Fallout From the November Console Wars

All three 'next generation' consoles are out, and we can finally stop using that term. The NPD numbers for last month have been released, and there's plenty of information there to discuss. Analysts have already made some observations, with brandintel specifically pointing out the Xbox 360's 'surprising' role in last month's fight. For some more well-reasoned thought, Dean Takahashi's take is the place to turn: "At this rate, Microsoft isn't going to hit its goal of 10 million units by year end ... Sony's number is consistent with its warnings, but 197,000 is worse than what many expected ... the fair fight is really going to be what happens in the year 2007, when all three console makers should be able to ship as many consoles as consumers want. To me, this looks like consumers are hit with a case of sticker shock. The mass market is paying for cheap PS2s, DS Lites, and GBAs." Despite the Wii's success last month, it should be noted that Nintendo is no longer bragging of 1 Million units in the U.S. by the end of the year. So, essentially, it looks like all three companies will fail to hit their console goals for the year.

Comments

Re:Interesting

[FroBugg]

They're still selling every single Wii they ship, often within minutes of it leaving the box, but the problem is that Nintendo isn't shipping quite as many as they had originally said they'd like to. They haven't offered any reasons for this.

Re:Interesting

[Overly Critical Guy]

I rather expected a large turnout for the Wii.

Nintendo is selling out every shipment. What Nintendo has stopped "bragging" about (i.e., projecting) is a million sales in the U.S.; they're easily going to surpass a million worldwide sales. As many other sites have pointed out, it's likely that Nintendo is pleased with U.S. sales numbers right now and would like to direct more supplies toward Europe and Japan for the rest of the year and spread things out. I suspect, though, they'll still manage to hit a million U.S. sales by December 31...just a feeling. I'm not surprised by the 360 sales given YAXS (Yet Another XBox Shooter) released, which appears to be all its good for. With Microsoft's near-zero presence in Japan and Sony's low supply numbers, Nintendo probably wants to take Japan completely with the Wii and DS.

Actually, if you include their portable systems, Nintendo is already the #1 video game company worldwide with the most market share and highest sales. The press never covers Nintendo that way, though.