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Wii, PS3 Sell Big In First Week

Posted by Zonk on from the lots-of-waggling dept.

Wowzer writes "Nintendo today announced the Wii sold through more than 600,000 units in the Americas in just its first eight days of availability. That's a rate of nearly one per second continuously since the November 19 launch!" From the article: "The company noted that, when taking into account first-party software and accessory sales, Wii sales have thus far amounted to an impressive $190 million. Nintendo also added that sales of the Wii's highly anticipated launch title, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, has already has achieved sales of more than 454,000 units in the Americas, a figure which it notes represents in excess of of 75 percent of all hardware purchasers." I couldn't find any sales figures for the PS3, just word that the company has sold all the units it shipped. Gamasutra is also reporting sales figures via Ebay for the two consoles. 15,000 PS3s were sold, while the Wii cracked 27,000 via the popular online auction site.

3 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Ebay numbers wrong! by DinZy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Those numbers are the max systems that were available on ebay not the total sold. At one point there were 26000 Wiis and approximately 50 wiis were selling each minute, while more auctions were being listed.

  2. How many of those were busted? by SilentChris · · Score: 4, Informative

    I always have to question whether or not those numbers can be trusted.

    I bought my Wii and received it early last week. Plug it in, have it find my WPA-encrypted wireless network and proceed with my first system update. You need the firmware update to do anything online. Bong -- 110213 error (Google it -- a good number of people got it). Afterwards the system refused to go online (no virtual console goodness, no more firmware updates, etc). The predominant opinion is that the Wii doesn't CRC the firmware before installing it, resulting in semi-bricked consoles.

    Called up Nintendo and, after 30 minutes on hold, I got someone. To their credit, they immediately sent another console out (received it yesterday). It was already updated to the latest firmware. Looks refurbished, but I guess I don't have a choice.

    I'm personally very interested in what percentage of those numbers are "usable" systems. 95%? 99%? Even if only 1% are busted, that's still a considerable number of machines.

  3. Re:The Counter-Strike of Game Consoles by zapp · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow... there is only one thing I can say to that:

    TL;DR

    (too long, didn't read)

    Seriously, does your keyboard have an enter key?

    --
    no comment