Wii, PS3 Sell Big In First Week

Wowzer writes "Nintendo today announced the Wii sold through more than 600,000 units in the Americas in just its first eight days of availability. That's a rate of nearly one per second continuously since the November 19 launch!" From the article: "The company noted that, when taking into account first-party software and accessory sales, Wii sales have thus far amounted to an impressive $190 million. Nintendo also added that sales of the Wii's highly anticipated launch title, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, has already has achieved sales of more than 454,000 units in the Americas, a figure which it notes represents in excess of of 75 percent of all hardware purchasers." I couldn't find any sales figures for the PS3, just word that the company has sold all the units it shipped. Gamasutra is also reporting sales figures via Ebay for the two consoles. 15,000 PS3s were sold, while the Wii cracked 27,000 via the popular online auction site.

Vegonomics

[yakumo.unr]

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=212 [vgcats.com]

never a truer word on this was spoke..

Fuzzy math

[voice_of_all_reason]

You really have to take the PS3 sales figure and double it, though.

Cuz each PS3 sells twice. Once at the store, and then again on ebay...

Re:Before anyone mentions NexGenWars

[js3]

NexGenWars

From what I here and see, WII has the advantage

[gurps_npc]

Wii went for "new controller" + "cheap".

PS3 went for "Blu-ray" + "High end chips"

Sony took the conservative route, using the same old selling tactics that have worked in the past.

Nintendo went for the radical chance route. It will either sell HUGE, making a mockery of PS3, or flop.

I am betting on huge. Granted, much will depend on the quality of the games that Nintendo can get out there quick.

But the honest truth is that current video games suffer from fat-slob-with-tired-thumb. It is not just a stereotype, there is some truth to it.

The Wii has the possibility of changing that. People's ARMS are getting sore, instead of thumbs. They may actually get exercise. This could just change the game radically, forever.

Imagine the day when everyone's picture of a gamer is someone with bulging arm muscles instead of bulging bellies.

Gyms could buy them and put in huge screens.

Hot cheerleaders might actually go for the gamers. A guy can dream...

Here's to you, Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fan...

[everphilski]

Here's to you, Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll!
Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll!
Sitting at home in your parents basement with your PS1 and 2 and 3...

Maaaaaaan, thats a lot of consoooooooles....
Or, Mr. Troll, are you playing with a wii?
Tell me, Mr. Troll-man?
So here's to you, Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll...
Mr. Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Trooo-oooll!!!

Give me some meaningful numbers

[WormholeFiend]

That's a rate of nearly one per second continuously since the November 19 launch

How about the length of Wiis side-by-side in number of football fields?

How many Volkswagen Beetlefuls?

Official PS3 numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't reveal the exact number of units sold in US as that's a trade secret, but both units were sold.

Re:Going unnoticed...

[Conanymous Award]

Don't want to be an asshat nitpicker, but this just seemed funny to me:

"This has gone largely unnoticed, but Microsoft has started a hell of a holiday XBOX 360 campaign..."

If it has gone largely unnoticed, can we really call it "a hell of a campaign"? On the other hand, if there's anybody in the world able to pull off such a thing (a largely unnoticed hell of a campaign, that is), it's probably Micro"Zuma"soft.

The Math....

[Duncan3]

Sony loses $300+ per unit.
Retailer makes maybe $50 after they pay all the extra security.
Ebayers make $500-1500/unit minus...
the Ebay makes 5.25% + Paypal 2.90% = 8.15% of that (more then the retailer most likely)
And then of course all the violence, injuries, and robberies.

Sony got screwed royally, and everyone else won the lottery.

Console developers need to get their shit together and learn what a Dutch Auction is.

Re:It's a manufacturing race...

[Tim Browse]

If Nintendo keeps manufacturing units and selling them, they will sell games and make money.

This is precisely the kind of insightful business acumen that I come to slashdot for.

Re:WTF ?

[fuzz6y]

As it reads, 454,000 SOFTWARE purchases exceeds 75% of all HARDWARE purchase(r)s. Does that mean 75% of all wii purchases, or 75% of all console purchases ? If it's the latter, does that mean non-wii owners have been buying this game (if that's at all possible) ?

If you see two ways to interperet a statement, and one of them doesn't make any fucking sense to you, go with the other one.

Re:How hard is it to find a Wii at the moment

[Kankraka]

Last weekend I was at EB, they'd just sold out their last one. Not five minutes later there was a purolator truck outside and a guy unloading another shipment of Wii's and Wii accessories. Those too were being snapped up pretty quick, but the crowning moment of being there? Hearing this:

Customer: Hi, I'd like Twilight Princess for PS3.

EB Employee: Uhm... What?

Customer: Zelda, for PS3

EB Employee: Uhh, yeah.. that's not for PS3, that's a Nintendo Wii game.

Customer: So...?

EB Employee: Ma'am, you need to have a Nintendo Wii *points to the display beside the counter* to play Twilight Princess, or a Game Cube, when it's released for that.

Customer: So I can't play Zelda on PS3?

EB Employee: No.

Customer: So I spent 5 hours in the cold to buy my son a PS3, so he could play the new Zelda, but now he can't?

EB Employee: The new Zelda is for Wii, not PS3, I can show you our PS3 selection if you'd like?

Customer: No, I want Zelda for PS3.

and it pretty much continued like that for a couple minutes before she grasped the concept that she wasn't going to be playing zelda on her ps3. Makes me wonder how many other confused non-gamers are out there in a similar situation. :)

Re:The Counter-Strike of Game Consoles

[genooma]

Is this a convention of people who refuse to use line breaks. I'm in.

Re:How hard is it to find a Wii at the moment

[Criminally Insane Ro]

We'll probably see a commercial Wii emulator for the ps3 soon if that conversation is any indication.

Re:How hard is it to find a Wii at the moment

[edxwelch]

She probably spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to get a CD into her iPod.

Re:How hard is it to find a Wii at the moment

[MadMoses]

Me too. I bought a new CD and folded it up (that sure was hard to do) but I still couldn't get it to fit in that slot in the bottom. And the worst part is, now the CD won't work in a regular CD player any more!

Damn DRM!