I think it's great and not unexpected that the Wii is selling so well, and even just surpassed the 360 in the most consoles sold since launch with 10.6 million units sold. Even more impressive is that the Wii did it in just 8 months while the 360 has been available for 20 months.
To put it in perspective that's an average of 1.3m units a month compared to both the PS3 and 360 which have an average of only 500K a month... and based on last month's totals, while the Wii's and PS3 sales were off the average sales since launch by only about 20%, the 360 sales for July were off the average by nearly 50%, likely from the continued fallout over reliability problems and no price cut. I'm sure this will change with a possible new 360 build design and the upcoming price cuts.
As far as Wii sales go though, it really makes perfectly good sense. The fact that even the PS2 is outselling the PS3 and 360 shows there is a very high demand for a lot of people who can't afford the 360 and PS3, and to Nintendo’s credit they not only understood that, but by coming out with the Wii-mote and innovative family friendly games that offer a sort of social active party game atmosphere, they succeeded marvelously in attracting a wide audience. 👍
That said, I really don’t think it’s fair to even compare the Wii to the 360 and PS3. The Wii doesn't even play DVDs or offer any kind of high resolution graphics. Even the soon to be 7-year old PS2 has DVD playback and 1080i support so in some ways you could even say the Wii is a step back from the PS2.
If anything, the only thing that you could really clearly say is "next-gen" about the Wii is the Wii-mote. It would be foolish to even try and compare it to either the 360 or the PS3, as it is an entirely different product, other than it plays games… but so do a lot of things.
It is for this reason you often see people who own a PS3 and/or 360 also own a Wii. Yes, part of that is exclusive titles, but unlike the PS3 and 360, it offers games that are truly different… and let’s face it, cheap. With the hardware and software as inexpensive as the Wii and PS2 it’s really no surprise they are both still winning the so-called “console wars”.
But despite the Wii’s vast numbers, when it comes to popular
(I’ll avoid using good in this example) games, like Madden 08, it is selling in far greater numbers on the 360 and PS3 and even the PS2 then on the Wii.
For example, look at the first week's sales for Madden 08 on all platforms:
Code:
360 889,072
PS2 546,403
PS3 204,025
Wii 57,247
So despite selling the same amount of consoles as the 360, the 360 edition sold over 15 times more than the Wii, and despite selling 6 million more consoles than the PS3, the PS3 edition sold nearly 4 times as many. Even the PS2 version sold nearly 10 times better, but then again, there are probably ten times more PS2s out there still being used.
It just shows that not only do many Wii owners own other consoles, but that when it comes to games not designed for the Wii, most Wii customers aren't buying it. 57,247 games is only about .5% of all Wii's after all.
Again, this is yet another indicator that the Wii really is in a category all onto itself, and only certain unique games are going to likely be big sellers on the Wii compared to the better known franchise games that come out on the 360, PS3, and even the PS2.
It is for this reason I am often reluctant to even compare Wii sales to anything but possibly the PS2 and really only then just because they currently are they best selling consoles. I really have a hard time imagining the Wii ever reaching PS2 type numbers as I think there is a high level of "novelty" in the Wii that is not likely going to allow it to maintain the same sales rate as the PS2.
For instance, the PS2 for the first six years had an average monthly sales rate of about 1.5 million consoles. Last month they sold .5 million. Since launch the Wii sales average is 1.3 million, and last month they sold 1 million. So even if all of a sudden Sony stopped making the PS2 today, at it's current sales rate, it would take the Wii 11 years to match PS2 sales. Now sure they might have a big jump in sustainable sales, but even so we are talking about many years, and I just don't see the Wii lasting that long, but you never know.
One thing is for certain, all of these consoles, including the PS2 continue to enjoy lots of support from consumers, at least based on current hardware and software sales. However, one still has to wonder, while Sony and Nintendo are making serious profits from Wii, DS, PS2, and PSP sales, how much longer can Microsoft be willing to lose over $1 billion dollars each and every year since they got into the console market six years ago?
They abandoned the Xbox which possibly could have been made to be a long lasting cheap profit generating product like the PS2, and they have shown no interest in getting into the highly lucrative portable "mini-console" market. Now with current 360 sales at half their average sales rate over the last 20 months, and despite good software sales, they are still losing a lot of money every quarter. Microsoft is going to need a great number of Halo 3 type of successful games to even have a remote chance of pulling out of the red in the next five years, if ever!
On the japanese market, the Xbox never had a chance against PS3 (2007 Sales: PS3 = 560.131 / XBOX360 = 130.431, source: media create)
