How Things Haven't Changed

Black Friday was a success yet again (considering all things) but it appears certain companies fared better than others. In this time of economic turmoil it appears people would rather snatch up a single $250 purchase the entire family can enjoy (one gift for five) rather than a bunch of individual $250 gifts that only one person can enjoy. In this time of money crunching, people seem to be cutting back and buying up Nintendo Wii systems left and right. Those other more graphically superior systems (read: more expensive) are not fairing quite as well.

But then again, maybe money crunching isn't the reason for all of this. If you have been following the sales of the current generation or happened to walk into a store anytime after December of 2006 (post PS3 launch) then you would probably recognize the images below.

So my question, when does the Wii selling out (and selling millions) stop becoming news?

Nintendo's Best Week Ever

Nintendo announced today they had a very successful Thanksgiving week of sales. How sucessful you ask? The most successful in the history of the company. In the span of time between November 18-24 Nintendo broke company records, and for the company that essentially put gaming on the map, that's saying something.

During this massive week of sales Nintendo managed to sell 653,000 Nintendo DS systems. This is the highest single system sales Nintendo has ever seen in a week's time. The previous holder of this position was the Gameboy Advance which sold close to 600,000 units during the Thanksgiving week in 2005. At the time the Gameboy Advance had a price tag $50 cheaper than the DS.

Now let's not forget the Wii which also saw drastic system sales. Nintendo managed to sell an incredible 350,000 units of the Wii which I am certain was all the units available. I would have to think with the current demand for the Wii it could have hit the 500,000 mark easily had there been that many units on shelves. This also marked the highest single week sales the Nintendo Wii has seen since the initial launch week. And the word on the street is that Nintendo sold around 300,000 units of the Wii last week making the two-week sales of the Wii close to 650,000. If these numbers continue the next two weeks we could see the Wii sell a million systems in a month's time. Wow, that's all I can say.

With Nintendo making money on every system sold, unlike the competition, there is no better way to demonstrate this news but with the following image:

And if you don't know that's Miyamoto (creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, And Zelda) on the left and Iwata (President of Nintendo) on the right.

Nintendo Spreading Hardware Even Thinner

Ok, this just doesn't make sense to me. News24 announced today that Nintendo will launch the Wii in South Africa starting this October. So....... you are already struggling to meet demand everywhere else in the world why spread your resources even thinner? [/sarcasm] It has been rumored that the company has started giving Japanese systems to North America in order to help meet demand in that region. Why would the company decide to launch the system in a whole new country right before the holiday season? Does Nintendo have a surplus of systems just hiding somewhere waiting for the holidays or are they trying to keep the "sold out everywhere" idea in consumers' heads by limiting hardware allocation?
Can someone please explain this to me; is there another option that I'm missing?

Wii Sales Dropping In Japan

Welp, it appears Nintendo has started to hit its stopping point in Japan. The hardware sales for last week in Japan shows the Nintendo Wii as only selling 46,283 units. Compared to last week's sales, 73,938 units sold, the system dropped by 63%. That is a pretty drastic drop in sales if you ask me.

HDW	Sales
DSL	100,430
Wii	46,283
PSP	26,089
PS3	16,393
PS2	15,139
Xbox360	2,044
GBM	423
GBASP	163
GC	116
GBA	65
DS	30

But why would this happen you ask? What could change in one week to drop the sales so drastically? Well, I may have the answer.

Last month Nintendo posted record sales for the Nintendo Wii (it outsold the DS Lite) and it took the first place position in North America. Many were wondering how this could happen considering Nintendo's failed attempts at increasing production. The answer: massive allocation change. Nintendo, for whatever reason, was rumored to have relocated a large portion of Wiis to North America to increase sales in that area. These new sales numbers definitely help support those rumors. It is also important to note that all hardware sales were down in Japan this week for all systems. What a hoot!

Nintendo Wii Takes First Place

VG Chartz, a site that gathers unofficial sales numbers for the videogames industry, has announced that Nintendo has taken over the first place position in worldwide market share for the next generation with the Nintendo Wii. I emphasize worldwide market share because the Wii is still about 3 million or so behind the Xbox 360 in market share in North America. The key to Nintendo's success is the fact that they have sold well in all three major regions (North America, Japan, and Europe) rather than extremely well in one region, decent in the other, and totally awful in the third (Japan). According to VG Chartz, the Nintendo Wii holds just over 41% total market share while the Xbox 360 holds right at 41%. The PS3 is currently holding third place with about 17%.

There are a few things to mention with these numbers though. Microsoft's Xbox 360 just released a huge game in Bioshock (receiving rave reviews) and they have the massively selling Halo 3 coming out in September. Granted Nintendo has a decent line-up for the next few months but I could very easily see the next few months going back in favor of the Xbox 360. This holiday season looks to be more trouble for the PS3 with their biggest seller Grand Theft Auto IV being delayed until next year and their next biggest games being Heavenly Sword and Haze, both new IPs that tend not to sell quite as well. This generation seems to be a total flip of last generation. It will be interesting to see where the rest of this battle leads us.

June NPD Software and Hardware Sales

Hardware sales:

DS - 562,000 units
Wii - 381,800 units
PS2 - 270,000 units
PSP - 230,100 units
Xbox 360’s - 198,400 units
GBA - 113,000 units
PS3 - 98,500 units

Top 10 software:

1. Mario Party 8 - Wii (Nintendo) - 426,200 units
2. Wii Play - Wii (Nintendo) - 293,200 units
3. Pokemon Diamond - DS (Nintendo) - 288,400 units
4. Pokemon Pearl - DS (Nintendo) - 214,700 units
5. Forza Motorsport 2 - Xbox 360 (Microsoft) - 197,400 units
6. Guitar Hero II- PS2 (Activision) - 197,350 units
7. Guitar Hero II - Xbox 360 (Activision) - 177,600 units
8. Pokemon Battle Revolution -Wii (Nintendo) - 157,900 units
9. Resident Evil 4 - Wii (Capcom)
10. The Darkness - Xbox 360 (Take Two)

Two things to point out with these June NPD numbers. The Gameboy Advance (a dying system that Nintendo is no longer really supporting) beat out the PS3 again this month. This has actually been happening quite often recently but I am wondering if the temporary price drop with the PS3 will change that?

The other thing to make mention of is the fact that Resident Evil 4 (a remake from a 2-year old game) beat out a brand new game on the Xbox 360 in a similar genre, The Darkness. The major thing to point out here is the fact that RE4 couldn't have cost Capcom too much dough since it was already made two years ago for the GameCube and The Darkness was a game with a budget in the millions of dollars.

Hardware Sales Comparison Chart

Over at VG Charts there's a new graph representing the current sales figures of all three next-generation consoles. I've given you a screenshot of the graph below but I would recommend checking out the graph yourself right here because they have some neat ways to compare the various systems. Needless to say, it appears Nintendo is doing well for themselves while the launch of Microsoft and Sony's consoles are actually quite similar.

Nintendo Dominates Japan

Sales By System

System -- This Week (+/- Last Week) -- 2007 -- All time

1. DSL -- 255,971 (+83,612) -- 2,601,745 -- 10,051,629
2. Wii -- 102,522 (+24,609) -- 1,350,852 -- 2,270,495
3. PSP -- 33,860 (+4,401) -- 804,223 -- 5,336,352
4. PS3 -- 12,791 (+1,791) -- 404,082 -- 861,640
5. PS2 -- 12,584 (+1,186) -- 309,789 -- 20,464,648
6. 360 -- 3,162 (+855) -- 90,345 -- 355,047
7. GBM -- 630 (+181) -- 18,060 -- 577,940
8. GBASP -- 495 (-365) -- 16,046 -- 5,934,996
9. NGC ---- 167 (-101) -- 6,369 -- 4,175,837
10. NDS -- 92 (+11) -- 1,915 -- 6,584,172
From: GamesAreFun.com



This is simple domination on Nintendo’s front. All added up, Nintendo has 3,994,987 sales of hardware in 2007 alone, and it’s early May. That is compared to only 1,608,438 for all other companies combined. That gives Nintendo a total of 71% of the total market share for all gaming devices in the first half of 2007. And, judging by the previous week, these are trends that will continue through the end of the this week. I fear that with the upcoming holiday season, which will see games like Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, and Super Smash Brawl, this could be the year of Nintendo.