People see facts and figures constantly and brush them off as, well, facts and figures. But, when people see charts and graphs they “oooh” and “aaaah” over them because the visualization is easy to understand. Now, thanks to the NPD Group and Deutsche Bank, people are seeing some pretty graphs about the console battle. These show just how well the race is going on all fronts of the war.
Although the data is fairly small the colors show it all, the Wii crossed over the Xbox 360 numbers in unit sales and hasn’t stopped since the launch. Here we are, on the third holiday season since the Wii launch, and people still cannot find them in stores. Shortage? Doubtful. Considering the massive sales numbers and the fact that they did take the 360 in numbers it seems the supply just can’t meet the over-the-top demands, but why is the demand so high for the little Nintendo bundle of joy? People just can’t get enough Wii.
The Xbox 360 has much to brag about as well, they’re not first in the race but their nearest next-generation graphic console, the PlayStation 3, isn’t even close. The chart shows them both rising in much the same way, with the same “pops” along the sales chart but in a completely different scale. Since Microsoft doesn’t want to consider Wii a competitor, they’re clearly winning the war in their eyes.
Oddly enough, one of the big pops in Xbox 360 sales where around the PS3 launch. Perhaps these consumers were waiting for both consoles to launch before making a decision? More than likely, it was holiday related and had little to do with the PS3 launch but it is fun to ponder anyway.
What about software sales? We’ve heard the Wii has little to offer in terms of games while the 360 wipes the floor with the competition.
To our surprise, the Wii is rocking the sales figures in terms of software but still doesn’t compare to the Xbox 360. Microsoft pulls out 93-million units while Nintendo takes home a modest 73-million units in software… yet again Sony doesn’t show up to the fight. Looking at November 2007, you can see the Wii jumps significantly in unit sales, no doubt related to the Super Mario Galaxy launch — once they hit that figure they never looked back and continued to climb.
Although a few of us expected Sony’s PlayStation 3 to make huge progress this year, each month they have marginal growth is causing their competitors to excel beyond anyones imagination. We’re starting to wonder how well Sony’s “10 year plan” is going to work out with their competitors taking advantage of the market now when, in 10-years, they will be sitting on their pile of cash to re-invest in the 8th generation of consoles.
(Thanks, GameDaily)
@Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed:
“I didn’t ask for this” – Deus Ex guy (sue me, i forgot the guy’s name)
“But i’ll take it… gladly” – Me
@QOTW:
I have a list…
Cthulhu Saves the world (epic fun awesome RPG)
Terraria (bought for 2.50)
Space Pirates and Zombies (2.50 as well – all hail Ganben)
I could go on, but these are the high awesomeness ones!
Have not yet listened to the podcast, but I thank you very much for the games. Made my crappy day a lot better =D.
Jordan, glad to hear about the job.
@Star Citizen hits $4.5M stretch goal
Jonah, good point on stretch goals. If I ever ever come up with a project that requires funding, and if I put it on Kickstarter, it’ll have all the requirements mentioned, no stretch goals.
@Black Ops 2 1.03 patch doesn’t fix server issues
Ah, EA’s way of pushing Origin … just kidding!
Still, gotta hand it to them the way they do their testing :P. You can test for server outages, bad network conditions, you can test that.
What can I say, COD lost me at Modern Warfare 2. It became just waay too action movie like. Now, Medal Of Honor, that’s a modern warfare game that I liked!
@Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed
Meh … i liked Mortal Kombat, but that’s pretty much it on games turned into movies.
@QOTW:
Ib. Free game, no microtransactions. It went waaay above my expectations, becoming a point of reference for “story and characters beat graphics”.
Black Ops 2 is Activision, not Electronic Arts.
@Deus Ex: Human Revolution film director tabbed: Seriously, how many video game movies have been announced and then they run into problems? Just wait until you actually have finished something, and just announce it with a trailer because I’m getting sick of this. Halo, Uncharted, God of War, Castlevania, World of Warcraft, Devil May Cry, Shadow of the Colossus, Bioshock and Gears of War are just a few of the many that will probably never see the light of day.
@Epic Mickey 2: Seeing as the sequel got pretty much the same reviews as the 1st one which I loved, I will probably end up playing this. Would be pretty excited to play it if I hadn’t like 6 new games which I would like to play.
Epic Mickey 2 is getting worse reviews, actually.
@Kickstarting the Party
As fun as Kickstarter sounds, I stay away from it. I am very conservative about how my games are made and frown upon the Rise of Communism in gaming. I still think that Kickstarter is just a passing fad and will eventually wither away.
@Patchy Black Ops
Haven’t played multiplayer. Although I own the Xbox 360 version so I should be safe. People expect Xbox games to run well on-line because we pay the Gold Tax and are entitled on it. Maybe PS3 should have had a payed subscription. It’s on-line is a mess compared to Xbox 360. It’s not just Black Ops that runs bad.
@Deus Ex
At least it wasn’t Uwe Boll…
@Taking the Mickey
Jonah’s right. Epic Mickey 2 is taking a critical beating. It doesn’t matter how many endings you have if your AI partner puts all effort ensuring that you never make it to the end.
@QOTW
GunZ Online. I played it back in 2006 before it went freemium. Back then there weren’t that many free on-line games. Especially action games that weren’t MMORPGs. That made GunZ stand out and I sunk a good few life-times into that game. Occasionally I come back there but the smell of nostalgia is not enough to keep me interested for long. Better games to play these days.