360 And Halo 3 Push Past the Wii's Sales

GameDaily has the NPD numbers for September, and they're impressive if only because for the first time in months Nintendo isn't dominating the top of every list. Total sales across the industry hit $1.36 billion (a 74% bump over last year), mostly fueled by Halo 3 sales. The game (across all skus) sold some 3.3 million units, while Xbox 360 platforms hit about 528,000 units sold last month. Ironically, the Wii had its second best month ever and the DS sold big numbers thanks to Phantom Hourglass. "Nintendo's Wii, despite not really having any significant new software releases, was close behind with 501K units sold. The DS handheld also did quite well, selling another 495.8K. Looking at Sony's platforms, the PS3 sold just 119.4K units, while the surging PSP sold 284.5K and the PS2 maintained healthy sales at 215K." The piece also offers up analysis from an NPD researcher, who feels Microsoft is likely to maintain some good momentum through the holidays.

I wonder...

[ZiakII]

I wonder if people are still having a hard time finding the Wii? I sucked it up and bought one on ebay, but I wonder if the Wii's availability is playing into effect of how hard the system is to find?

Re:Great news for MS!

[Gravatron]

Isn't it a bit odd that Sony or MS have to release a major game to increase sales, but nintendo can sell on it's hype alone? I mean, the wii's game drought is worse than Sony's, but they still beat them in sales. And Poor MS can bring out game after game and still not catch up most weeks.

I owned a wii, and sold it a few months later. It just wasn't as good a console as the hype made it out to be. My ps3 and 360, on the other hand, more than paid for themselves since I got them in the summer. Not being able to play galaxy or smash brothers hurts, but thats made up by the titles on the other two.

Re:MS vs Wii

[Liquidrage]

The 360's greatest selling point is Live.

While it's often dissed here. Live is truely fantastic and next-gen in service and application.

I can download movies, TV shows, new games, demos (free), trailers for upcoming games. If it weren't for the fact I'm a sports junkie it would be cheaper for me to ditch digital cable and only download my shows and movies off of XBL.
I can keep track of my friends, invite them to games or get invited into their games. It keeps track of achievements and a lot more.

I run a major hockey site. On our hockey site we have a video game subforum. In there I have a dynamic Xbox Live leaderboard. Any member of our forum can go into our site, add their XBL gamer tag, and be included in the list. We can do friends invites right from our hockey forum. I can actually send a message from our hockey forum to one of our members while they are in Xbox playing a game. It also shows what games they're playing, what they've recently played, and we can compare achievements easily. *for privacy folks, you can choose to hide all this stuff so others can't see it*

the Wii has it's niche as the casual party machine. The Xbox has it's niche due to live. It isn't competing with the PS3 any more then it is the Wii. In fact, XBL Arcade is probably closer to the Wii in terms of competition then what the PS3 offers. XBL just works. Easy to use, lot's of content to offer. The PS3 doesn't have a real niche and it's why no one buys them. Anyone that buys a PS3 for anything other then a blu-ray player is nuts.

Re:I wonder...

[Jarjarthejedi]

I always ask myself when I see these questions where in the world the people asking them are. Over here in the SW I could right now leave my house and drive down to one of my local gamestops (there are 3) and buy a Wii, all three have them in stock (or at least had at the time Halo 3 came out when I last visited them). Best Buy has had them on the shelves since around April, Circuit City had them last time I went there (over the summer). There's no shortage of Wii's where I am, so I'm always curious that there's apparently still a shortage elsewhere...

Re:Wow so

[paranode]

PS2 is still the most played game console and has an immense library of games to choose from. There is a very large market for affordable game systems with fun games. This is why the Wii is dominating right now. The PS3 suffers from a smaller selection of good games and the price being too high for all but the serious gamer.

Re:Microsoft will win next generation

[yanos]

...and a new one who isnt used to playing in the big leagues.

We're not talking about the same Nintendo, me thinks.

Re:Great news for MS!

[Frenchy_2001]

Could it be that (shock and surprise!) you are not the target market for the wii?

The usual gamers and most people that spend lots of time on video games and expect deep engaging contents are NOT what Nintendo is aiming the wii at. I know it is disappointing for that crowd to not be the focus of the biggest console maker, but this is the choice Nintendo has made this generation: instead of targeting gamers and competing with the other 2, they went for the casual market and brought back gaming as a family activity.

I agree to everything you say on the Wii. It does have a lot of hype and it lacks new games. But this does not takes its qualities away. It is a perfect game for casual gamers. It is the only console where you can get anyone to play with you, from 6 to 80 years old. I've gotten my 6 year old niece to play wii sport (she loves the bowling game) or wii play (she likes fishing) and even my step mother (age 60+) played wii sport with us.

The people buying are not "gamers". They just enjoyed so much wii sport at a friend's house, that they are looking for one for themselves. The wii so far is pretty much a wii sport machine, but most of those people have been brought up on Mario and they will probably take the jump when galaxy is released.

I would not be surprised if the wii trailed the 2 other consoles on software/machine, as the people will really concentrate on a few games only, but this is not a real problem for nintendo, as they are making money on the console itself. 3rd party will need to understand their market to make money (look at ubisoft and rayman), but there will be potential for it.

So, the difficulty of finding a wii is not so much due to the hype than to the viral effect (about 20% coming to play with us at home want to get one afterward). Supply is only now catching up with the demand (a YEAR later!).

Oh, by the way, although MS is doing great sales with Halo3, This might be the only quarter they will get a positive cash flow again (on the xbox1, the quarters they released halo1 and halo2 were the only positive ones). This is the fact that worries me most about MS' future in the game market. So far, it is a money pit for them (about $2 billions per generation).

Re:MS vs Wii

[IamTheRealMike]

Yes, it's DRM on subscription, but solving that problem is really outside Microsofts scope. Believe me, NO software company wants to waste time writing and defending DRM software. They do it because the alternative is not being able to sell stuff, and in some cases (like video games) there is no equivalent of the open source model to fill in the gaps with alternative revenue streams.

Seriously. DRM is just a time and money sink. It's necessary because it pays for itself many times over, when done correctly (note: a cracked drm that requires exotic and annoying workarounds will still fulfil its goal). If everybody could be trusted to buy the things they use, it wouldn't be necessary, and the time spent on it would be spent on improving the product instead. But we don't live in such a world.

If we had an economic model in which anybody could copy to their hearts content, and the content creators still got paid commensurate to their products popularity - then you wouldn't need DRM. But it's pretty hard to imagine how that'd work.