Wii Outsells PS3, Blue-ray Outsells HD DVD 182
njkid1, a regular contributor of GameDaily articles, passed us word that the Wii is handily outselling the PS3 in Japan. Famitsu parent company Enterbrain has figures showing that Nintendo sold 405,000 Wii units last month, while Sony sold 148,000 units of the PS3. While this is probably not something the folks at Sony are overjoyed about, they did have reason to crow this week. They've now announced that cumulative Blu-ray sales have passed the HD DVD format for the first time. Gamasutra has the word, from Sony itself, with some interesting supporting information. Most PS3 owners, it seems, have used their system to watch HD movies. Some full 80 percent plan to buy further HD titles in the future. This is further support for the VideoScan sales figures we discussed last week.
Re:Can you trade/rent games for PS3? (Score:5, Informative)
GameFly thinks it's legal. I'm guessing their legal department made sure of it, first.
Re:PS3 sales still artifically low (Score:4, Informative)
Re:1,000,000 + PS3 systems (Score:3, Informative)
The first 400,000 PS3 units came with a coupon for a free movie (ricky bobby.) The FA even alludes to this fact:
"This high percentage is likely helped by the bundled Talladega Nights Blu-ray disc with the first 500,000 units of PlayStation 3. But even apart from that, 80 percent of those surveyed plan to purchase further Blu-ray movies, while 72 percent of respondents stated that they plan to rent a Blu-ray movie in the near future."
(That was <p><em> ... why can't slashdot let us have <q> like any sane site? HTML has these tags for a reason.)
The question is, where were these people surveyed? Were they checking on them in a video rental store, or in wally world, or in a video-game store like funcoland or gamestop? Or was it a web survey? Inquiring minds need to know to determine if these statistics have any relation to reality.
Re:Pretty much history repeating itself... (Score:5, Informative)
Where on earth did you come up with THAT? The PS2 was a good-selling console, but it didn't sell THAT well. According to the SanJose Mercury News, lifetime sales for the PS2 in the U.S., as of the end of 2006, was 37.1 million. According to Nielsen, DVD currently has 80% market penetration, and there are approx. 113M U.S. households. (according to the Census), meaning that 90.4M U.S. households have a DVD player. An unknown number of those may have purchased a PS2 AFTER they bought a DVD player. (That was the case in my house.)
Maybe for the households that bought a PS2, it is possible (but not certain) that "most" of them had it as their first player, but that does not translate to the U.S. market overall.
SirWired
Re:PS3 sales still artifically low (Score:3, Informative)
It is worth noting... (Score:3, Informative)
What is left to be seen is if Blu-Ray can hold onto the market of gamers just "giving HD movies a try."
Re:Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Informative)
Dude, by now everybody knows that the PS2 had the worst hardware of last gen. Even Gamecube was better and Wii is twice as powerful as that.
Trend, not a bounce (Score:3, Informative)
These are numbers that show Blu-Ray consistently on top, for almost a month now - and continuing to grow. Don't forget the coupon still required you to spend money, it was not a "free" movie - and anyone even using that coupon is likley to buy more titles as well since they have it rigged up to play movies.
The only people who really know how well either format are doing though I think is Netflix - that's the first place HD-DVD or Blu-Ray owners would turn, buying movies slowly as they found ones they like.
Re:1,000,000 + PS3 systems (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can you trade/rent games for PS3? (Score:3, Informative)
That's not even remotely true. Some old Zonk (read: FUD) post referred to a patent application by Sony which could be construed to mean that they were thinking about implementing copy protection measures which would prevent re-sale and renting, but no such claim was ever made in actuality.
PS3 games can be played on any PS3, any number of times. They're even further in the "right direction" than I'd have guessed; you can download purchased games from your PSN account onto up to 5 different PS3s (presumably for re-download if you get a second or a replacement machine, but still...)
Re:It really is true... (Score:3, Informative)
Also, you're too quick to dismiss the people-waiting-for-Wiis phenomenon. I talked to a Nintendo rep today at Gamestop. He claimed that places like Target and Wal-Mart are routinely receiving Wiis during the week and are holding them for weekend sales to coincide with their Sunday advertising circulars. He suggested that if you want a Wii, go wait outside one of these stores on a Sunday morning. The Target manager said the same thing. You can complain all you want about them being "assholes", but as the Nintendo rep put it, "We can't tell them how to run their stores". It's a fact of life - one which you seem a little out of touch with...