One of the benefits of being a major company is that you get to find out things first -- like how much stuff you sold. When the NPD Group informed Nintendo of the most recent figures, the Big N sent a love text to our Joystiq overlords, bragging about their current sales standings in the U.S.
But we already know that the Wii sells a lot, so what's the big deal this time? According to Nintendo, NPD figures confirm that the Wii has surpassed its competitors as the North American console leader. As of today, the Wii has sold almost 10.9 million units, which was enough to give it the edge over the Xbox 360.
Of course, there's much more to being the king of consoles than selling a lot of hardware, as you need the software to match. However you feel about the Wii's game library, though, this is quite an accomplishment for the little white console that could.
It's not uncommon in the least for gaming hardware to be revised and changed. The GameCube controller made way for the Wavebird. The PS3's SIXAXIS controller paved the way for the Dualshock 3. Even the original Xbox controller was slimmed down eventually.
So, as perfect as the Wiimote is, how would you change it? Slim it down? Increase the battery life (uh, yes please)? How would you change or improve the Wiimote?
Every other week, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities.
If you're smitten with the Virtual Console, one thing we're sure you aren't in love with is having to swap games between an SD card and your Wii's internal memory, or even worse -- deleting games to be re-downloaded later. WiiWare is on its way and it's hard to imagine My Life as a King demeaning itself to share its estate with less noble games. And certainly not with it bringing microtransactions to the royal ball. And wouldn't it be dandy if some of our multiplatform ports had somewhere to store that downloadable content that everyone is raving about on other consoles?
We wantneed more storage, and some of you have gathered to plead with Nintendo to sell a Wii Hard Drive. It appears that your cries just fall on deaf ears because they seem hardly driven to provide one. In this edition of Revolutionary, we'll examine why Wii can't have a hard drive.
Even though the Wii is barely past its infancy stages, many can't help but wonder when the system's successor is coming out. As of now, those of us at Nintendo Wii Fanboy are content to put that question on the backburner and simply enjoy what we have in the present. Analysts are always hungry for this type of speculation, though, and Pacific Crest Securities has decided to throw their opinion into the ring.
So, what's their guess? According to PCS, Nintendo's next platform will be out by 2010. Evan Wilson of the firm stated, "We believe that peak industry sales will occur in 2010, given that Microsoft will likely introduce its next console that year and Nintendo will likely launch before then."
Now, we're not pretending to be analysts (okay, maybe a little bit), but we couldn't disagree more. We think the Wii will have a longer lifespan than three-and-a-half years, based on its current popularity and past systems' life cycles. Considering also that much of the Wii's success can be credited to the casual market, releasing a new console so soon wouldn't be a smart business decision. While core gamers and Nintendoholics would gobble it up, casuals would probably be more wary about dropping another few hundred dollars on a video game console in such a short amount of time.
The firm's analysis brings up another interesting question -- will Nintendo release its next console before Microsoft? While we agree that Sony will be the last to upgrade its hardware, it shouldn't be taken for granted that Nintendo will be first, especially since the company seems to be in no rush.
It's that time of the week again when we find out how the Wii and its games sold in Japan. While we really have no need to be worried about the hardware, certain unconfirmed numbers earlier this week did raise concerns about third-party software sales.
So, how did the fair Wii fare in the land of the rising sun this week? Regarding hardware sales, the Wii just barely eked out in front of the PSP to take second place with 168,000 units sold, jumping up over 50,000 units from last week. As for the software, there's some good and bad news. Check after the break to see the numbers.
According to the sales data from Chart-Track (your friendly neighborhood UK chart compiler), the Wii's total hardware sales surpassed those of the Xbox 360 in the land of Great Britain. Wait, the Xbox 360 was on the market for an entire year before the Wii, you say? It ain't no thang. Nothing can keep that little white console down.
Chart-Track declined to release the total sales numbers of each console, due to corporate policy. The charts did reveal, however, that 100,000 Wii units were sold in the UK last week. That may not be enough to meetdemand, but still shows that Nintendo is supplying a good amount of consoles to the region.
NeoGAFfer JoshuaJSlone has devoted a serious amount of time to compiling weekly hardware sales figures in Japan, as they appear in Famitsu. That sounds like a task of almost Sisyphean proportions, but it's not all thankless. This week, for instance, his legwork and terrifying table of numbers (mercifully translated into the graph above) threw up an interesting little factoid: lifetime sales of the Wii in Japan have now surpassed those of the GameCube. Which is darn impressive, considering the Wii has been in Japanese stores for just 54 weeks.
Our new favorite NeoGAFfer also took the time to compare those first 54 weeks of the Wii's life with otherconsoles. Turns out the GBA needed only 40 weeks to reach where the Wii is now, and the DS an almost identical 53.7 weeks. What could have been in a world without Wii shortages, eh? Interestingly, the Wii is even outperforming the PlayStation 2, which required approximately 66 weeks to reach the Wii's current total.
For more graph-related tomfoolery, and to see how the PS3 is faring against the Wii (clue: it's not faring well, but let's not be complacent), head past the break.
Ah, here's something else to place in the next time capsule we bury at the bottom of the Wii Fanboy garden, along with our copy of Cruis'n (we feel future generations should understand the horror). Research company Screen Digest broke out the pencil crayons and came up with the graph above, forecasting exactly how the now-gen console race will look come 2011. And while things don't look, erm, massively promising for Microsoft and the Xbox 360, Screen Digest has the PlayStation 3 almost neck and neck with the Wii by year-end 2011.
Naturally, we'd advise taking this with a rather large dose of salt, because this industry has proven time and time again to be an unpredictable beast. After all, would such a graph have been published one year before the Wii first came to market?
Over at the always entertaining UK: Resistance, resident jaded cynic Cmdr_Zorg has a few strong words to say about certain UK retailers, specifically those who refuse to play fair when it comes to the increasingly rare Wii.
The source of Zorg's chagrin? That said merchants are now using the insane popularity of the Wii and crippling shortages to flog desperate consumers bundles which are, to put it charitably, a load of old bumwash. Electronics chain Dixons is one of the culprits in this growing trend, with its cheapest Wii bundle clocking in at £350 ($725). All have sold out, presumably to people who would normally have lol'd heartily at the idea of buying Smarty Pants.
Admittedly, some of the bundles being offered by Dixons contain titles that every one of us should own, but that's not the point: let us make those decisions!
Nintendo might well be cracking the whip on the Wii production line, but pretty much everybody still seems to be feeling the pinch of shortages. UK shoppers, for example, are becoming increasingly desperate for the console, with online retailers now getting in the region of 100,000 requests a day from panicky, possibly hyperventilating Brits.
Meanwhile, Amazon's UK arm recently sold 1,000 machines in under 10 minutes, while the console on its own is typically going for around £300 ($615) on eBay. In other words, Wii fever is hitting some quite ridiculous heights on this side of the pond, and if Reggie is to be believed, things ain't going to get any better in the immediate future.
The UPC code currently associated with the "Wii Play 'n Learn" name has been revealed as the most boring of all new hardware configurations, according to Chris Kohler: the regular Wii package with a Wiimote jacket included. But something as pedestrian as that probably wouldn't get an edutaining new name, right?
1up contacted Nintendo about the UPC, and Nintendo told them in no uncertain terms that "Wii Play 'n Learn" was definitely not related to any hardware bundle, including the one it's associated to. They cited a possible mistake in the UPC filing. That means that "Wii Play 'n Learn" is something else. Our guess is that it's probably some kind of game which enables you to learn-- while playing.
The new Wii hardware bundle discovered last week looks like it's going to be something a little more significant than just the same Wii with included controller jackets, or a second controller. The UPC information has been updated with a new name for the unit: "Wii Play 'N Learn." Which certainly makes it sound like a toy for preschoolers. Or maybe it's Wii-themed playground equipment! It certainly doesn't sound like Nintendo is marketing this new bundle at the older audience they usually go for. Could this mean that Nintendo is switching gears to a more kid-friendly marketing scheme?
Ill-advised branding aside, the obvious guess for what's in the bundle would be Wii Play and maybe Big Brain Academy. Really, any bundle that includes Wii Play('s extra controller) will be very welcome during the holiday season. Of course, we have no idea what'll be in the Play 'N Learn box, or even if that will turn out to be a real product.
Every Tuesday, Mike Sylvester brings you REVOLUTIONARY, a look at the wide world of Wii possibilities.
Nintendo still hasn't confirmed any of the technical specs of the Wii hardware in detail, and we wouldn't recommend you hold your breath until they do. They don't want people making assumptions of what the system can or can't do based on arbitrary numbers and jargon. We do know that the Wii is much more than "two Gamecubes taped together." In addition to the revolutionary controllers, we get integrated Wi-Fi, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 48 MB more RAM, internal flash storage, an SD card slot, full-sized DVD disc capacity, and a new operating system and GUI that brings us software like Mii Channel, Photo Channel, Forecast Channel, and Internet Channel. Wii Shop and Virtual Console could not have been done on Gamecube, and with support for component output reintegrated, we can enjoy our old and new games in glorious 480p. That's a pretty long list of upgrades over the Gamecube, and it's in a smaller, more attractive package.
The final release of Harry Potter, one of the most widespread, wonderful literary series ever written, is coming to a close come July 21st. We'd like to take a moment and salute J. K. Rowling for reintroducing the better part of a world to the joys of reading, because hey, if no one read, we'd be out of our jobs. Pick up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as soon as you can, guys. Trust us. Harry Potter and the Japanese Hardware Sales
"Harry," said Ron, slightly out of breath, "Snape'll go nutters if we're late again. Remember what he did to Neville?"
"Yeah," replied Harry, throwing himself down a shifting staircase and sprinting through the corridors. Snape had used a particularly nasty hex on the frequently tardy Neville, turning his hands into N-Gages. Harry allowed himself a momentary shudder.
They rounded a corner and began the descent into Snape's dungeon of a classroom, Harry's least favorite place at Hogwarts. Even disregarding his immense dislike of Severus Snape, Harry had never had much of a knack for Potions; it was always his lowest grade of the term.
Suddenly, Ron stopped dead ahead of him. Harry slammed into his back, nearly toppling the two down the hard, stone stairs.
We know, you were disappointed. Last night, as you happily refreshed Wii Fanboy every nine seconds or so looking for this week's Japanese hardware sales, the vim slowly faded from your eyes as the hours ticked into oblivion. We would never willingly deprive our readers so; we were unavoidably delayed! You see ....
Thousands of years ago, before the dawn of man as we knew him ... there were the moon men, reigning over the Earth. But this was not the Earth you knew! It was covered in jelly and high-density motor oil, making the planet very slippery. The moon men blamed the corporations, and there was a war and many were killed. The battle raged for millennia until 8000 A.D., when the moon men realized they were not actually from the moon, but from rural Pennsylvania. They then built a monument to the moon but then the Quakers stole it and filled it with oatmeal, and no one knew what flavor. Californians were highly displeased and turned all the Quakers invisible, which is why you never see them anymore. And that ... is where babies come from.
One of the benefits of being a major company is that you get to find out things first -- like how much stuff you sold. When the NPD Group informed Nintendo of the most recent figures, the Big N sent a love text to our Joystiq overlords, bragging about their current sales standings in the U.S.
It's not uncommon in the least for gaming hardware to be revised and changed. The GameCube controller made way for the Wavebird. The PS3's SIXAXIS controller paved the way for the Dualshock 3. Even the original Xbox controller was slimmed down eventually.
4,321 (3.39%)
11,104 (18.93%)
