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To be honest, I think you're nuts. I can't imagine buying a PS3 when there are so many top-notch 360-only or 360-and-PC-only titles available right now. The only top-shelf title the PS3 currently has access to is Oblivion, everything else is essentially good but not great. Furthermore, with only 17% of the next-gen market currently, the PS3 has a lot of ground to make up. The quirky and interesting games that represent a risky investment for publishers are going to show up on the system(s) with the largest market share. I wouldn't want to buy into a platform that is unlikely to see this generation's Guitar Hero, or Katamari, or Shadow of the Colossus. I'm not talking about the sequels to those games, I'm talking about the wholly new games that no one's heard about yet, but everyone will be playing a year or two from now. In the previous generation, all of those titles appeared on the PS2 because its market share was so dominant, but that's not going to be anywhere near the case for the PS3 at this rate.

There may still be hope on the horizon, but saying that people aren't buying PS3s or PS3 games in any real volume is still a matter of fact more than it is an opinion.

Only if you misinterpret the statistics. Why are PS3 game sales lower than the others on the chart you linked? Because the PS3 has a smaller install base. Why does it have a smaller install base? WRT the 360, it's because the PS3 was released a year later. If you go back to vgchartz and look at weekly sales, you'll see that the PS3 currently is selling about 30% fewer units that the other consoles (and this is shortly after Orange Box and Halo 3 were released for the 360). So if you're still claiming that no one is buying PS3s "in any real volume", then I guess you're really saying that none of the current gen consoles are selling.

There may be games out on the system -- and I'm a huge fan of PSN, easily the most appealing feature of the system right now, with a much more interesting selection than XBLA -- but it seems fair to say that nobody's playing it. There are all of two PS3 games in the top 20 on this week's estimated games sales charts (yes, US only), and they're 16th and 20th. Last week there were also only two games in the top 20, both ports of NBA titles that did less than half what the 360 versions did. Weekly hardware sales at this point are still running behind the PS2, nevermind the other next-gen consoles. There may still be hope on the horizon, but saying that people aren't buying PS3s or PS3 games in any real volume is still a matter of fact more than it is an opinion.

Why do you not want to count Wii Sports for being a bundle, but ignore the fact that Wii Play is practically free when you take off the price of the bundled controller? (amazon lists wii play right now for 48.99 and wiimotes on their own for 39.99; that's $9 for the game)

I obviously can't speak for the millions of other buyers, buy I would never have bought Wii Play if it hadn't been bundled with a wiimote. (having said that, I like the game and it has seen more play time than several games which I paid full price for, but never the less, I wouldn't have bought it at full price)

Actually, according to Chartz, Wii Play has sold 1.6 million more copies than Halo 3 thus far.

http://www.vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=2666

If Wii Sports counts then of course it trumps both with 10.6 million. But this is a bundle so it doesn't really count.

Well, except Halo isn't that big of a series ... http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Halo&console=&publisher=&sort=Total http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Grand+Theft+Auto&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

Well, except Halo isn't that big of a series ... http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Halo&console=&publisher=&sort=Total http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=Grand+Theft+Auto&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

If their numbers are correct, this chart shows that the Wii has outsold the PS2 and SNES, a couple of the most popular consoles ever, for this point in its launch. It also shows that the PS2 had a similar slump at a slightly earlier point, which is why the Wii has just caught up with it.

Seriously. I think the slump in sales is something akin to the one that appeared in Xbox 360 sales prior to the release of Halo 3, or more accurately it's similar to the low sales experienced by the 360 this time last year, before its big Xmas uptick in sales. It's the usual doldrum between when the console hits the ground and when the games catch up. Because most 3rd party developers took a "wait and see" approach to the system, most were pretty late in starting their projects for the Wii. We're not going to see a lot of the more interesting 3rd-party Wii titles until 2008 as a result. Given that most games take one to three years to complete, and most developers and publishers didn't start their Wii projects until after a few months of sales data was available, we're just starting to see the leading edge of the 3rd party wave now, and most of the top-tier 3rd party titles won't show up until next year. That's hardly going to kill the platform, there are nearly 13 million Wii systems sold and they can't be unsold. At most it will slow down the growth of the install base, which is still the most common console among this generation, at least for now.

As for people saying that the Japanese market is "saturated" with Wii systems, hardly. The PS2 sold over 20 million units in Japan, so clearly there's more potential sales in the Japanese market than the 3.66 million units currently sold. The analysts are obsessing over weekly numbers and not looking at the bigger picture. The Wii has sold in one year what it took Microsoft two years to do with the 360. It's almost managed to sell in a single year the total number of GameCube's sold in that system's entire lifespan. Its sales rate is comparable to the PS2 in the first year of its lifespan. And as I already said, for now it's the most common current-gen console. The delay in 3rd party support, and its focus on a wider audience, will likely prevent it from achieving a PS2 level of dominance, but the platform itself is here to stay.

Seriously. I think the slump in sales is something akin to the one that appeared in Xbox 360 sales prior to the release of Halo 3, or more accurately it's similar to the low sales experienced by the 360 this time last year, before its big Xmas uptick in sales. It's the usual doldrum between when the console hits the ground and when the games catch up. Because most 3rd party developers took a "wait and see" approach to the system, most were pretty late in starting their projects for the Wii. We're not going to see a lot of the more interesting 3rd-party Wii titles until 2008 as a result. Given that most games take one to three years to complete, and most developers and publishers didn't start their Wii projects until after a few months of sales data was available, we're just starting to see the leading edge of the 3rd party wave now, and most of the top-tier 3rd party titles won't show up until next year. That's hardly going to kill the platform, there are nearly 13 million Wii systems sold and they can't be unsold. At most it will slow down the growth of the install base, which is still the most common console among this generation, at least for now.

As for people saying that the Japanese market is "saturated" with Wii systems, hardly. The PS2 sold over 20 million units in Japan, so clearly there's more potential sales in the Japanese market than the 3.66 million units currently sold. The analysts are obsessing over weekly numbers and not looking at the bigger picture. The Wii has sold in one year what it took Microsoft two years to do with the 360. It's almost managed to sell in a single year the total number of GameCube's sold in that system's entire lifespan. Its sales rate is comparable to the PS2 in the first year of its lifespan. And as I already said, for now it's the most common current-gen console. The delay in 3rd party support, and its focus on a wider audience, will likely prevent it from achieving a PS2 level of dominance, but the platform itself is here to stay.

Since the article wants to use Japan's sales numbers, let's look at Japan's sales numbers. The total HW sold by the Wii was more than any other non-portable console. The total SW sold for the Wii was more than any other non-portable console other than the PS2.

This article, like many anti-wii opinions expressed on Slashdot, is just someone who doesn't like the Wii figuring that because he doesn't like it, because his is gathering dust, that everyone's must be.

The rest of your argument would only apply if the Wii existed in a vacuum. It doesn't. It's being shut out of the software top ten, its hardware sales are only 10,000 per week ahead of the PS3 at this point...

"It would be interesting to compare how many games the 360 had 11 months into its life."

Most people don't actually find it that interesting. Most people just want to trash on whatever console they don't have. If you actually align the launches of the consoles from the data of a site like vgchartz then all you see is that the PS3 is selling on par with what the 360 did over the same time span (of course the wii is killing them both) http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=All&cons2=PS3&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&align=1. It will be interesting to see what the PS3s christmas upswing looks like compared to the 360s.

As far as games. Well you can look at metacritic and see how many games were rated in green and what year they came out. Unfortunately they don't have a handy flash graph to show it nice and pretty but if you sit down and count the titles from the first year of each launch the 360 had 19 in 2005 and the PS3 had 12 in 2006. Next year we can compare titles from the first full year of each console (the 360 had 48 in 2006, and the PS3 currently has 31 for 2007 and will most likely hit at least 40 by the end of the year, though that's very conservative, i see at least 16 games being released by the end of the year that i would be surprised and disappointed if they were below 70 on metacritic.)

So my point is if you align the launches there's not much difference in performance of the 360 and PS3, but that's not nearly as newsworthy as a zealous mob screaming about the demise of one or the other.

Look at the following chart http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=X360&reg1=All&cons2=PS3&reg2=All&cons3=Wii&reg3=All&align=1 and you can see that if you align the launches the PS3 and the Xbox360 are tracking each other, how long this will go on remains to be seen. What is significant is the massive take-up of the Wii which is not really that surprising considering the Wii is less than half the price of a PS3, whether this translates into good game sales remains to be seen. What Microsoft and Sony are trying to do is to position their consoles as a home entertainment hub with an empathise on gaming, Nintendo on the other hand have positioned the Wii as a fun game machine so it really is not in the same category as the PS3 and the Xbox360.

One of reasons why Microsoft brought out the Xbox360 early was Nvidia stopped producing graphics cards for the Xbox since Microsoft wanted them at a much cheaper price rather than bleed money (approx US5 billion) on the original Xbox, so basically they did not have to much choice but to bring out the Xbox360 early although they did not do a very good job on reliability testing and this is costing them still.

I think I would trust the following http://www.vgchartz.com/ re overall console sales. Actually the Nintendo Wii is doing exceptionally well compared to the PS3 and Xbox360, however since it is around half the price it is no wonder that this is the case.

An interesting comparison is to look at is "match the console launch" and the PS3 almost shadows the Xbox360 sales but when you look at the Wii sales they are exceptional.

The dilemma game developers are in now is if they are actually going to support Wii because if you look at Wii game hits nearly all them come from Nintendo. For good game support on the Wii it is essential that game companies make good sales although this requires good games, otherwise all you will see is one or two token games from each developer. Obviously Nintendo does have their own game producers and the Wii will be still supported but gaming companies can only do so much before you start to see games that are just a minor variation on a theme and IMHO that is what I am seeing now on all systems with hardly any interesting or innovative games.

Here's something funny/sad.

It boggles my mind to think that someone could actually think that novels set in a video game universe are great literature. I mean I remember thinking the novelization of Blaster Master that I had in third grade was great, but I was aware that it didn't embody the breadth and depth of human emotion.

Okay you obviously know nothing about PS3 sales. Lair didn't sell (it's been out two weeks, for chrissakes). Best sellers are Resistance and Motorstorm, both of which have been out a lot longer. Oh, and they did sell - in fact Resistance would have placed 7th on the Xbox 360 list, just above Madden '07 and Motorstorm would be in the top 20 for worldwide 360 sales, which for a console that has been out one year less isn't that bad.

Okay you obviously know nothing about PS3 sales. Lair didn't sell (it's been out two weeks, for chrissakes). Best sellers are Resistance and Motorstorm, both of which have been out a lot longer. Oh, and they did sell - in fact Resistance would have placed 7th on the Xbox 360 list, just above Madden '07 and Motorstorm would be in the top 20 for worldwide 360 sales, which for a console that has been out one year less isn't that bad.

http://www.vgchartz.com/ - maybe? There are others about.

I'm sorry, but games drive console sales, not brand names. The number of consoles currently in the marketplace drive the platforms that developers target. You only need to look at what the CEO of EA said to realize that. When you have the top dog of the single largest game publisher coming straight out and saying that your console was the "wrong horse," you are in some serious trouble.

The PS2 was a huge hit because they got to market early and were able to get a snowball effect going. Developers targeted the PS2 because it was the most widely-sold console, and that in turn drove additional console sales. The PS3 will not come anywhere close to experiencing that level of success. It appeared too late, it cost too much, and they've been bleeding third-party exclusive titles at a phenomenal rate as a result. They're experiencing a slight uptick in sales thanks to the (maybe temporary) price cut, but the only numbers developers and publishers are looking at are total number of consoles sold, and the weekly numbers are only a drop in the bucket compared to those totals.

Thanks to http://vgchartz.com/, we know that there are 10.5 million 360s, 10.5 willion Wiis, and only 4.3 million PS3s sold worldwide. What 3rd-party developer in their right mind is going to drop serious money on developing a AAA title if they can only sell it to 17% of the next-gen market? Without exclusive AAA third-party titles, there's pretty much no chance of a major increase in the rate of PS3 console sales. You only have to look at Nintendo's experience with the GameCube to realize that all the first-party titles in the world just aren't enough to get the job done.

As for Microsoft "flunking" in Europe, the weekly numbers may look a little rosy (or at least not dismal) for the PS3, but the 360 is still the most widely sold console in the "other" (i.e. not North America or Japan) category by a fair margin at 3.3 million, which is mostly Europe. The Wii is second with 2.8 million, and the PS3 hardly even rates with 1.3 million. The PS3 outsold the 360 by a whole 6000 units in Europe for the week ending August 19th. That's simply nowhere close to enough to erase the 2 million lead the 360 has. At a rate of 6000 more consoles sold per week, it would take the PS3 seven years to catch the 360 in Europe. For the same week though, the Wii stomped them both, selling almost twice as much as the 360 and PS3 combined.

As for Japan, MS completely botched the 360 marketing plan there, without question. You can Google for Japanese reactions to the 360's "Do Do Do" campaign, if you'd like a laugh. However, while the 360's failure to crack the Japanese market is bad news for MS, it isn't automatically good news for Sony. Japan was supposed to be Sony's stronghold, and look at the Japanese sales numbers: 3.4 million units for the Wii, and only 1.1 million for the PS3. Even in their own backyard, Sony is getting their asses handed to them.

"It should be obvious where all of those former PS2 users are going to end up over the next five years."

Yes, it is obvious to me, though apparently not to you: wherever the games are. Where are the games going to appear? This is also obvious: on whatever consoles are most common. Whether that's more frequently the 360 or the Wii depends on how things shake out this Xmas, but at this point the PS3 is simply too far behind to have much hope of making a comeback.

http://vgchartz.com/eweekly.php

The data for Europe is limited so these figures should only be taken as ballpark estimates (although they do generally are very close to what professional tracking services report in Europe).

The PS3 is only selling marginally better than the 360 in Europe and other territories. Also, it's sales have been steadily trending downward since it's launch so it's kind of misguided to expect Europe to be the savior of the PS3.

In US/NA, attach ratios are:
X360: 6.16
Wii: 4.29 (including Wii Sports + Wii Play)
PS3: 3.54

Japan its:
X360: 3.57
Wii: 2.54
PS3: 1.67

This summary has some interesting spin.

To me there are really two interesting things that happened with recent sales numbers:

First: The Wii took the over the overall marketshare lead for this generation.

Second: The PS3 almost pulled even in July in the US, but pulled ahead of the 360 into second place by almost 2x if you take worldwide sales into account.

This summary has some interesting spin.

To me there are really two interesting things that happened with recent sales numbers:

First: The Wii took the over the overall marketshare lead for this generation.

Second: The PS3 almost pulled even in July in the US, but pulled ahead of the 360 into second place by almost 2x if you take worldwide sales into account.

VGCharts is predicting that the Wii has already outsold the Xbox 360. If their numbers are on target (which they have been shown to be accurate in the past), then the market is officially settling in to a Wii > XBox 360 > PS3 console situation.

What's interesting about this situation is that it fits perfectly with the way the market normally works. On one end of the spectrum, you have a cheaper product that aims to make less money per unit, but make it up in volume. On the other end of the spectrum, you have a product that's more expensive and aims to make more money per unit even if the volume is lower.

The only thing messed up about this situation is that the high end of the spectrum isn't aiming to make money. They're losing money on each console in the grandest attempt at the razor blade model ever seen. Even on each game unit, the price of development is so high that it has to be cutting into the available royalties.

The bright side is that the cost of the PS3 components *will* go down very quickly. Cutting-edge parts always drop in price the fastest. If Sony keeps their price high enough to start making a small profit (or at least break even!) on each console, they'll have an opportunity to comfortably maintain the high end of the spectrum, and perhaps even grow that market in the future.

Thanks for clearing that up. I wasn't exactly sure of how the whole thing worked. It seems that this is just another sensationalist article written by someone who doesn't know what they are talking about. And the editors let it slip through, and be published. Never mind that they wouldn't publish real news like the fact that the Wii has recently beat the XBox 360 in sales. But such is life on Slashdot.

Wii faster selling than the DS? Are you kidding me? Check out the numbers, man. http://www.vgchartz.com/

Xbox 360 hardware sales are already strong

Xbox 360 hardware sales are already strong

Xbox 360 hardware sales are already strong

Xbox 360 hardware sales are already strong

Dreamcast sold 10m, quoth Wikipedia.

In three or so years, yes it did. The below chart doesn't include non-Japanese sales for the DC for some reason, but the point that I'm trying to make is that the PS3 hasn't yet gotten to the "decline" portion of the DC lifespan. While the DC had nowhere to go but down after its excellent launch lineup, the PS3 has nowhere to go but up after lowering its excessive price, leveraging BluRay's strength in the next-gen media wars, and building towards a reasonable game library.

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=PS3&reg1=All &cons2=DC&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&align=1

I've also put the 360 up there to show how well it aligns with the PS3, which is probably the most damning bit of evidence against all of the people who think that the PS3 is destined for failure.

The worse they do, the more resources US devs will shift to the 360, and Japanese to the Wii.

The US shift might happen, but not the Japanese one. The Wii simply isn't powerful enough to do everything that big game developers want to do. There's a reason why there are so many games from both Eastern and Western developers that are on the 360 and PS3 but not on the Wii. The games that developers want to do on the Wii--party games and substandard ports, mostly--they're already doing on the Wii, so there won't be any shifting of resources beyond what was done nearly a year ago when the Wii's sales surprised everyone.

The idea that none of the PS3's heavily anticipated titles are coming out this holiday season is incorrect, BTW, as noted elsewhere in this article's comments.

Rob

http://vgchartz.com/weekly.php

Weekly Sales:

July 23rd - 29th:

PS3 - 112,877
360 - 56,384

July 16th - 22nd:

PS3 - 89,242
360 - 54,350

July 9th - 15th:

PS3 - 91,632
360 - 57,023

July 2nd - 8th:

PS3 - 60,836
360 - 59,931

Not quite 113%, but PS3 sales near the end of July are nearly double what they were at the start of July (The price drop was on the 9th).

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=5078

Your precious PS3 has only sold 4 million consoles to consumers while the Wii has sold 10 million.

Face it, good has already triumphed over evil.

I am just curious on why you are looking at Amazon for the best game sellers. Why don't you try http://www.vgchartz.com/ the site is much more informative at least you can have a reasonable amount of confidence that the figures are fairly correct. Oh on a different note please don't use the site to compare the DS against the consoles you should compare it against the PSP which for those that are interested is 45M (DS) to 22M (PSP). Surprisingly for some this is actually very good for both hand held devices since both Nintendo and Sony are doing very well with their respective hand-held's.

It must be noted that what does well in Japan may not do well in the US and vice-versa but these markets are tiny compared to the rest of the world which actually has a much bigger market potential.

Too expensive means to many that "you can't afford it". My simple answer to that is buy something you can afford. But please take into account game prices. If you want to really save money buy a PS2, there are a huge amount of games for it and it is still supported with new games still coming out for it.

If you really want a PS3 then I suggest looking around you may pick one up reasonably cheaply, retailers do actually deal if you are not in a hurry. Since the PS3 will also smooth and upscale PS1/2 games to HDTV standards you really don't have to wait for native PS3 games to enjoy a PS3. I only have one PS3 game (Oblivion) which keeps me entertained (got to get some sleep) but I have many PS2 games that I own and can even buy that I can really enjoy as well.

I also suggest you look at http://www.vgchartz.com/ and look at console sales to date, 10.2M (Xbox360), 9.88M (Wii) and 4.1M (PS3). Looks like the PS3 is going downhill but overall sales of a console don't mean much without taking games (take a look at the top games in Japan and the US) and services into account as well. If you use the charts properly (align launches) you will see the purchase numbers of the PS3 is almost tracking the Xbox360. The Wii is actually an exception but since it is almost 2.5 times cheaper than the PS3 it is no wonder that it has sold more quickly but the question remains will most of the people who buy a Wii actually buy many games?

For those people who can't be bothered at looking at game sales (July 2007):
Japan
1 Wii "Mario Party 8" 278,426
2 PS3 "Everybodys Golf 5" 184,354
3 DS "Taiko Drum Master DS" 89,666
4 DS "Its a Wonderful World" 86,906
5 PS2 "Powerful Pro Baseball 14" 49,217

USA
1 PS2 "Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80s" 374,519
2 Xbox360 "NCAA Football 08" 106,293
3 DS "Pokemon Diamond / Pearl" 97,663
4 Wii "Wii Sports" 95,171
5 Xbox360 "NASCAR 08" 70,159

Yes people buy non-exclusives, but sadly most "normal" people wont hear about red-ring issues, so that wont really be a factor, the only real factor this xmas is which of the two is cheaper, So we will see how that price war goes down.

Though on this issue of Call of Duty, that wont really sell many consoles, just look at COD3 for 360, 1.6 million copies sold, that really wont move consoles. http://vgchartz.com/games/game.php?id=2966

Assassin's Creed and GTA are the only cross platform games that look like they could sell more than 10 million with ease at the moment.

I'm fairly certain that at this point the PS3 isn't having much effect on the Xbox 360's sales. Look, for example, at the following charts.

North American Console Sales
Japanese Console Sales

The releases of the PS3 and the Wii have neither increased nor decreased the rate of sales for the 360 in either region by any significant amount. In terms of absolute market share rather than relative percentages, the PS3s impact on the 360 appears to be non-existant.

I'm fairly certain that at this point the PS3 isn't having much effect on the Xbox 360's sales. Look, for example, at the following charts.

North American Console Sales
Japanese Console Sales

The releases of the PS3 and the Wii have neither increased nor decreased the rate of sales for the 360 in either region by any significant amount. In terms of absolute market share rather than relative percentages, the PS3s impact on the 360 appears to be non-existant.

Which is very true. However, the USA consumes more entertainment than anywhere else, though I won't go so far as to say per capita, because I'm not sure. For example, take a look at VGChartz. Japan has purchased slightly more consoles as the rest of the world, but the USA has Japan beat by 5.5 million units. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of a 93-country release, 8.3 million of which were in the USA alone. Looking at worldwide movie grosses you'll see that in nearly every case the USA accounts for nearly 1/3 to 1/2 of a movies box office success.

Because of all this you would expect the USA to have a higher adoption rate than anywhere else, and because of that, the HD format of choice will most likely be won in the USA. So pointing to what US adoption rates of a form of entertainment is a valid argument even if it doesn't represent the rest of the world.

Even Nintendo had no clue that the Wii would sell this well. They still can't keep up with demand, and they will not be able to keep up with demand until after Christmas. Nobody expected the Wii to become the social phenomenon that it is, even considering how well the DS did. I never thought it would fail as badly as people claimed, especially after the E3 where it was playable, but really, the Wii's success is unprecedented. If you compare the aligned launches of the PS2, the SNES and the Wii (some of the most successfull consoles of all time), the Wii handily beats them to a pulp.

Even those who expected the Wii to do ok or even do well could not have expected anything of this magnitude.

Honestly, I wouldn't believe anything I heard from Sony. If it were a sunny day and Sony told me the sky were blue, I'd probably still look up to be sure. For all we know, what they really meant was that they shipped 135% more PS3s into the retail channel in anticipation for increased sales.

Honestly, I wouldn't believe anything I heard from Sony. If it were a sunny day and Sony told me the sky were blue, I'd probably still look up to be sure. For all we know, what they really meant was that they shipped 135% more PS3s into the retail channel in anticipation for increased sales.

They aren't my semantics, they are NPD's semantics. Read this if you want to learn more: http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=421

Forget the whole "month" thing. The section of the year that NPD calls "June" was a 5 week tracking period for NPD. The section of the year NPD calls "May" was a 4 week tracking period for NPD. That is NPD's own method for dividing up the year into weeks.

If you sell 82,000 things in 4 weeks, but during the next 5 weeks, you sell 98,500 things, when were sales better? During the first 4 weeks? Or during the next 5 weeks?

I think I had that question on one of my 5th grade exams. If you answered that question using Sony's method, the teacher would mark it as incorrect.