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.

Ebay numbers wrong!

[DinZy]

Those numbers are the max systems that were available on ebay not the total sold. At one point there were 26000 Wiis and approximately 50 wiis were selling each minute, while more auctions were being listed.

Meanwhile MS claims they won launch week...

[grapeape]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?i d=150030 [computeran...ogames.com]

I cant speak for anyone else but I have a hard time believing that Gears managed to move that many consoles. I was out shopping quite a bit last week and saw lots of wii's being sold but didnt more than a handful of 360's though all the stores I shopped had plenty. Of course the way that Sony and Microsoft count sales is how many ship to retail (including the ones sitting on the shelves) where Nintendo actually counts units sold.

How many of those were busted?

[SilentChris]

I always have to question whether or not those numbers can be trusted.

I bought my Wii and received it early last week. Plug it in, have it find my WPA-encrypted wireless network and proceed with my first system update. You need the firmware update to do anything online. Bong -- 110213 error (Google it -- a good number of people got it). Afterwards the system refused to go online (no virtual console goodness, no more firmware updates, etc). The predominant opinion is that the Wii doesn't CRC the firmware before installing it, resulting in semi-bricked consoles.

Called up Nintendo and, after 30 minutes on hold, I got someone. To their credit, they immediately sent another console out (received it yesterday). It was already updated to the latest firmware. Looks refurbished, but I guess I don't have a choice.

I'm personally very interested in what percentage of those numbers are "usable" systems. 95%? 99%? Even if only 1% are busted, that's still a considerable number of machines.

Re:Before anyone mentions NexGenWars

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth noting that 15,000 PS3 units could be as much as 10% of the North American supply. Given that we don't know the actual figures shipped, it's just as possible that 15,000 is 5% of the supply. Either way, it's a significant percentage of the PS3 consoles.

Looks like 10*27,000/600,000 comes in around 4.5%. Granted, TFA says "more than 600,000 units" which means it's probably in the 600,000-650,000 unit range (650,000-699,999 would probably be "almost 700,000 units").

Even assuming 700,000 Wii consoles were available, that means almost 4% were sold on ebay. Following the parent's criteria, it seems like it is also a significant percentage.

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

[Fryed]

For the moment at least, they're still evaporating the moment they hit stores like water hitting a frying pan. Controllers seem to be disappearing even faster - I got my Wii on launch day, but to this day have only been able to get 2 extra controllers and chuks, and those I had to do about a week of searching to find.

By January, they'll probably be easy to get ahold of. If you need one before then, I suggest buddying up to someone at a Toys R Us, Target, or similar store, and finding out the exact moment they plan to unload the Wiis from trucks and put them on the floor.

Re:How many of those were busted?

[SilentChris]

How can it 'look' refurbished when it's been out less than two weeks?

The system had small scratches and the serial number was already registered.

Also, Nintendo apparently sold some machines that were previously preview/PR machines (Google it). Many of those boxes talked about requiring a startup disc (http://forums.nintendo.com/nintendo/board/message ?board.id=wii_tech&message.id=213). So those machines were months old -- not two weeks old.

Given that they opened the box up to do the firmware update before they sent it to you, there are very few pieces of evidence that could identify a refurbished system vs a new one that was plugged in once to install an update.

You mean outside the serial number being registered to someone in Washington, DC?

Also, why did they need to open the box up at all? They weren't required to pre-update the firmware on the replacement system -- just send me the replacement. What I should of received was a new system without the firmware update. No scratches, not preregistered.

By the way "pieces of evidence"? It's a console, not a crime scene. No need to get all defensive. So Nintendo made some bum machines -- these things happen.

Re:Before anyone mentions NexGenWars

[AKAImBatman]

Nintendo has managed to get major numbers out there (4million estimated before Christmas).

Nintendo's current estimates [gamespot.com] are 2 million consoles before year's end. The 4 million number was bandied about pre-launch along with Sony's 2 million number. Sony is currently targetting 1 million units [gamasutra.com] by year's end.

If both companies make their targets, there will be a 2:1 split between the competitors. The analysts, however, believe that Nintendo will only manage to ship between 1.5 and 2 million consoles (up to a 500,000 unit shortfall) and that Sony will only be able to ship 750,000.

Wii will see how it turns out. :P

Re:The Counter-Strike of Game Consoles

[zapp]

Wow... there is only one thing I can say to that:

TL;DR

(too long, didn't read)

Seriously, does your keyboard have an enter key?

It's not released yet

[paladinwannabe2]

Zelda: Twilight Princess won't be out for GameCube until Dec. 8th, if memory serves. This only refers to Wii purchases.

Re:Input device defines gaming...

[yarbo]

"That said, if the Wii shipped with a "game cube" controller and made it a way to build games for both, they might have been able to snag more by being the uber-system (both types of games), but that might have discouraged Wii-style games, so who knows."

like this? [gamespot.com]

Re:Before anyone mentions NexGenWars

[catprog]

2 million consoles in the US. They still are saying 4 million WORLDWIDE by years end