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[Robotman]

I'm going to start cross-posting my monthly analysis of these video game numbers from the Cracked blog here. Maybe we'll get some amusing discussion going and expose different parts of the site to each other.

Proactively use new paradigm's to leverage some synergies basically.

[David Wong]

Nintendo releases some European numbers.  6 million Wiis total and 20 million DS.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=32396

So add that to the 7.3 million Wiis sold in North America and the 4.9 million sold in Japan and you've got 18.2 million in those three markets.  I don't know if there's enough sold to the rest of the world to significantly change the number.

People are claiming that makes it the fastest selling console ever worldwide.  I can't verify that but it makes sense; the PS1 was very slow to take off and the PS2's first year was plagued with worse hardware shortages than the Wii saw.  Nothing else in the console world would be close because before that the market was half the size it is now.

[Housefly]

So, at this rate, in the next couple of months the Wii will have sold more than the Gamecube did in its lifetime.  By summer it'll have passed the original Xbox.  It probably would have made that number by now if Nintendo had been able to manufacture enough of them.

And yet Nintendo still assume that no-one will buy enough games on disc and download combined to fill up half a gig of memory.  It's good to know they're still goddamn mental.

[AlexH]

Does anyone know how accurate the worldwide sales counter at Nex Gen Wars is?  They claim they get their numbers from various independant sources, but as with everything on the net, its totally open to interpretation.  Based on whats being discussed, especially what David said two posts ago, I'd say its fairly accurate, if you assume that the sales of the Wii outside Europe, Japan and the U.S. come to roughly one million.

[MoonMilk]

Alex just press refresh and see what happens to the numbers. They reset to a predetermined amount.

[David Wong]

Does anyone know how accurate the worldwide sales counter at Nex Gen Wars is?  They claim they get their numbers from various independant sources, but as with everything on the net, its totally open to interpretation.  Based on whats being discussed, especially what David said two posts ago, I'd say its fairly accurate, if you assume that the sales of the Wii outside Europe, Japan and the U.S. come to roughly one million.

They just have a script that ups the numbers incrementally based on their estimates of how fast sales are going.  When real numbers come in, they just go in and adjust.  Like there was one day when Wii sales went DOWN by 700,000 on their site.  That's because a report came in and they just adjusted to the report. 

[The Fetus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq_1yWG7ieE

Well, he convinced me. PS3 is the way to go.

[Squidget]

Sony says the PS3 is out of the woods, citing its success against the 360 in the PAL markets.

There haven't been a lot of numbers on the European markets in this thread that I've seen.  Any truth to this?

[shermanmarch]

Well it's not much of an indicator, but I got a PS3 recently as opposed to an Xbox 360. The selling points for me were BluRay, reliability, and free online multiplayer. 
I few months ago I wouldn't have even considered a PS3. A few of my friend have takern the nextgen plunge on a PS3, so maybe it's a trend.

[David Wong]

Yeah Sony is running second to the Wii in both Europe and Japan.  It runs a close second in Europe apparently and of course it's getting its ass beaten in Japan. 

I mean from the 360's owner's perspective, it's too late, it's not going to fail.  The XBox was at around 13 million at this point in its life, the 360 is at around 16 or 17.  The XBox wound up with around 24 million worldwide, if you draw a line on the graph you'd guess the 360 will wind up with 35 or 40 by the time it's done, if not more.  It's going to be fine.  Publishers are making big money and there'll be plenty of games on the way, especially ones aimed at western audiences.

That 40 million may sound like a low number (the PS2 did 120) but being a complete non-player in Japan will always skew things downward.  And in fact, if I'm reading the numbers right, the PS3's worldwide number (8 or 9 million) is actually a tick above where the 360 was at this point... again thanks to Japan and Europe.

BUT there is a difference; the 360 was still completing against last-gen during its first year and fighting supply problems most of that time.  The PS3 was simply rejected by the consumers.  So I don't want to understate the trouble the PS3 is in. Its price drop didn't make it the winner this holiday season.  In fact, it wasn't even close.  It gave it a bump in Japan but is still being beaten 2-1.  All that is post price-drop.

So, no, they can put whatever smiley face they want to on it, the truth is the only thing that has helped sales is price drops and it's going to be quite a while before they can afford another one of those.  I don't care what the library looks like in 2008, if the price is too high it's too high.  Period.  There are too many other alternatives on the market.

[sadistic midget]

Within the last month at work 4 of us have gotten 360's, one has gotten a PS3.  It's a rather small cross sample, but all purchases were independant of any the rest of us.   None of us felt a complelling need for the PS3, while game selection played a large part in the decision to get a 360.

[Codeblue]

Library might not be much of an issue for Sony in 2008, that is if their big titles don't fall flat like Lair and 2007's big games. I have no question about Metal Gear as Kojima usually delivers but Killzone has a reputation for sucking and all I've heard about it are how great the graphics are. I think it's been made pretty clear that graphics are hardly a factor.

[nathan_birch]

If Sony is counting on Metal Gear to save them...well I dunno.  The 3rd one sold around 3.5 million copies.  Not bad at all...I'm sure Konami was happy, but those are not system selling/saving numbers.  By comparison Halo 3 and Mario Galaxy have sold 7 million and 5.5 million copies respectively already...both are gonna pass 10 million easy.  Metal Gear doesn't compare.  The first Killzone sold even less...only around 2 million.

[Gizzardgulpe]

According to Wikipedia, MGS4 has to sell 1 million in the first day because of production costs. Is this terribly unrealistic for a game? I don't follow game sales too often.

[nathan_birch]

According to Wikipedia, MGS4 has to sell 1 million in the first day because of production costs. Is this terribly unrealistic for a game? I don't follow game sales too often.

Wow...I'm wondering why it would have to be on day 1 specifically?  Anyways, if recent sales of the series is any indication it ain't happening.  If it couldn't do it on the PS2 when there were 100 million machines out there, it won't do it on the PS3 with 10 million.

[flying spaghetti monster]

PS3's real problem is their abysmal software sales, its AAA exclusives like Uncharted and Ratched & Clank sold less copies during holiday months than mediocre 360 titles like Saint's Row or Crackdown did during non-holiday season. Over its lifetime PS3 has only had 4 titles sell over a million copies, one of which came with the system. 360 has 29 or 30.
360 also has almost double the software attach rate, which despite the influx of new owners is still growing.
As things are 360 is currently by far more attractive platform for (western) developers and unless PS3's situation improves I doubt there will be many more exclusive titles developed for Sony

[David Wong]

So it's official, worldwide the PS3 did outsell the 360 last year:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6184291.html

Sales for the 360 were actually down 20% from what it sold in 2006, again because of the Japanese and European markets.  It's kind of the American Console and that's both what makes gamers here love it, and what handicaps it in the actual console race as a whole.

[David Wong]

Here comes the PS3, I guess.  January is a weird month though.  The 360 was in short supply (when I went shopping for one in the middle of the month, the only ones available was the gimped Arcade and a stray Halo 3 edition).  PS3's were everywhere and the lower price I'm sure made them a nice alternative.

You'll also see the DS fell, but it is STILL sold out everywhere.  I just had a lady ask me last week if I knew where to find them, like some secret place.  All the online stores, all the department stores, sold out, sold out, sold out. They're just really slow to re-stock after the holiday.

Hardware, USA, January 2008:

Nintendo Wii - 274,000

PlayStation 3 - 269,000

PlayStation 2 - 264,000

Nintendo DS - 251,000

Sony PSP - 230,000

Xbox 360 - 230,000

[shermanmarch]

This article predicts that the PS3 will outsell the Xbox360 in 2008.

[David Wong]

This article predicts that the PS3 will outsell the Xbox360 in 2008.

Well, worldwide it outsold it in 2007 too.

USA that would be a tall order.