles that appeal to core gamers jumped on the Wii band wagon late, so the games that could push Wii into an untouchable #1 standing simply do not exist yet. On top of that, Nintendo did have a pretty bad game drought between February and July on the Wii. With the 3rd party developers coming on stream, that may change.

So to sum up:
- Right now, Wii has the #1 spot over all, but is only #2 with core gamers.
- I expect that the Xbox 360 will stay #1 with core gamers unless the Wii starts to get alot of games that will appeal to core gamers. Given the Wii's market positioning, I do not think this will happen.
- I expect the Xbox 360 to be guaranteed #2 unless Sony starts to build alot of momentum. I would be very surprised if this happens.

END COMMUNICATION

Re:Nintendo is great, but Xbox is still doing well

Your post nicely sums up much of what I originally wanted to say, except for one nitpick.

Conversely, if the PS3 can build some decent momentum as its prices drop, it could overtake Microsoft overall with core gamers. If this does happen, it will happen very late in this console cycle (no earlier than say, 2010). And if it does do so, it will not overtake the 360 in the US.

As much as Sony and its supporters want to say the console race is a marathon, it isn't. Currently Sony has a console priced out of the range of the mass market and their sales numbers just aren't improving. At their current installed base and the cost of developing for the PS3 no sane developer is going to touch it. Most of what's coming out seems to be games already in progress where the developer has decided to write it off as a loss and/or port it to 360 as well to recoup some of the development costs. That or Sony has given them enough money to basically pay for the game to be developed for them. Unless sales figures change quickly the PS3 will be living off of ports of 360 games or what they can pay to have developed. I honestly don't see the PS3 beating the 360 outside of Japan where it's already in the lead.

From what I recall, the 360 is possibly still ahead of the Wii in North America (given the Japanese sales numbers it pretty much has to be). It may be a few more months to a year before Nintendo completely captures all of the markets not accounting their supply limitations during the holiday season and the release of Halo 3, which makes it possibly even longer. I really can imagine at least the 360 and Wii both being viable platforms for nearly the entire lifetime of this generation of consoles. The only real competition between these two is game sales where their market shares intersect. The PS3 and 360 however are in a much more direct competition, and currently the 360 is outselling the PS3 worldwide.

Re:Nintendo is great, but Xbox is still doing well

Giving up a mod point to post, but...

I would say that right now, Nintendo is #1 over all, but only #2 with respect to hard core gamers. ... If the Wii is ever going to get a grip on the core segment of the console market, they have to do it within the next year.

I've said this before. I'll say it again. Fuck the 'hardcore' gamers. Let them have their 'superior' games on other platforms. I've been playing video games since Pong, I've finished more games than most of these 'hardcore' gamers have played. I've beaten the original Super Mario Brothers on a single life without warping. I've finished Battletoads. I've finished Einhander. I've finished Perfect Dark on Perfect Agent difficulty. I'm as experienced as they come in terms of video games.

You know what? Increasingly, I think that 'hardcore' gamer just means "a gamer who wants better graphics, more channels of audio, and the same old gameplay." What games are so damn hardcore on the XBox 360? Halo 3? Gears of War? What makes them so damn hardcore? I've played first person shooters, I've played 3rd person shooters. I want something *new*. I'm perfectly happy with my Wii Sports and Wii Play as far as providing something new to try. I've enjoyed Metroid Prime 3, but that's primarily because Super Metroid is my all-time favorite game -- it doesn't bring anything *that* new to the table over MP or Echoes, just some extra polish and enhanced controls.

You know what the nicest thing about the Wii is? I can actually play games like Wii Sports or Raving Rabbids with non-gamer friends when they come over, and they can do well at them. In FPS, RTS, or fighting games, it's not even entertaining to play against my friends, because I just wipe the floor with them. While that might appeal to some people, I'm not in it for bragging rights, I'm in it for a challenge. It's also not entertaining to play against asshat 14-year-olds online.

So fuck the hardcore demographic. They're going to have to accept the fact that they have become a niche audience, and accept what games come their way. Who knows? Maybe hardcore gamers will one day be like movie buffs, known for being familiar with lots of obscure but great games. As it is now, a movie fan analogous to what we think of as a hardcore gamer would watch nothing but Michael Bay films and gush about how awesome they are, and how everyone else sucks for enjoying The Life Aquatic.

--Jeremy

I am in that core audience

Nintendo is doing a great job of proving that appealing to a broader audience is a good way to go. But the fact remains that many of the games that core gamers enjoy simply do not appeal to a broader audience. And the core audience is not insignificant.

Games like God of War, Metal Gear Solid, Assassins Creed, Zelda, Metroid Prime, Gears of War, Dead Rising, Battlefield 1942, Counterstrike, Grand Theft Auto, Fable, System Shock 2, Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are all great games. I want to see more games of that sort continue to come out. And I would love to play them on my Wii. But I really do not think those types of games will come out on the Wii any time soon. At least, now with the Wii as the primary platform.

Manhunt 2, ratings controversy aside, apparantly makes use of the motion controls quite impressively. Swing the remote, and you get to smash someones head in. But outside of that game, I have not heard much coming out for the Wii that appeals to my particular tastes of a gamer.

At the moment, I do own a Wii. But I have not played very much on it lately. That will change when I get my hands on a copy of Metroid Prime. Being able to play Wii games with non gamer friends is nice. But quite frankly, I also want some good single player games with some real endurance to them. Most casual geared games do not do that.

The Core Audience sustained this industry for a long time. It may be niche, but it is a lucrative one, and one worth trying to hold on to.

END COMMUNICATION

Re:Nintendo is great, but Xbox is still doing well

I think I share your view.

I maintained my own patches to Wine to let me have more function keys in WoW. I maintain addons for WoW, too. I still have my Sega CD. I stil have my 3DO, too. I regularly beat RPGs under a strict "no characters die ever" policy because I think it's more challenging. I play Angband, and have submitted patches to it (which were accepted!). I've learned new programming languages to work on games, and I've written games for competitions.

People who play FPS games, and nothing else, dismiss my gaming tastes as "casual". WTF?

Imagine if you had someone who reads nothing but romance novels. Dismisses sci-fi as geeky, literature as dull, mysteries as pointless and irritating, technology books as uninteresting, humor books as too silly, biographies as pointless, newspapers as too short, and so on. Just reads romance novels.

According to the PS360 marketing engine, he's a hardcore reader. No, that's softcore.

Yawn

Same thing we have been hearing for months, and already knew, the Wii is kicking butt, Sony is struggling to keep afloat.

While its not selling as well the other two consoles, though, I should like to point out that 4 million consoles in under a year is nothing to sneeze at.

FUN counts!

I think the lesson of both the Wii and the DS is that for a lot of people, notably the non-gamers, FUN is what counts.

Technology, the PSP trashes the DS. The XBox360 makes the Wii look like a joke graphically and computationally.

But the new interfaces (touch screen, WiiMote) have lead to entirely new classes of games, and new ways of doing traditional games.

EG, after playing Metroid for a few hours, I can't see how anyone could go back to the classic FPS controls, especially on a console. On a DS, the touchscreen allows very rich UIs, which are not possible with just the D-pad and buttons.

That is the lesson from Nintendo: Fun Must Come First .

I don't get it

Its sales exceed that of the Xbox 360 despite Microsoft's console having a year-long head start.

I don't get it. This reads as "He runs faster, despite his competitor, Bob, has no legs."

Of course, if you released a year *earlier* your sales slow down as time goes, so it's not "despite", it's "partially because".

It'll be interesting to see how many units are sold total. If Wii leads here (versus sales/month), now I'll agree the "despite" mark.

I guess the saddest one in this situation is PS3. Released late, too expensive, no sales. But Sony knew this, and proceeded to kill PS3 anyway, so Blu Ray can live.

Everyone got what he wants, a big happy corporate family.

I'm gobsmacked: wii's still hard to find

Mind you, I'm not looking every day and calling twenty stores. If I decided today I would get one, I'd probably have it in a week. I've stopped in at the local Best Buy maybe four times this year, the last time about a month back. Out of curiosity, I check their wii supply. (fuck, I still hate that name.) They're always sold out. They're getting shipments in more frequently but they just don't stick around on the shelves. Frankly, this amazes me. I felt for sure that the wii would become more common in January, February for sure. It never would have occurred to me that you could walk into a game-related store by the end of summer and not simply count on it being in stock.

Breaking news!

Honda outsells Ferrari worldwide!

Is it any wonder that a cheaper item with a wider target audience would outsell a more expensive item with features aimed towards more hardcore members?

And the real winner is... the PS2

It's still selling faster than any console on the market...

Wii collects dust

When I first got it, I thought it was an absolute blast. Then after 4 $50+ games, I began to realize that Paris Hilton has more depth. Yeah, it is the perfect console for minigames, but it can't do anything else of interest. The freakin frame rate drops when it tries to do anything graphically beyond what the N64 would do.

I was a true believer at first, but now I'm pretty dissapointed with the Wii. I think in part because of all the hype it fails to live up to.

People are still talking about this?

Honda Accord outsells Chevrolet Corvette. Gasp? These are completely different markets. Mommies & their young children, one market. Teens and young adults, one market. The difference in power is also conspicuous, since one of these systems is actually a Gamecube in disguise. But hey. It makes a good news blurb.

I only need 3.7M

3.7 million for the PlayStation 3.

The PS3 is so much faster than the other consoles that I only need 3.7 million of them to do more work than all the XBox 360 and Wiis combined, so there!

Who saw this coming a year ago?

I did, thats who. I said this before, but about the Linux games scene. 'Gaming' is a niche market that appeals to only to about 10% of the people out there when you only account for the major titles like GTA, Gears, Halo, Quake, etc. The other 90% are content with playing the 'popular' games. These games are simple don't go for next-gen anything, but they are fun. Games like tetris, golf, etc. If you make those games fun again, then you're catering to the 90% while the other two consoles are catering to the 10%. Why does this pertain to Linux, it shows that appealing to hardcore gamers isn't important, appealing to the 90% is.

I wonder about the PS3

I don't own a PS3 (I do own a Wii), but although it is in 3rd place the sales for it are still substantial. This is true for the PSP as well. It makes me wonder how this generation will play out for Sony. Will they see eventual increases? Or is this their Sega Saturn?

People-Ready!

... but Microsoft is a People-Ready Bueiness(TM) damnit! That alone will guarantee their success, who needs fun OR games when you got that?!

;P

They're so successful people can't buy 'em...

... At least in my neck of the woods, nobody has Wii in stock, unless you want to buy some f-ckin $400 bundle..

Yogi Berra would be bemused..

Who cares?

Who cares which sells better? Outside of people who are actively in the industry, I don't see why it should matter to ANYONE how well a console is selling. Find a friend who owns one, play it a bit, and if you like it enough then buy one. Look at the games catalogue and see which one has the most games that appeal to you. I don't see why it matters which sells how many. The best console is the one that is the most fun for YOU.

Local Multiplayer FTW

I've got all three systems, and although I tend to enjoy playing the 360 and PS3 more when I'm gaming alone, when friends come over it's all about the Wii. There are a disturbing number of games for PS3/360 that have left out local (couch based) multiplayer, choosing instead to focus on online gaming. Motorstorm comes to mind. I actually bought a second controller so that I could race against friends. I guess I should have checked beforehand, but who would have thought that they'd put out a racing game (one that was meant to sell the system, no less) where you can't race against the person sitting next to you! Crackdown for the 360 was another one where they only support 2 players online. Online gaming is fun (if you can stand the great unwashed that is Xbox Live), but none of my friends have any of the next-gen systems, and they're not planning on getting them until they get a lot cheaper. So when they come over and want to play a game, chances are we're playing the Wii.

The Wii is overrated

The Wii is seriously overrated. Between myself and my roommate, we own all 3 next-gen systems, and I can tell you it's the 360 that gets the most playtime.

Why? Because it has the best games. The 360 has a string of first-rate titles coming out (recently BioShock, before that Gears of War, Guitar Hero, and a hell of a lot more).

That's not to say that there aren't fun games on the Wii. The Wii is what we play at parties, and it's what we play when we want to sit down for 10 minutes and play a quick game. But we can't play Zelda and Wii Sports forever, and a lot of the other titles, while solid, just haven't been very good.

And then there's XBLA. Yeah, the Wii kind of has this too with the Virtual Console, but if I'm going to drop $10 on a game, I want it to be something new. Games like Hexic 2, Lumines, Catan, and a lot more.

A more detailed WSJ article had further info

On page B4 of today's print edition of the Wall Street Journal, in an article entitled "Microsoft Expands Xbox 360 Line in Japan", they also pointed out that the Wii has sold 3,454,167 units since Dec. 2006, the PS3 has sold 1,160,614 units since Nov. 2006, and the xBox 360 has sold 444,352 units since Dec. 2005.

Mind you, those are figures for Japan.

Of course, even Blue Dragon (360) has sold fewer than 200,000 copies in Japan since launch in December.

It's not just Wii worldwide, it's a landslide.

I don't think Lost Odyssey is going to turn that around.

Nintendo is around more than any other company

If there is one company that can make fun electronic games, it's Nintendo. They are in the business for longer than 30 years. Microsoft is a newbie, Sony is a latecomer when compared to Nintendo.

Kids know and trust the name 'Nintendo', thanks to those little handheld games that you can take to school, on the bus, in bed, in the bathroom etc. And those kids grew up, remember their youth, and they buy Nintendo for their kids.

I, as a parent, don't even look at monster ugly consoles like the 360 or PS3. Wii seems so nice, so playful...Wii promises a playland, an amusement park, something the other consoles do not.

Nintendo is the best game company, by far. They know what they are doing.

New slashdot automated news generator

(insert submitter's name) writes in to tell us that (insert URL) is reporting that the Nintendo Wii has sold (x) number of units, barely itching out past the XBox 360, which has sold (y) units. Both are still well outselling the poor Sony PS3 which has only sold (z).

Automated comments:
Score 3, Funny - And is anyone surprised by this
  This must generate a thread of at least 10 posts

Sore 4, Interesting - If Sony would stop (insert profanity) their developers, maybe PS3 sales would be stronger.
  This must generate a thread of at least 15 posts.

Score 2 - I just bought a PS3 because it was a cheap BluRay player.

HD Format Wars Automated news generator:
(insert submitters name) writes in to tell us that (insert URL) is reporting that (Company X) has decided to go with the (insert format name). Recent sales figures shows that BluRay is currently outselling HD-DVD (y:z)
Article approver will comment: "I am just waiting on (insert movie) to be released, that will get me to decide which format to go with..

Mandnatory comments must include:
Score 5, Interesting / Funny- The Porn industry has decided to go with HD-DVD
this must generate a thread of atleast 20 replies

Score 3 - I just hope BluRay wins out, not because of the format, but because I want the storage capacity.

Score 4, Informative - Neither format will win, both will quietly die, because there is not a significant enough improvement over DVD to justify a format war. The reason DVD won over VHS is because there was a huge technology leap. We are still on discs here, the next big leap will be with downloadable content, not HD-DVD
This must generate a thread of atleast 20 replies, some agreeing, some disagreeing, at least one funny comment with will spur a whole other conversation not remotely related to the story

Finding Wii at list price

The Wii is still hard to find outside of pricey bundles, but the shortage seems to be easing. You can check availability on this web site [wiitracker.com]. Nobody has them today, but last week I picked up a console at list price from ToysRUs, and earlier this week Sears had it.

Some Are Missing the Point

I think some of you have touched upon the success of the Wii and some are missing the mark. Let me give the reasons why we purchased a Wii.

I purchased a Wii for our family in April. I have a 4 year old son that LOVES it. The games we have for it so far are: Wii Sports (default), Wii Play, TMNT for Wii, Transformers, Madden '08.
Let me list a few reasons why WE purchased the Wii:
1 - I saw it as a way for my kid to play games and NOT just sit on his butt all day doing so. So far this has proven fairly true. In the sports games he limits his own play by getting tired and wanting to turn it off by himself. Pretty good self control for a 4 year old if you ask me.
2 - It was cheaper than the others. Plain and simple. I didn't want to spend 400 - 600 dollars for a system for my kid to sit on but all day.
3 - I am NOT a hardcore gamer by any definition (except "owns a gaming console"). I enjoy gaming that I can sit down for 30 minutes, play and be done. Madden 08 is a good way of doing that, other than I get my ass kicked every time I go online...but I hope to get better...eventually.
4 - My freinds and family can come over and play without having to learn 250 different controller combinations to play a game well. So in short we can have fun with it with new people.

Since this is /. I will put this in a slightly different view that I am sure we can all relate to in some sense. I see the analogy of Wii as one like Windows versus Linux. Windows has an interface that is easy for users to USE. Linux is much sturdier in most sense, but the learning curve is steeper. MS did the smart marketing and made an easy to use system that is "playing catch-up" on security and other "hardcore" features. Linux was for hardcore people and is playing catch-up on ease of use. Which is more popular?? Wii can play catch-up on graphics much easier (I would think) than Xbox and PS3 can play catch-up on playability for the masses. It seems to me no wonder why Wii is doing better at this point.

Re:Xbox 360 Dead In The Water?

When they announced that 10 million figure, that was total shipped systems, NOT total sold systems. Sony was notorious for confusing shipped and sold in order to make it seem like they were doing better than they were.

At that time, the number of sold systems was somewhere around 7 or 8 million.

--

The 360 needs to sell 2 million units before its second anniversary in order to be on par with its predecessor, like you said. This seems like a lot, but it's surprisingly possible. Halo 3 is *the* game every 360 owner wants, and its coming out later this month. Add that to the holiday sales boost and the 360 is going to have a massive holiday.

Overall, the 360 isn't dominating like MS hoped it would, but it's a failure, either. If I had to guess it'll end up finishing with close to 30 million units sold. Once it drops a little more into the impulse buy range, it'll start selling to the people who are looking to replace their PS2s.

Re:Xbox 360 Dead In The Water?

I'm sorry, you can't exit. Too many broken chairs are in your path. The fire marshall has called up about blocked exits.

What is your next move?

Re:It's just so pointless

how do you know that it's the same people?

Re:Unsolicited math analysis that might have value

You fail to take into account that Sony [business2.com] and Microsoft [gamespot.com] take a loss on each console sold, whereas Nintendo [arstechnica.com] actually makes a profit on them.

Re:Unsolicited math analysis that might have value

That math makes no sense to me. If you assume that each 360 loses Microsoft something like $100 each, each PS3 loses Sony something like $150 each, and each Wii makes Nintendo something like $70 each, you get:
Microsoft: 890m loss
Sony: 550m loss
Nintendo: 630m profit

Factoring games, then, with a 60/60/50 price structure:
Microsoft: needs to sell 30.4m games to catch up to Nintendo at selling zero games
Sony: needs to sell 23.6m games to catch up to Nintendo at selling zero games
Nintendo: 3.6m copies of Zelda, alone, means they are $144m ahead; throw in Metroid, Super Paper Mario, WarioWare, Mario Party 8, etc, and Nintendo has something like 10m games sold, trivially.

Which means the numbers for each console are actually:
Microsoft: needs to sell 40m games to catch up to Nintendo
Sony: needs to sell 33m games to catch up to Nintendo
Nintendo: Clear winner and currently the only profitable game company

Re:Unsolicited math analysis that might have value

Wouldn't you have to subtract the loss per console? or is the 360 selling at a profit now?

Re:Unsolicited math analysis that might have value

Taken care of if you read the reply to the first commenter. And also, you will notice their are some assumptions because we have no hard numbers, sorry but thats the best I can do with whats available. As for R&D costs, thats one more thing we don't have any hard numbers for.

Re:Unsolicited math analysis that might have value

Three nit-picks:

1) You break out the 360 into two different categories to generate a range of possible revenues, but assume "worst case" for the PS3. Just a little bias here.

2) You're just talking revenue. Profit is going to put the Wii way in the lead. Both the 360 and the PS3 are subsidized and are selling at a loss. Each Wii is sold at a profit.

3) In terms of software sales, you shouldn't write off the Wii so easily. Many developers ignored the Wii at first and are now rushing to publish titles. Granted, many of the first wave titles are ports, but more and more developers are getting on board. There should be some higher quality Wii-targeted titles coming out soon.

Re:Unsolicited math analysis that might have value

Or you could give up on the theorising and just read their financial statements. Nintendo's are here:

http://www.nintendo.com/corp/annual_report.jsp [nintendo.com]

Attach rate for the Wii is about 4.5 games/console at the moment.

Re:Unsolicited math analysis that might have value

Since you were civil and raise good points, I'll clarify what I did. You are correct about the loss, and I did redo the math when I replied to the first commenter who pointed it out and supplied some numbers. They are still slightly in favor of the 360 but Wii will probably catch up pretty soon. As for the profit, I calculated revenue we the consumer hand the companies. My reasoning being that since MS and Sony are giant corporations and Nintendo is really only a gaming company, MS and Sony can make up their losses elsewhere in their company, therefore the "war" comes down to the revenue we send them. At least thats my reasoning and it makes sense to me, take what you will from it.

MS was dumb to kill the Xbox1

They could have kept making it like sonys ps2 and make it smaller, sell way more, sure it would compete with the 360 but at least you can get it
into the cheaper market and 3rd world nations. Companies can make their profits on xbox1 games while they take a risk on the 360.

Besides all those xbox1 people would eventually go to the 360, but no.... if you just kill the first gen, you piss a lot of people off like
game developers and gamers who just dont see any new games for it. It still had plenty of power , more than the ps2.

MS could have given the xbox1 the 360 style dashboard too. They already had a big base they could have kept making loads of software sales on.

Idiots, no one has done that before by killing one gen to bring the next gen.

Re:Big f'n deal

How could I forget that real gamers only play FPSs? Oh right, because it's not true.

Try to get a few platinums in Wii Sports and an A++ in Big Brain and come back to me on what "hardcore" really means.

Or if those are just too "kiddy" to take seriously, I suppose Trauma Center, Strikers, Zelda and Prime would be more fitting examples. And you know Medal of Honor with 32 player online is in the pipeline, right?

But I'll admit the Wii is intrinsically inferior for delivering FPS action, considering it has a control scheme comparable to a mouse and keyboard, not nearly as precise or quick as using a joystick to aim.