Nintendo Wii Fanboy

The folks in Nintendo's PR department, gawd bless 'em, have milked yet another statistic from the Wii's early success: according to the firm, approximately 50 million games were sold during the console's first 18 months on the market -- and that's not including Wii Sports or Virtual Console releases.

This, declared Nintendo of America's Cammie Dunaway, compared favorably to the PlayStation 2, which Nintendo claims sold only 42 million units in its opening 18 months, the Xbox 360 (around 30 million), the first Xbox (28 million), and the PlayStation 3 (20 million). No mention of the Dreamcast, we notice. Got something to hide, Nintendo? Okay, well probably not.

"While we appreciate the impact the Playstation 2 had on sales and the industry, perhaps we are even more impactful," remarked Dunaway.

The Wii has comfortably outsold its rivals since it first launched, but it does lag behind in at least one other respect: the number of games sold per console. The low software tie-in ratio of the Wii is hardly a new issue, but it's one that shouldn't be ignored.

According to a new article in The New York Times, Wii owners typically purchase only 3.7 games a year, a figure that compares unfavorably with Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners (4.7 and 4.6 games per year respectively). This, argues the article, is just one of the effects of the expanded audience that Nintendo has captured -- as the New York Times piece observes, most Wii owners seem to treat their console as little more than a Wii Sports machine.

There are solutions, however, with Wii Fanboy favorite Michael Pachter suggesting third-party publishers should adopt a different approach to marketing their wares. As Pachter puts it, "Advertising on GameInformer and 1up.com just isn't reaching [the expanded] audience."

[Via Joystiq]

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.

Yesterday, a weird report surfaced over at GAF showing some sales data that seemed to support the word that Nintendo sold 13.17 million Wii consoles worldwide. We danced here at the Wii Fanboy offices, but we couldn't understand the rest of the report. It was in language so ancient and beautiful that our lowly little retinas could not decipher the information it held within.

Then, a hero emerged, silent and mysterious, to translate the script for all of us lowly mortals. What was within the report was both equal parts shocking and exciting. Well, maybe more of the latter, but you get the idea. It's good news!

The report shows that Wii Play has sold over 6.32 million worldwide, with Mario Party 8 selling over almost half as much with 2.89 million worldwide. Other notable titles include Super Paper Mario (1.74 million), Mario Strikers Charged (1.33 million) and Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (1.38 million). Of course, the top seller is Wii Sports, which has sold 11.86 million (930,000 units sold in Japan), which isn't surprising considering it comes bundled with the system here in the United States.

Update: It's almost ... not over. Silly me.

[Via GoNintendo]

Remember the days when Nintendo's hardware was at a permanent and incredibly depressing third place in the sales charts, month after month? We sure can't; all this success has gone to our heads.

The April NPD numbers, tracking hardware and software sales in North America, were released recently and Nintendo once again obliterated the competition. The Nintendo DS and the Wii took the top two spots for the fourth month running, with 471,000 and 360,000 units sold, respectively. Both of these figures more than double their nearest competitors (PSP and the Xbox 360), and the PS3 could only move a paltry 82,000 units.

It's the same story in software. Nintendo took home the top four spots across all systems with the releases of Pokemon Diamond/Pearl and Super Paper Mario, along with the still oddly popular Wii Play. The Pokemon titles, of course, were only available for a single week in April, yet still captured the top spots with a combined 1.7 million units sold.

It just makes you all tingly inside, doesn't it? For the full hardware and software figures, click after the break.

And not the cool kind, folks. The Wii has not been on the market for over half a year, and like any other shining beacon of all that is right in this world, it has been corrupted by peg-legged drunkards. Or software pirates in the Philippines, or something, whatever.

Some of you have already chimed in on your thoughts regarding game piracy, but how do you feel toward the practice in general? TV shows, movies, games, music, and outrageously expensive software have all become essentially free, thanks to various file sharing methods across the web. Do you do it? Do you look down on others who do? How can you justify such things? We'll be honest, we pirate occasionally ... usually stuff we'd be unable to obtain via normal means, like anime (Death Note!). But never games. Pinky swear.

And don't worry ... we won't give the MPAA your IP addresses.

If you don't know the name John Carmack, then it's likely you aren't one who's ever traversed the hellish landscape of both Mars and, well...Hell. You've never taken a chainsaw to an Imp's face and you've likely never obliterated a Cyberdemon with a Big F**king Gun. Well, John Carmack, who is the id Software co-owner/technical director, recently spoke at Quakecon, commenting on both Nintendo platforms.

In regards to the Wii, John apparently wasn't all that impressed with it (GASP!) and commented that he had yet to even try anything on it. Citing that id Software had really no business relationship with Nintendo, nor had they worked with them in the past, Carmack didn't seem as though he was excited for the possibilities that the Wii presents. This is especially odd, considering that the bread and butter (FPS games) for id is such an easy fit for the control scheme of the system.