Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Despite NoA's VP, Denise Kaigler, showing us all a graph with some lines on it, group manager of corporate PR at Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, David Dennis, wants us all to know that the information presented in Kaigler's little chart is wrong. To help set the record straight (and also point out how awesome is company is, we guess), Dennis offered up the following tidbits of info:

• Total third party sales for the Xbox 360 since launch is currently 67,929,999 units, followed by the Wii at 33,394,311 units and the PlayStation 3 at 19,976,325 units.
• Third party sales for the Xbox 360 since the launch of the Wii and PS3 is 54,065,728 units, still almost double the Wii's 33,394,311 units.
• If you take the total number of units sold and divide that by the number of titles released since November 2006, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are selling more units per title on average than the Wii. This puts the Xbox 360 at 217,252 units per title, the PS3 at 156,065 units and the Wii at 132,517 units.

We have a feeling that any company can spin sales figures the right way, in their favor, but no matter how you slice it, the Wii is still on top overall. So take that, competition!

[Thanks, jimb!]

Sony's Scott Steinberg is not impressed by Nintendo's current success. In fact, he thinks his own company shouldn't adopt a similar strategy and try to obtain some share of the mass market. When asked about the Wii, and it's controller, in a recent interview, he commented that the "notion of that controller is a non-trivial point that you've brought up, that control and that familiarity is like comfort food - from my perspective, we lead, we don't follow."

Steinberg further went on to say that "as a brand, Nintendo's got their thing, and we're not trying to get the senior citizen group to get into gaming, we're looking to convert the PS2 owners and the tens of millions of installed base that were playing DVDs and playing games on their PS2, to now play Blu-ray movies and Blu-ray games with their PS3." Wait, was that a Sony representative saying they don't want more money? We thought the whole point of being a company was to earn money, so we're not sure why Sony would turn down a certain segment of the market, one Nintendo has proven are receptive to gaming and financially lucrative.

Let's face it: each console does something pretty well. The Xbox 360 has Xbox Live, which is a pretty good online service. The PS3 has a very comfortable controller and can do some sweet media stuff. The Wii has an innovative control scheme and No More Heroes. Each console is great in their own way and this current generation's console war has been fun to watch. Now that consoles are getting older, prices are falling and we're anxious to see how the rest of this struggle for market dominance will play out. If this rumor turns out to be true, the Xbox 360 will be the cheapest console on the market, besting the Wii by $50.

Both the Xbox 360 "Arcade" bundle and the "Pro" bundle are supposedly getting their prices slashed. The "Arcade" is apparently dropping from $279 down to $199, while the "Pro" will drop from $349 down to $299. This might come as good news to the Xbox camp, but, should this happen, we wonder how this could affect the sales moving forward.

Could this drive Nintendo to cut the price of the Wii? We doubt it. With the console doing so well, we don't think Nintendo is looking to their competition to determine when they should slash their own console's price. But, if this price drop does spur a big increase in Xbox 360 sales and people start buying less Wiis, we wouldn't be surprised if Nintendo announced a price drop on our around the holidays later this year. What do you all think?

[Via GamePro]

For all of you keeping track of how many months the Wii has crushed the PS3, maybe it's time you got yourself a new notebook. That thing must be full. But, in all seriousness, Japan saw the Wii selling quite a bit more when compared to the PS3 last month.

How much more? Well, the Wii sold 171,851 units in the four weeks leading up to July 27th (so, really, it could've sold a lot more last month), while the PS3 only sold 54,823 units. And, as one might expect, both totally crushed the Xbox 360, which only sold 14,439 units.

We expect that the NPD data in the next few months will reflect something similar, as all of us in North America are still waiting on Wario Land: Shake It! and Mario Super Sluggers. Both of those, as well as Fatal Frame IV, have already released over there, but they pretty much don't count here as Wario and Fatal Frame released only yesterday. Sluggers released way back in June.

After the first month of Boom Blox's release, sales of EA's original, excellent built-for-Wii game didn't look too hot. Apparently, sales have come along quite nicely since then, according to statements made in a conference call last night.

EA CFO Eric Brown told investors that Boom Blox had sold 450,000 units since launch. Since Brown didn't specify the region in which those sales took place, it's probably worldwide. While 450,000 worldwide is not exactly a blockbuster (though Boom Blox kind of can't help but be a blockbuster), it's certainly a much happier number than the 60,000 quoted earlier. And that's the thing about this kind of "expanded audience" game that Nintendo likes so much: even if it doesn't sell a million in the first month, it'll sell steadily for a long time.

The question on our minds: which region is Boom Blox selling best in? Has Japan taken to it since its release this month?

Sure, it may be the most neglected continent in the history of video games, but those crazy Australians are going positively mental for Nintendo all the same. According to industry tracker Gfk, the Wii has just passed the 500,000 mark down under, making it the fastest-selling console in history. Well, Australia's history. Does that still count as cool?

The Wii achieved this monumental feat (remember, there's only 20 million people in Australia) in just 84 weeks since launch in December 2006. On top of the "hey, we're awesome!" announcement, a few new release dates for some hot Wii games have been revealed. Wario Land: The Shake Dimension will be hitting consoles on September 25th, and Trauma Center: Second Opinion (yes, that neglected) is coming out August 28th.

There was a momentary panic in the Wii Fanboy dungeon a few weeks ago, after news filtered through that PlayStation 3 sales had zipped past the Wii in Japan.

Was this it, we wondered, reading the figures over and over again to check that we weren't seeing things. Was this Sony finally rising to strike down the Nintendo hegemony in Japan? Well, no. Not at all, actually. Turns out some old dude had wandered on to Sony's console and sent PS3 sales spiralling. Things are now back to normal, and the data-gatherers at Enterbrain confirmed as much by revealing that the Wii outsold Sony's platform by almost 100,000 units during June -- 235,990 to 139,494 was the final score.

[Via Next-Gen]

Those purple folk at the GAME Group (a prominent games retailer) have released European sales details for the first half of 2008, and it's looking pretty good. Group sales are up 54 percent, with like-for-like sales up 28.4 percent. Like-for-like is such a dumb term. Reminds us of these things.

Anyway, despite the strong performance of the group as a whole, the constant shortage of Nintendo products has left a gap in the big fat bricks of cash they're raking in. Well, the UK and Ireland are doing okay, but international performance isn't as high -- "particularly in Spain." Those wacky Spaniards and their neverending lust for technology! Total international sales were up 43.9 percent, with like-for-like (arrgh!) sales on the low end of the scale at 16.9 percent.

GAME will be opening 60 new stores before the end of the year, so if you aren't familiar with that big, neon purple logo, you soon will be.

Hollywood, eat your heart out. It looks like gaming is lined up to be a big money enterprise come next year (as if it isn't already), according to analyst firm DFC Intelligence. David Cole, one of the firm's analysts, thinks that the driving force behind this sharp rise is none other than the Wii.

"The Wii does not appear to be a fad and it has the chance to be one of the best selling systems of all-time," said Cole. Another analyst, Jeremy Miller, is quick to point out that Nintendo is also a very successful publisher, stating "The Wii not only has unique features and a broad demographic appeal, but Nintendo is dominant as a software publisher." Despite Nintendo's winning formula that is the Wii, the firm sees the PS3 selling more than the Wii in 2012. We know of at least one entity that agrees.

[Via Joystiq]

When in doubt, ask the French. The Interactive Digital Entertainment Festival at Cannes spurred some comments from Stephan Bole, head honcho of Nintendo France. A sales announcement revealed an interesting fact about the Wii -- it has sold over 26 million units globally. That's like, a lot of Wiis. More than seven.

In comparison, the Xbox 360 has sold 20 million units, while the PS3 is lagging with 14 million. The festival brought no announcement of a Wii price drop, and it's still selling out the door for 249 Euros. Bole made a generic statement about women and the elderley being a major factor in the Wii's success (which we already knew), but 26 million is still mighty impressive.

So things haven't been so great in Korea for the Wii. Since the console's release to the region, it has moved a low number of consoles and software. Perhaps offering up new bundles and some smart marketing will help turn this around.

Over at GI.biz, they're claiming that the low sales numbers has to do with Nintendo enabling the Korean Wii to only play Korean titles. Apparently, Korean gamers want to import the big Japanese games, but they can't because of the restrictions. We could see how this is a problem.

Still, when compared to the Xbox 360 and PS3, which have sold 150,000 and 50,000 units respectively, the Wii is doing much better, selling almost as many PS3s in its first month alone.

No new Wii games debuted last week; at least, none that ended up in the top thirty. There was one teensy weensy title that was introduced into the Japanese market, though. You may have heard of it: Guitar Hero III.

To put it bluntly, sales for the game were low. In fact, it didn't even make the top fifty in Media Create's charts, and Famitsu reports that the title only sold 1,300 copies. Compared to sales in other regions (like North America and Europe, for example), where Guitar Hero III performed fiercely, you can see that tastes often differ between western and eastern gamers.

Other than that, there's not to much to report about the software charts. Battalion Wars 2 managed to hang in the top ten, while Mario Kart Wii slipped into third place. Meanwhile, Smash Bros. Brawl might be in danger of falling out of the top thirty soon.

In hardware, the gap between the Wii and the PSP lessened as sales for Nintendo's console rose, while sales for Sony's handheld fell. Still, the PSP had a lead of about 15,000 units last week, keeping the Wii locked in its second place spot:

The software numbers are located after the break, so go on and take a look.

The new kid on the Japanese Wii software block last week was Battalion Wars 2, which faired well enough in its debut to hit the top ten. Will it stay there? Our guess is no, sadly. Still, it's nice to see the game get some recognition in Japan.

Once again, the only non-Nintendo title for the Wii that made the top thirty was Deca Sports, which dropped thirteen spots from the week before. Ouch. We're not sure what made Japan fall so out of love with Deca Sports in one week, but the game seems to have lost some of its legs. Smash Bros. Brawl also took a spill, falling from tenth place to nineteenth.

The other noticeable drop was Mario Kart Wii, which only fell one spot, but an important spot -- from first to second -- and finally succumbed to the frightening power of Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G. Hardware was also a PSP victory, as the handheld beat all other systems by a convincing margin.

Now that you've seen the hardware numbers, check past the break for the software sales.

Poor old Ubisoft. Contrary to popular belief, it turns out that casual games won't pay for your entire HQ to be paved in gold. According to Ubisoft North American president Laurent Detoc, this is because any savings made on developing such titles goes towards marketing the things, which apparently costs an arm and a leg.

"The margins on these games are good when you look at development, but it takes a lot of marketing dollars," revealed Detoc to Gamasutra, instantly endearing himself to all of us hardcore gamers who can't stand a lot of the casual tat on the Wii. "It's like packaged goods. You have to think about marketing, retail space, branding." My, isn't it nice to see that the creative flame still burns bright in the industry?

Anyway, Ubisoft is especially struggling with its Wii line-up of casual fare, with Detoc admitting that much work is to be done if Ubi's games are to "sell as well as Nintendo's own Wii titles." Needless to say, our hearts bleed.

Every week, sales charts show us that Wii Fit is popular among Japanese gamers. To give you a sense of just how well it's doing, though, Enterbrain recently reported that two million copies of the fitness title have been sold in Japan. Matched with recent reports of six million Wii consoles being sold in the region, that means every one in three Japanese Wii owners bought a copy of Wii Fit.

It hasn't yet caught up to its Nintendo cousin, Wii Sports, which has almost reached the three million mark. Yet, keep in mind that 1) Wii Fit was released a year after Wii Sports and 2) Wii Fit is a lot more expensive; it costs more than a usual Wii game, while Wii Sports costs less than the standard. To throw in another interesting comparison, Media Create sales indicate that there are almost as many Wii Fit owners in Japan as PS3 owners (with the PS3 currently having a 50,000 unit edge).

While we find it unlikely that Wii Fit will hit the same one-in-three ownership ratio in Europe and North America, we have little doubt that the exercise software will do well in those regions, too. Let it be said that Nintendo definitely understands the casual market.



[Via NeoGAF]