August NPD Numbers Look Good For Wii, 360

To add a little more context to yesterday's announcement that the Wii had outsold the 360 worldwide, we have August's NPD numbers courtesy of 1up. From the article: "The story hasn't changed much -- Wii remains on top, PlayStation 3 continues to have trouble gaining steam and Xbox 360 maintains a position behind Wii but gaining momentum as the fall season moves into gear-- but the numbers have shifted. Encouraging news for Microsoft, however, as Xbox 360 moves nearly 100,000 more units compared to last month's 170,000, while Madden NFL 08 pushes 896,600 boxes and BioShock moves 490,900 copies -- impressive numbers for the Xbox 360 platform, software-wise. Nintendo must be happy with the performance of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, as the latest sci-fi Samus Aran shooter managed 218,100 copies in late August, with Wii Play (released in January) only beating it by nearly 50,000 units."

Missed the Boat

[ShaolinMonk]

Poor Playstation 3. It Really is sad to see something with so much potential get burried. I really do wish Sony would pull it together, as the PS3 is still may favorite. But what good are favorites when you can't play what you want. SM

Why no pricedrop discussion?

[stormy24]

The 360 sales spike is because of the price drop. Any influence Madden 08 and Bioshock had is minimal compared to the effect the price drop had. The PS3 didn't get this much of a sales surge in their price drop because I think the $499 price is still too much to swallow, and the library is too shallow. But, people are still buying relatively good amounts of PS3s at high prices and few games worth mention. If the PS3 intro's a $399 SKU as is rumored, and if games keep flowing in as planned, all bets are going to be off.

Christmas should be interesting

[RyoShin]

This Christmas is going to be interesting as far as sales numbers go. While we dealt with the two new systems last Christmas, things have radically changed in only a year. The Wii still sells out quickly, though stores are able to keep it in stock now, but will that last into the holiday season? Added to this is that two AAA titles, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Brothers Brawl, are coming out before Christmas.

DDR: Hottest Party (Or was it Hottest Dance?) comes out in a few weeks on the Wii, too, and will likely be scooped up in droves by the "casual" gamers as it is yet another way to play games without sitting on the couch.

Then the 360 and PS3 have both had hardware changes and price drops, so the general public will be more receptive. And now that there is a larger selection of high-def movies available, both will be interesting to HD buffs (probably more the PS3 than 360 due to integration).

Oh yeah, and how could I forget Guitar Hero III? All three systems. It will be interesting to see which system gets the highest sales for this.

And the DS will still outsell everything. It prints money, after all. (And the DS is getting a Guitar Hero, too)

Re:360 fanbois

[nutshell42]

Neither harddrive nor vastly more power could save the original Xbox.

It's meaningless how much better the PS3 is as long as MS manages to leave the PS3 in the dust in terms of installed base.

Some analyst predicted that Sony sold of one of their divisions to be able to sell the PS3 at $399. If that's true it might save the console because unlike the original Xbox Sony does enjoy a strong brand and a PS3 at a competitive would probably be able to get enough games and sales to at least catch up with the 360. But if the 360 continues to outsell the PS3 at a 2:1 ratio till next spring this generation will be the inverse of the last one with MS and Nintendo beating out Sony by a wide margin (I believe one of the more expensive consoles can catch up to the Wii over the next few years as the price difference shrinks)

Re:Wii vs 360 vs PS3

[pokerdad]

One thing is for sure, in terms of software, the 360 is top dog. This system flat out moves games.

I've seen this claim quite a bit and it stands to reason; xbox appeals to hardcore gamers and they buy lots of games. But I've been wanting to seen some actual hard numbers.

Unfortunately, my searches done just now did not find me the numbers I wanted - all time software sales worldwide by console, but I did find one thing that was food for thought. (all numbers from www.vgchartz.com)

For week ending September 8, 2007 the software sales of xbox360 vs wii in America were 993574 vs 615084, while the number of consoles (total not sales) in America at that time were 7.03M vs 4.69M.

In other words the 360 sold 0.14 games per unit last week while the Wii sold 0.13 games per unit. Hardly the massive difference everyone assumes.