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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.

10 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Before anyone mentions NexGenWars by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Before anyone mentions nexgenwars.com, I think you should all read this forum thread about how the numbers are calculated. To anyone who has even an inkling of statistics and probablity, his methods should stand out as highly flawed. Until we have a good sales history and ample supply with which to predict the sales of these consoles, it would be best to stick to the official figures released by the respective companies and retail tracking organizations. (The latter of which is not yet available.)

    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.

    It's worth noting that 15,000 PS3 units could be as much as 10% of the North American supply. Given that we don't know the actual figures shipped, it's just as possible that 15,000 is 5% of the supply. Either way, it's a significant percentage of the PS3 consoles.
    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    1. Re:Before anyone mentions NexGenWars by js3 · · Score: 5, Funny

      NexGenWars

      --
      did you forget to take your meds?
    2. Re:Before anyone mentions NexGenWars by archen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nintendo may have hit on an important point though. Just dumping your product on the market with a huge shortage before the Christmas season may not be enough. Nintendo has managed to get major numbers out there (4million estimated before Christmas). If it truly is the hot item, then it stands to stomp the PS3 in terms of market penetration. And if the Wii starts ramping up support, it's quite possible that many who planned on getting a PS3 before, ended up forgetting about it because they're perfectly happy with the Wii - which they could at least obtain.

    3. Re:Before anyone mentions NexGenWars by Criminally+Insane+Ro · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If these videos: http://www.vgblogger.com/?p=350/are any clue, I would say that word of mouth advertising will destroy the PS3.

  2. Fuzzy math by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 5, Funny

    You really have to take the PS3 sales figure and double it, though.

    Cuz each PS3 sells twice. Once at the store, and then again on ebay...

  3. Official PS3 numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't reveal the exact number of units sold in US as that's a trade secret, but both units were sold.

  4. Re:It's a manufacturing race... by Tim+Browse · · Score: 5, Funny

    If Nintendo keeps manufacturing units and selling them, they will sell games and make money.

    This is precisely the kind of insightful business acumen that I come to slashdot for.

  5. Re:WTF ? by fuzz6y · · Score: 5, Funny
    As it reads, 454,000 SOFTWARE purchases exceeds 75% of all HARDWARE purchase(r)s. Does that mean 75% of all wii purchases, or 75% of all console purchases ? If it's the latter, does that mean non-wii owners have been buying this game (if that's at all possible) ?

    If you see two ways to interperet a statement, and one of them doesn't make any fucking sense to you, go with the other one.

    --
    If you're going to be elitist, it would help to be elite.
  6. Re:How hard is it to find a Wii at the moment by Kankraka · · Score: 5, Funny
    Last weekend I was at EB, they'd just sold out their last one. Not five minutes later there was a purolator truck outside and a guy unloading another shipment of Wii's and Wii accessories. Those too were being snapped up pretty quick, but the crowning moment of being there? Hearing this:

    Customer: Hi, I'd like Twilight Princess for PS3.

    EB Employee: Uhm... What?

    Customer: Zelda, for PS3

    EB Employee: Uhh, yeah.. that's not for PS3, that's a Nintendo Wii game.

    Customer: So...?

    EB Employee: Ma'am, you need to have a Nintendo Wii *points to the display beside the counter* to play Twilight Princess, or a Game Cube, when it's released for that.

    Customer: So I can't play Zelda on PS3?

    EB Employee: No.

    Customer: So I spent 5 hours in the cold to buy my son a PS3, so he could play the new Zelda, but now he can't?

    EB Employee: The new Zelda is for Wii, not PS3, I can show you our PS3 selection if you'd like?

    Customer: No, I want Zelda for PS3.

    and it pretty much continued like that for a couple minutes before she grasped the concept that she wasn't going to be playing zelda on her ps3. Makes me wonder how many other confused non-gamers are out there in a similar situation. :)

  7. Re:The Counter-Strike of Game Consoles by genooma · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is this a convention of people who refuse to use line breaks. I'm in.