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Wii, PS3 Sell Big In First Week
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.
I would agree with this. This is hardly anything new or different. And really, it's becoming more and more of a foregone conclusion these days, because such a high number of PS3's went to resellers. Just because Sony sold every PS3 they shipped doesnt surprise me. Id be more interested as to how sales have been on the secondary market, and that's nearly impossible for an analyst to figure out (although they could make something up. that probably wouldnt break habit). Personally, I have some reservations about the Wii. As a relatively low-power system, which cant handle graphics much more powerful than the Gamecube itself, Im extremely curious to see where the gimmicky console will stand in two years against the larger powerhouse competitors. I mean, if in two years, the Wii is down to 100 bucks, and the PS3 is down to 300 (Im praying, since that's the maximum threshold at which I plan to purchase one), what will people be buying more of? Which will kids be wanting for Christmas? And, more importantly, what will 3rd-party developers be migrating towards? Unless some analysts can give us some really applicable predictions over the next 4 years (which to be fair, none of us would probably believe them anyway), there's no real point in them coming out and announcing the state of these new console sales as they stand right now.