Clearing Up Holiday Sales Rumours

Gamespot's regular 'Rumor Control' column tackles some confusion around who had the most holiday sales among the three new consoles. A CNBC broadcast prompted GamesIndustry.biz to proclaim the 360 the winner, with some 2 Million in sales. The Wii followed closely behind with 1.8 Million, and the PS3 followed that number with 750,000. The catch here is that, while it's possible a viewer could have assumed this was official NPD data, it wasn't. From the article: "The segment is an interview with Billy Pidgeon, an analyst with IT market intelligence firm IDC. In it, a graphic appears on screen showing estimated console sales in North America for November through December 25, 2006. The numbers match up with the figures being attributed to the NPD, but CNBC attributes IDC as its source on them. The confusion likely comes from a blurb of text that appears at the bottom of the screen shortly after the graphic is taken down. It notes that the 'NDP Group' (sic) pegged the Wii as selling more than twice the number of PS3s for the month of November, which is true, but also something that was announced last month." The numbers may prove to be true, but we're going to have to wait a bit longer to see who actually came out ahead last month.

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Three things to consider (from WSJ)

[WillAffleckUW]

According to a number of detailed articles I read in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required, ain't paying), it's not just the actual console sales of Wii consoles, but the actual purchase of Wii controllers, games, and memory cards, that made the Wii the blockbuster seller this Christmas season.

Unlike the PS3, where most people bought the one really good game (Resistance Fall of Man), or the existing game purchases by xBox360 owners of Gears of War, the Wii console buyers ended up buying a lot of games and extra controllers, leading to situations where controllers were usually only found in back rooms and behind counters, as they were snapped up the second they appeared. Games were in reasonable supply, but most console owners bought quite a few games - probably affected by the MSRP of $50 for Wii games, compared to $60 for 360 and PS3 games.

However, sales of the PS2 games were fairly strong, especially that rock guitar thing (forgot the name) and a number of other strong titles.