Slashdot Mirror
January Game Sales Explode, Wii Dominates
njkid1, as he does from time to time, passed us a link to a story on the GameDaily site. Today they're discussing the January NPD numbers for the games industry. In short, they're terrific. Software sales totaled $549 million for the month, up a staggering 53 percent over last year. Hardware sales were brisk as well, with the Wii selling around 436,000 units. Trailing behind were Microsoft and Sony, with 360 hitting 294,000 units sold and the PS3 selling 244,000 units. January had an extra week, which resulted in 'inflated' sales, but even after normalizing the data things were tremendous for the games industry in a month where there's normally a post-holiday slump.
Sales wise, Sony has a problem. They've sold fewer units than either of their competitors and they're selling them at a slower rate, which means that gulf will only increase. If this continues, more and more franchises that were exclusive to Sony will move to become multi platform. Assassin's Creed, GTA, and VF have already done so. The PS3 may be a great system with great games, but from a sales perspective their situation is dire.
If Nintendo keeps numbers like this up though, the PS3/360 debate becomes moot. They would be the undisputed sales leader by the middle of next year. Even the PS2 rarely broke 400,000 units during a non-holiday-season month. And who knows what they Wii sales figures would be if they could keep up with demand.
The reason this month wasn't a slump is because people are still excited about the new consoles (whether it be Wii or PS3). I bet February will be just as strong!
That doesn't mean it isn't good news for the industry though, but I just thought it was a little obvious. However, it's interesting to see that Nintendo seems to be making more units than PS3, or PS3 isn't selling all of their units they make.
Starmen.net
This in itself is good story. Keep in mind that Sony PS3's and Microsoft Xbox 360's are widely available and on stores shelves everywhere, while the Wii's are still in short supply. In spite of that, the Wii is still outselling both. If you're Microsoft, you can always claim that it's because the 360 has been out for a year, and it's total sales are (of course) much higher at this point.
But if you're Sony, that's just got to hurt.
/still wants a Wii...
I picked up Madden over Christmas, and I was quite impressed; in fact it's the first Madden that's impressed me since the 16 bit era (I always liked the NFL 2K/ESPN sports more). I wish more sports titles come out and are able to execute as well. I'm definitely interested in a dedicated tennis/golf game, and I'm a bit concerned that I haven't heard of any coming out. I hope it's not due to the lack of accuracy of the wiimote. The Wii has a ton of potential, I just hope the Wii lives up to it.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Rather than "January Game Sales Explode, Wii Dominates", I would have phrased it: "Somebody set up January Game Sales the bomb, All your base are belong to Wii."
"Wii's total software sales reached almost a million units at 977,225, while total PS3 software sales came in at 662, 847."
Sony loses money on each PS/3, in the hopes that they'll make it up with licensing fees from the games they sell.
Nintendo doesn't. AFAIK, they've yet to sell any of their consoles at a loss in an effort to gain marketshare.
So Sony is losing money to Nintendo on the front end (hardware) and the back end (software).
That's gonna hurt...
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
The PS3's Saturn-like performance in the market continues unabated. I'm sure Sony couldn't be happier!
Nintendo might be by the middle of next year, but how about 4 years from now? It's way too early to be predicting a victory for any company, or defeat for that matter.
Is this what you do now that alliwantforxmasisapsp is shut down? Seriously, I could pull better "guerilla marketing" out of my ass.
With the Wii's success, one could only hope that developers will start paying more attention to gameplay innovation rather than graphical innovation. I think the success of Nintendo's new console underscores a revolution that has been waiting to take place in the gaming industry: an emphasis on playability and fun over impressive visuals. Now, if we could just combine next-gen visuals with next-gen gameplay -- a gamers' nirvana!
Are you seriously trying to spin the fact that Sony has fewer units on the market than both the Wii and the 360 and is selling them at a slower pace as a good thing? Are you really lumping in PS2 units with PS3 units to inflate the numbers? Are you actually stating that Naughty Dog's game, the one that has only one screenshot available and no name, is "insane" and "people are going nuts over right now"? I call shill
Uh, anyone with access to actual monthly sales from sites like NPD and MediaCreate can see that the PS3 is outpacing the PS2's first three months of sales...
Maybe the PS3 will continue to do so. Maybe it won't. But so far PS3 sales > PS2 sales.
The least expensive console sold the most units? WOW!!!
Good news for the rest of us: those expensive consoles are going drop prices quick or be forgotten. Consumers win when things like this get reported.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
If the Wii continues to outsell the XBox 360 by around 150k units per month they will catch up around Christmas 2008. Considering finding a Wii is still extremely hard in some areas (took me over a week to find one online, still haven't seen one in a store) there seems to still be an enormous demand and I wouldn't be surprised to see these two consoles very close after everything plays out.
Is this that subtle british sarcasm stuff?
My only question is whether Sony pays you buy the word or by the hour. In either case - they should get their money back. Your fanboishness is so extreme it makes me like that over-priced behemoth even *less*. Whether I'm referring to the company or the console is your pick.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Something that a lot of Sony fans miss is that publishers hold the purse strings (and determine what games get made) and the only performance they care about is sales performance. Certainly, the outcome can not be determined after 3 months but (unless something changes soon) things will snowball out of controll and the PS3 will be in serious trouble.
The fact is that (if the Wii continues to sell like it has been) the Wii will be the best selling platform in the World by Christmas 2007, and probably will be the best selling platform in every region by Christmas 2008; if this happens every publisher who has worldwide interests (think every major publisher) will focus on the Wii by Christmas 2007, and every publisher will be focusing on the Wii by Christmas 2008.
Indeed, but let us now look at how much they lose... I'll base these figures as if everyone was buying in America and getting the system on which they lose the least money (I think that should be fair, although you can take it with a pinch of salt if you like...)
Sony PS3 sales; 662, 847
Loss per PS3; $241 ( source http://ps3.ign.com/articles/746/746482p1.html )
662,847 * 241 = $159,746,127 loss.
Now thats a real kick in the crotch, not to mention that they spent millions more on R&D and Blu-ray DRM (which has already been cracked)...
... releasing the PS/3 in Europe affect console sales numbers for the US? The numbers being bandied about from the fine article are NPD's estimates of the US market alone.
February's numbers should be interesting.
From Kotaku:
s -wii-continue-to-print-yen-237481.php
http://kotaku.com/gaming/nintendo/hardware-wars-d
Here are the current hardware sales in the land of the rising sun for the week of February 4th to the 11th.
* Nintendo DS Lite - 201,177
* Wii - 78,550
* PSP - 32,175
* PLAYSTATION 3 - 23,431
* PlayStation 2 - 16,033
* Xbox 360 - 4,811
* Game Boy Advance SP - 980
* Game Boy micro - 884
I rather like the comment which noted the following:
Wii Sales > PSP sales + PS3 sales + PS2 sales + 360 sales + GBA sales + Micro sales
DS Sales > Wii Sales + PSP sales + PS3 sales + PS2 sales + 360 sales + GBA sales + Micro sales
So I want to make sure I have this right?
/Pre-emptive fanboy defense:w p3ht8.jpg
Wii is outselling PS3 almost 4:1
For every 1 PS3 there are almost 10 Xbox 360's
Sony = awesome?
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/2946/egsonikku
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Tell me about it. As if Sony's misdeeds aren't enough, the loud, obnoxious Sony fanboys tend to drive me away from the console more than anything else.
On one hand, I hope that he is a paid shill, because its sad to think that someone is so emotionally invested in a toy. On the other hand, I also hope he isn't, because lets face it, he's pretty incompetent at the whole astroturf thing.
Are you basing the 4:1 ratio on some total number? Because based on the NDP numbers its a bit less than 2:1. Of course, doing an assessment based on total sales isn't exactly fair at this point, since PS3 has yet to launch in Europe.
It's a bit too early to call the game altogether. We're talking millions and tens of millions in an industry where the biggest player last round sold over 100 million consoles. We'll start seeing real indications when more exclusive games start comming around.
This year will be eventually spun into a bad year for games, because they didn't make x^y billion more, and it will be because of piracy! Damn you no good consumers!
Not in Japan nor in North America (the PS2 sold 1,299,000 units by the third month in North America)
Last gen there were 110 million PS2s sold, 22 million GameCubes sold, and 23 million Xbox'es sold. Although the PS2 number looks like it could end up near 115-120 million by the time the system stops being manufactured in a few years.
That is a ~160 million installed base market for console systems.
Right now the Wii has a ~800k lead in Japan. And a ~700k lead in the US. And the record setting pre-orders in Europe for the PS3 which hasn't even launched yet. The Xbox 360 is selling at a worse pace compared to a similar point with the Xbox so it really isn't relevant to the next gen battle.
Waggle, PS2 ports, and the same GameCube franchises and you are bragging about Nintendo's outlook for this console cycle? Things are going to get brutal for Nintendo fans come middle of 2007.
Enjoy your couple months of novelty sales for the Wii. Looking at the 2007 release list for Nintendo, it's going to be a long painful year as they novelty wears thin.
Good luck fanboy!
you obviously did not look at my fanyboy defense.
I own all 3.
Nice try tho.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
Was going with nexgenwars.com
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
It is far more important how dramatic the drop in xBox360 and PS3 sales was.
... at least I am starting to see one or two Wii consoles at various stores in Seattle, but they tend to disappear quickly. Can't even get the LAN adapter or Wii Play if I drive to the store when they say they have them - gone by the time I get there.
...
In other words, those stacks of boxes you see in gameshops are not an illusion, but just the tip of the stockroom iceberg.
Now if I could only find a Wii LAN adapter and WiiPlay
Guess people really don't care that much about Talladega Nights
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Hardware sales were brisk as well, with the Wii selling around 436,000 units. Trailing behind were Microsoft and Sony, with 360.
WOOHOO!! More proof the Wii kicks ass!
I don't want Karma, I just want to be a smart ass. All in favor, mod me up.
Sold isn't the same thing as installed base. While I still have my original Playstation 2, I know a lot of people that are on their second or third Playstation 2. I have no idea what the failure rate for Gamecubes or XBoxes are, though. I only knew one other person with a 'cube and two other people with XBoxes.
Source for "record setting preorders" in Europe? What is this based on?
So Sony is losing money to Nintendo on the front end (hardware) and the back end (software).
Not only that, but Apple is attacking them on the DRM Music front and that is showing up in their metrics for music sales.
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> There has to be a bunch of gloating Sony execs at their headquarters right now.
For now.
You don't know any PS3 game devs, do you. I don't know any that are praising the system. Gee, wouldn't want it _easier_ for the devs now, would we!
Sony has really alienated its PS2 game devs -- that the guys you want to IMPRESS, not dissuade from the hardware. As much as I love developing for the PS2, one really has to wonder what the crack the Sony Engineers were smoking.
Obviousley Sony was doomed to fail from the start. they had their short lived fame with PS1 and PS2. Blu-ray will fail just as betamax in the 80's, the adult film industry chose to go against beta, and have done the same with BD, which all elads to the death of PS3, on top of that not everyone has hdtv's just lying around, so less of a reason for the PS3. MS is doing remarkably well considering their unit has been out for a year, only so many people can purchase a 360, i would have expected sony to do better then a year old unit, but surprise they have not. woe is sony
This is not troubling for Sony - let's check Xbox 360 last year at this time. Gamasutra reports that last January 2006 Xbox 360 sold approximately 250,000 units, about the same as PS3 this year. That's without a competitor with an excellent games library or a competitor which is the newest fad and phenomenon that outsold you 2:1. In fact, this January the Xbox only sold 40,000 more than last January. And that's without the supply issue that last year's sales displayed. So basically, the 360 isn't exactly red hot either. If the 360 was so amazing, it'd be killing the PS3. As it is, it's barely holding on.
Actually, it's more that great graphics and an affordable system are mutually exclusive. I don't have $500 or $600 to spend on a game system. Even if I get a 360 (I like it, but it's still a little too expensive) it doesn't look all that impressive on a standard TV (I've heard some games don't even size the text to be legible on SD) and I just do not have the money for an HDTV. However, the Wii is perfect for my old TV. That's why I'm a Nintendo fan. I still play my ps2, though.
I agree. I have a decent sized digital TV - but it is not more than 40 inch - and it is not 1080p - on a standard TV, when you sit on my couch, it just isn't different enough to force me to pay more than twice as much and $10 extra per game for "quality" that I can't use.
I will re-evaluate my gaming console in 2009, when I buy a new HDTV for $300 (1080p, top of the line) - and see what consoles work well and have fun games on them.
In the meantime, Guitar Hero is coming out on the Wii before summer!
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"Source for "record setting preorders" in Europe? What is this based on?"
Uh, the retailers themselves. Try reading the news instead of fanboy cesspool sites like Zonk stories here on Slashdot.
And give the PS2 sales numbers damage control a rest. It just makes you look pathetic.
Look Richard, saying "the retailers" isn't a source, just passing the buck.
And its not damage control to point out that sales != installed base. This applies for GameCube, Xbox, Wii, PS2... any console. It just isn't true.
If anything is pathetic, its going around insulting people on Slashdot, and calling people fanboys when you are an incredibly huge fanboy yourself.
Remember that Pre-orders for the Wii and XBox 360 were very limited in Europe ... if Sony promised to deliver every pre-ordered system they could (easily) have more pre-orders and still sell less units at launch.
I'm not saying this is what is happening, it is just a possibility.
I really would recommend you shut the fuck up about Blu Ray having won the format war, Mr. Sony Fanboy. Not because things are looking terribly good for Toshiba right now (although they're a hell of a lot better than for Pioneer and Panasonic, whose machines are ignored for the far cheaper PS3). Because the sales ratios used to justify that statement are pretty much identical to the ones the Wii is beating your beloved PS3 by. Being hoist on your own petard can be pretty painful, I hear.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
In that case, where are you!!?
(I'm not kidding. I'm not asking for your home address, just tell me enough info so that I can find and call the store where you saw this. I'd like to check out this wonderful place that has managed to keep Wiis in stock for more than a few hours, something no store I've checked in Atlanta has done in months.)
I don't think anyone can predict exactly which console will be the most dominant (short of the DS and it's successor wink wink nudge nudge) in a year and a half's time from now. These figures showing the wii so far out in front have to get under Sony's collar, and were probably part of their 'worst case scenario' or something like that amounting to miscalculating their launch and the power of Nintendo to surge ahead in the initial leg of this race. It's all going to come down to titles, in the long run, if Sony can get them developed over the wii and 360, they can be the winner and depending a bit on the blu ray debacle with them being the most powerful system of the three if they can get the titles and the inevitable price drop, people will buy it. It's all too early to tell though. Initially with the wii's low point cost and appeal with their controller, and support of their DS in sales to support the wii win or lose - they're the winner right now. Remember the PS usurped control over the 64 a one time and became the heir apparent, now thing are starting to come full circle except it remains to be seen whether the big N can keep the dominance with a lack of exclusive titles. Nintendo are going to need a lot more quality exclusive titles than they did with the Gamecube to stay on top IMO. That's been their problem since the 64, a lack of titles really. Essentially right now, there's (3)800 pound gorillas in this ring and anything is possible right here and now looking a year off down the road.
Gaming for over 25 years
Nintendo
Wii - 436K
DS - 239K
GBA - 179K
GC - 34K
total: 888K consoles.
Oops, I forgot ridiculous rounding... OMGz! Nintendo sold about 1 Million consoles!
Sony
PS3 - 244K
PS2 - 299K
PSP - 211K
total: 754K consoles. Did I even need to mention the GameCube?
And, use some common sense and these numbers look insane:
Sony is losing money for every PS3 sold based on manufacturing costs alone, never mind all those units sitting on store shelves. Sony won't even see respite from the bleeding until the 65nm process-shink slated for late this year.
Nintendo makes a profit on every console they sell.
---k--
</stupid>
You can get identical functionality with certain Non-Nintendo LAN adapters. As the thread describes, it appears that you simply need one with matching vid/pid numers, and there appear to be several matching brands.
(I have used one of these with my Wii, and it works flawlessly, but at less expense and with fewer supply shortages.)
Even when Nintendo doesn't do well in console numbers (Gamecube) or market share (N64), Nintendo is normally the largest publisher of games period. Even with bad console numbers, Nintendo makes money, because normally their is $32/game that goes to the publisher/developer, and Nintendo normally keeps all of it. Sony often makes $8/game because they often get the royalty for the system, but not the publisher/developer cut. Sony may have an excellent piece of hardware, but the Wii can keep dropping in price to move product, and Nintendo can follow-up with a Wii2 to keep up.
Sony messed up, they hit too high a price point, and suffered supply problems. They'll need top drop price to move units, and that will increase their burn/unit. Even if Sony recovers and dominates the console market again (which I think is very possible, they have some nice hardware, nice systems in development, and the PS2 compatibility would mean companies could release a game for the PS2 AND PS3, even if the PS3 version is just emulated with extras to show up on the PS3 shelf. I am not counting Sony out, and the hardware is impressive, BUT they did NOT put a reasonable amount of hardware together for a 2006 release. If they were aiming for a 2007 launch, with a $400 price tag, great, but for $2006, they hit too high a price.
They are going to lose a LOT of money on this round, because they simply CANNOT die... Sony, unlike Nintendo, doesn't own their franchises, which means that if Sony stops holding 70% of the market, the franchises can go elsewhere. So I think that Sony will recover and dominate the market, but it will do so with HUGE price cuts, massive losses, and basically wiping out all profits from the gaming division for years.
On the plus side, I think that they'll establish BR-DVD as a popular standard.
It should be noted that while Wii is smacking around the PS3/360, it may not actually be competing for the same customers. Wii's target a "casual" gamer. Who enojoyed playing it at an earlier adopters hosue wante done for themselves. PS3/360 target the existing market. Generally gamers will get 2. I have a Ps2/GC, the last gen I had a PS1/N64. We might see the core gamer market go Ps3/Wii or 360/wii.
Casual gamers are likely to have a lower attach rate for games because it takes them longer to go through them. Mario Galaxy might only last a gamer a weekend but a casual three months. So we may see a 3:1:1 install base and still have PS3/360 get more exclusives because they can still sell more games. Hard to say. I myself spend between $100-$225 (a new games costs $69.99 CND for the ps2 on avg) CND a mo for games. I'm not sure what a casual gamer will spend.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"It's fun to play when I have company"
So it's great selling feature is that people who don't normally play games like it. I think that was their goal, so congrats to them on that.
It leaves me unimpressed, though.
"January had an extra week"
Next time there's an extra week in January, please let me know in advance.
I noticed 1 sony fanboy this thread, a half dozen of obvious 360 fanboys and a few dozen Wii fanboys. Although the Wii fanboys are hard to tell from people who know the situation well. The Wii has been a smashing success of marketting and good timing. I think the 360 fanboys are more numerous on slashdot but there has been a mass conversion recently.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Why are so many people so shortsighted? HDTV is the future.
HD may be the future, but the issue is it isn't the present. Currently I own an HDTV, and an HD DVD player. I enjoy them immensely, but I am (by having them) in the minority. About 17% of households in the US have 1 or more HDTVs. That means 83% don't, and our adoption rates have been better than either Japan and Europe. Now HD is a niche (albeit growing) market. It will take several more years for it to hit mainstream adoption. DVD only surpassed VHS sales after the players hit the $50 and under price point.
In 5-10 years it may be mainstream, but Nintendo has banked that it won't hit 'critical mass' within the 4-6 year life expectancy of the Wii. I'll bet that the next Nintendo will push HD, but in the interest to cater to the largest possible market they have chosen SD.
And now that Sega has a brand new system coming out, Sony has nothing to fear...oh wait.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
I would Buy a Wii and not a 360 or a PS3 the reason being, even if I sink 250 in it and it isn't 'out of this world', I still have a system which cost me half the competition and I can have tons of fun with my friends on the team games, personally I am waiting for the multi-player FPS games to come out in order to see if they can pull their own weight, if so I am buying.
The Wii is not mainly targeting the same market as the 360, and PS3. Instead of a traditional "gamer" they are targeting a wider group of people who simply want entertainment with less commitment. Less commitment in terms of money, time spent learning how to play games and less time spent playing the games. The 360 and PS3 are competing directly for the traditional gamer. How this will affect sales. The group that wants smaller commitment entertainment is huge, this includes groups that would never attempt to play 360 or PS3. It included parents, female college students, and people who don't have a lot of free time to devote to play 40hr titles. the difficulty in determining total Wii sales is figuring out how large this untapped market really is. Looking at current demand though it seems that it is at least as large as traditional gamers. The 360 and PS3 then have to complete for the traditional gamer. Since both are widely available and have comparable sale numbers so I'd say they are in a tight race. On one hand MS has an the advantage of an installed base of about 10 million, on the other hand PS3 is selling similar numbers as the 360 at a 50% price premium. In short the battle between these two consoles will mostly boil down to software. That being the case developers will most likely lean towards developing for the 360 if they had to choose and in most cases will end up developing for both making the 360 the winner of the two. I think a clear trend will be a slow but accelerating gap between the 360 and PS3 Another thing to note however is that traditional gamers consume more games than non traditional gamers. This is seen by the higher attachment rates for the 360. I'm assuming software developers will note actual titles sold more than number of consoles sold and develop accordingly. Also I believe PS2 sales reflect a combination of bargain traditional gamers, plus a few curious non traditional gamers, and mostly those who are looking to replace their old broken ps2. Otherwise ps2 games should be dominating the top games sold charts.
Let's talk when you've actually shipped a PS2 or PS3 title.
I own a PS3, an xBox360 & a Wii. I also play them on a 720p TV. Here is my perspective...
I bought the PS3 first (11th Nov 2006) & was pretty impressed from day one. Of the few games I owned back then, I felt that gameplay & atmosphere was superior to that on the xBox360 (that I had played at friends houses)
When I talk about "gameplay & atmosphere" I mean this - the way that a game can draw you in, inspire you to play, leave you wanting more, a compelling story with rewarding/challenging gameplay.
I consider Resistance to have a moderate amount of this, CoD3 lots, Halo very little.
Some months later I bought an xBox360. I was disappointed at range of games available on the PS3 & their slow appearance. I expect this to pick up in the next few months, but at the moment only MGS has me drooling.
I was pleasantly surprised with the xBox360. I picked up a few decent games right away & at the moment I play the xBox360 much more that the other two consoles. Deadrising is fiendishly difficult, but very addictive & compelling. It even inspired me to watch "Dawn of the Dead" on a saturday morning before diving into some zombie chopping action.
xBox live is a great feature, despite my previous opinion that it wasnt something I would use - the demos etc are a real bonus.
My 2 small gripes about the xBox360 are the subscription fee for online play & the noise of the xbox fans. It is very noisy compared to the silent PS3.
Otherwise, I put the xBox360 above the PS3. More games & more fun. But I wouldnt rule out the PS3 yet, I think there will still be some nice things to come.
The Wii was a bit of a novelty buy. I didnt expect it to form a big part of my gaming life - & I was right. The innovative control system is indeed inspired & great fun, but the games are just time fillers. Wii sports is, erm, well not much more than a demo. I can see it being nice for children aged 3-8, but beyond that it's not really for serious games.
I have this great Marble game though, you are a marble & you roll around on various floating mazes to reach the goal. This game really does get addictive & I often play it for 10 mins or so to warm up before getting into some real hi-def arcade action on the xBox360 or PS3.
The Wii is selling well. It's cheap. I put this down to: people don't look beyond the price for their purchase / or / they are crap at games
* Game Over * High Score: 264,846,927 -- Your Score: 14
I'd actually make a distinction here. There are fans and fanboys.
A fan has an obvious bias, but this isn't something that distorts reality in any truly appreciable way. There may be facts they are unaware of, but they aren't actively in denial of circumstances or conciously spinning arguments to their benefit. They simply like one console more than others, and bring that to the table.
A fanboy goes beyond bias. They actively select facts and creat distortions to support their system. They are unable to properly make viable arguments for their console or against others without resorting to insults, hearsay, and utter stupidity. They almost always post AC.
There are 360/Wii Fanboys, but they don't show up here too often. It isn't necessary because the majority of people here are at worst neutral about the 360 or the Wii. Most things posted about either of those two consoles is positive, and anything negative is an object of discussion.
There are, sadly, a lot of Sony Fanboys. There seems to be a crack team of FUDers running amuck in any article relevant to the console wars. They are ridiculed, and only make the situation worse for Sony.
Quite simply, the only solution to the problem is not to criticize the fanboys, but for people with dissenting view and opinions to screw karma and post (intelligently) with their name. You are a target for the Wii/360 fanboys who lurk more than post, but you are also depriving us of valid insight and opinion if you don't.
So post your dissenting views. At least one person here will appreciate it.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
And here's the fact you don't see in the press--combined with the sales of the DS and GBA, that makes Nintendo the #1 console manufacturer in the world.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Are you basing the 4:1 ratio on some total number? Because based on the NDP numbers its a bit less than 2:1. Of course, doing an assessment based on total sales isn't exactly fair at this point, since PS3 has yet to launch in Europe.
Probably not fair, but if Nintendo had twice as many Wiis in stores by Christmas the PS3 would be toast. The only thing keeping a glimmer of hope for Sony in Europe is that the Wiis are selling out like crazy, and many potential PS3 buyers are still waiting because the Wii hasn't been around *either*. Also note that in large parts of Europe, the PS3 missed out on three dark months where you often stay inside and play. Come March it's spring time with brighter and warmer days, and a much harder sell. That, and we seem to be the least interested in HDTV after both the US and Japan. All in all, I don't think the European launch will redeem Sony one bit, if anything it'll add insult to misery.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"January Game Sales Explode, Wii Dominates"
Somebody's been playing Quake
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
Is a new PS3 console.
Remove the hard drive and bluray drive. Replace blu-ray with a Sony DVD drive and make the HDD optional add on if possible.
If Sony removed those two components with lower cost solutions, they could knock off $100-$200. They could easily sell a PS3 at $299-$399 instead. That is a much better price point. PS3 could compete with both 360 and Wii better.
\
As an interesting corollary to your fan/fanboy dichotomy, it may just be that extreme circumstances turn fans into fanboys. The worse Sony seems to be fairing (in the public eye if not in the pocket book - although possibly both) the more shrill the fans seem to get. It's like they have to raise their voices to cover the sound of Sony marketing blunders.
So it's quite possible that xbox360 / wii fans would act similarly obnoxiously if their respective consoles were doing as poorly. But the 360 seems a decent enough machine (I own one that was a gift and I'm not thrilled, but it's not bad either) and the Wii is doing fantastically. So the fans don't need to make extra noise
Just a thought.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
One thing I have noticed in the games market is that if you can see a killer game in the making and want to make it exclusive to your platforms you do what M$ did and buy the company.
Example:
Bungie Software - Halo/Oni. Bungie software planend to launch Halo and Oni for Mac OS first and demoed the games at MacWorld. A couple months from the stated release date Microsoft came along and bought the company so they could make these games an Xbox exclusive (Well not entirely exclusive as they eventually were released on Mac OS and Windows, but a console exclusive). As we know these were huge hits for the xbox.
If sony have big enough purse strings they could always try to aquire Square to ensure the FF series stay a Sony Exclusive...
That is just my thoughts anyhow. I own a Wii so I hope they don't. I would like FF on my Wii. I might just have to go buy a PS2 to play the latest FF.
Newegg to the rescue: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16878190063
Also, my local Walmart has the Wii Play/Remote combo as well, but it is cheaper at newegg.com
Am I the only one who remembers yesterday's "The Wii Is Over?" article?
Which is it, editors? Get your stories straight.
So, for Guitar Hero on the Wii, is Nintendo releasing a whole new console for it? Because, you know, add-on peripherals never sell well unless they're included with the system... Or so the Nintendo fanboys tell me when I ask why they didn't just release the wiimote for the gamecube instead of releasing a whole new system which is almost identical.
I don't think it's fair to say that Wii is 'dominating'. They are playing for a different core audience (while there is crossover between 'casual' and 'hardcore' gamers, they are not the same market). In terms of sales they've got a leg up for January of about 40% over MS and 45% over Sony, but it's worth keeping in mind that the Wii retails for close to 40% less than 360 and 60% less than PS3. Anyone can flog a product that's less than half the price of the competition. Additionally there's a massive amount of media hype surrounding it, which won't be sustained. There is continued demand because they were unable to manufacture enough over Christmas - people who missed out on one to put under the tree are likely still trying to grab one. Finally, Nintendo systems have always sold well out of the blocks. Wake me up in six months and we'll see if they've kept their momentum. They're going to need some substantial third-party support too, something which they've really shown no signs of having at all. The hardware sales aren't nearly as important as the software sales, and on that front Wii only had one of the top 5, and it wasn't close to the top-seller for the month (Lost Planet).
Personally, I'm skeptical as to whether Nintendo can keep the same momentum going given the lack of software in the pipeline. And additionally, as a gamer I hope that everyone is dead wrong about them dominating the market. I'm not a casual gamer, and while a few fun gimmicky toy games like Wii sports are great, I would die if everything was like that. For me, the games Nintendo seem to be pushing are like candy - they taste great, but they burn away pretty quickly and in the end you can't sustain yourself on them.
Now that there are 2 consoles out there with HD as their focus, the state-of-the-art in terms of graphics is HD resolutions.... its pretty hard to imagine them passing up two systems with superior graphical power for the Wii.
The thing is, that High Density resolution comes with a pretty steep price in terms of graphics processing. Ignoring the interlaced vs de-interlaced things (all games render de-interlaced under the hood anyway to prevent hideous tearing problems), you're ultimately pushing at least 4x the pixels. With that much more to draw, your available CPU and GPU times are going to drop, let's say by roughly 4x (oversimplification, yadda yadda)
So if you have a pair of "High-Def" systems that are 8 times the power of the previous generation, and a low-def system that's 2 times the power of the previous generation... if you spend 4x that power pushing more pixels you're actually back to about the same overall level.
So really what you've bought with all that extra power is a higher resolution look at the otherwise same image. On standard-def TV's, this translates to really, really good anti-aliasing.
This is why the look of Zelda holds up. The other systems may be a lot more powerful than the Wii, but their committment to High Definition comes at a steep price.
The ______ Agenda
Nintendo sells them direct from Nintendo.com. They work fine.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
FTA: The launch of Sony's PlayStation 3 next month will be accompanied by a host of freebies that Sony hopes will take the sting out of the game console's $999 price tag. The James Bond film Casino Royale will be offered free to the first 20,000 buyers who register their PS3 online. Additionally the game Gran Turismo: HD will be available to all PS3 buyers as a free download from the PlayStation Network.
Article: http://www.smh.com.au/news/games/sony-unveils-play station-sweetners/2007/02/22/1171733923601.html
Just don't be shocked when the major motion picture released on July 4th makes more than the movie released on your college campus and 3 screens in Albuquerque.
Welcome our new motion sensing, robot arm controlling overlords
Wii has issues in my opinion. The wii is novelty and if doesn't get some decent games soon it is screwed. I already prefer my Demo of Gran Turismo HD (PS3) to anything I have played on my Wii. Initially I was sucked in by the novel game play but somewhere around the 60th hour of Zelda I was done with it. I only enjoy playing with the weather globe at this point. The key issue with the Wii is that most of the people that come over and play with it want to play Super Mario Brothers. That is not exactly the group of people that buy $60 games by the cart load.
So my feeling is that PS3, and 360 may lose the early rounds this year, but based upon the kind of games on the gamecube, the wii games so far, and my boredom with controller, Nintendo should be moderately successful but never enjoy numeric dominance of the market. PS3 has the best platform, and once it gets some more games under its belt will begin to dominate the game market for yet another generation. 360 will come in second, once again hampered by the kind of dumb design decisions Microsoft makes, and Nintendo will be the console that kids and parents like but never buy enough games to matter. But Nintendo likes its niche, so I can't say that it is a bad thing for them.
70% Overrated
30% Funny
100% Astroturf
~= scwizard =~
Very well put. I'm a Sony fan (to the point that owning only 1 ps2 may not be enough for my fighting game parties). My psp also gets a lot of play. That being said. I had to work w/ a hardcore sony fanboy for a while and I wanted to strangle him every time he spoke. I own a 360 (contest win, the only game that I've bothered to pick up is Crackdown, which I love), and a DS, and a Cube. Love the cube, but only for a few games, and the Wii doesn't appeal to me. I'll be buying it just for Smash Brothers. Less accurate input in order to add realism not really up my alley. Great for them for bring all sorts of other people to the world of gaming, but I'm really not sure how much it's going to affect the other consoles. It's becoming more apparent that the Wii is appealing primarily to the casual crowd, w/ hardcore gamers picking one up in addition to their 360 or PS3. Now, isn't the 360 is selling more slowly than the first Xbox did, And the 360 also took a year to really hit its stride. Worse still, more and more they're having breaking. I see more sell to as replacements than first time consoles. As if that wasn't bad enough, they're already talking about a redesign?! They'd better get that out the door before Halo drops in november, or when Halo boosts the install base, everyone who just bought one aren't going to be looking to shell out even more money, and may be angry as a result. Who knows though, they could be too busy playing Halo to even notice. /ramble
There was an article on here just a few months ago from a dev trashing the other devs for complaining. He said that the dev kit was better than the first ps2 one, which didn't even come w/ a compiler. Can't remember much else. More importantly, the ps2 sure wasn't easy to code for. Furthermore, just talked w/ the Sony rep at work today (he's really a cool guy, a fan, not a fanboy even though he's paid by sony. Ended up talking to him about crackdown, and he's no problem talking about how great XB Live is). Sony is really looking to get dev kits out to mod teams and let the homebrew stuff flourish. The PS3 could really benefit from a fan created mod the quality of CS coming out.
It also seems to be the case that if person A specifically accuses person B of being a fanboy, then person A is often the real fanboy :-)
I thought I'd plug the sales to date and the monthly sales into Excel to see what would happen. If you correct for the extra week in January the Wii sells 113k more systems than the 360. At that rate it will take another 30 months before the Wii hauls in the 360s head start in sales. That's not until June 2009. Wii and 360 would have 11.6 million systems out there, PS3 6.5 million. Even not correcting for the extra week it takes until Januray 2009 for the Wii to take the lead. I'm aware that Wii sales are limited by production right now but it puts into perspective how far the Wii still has to go and for me puts into doubt a lot of the comments I'm seeing suggesting the Wii will be the sales leader by the end of this year.
The next year matters. After that, it's decided. The console war is a sprint, not a marathon. Early momentum gets developers on your side, which means more games, which means more sales. Sony's between a rock and a hard place: They can't match the Wii on "fun," and they don't really offer that much over the 360, while costing a lot more than both its competitors. So they need games to sell the console, and the games simply aren't coming fast enough. You got Resistance and Motorstorm, both good titles, but no system sellers.
The 360 did not sell enough consoles in its first year to get enough momentum to decide the race, but now that all consoles are available, we'll soon see who is moving ahead. As soon as the first wave of demand is satisfied, and as soon as supply catches up with demand, the winner(s) will become obvious.
In my opinion, Sony's only hope is that they can keep the PS3 alive as a Bluray player, get some system sellers like Final Fantasy, and then get the people who bought it as a Bluray player to buy games. Not the most bulletproof strategy.
Nintendo has Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Pokémon, Nintendogs, Metroid, Zelda, Donkey Kong, and many more franchises which are well established, are always of high quality, are known by lots of people (even non-gamers) and sell on name alone. Nintendo can sustain a console on its own. Sony can't.
Depends on your definition of "bad console." The PS3 comes with a slow, unneeded Bluray drive, and its Cell processor is hard to program for and slower than Sony expected it to be, which is why they had to stick a graphics card (which is hardly better than that of a year-old competitor) in as an afterthought. It's an overpriced, underperforming, overweight console with a crappy controller and a motion sensing gimmick.
It's an interesting console, but I wouldn't exactly call it "not bad" :-)
I'll probably eventually buy one, just so I can own the twenty first century's 3DO :-)
Dude, I don't think the word "niche" means what you think it means. Either that, or you have no idea what you're talking about. Casual games aren't a niche. In fact, casual gamers utterly destroy "hardcore" gamers in number. If anything, "hardcore" gamers are a niche. If Nintendo manages to corner the casual gamer "niche", they'd be absolutely delirious with joy.
Anyway, I consider myself a pretty hardcore gamer (I own about 30 consoles and probably about 1000 games). I haven't yet bought a 360 or a PS3 (couldn't buy a PS3 if I wanted to, I'm in Europe, and Sony doesn't care about Europe :-). I own a Wii, though. And I play it every day. In fact, this saturday, there's a Wii party at my place, with lots of adult gamers and non-gamers showing up for a few hours of Super Monkey Ball, Wii Sports, Rayman and Wario Ware, with maybe a few rounds of Excite Truck thrown in (damn you, Nintendo, for not including a four-player mode).
The Wii appeals to everyone who loves gaming, whether they are hardcore or casual.
Just yesterday, I was playing Wii Tennis with a few pals, and I thought to myself: "Golly, that game would be so much more fun if it would look real! I mean, I would rather play as Roger Federer than as that stupid Mii, and playing against Agassi would be so much better than playing against comical versions of my pals!"
Or maybe not.
Personally, I don't mind the Party games (I own all of them, and I regularly have Wii parties with my friends and their friends and their friends' friends and my good pal Wario). I'm actually looking forward to Mario Party 8. But I do agree: The single-player games don't have much substance. I love Excite Truck, but it's too small...
On the other hand, consoles typically don't have huge games right from the start, and devs are still trying to figure out how to properly use the Wii remote. Having lots of minigames minimizes the risks: Red Steel fucked up the control, and that killed the game. Super Monkey Ball has a few minigames with bad controls, but on the whole, it's still a great game.
So don't worry, more single-player games with more substance will appear during the next few months. There are two golfing games coming out, by the way, Pangya Golf and Tiger Woods. No doubt there will be dedicated Tennis games, too.
Yeah, you're right. I really don't see what I'm going to do in 2007 - other than play Sonic, SSX Blur, Super Paper Mario, Pokémon, 100 Bullets, Animal Crossing, Battalion Wars 2, Metroid Prime 3, Mario Strikers Charged, Mario Party 8, Resident Evil, Red Steel 2, Super Smash Bros, Wii Music, Super Mario Galaxy, and tons of other cool, new games. Now granted, some of these games will be pushed into 08, but claiming that 07 will be painful for Wii owners is utterly absurd.
I agree with parent and GP. I got a Wii (preordered here at UK) and so far I've got Zelda, Red Steel, Monkey Ball, Wii Play, and Wii Sports. The last two are great for multiplayer (unfortunately Wii Play is just for 2 players, that was a letdown as I hunted for it for a lot of time). But so far, none of the available games really seem entertaining for me. As the GP said, almost all the games are "mini-games" based and I always end playing Wii Sports with my friends (non-gamers all of them).
I usually go to the stores to look for new games, but so far there is only Call of Duty, Wario Smooth moves (mini games... which I wont buy), and two or racing games. One of the games I have been thinking to buy is the "Metal Slug Anthology" game, has anyone tried it? is it worth it? I have played Metal Slug and I like it. Also, there is this pinball game, is it OK?.. and the new Rampage which it seems it sucks (and I wont play multiplayer so it might suck more).
So yeah basically as I do not like American Football I wont be buying the Madden game and I cant see lots of games I really want to buy....
btw, which of the WII racing games would people recommend (NFS, Excite Truck, 4x4 Monster or others)? I think the next game I'll get is a racing game (I am looking for a game with GOOD entertaining one player mode).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I'm sure it's just because the focus of the site of the original story is on consoles and handhelds, but it would be interesting to see how the PC numbers stack up as well. My hunch is that Blizzard's numbers for The Burning Crusade would blow all the others away. Maybe even all of them combined?
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
ESRB does not define what "mature" means. They simply call one of their age restriction labels "M" or "Mature." Unless the original point was "there are not enough M rated games for the Wii" (which I think is an absolutely nonsensical point, because the rating a game gets tells you pretty much nothing about the game, other than whether you see blood, gore and tits), what the ESRB calls its labels is totally irrelevant to the discussion.
Here's your original quote:
Now please don't tell me you actually inteded to say that there is a "serious lack of games which get the "M" rating." Hopefully, that wasn't your point. I thought what you said was that there is a lack of games suitable for adults, and while this would be a problem were it true, it clearly is not true.
Nintendo has done a good job as marketing Wii as something that is simple to play and that the whole family can enjoy. They make it look like a way to bond with your kids. The last video game system I owned was the Super Nintendo, and it was already getting to the point of having too many buttons. When you make games with so many buttons, there seems to be too steep of a learning curve, and whether that is true or just my perception I believe it may keep many people from getting interested in them. I could sit down and play Tecmo Bowl with my brother that barely ever played, and it could be close to competitive. If I sit down with one of my friends who plays Madden, it would quickly be 100 to nothing and most people don't have the time to invest to become "proficient" at the modern systems.
January's sales were:
Wii 45%
360 30%
PS3 25%
With 1/4 of the market, Sony is not going to attract many exclusives - if they had 60% of the market, they probably could. But right now it would be folly to ignore 75% of your market by going exclusive to the console maker with the smallest target audience.
quote: Pretty is cool, but it gets old. Fun never does (sigh) If only we could convince the ladies that this is true when it comes to boyfriends...
Your comparison is simply ridiculous. The Guitar Hero controller is simple and cheap to produce, only intended to be used with one game, and bundled with that game. The Wii remote is the most complex mainstream controller ever produced, designed for use with many diverse games, and sold independently for $60 (when you include the nunchuk). Single-game peripherals certainly have worked many times before, but when has a console ever successfully changed its primary controller part-way through its life?
Adding the remote to the GameCube wouldn't even have been technically possible. Even if you were somehow able to reuse the old controller ports for this much more complicated controller, how would you attach the sensor bar?
As for Wii being "amost identical" to the GameCube, maybe you failed to notice that Wii has...
- a new CPU (estimated to be twice as fast)
- a new GPU (also estimated to be twice as fast)
- a new optical drive
- vastly different firmware
- WiFi
- Bluetooth
- 512 MB built-in flash memory
- an SD port
- USB ports
Sure, its CPU and GPU are "only" incremental upgrades, but it's an entirely new console, no doubt about it.
I'd like to personally thank you for posting, especially as yourself and not AC.
I think you're on the mark concerning the Wii and the hardcore crowd. For many people the Wii is perfectly accurate and responsive, but for many hardcore players it won't be. Even the smallest loss of response time or accuracy can be frustrating (I completely stopped playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live because at 10 sensitivity you were never firing where you were pointing) and there is a very small amount of lag associated with the Wii remote.
This doensn't mean they won't play it or buy it, I've had and enjoyed one since launch. But it also means they'll want a system or games with precision. I also own an Xbox 360, and will likely eventually own a PS3 (Whenever they get some games worth the console's price). Hardcore gamers will likely buy the Wii, but not just the Wii. That's an insight that doesn't often get brought up, forgotten in the factional strife. It's great someone like you did.
Thanks again for posting.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
I think you're right. It's possible that the Wii and 360 fanboys here need not be as shrill (and we know they're here, the fear of being modded down for attacking the Wii or defending the PS3 is not unfounded). It's even possible that the arguments for those systems are simple and obvious enough that the fanboys can state them without giving away their nature. In any case, I don't think we can complain too much that two out of three camps aren't whining incessantly.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
They didn't invent the RTS game, or the MMORPG, or the dungeon-digger, but they waited and let other companies invent them, then swooped in to perfect the game genres that caught on.
Not only that, they learned early on NOT to be the ones pushing graphical boundries. Since they cater to PC's they want to make their products accessable to as many PC's as possible. That's why even when it was released Starcraft had minimal emphasis on visuals. It exists today as it did then, Locked at 640x480 with 8 bit color. You know what though? I still play it as my prefered RTS.
World of War Craft was the same way, the system specs are really low to allow the maximum number of potential subscribers. The game isn't ugly by any stretch, but they learned that 'Superior Design' beats 'Superior power'.
Remember, you get a bonus if you use 'flawless' and 'rock solid' repeatedly in your astroturfing.
They give you a TV is you mention the 'zomg 40-player TOTALLY LAG FREE' Resistance multiplayer.
I need to go pick up my check now.
You forgot to mention using "awesome," "amazing," and "going gaga over."
Don't forget to play up the PS3 as if its the second comming of Christ.
Well, what about painful to your wallet?
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
Had Nintendo shipped 800,000 units in January, these numbers would be even higher. Meanwhile PS3s are on the shelves of every place I've gone to pick up a wii since November.
I've even stooped so low as to lie to my own children. "We are waiting for the Black one that will play DVDs" While surreptitiously contimuing my search.
My own personal view is a wii belongs in every gaming household, possibly alongside your HD console of choice. Meaning my household is behind the curve as we lack all of this generation. Fear not children, The Wii is coming soon.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55794
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
By that logic, my Cybrex360 system is positively crushing the competition! By not expending any resources developing it my R&D costs are orders of magnitude below those of the Wii, PS3, or 360. By not selling it I've dropped my manufacturing costs to a level that the other guys can't touch!
Heck! I haven't even released any product at all and I've already broken even! Anything I make off of it now is pure profit!
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
The other thing sony needs to do is continue upgrading the console's overall functionality. In march there's a huge firmware update, akin to the 2.0 update of the psp. Rumor has it that region coding will be disabled for ps2 and ps1 games w/ said update. This is very appealing to me, since it would mean that I wouldn't need to keep using swap magic to play my favorite game. Of course, I'd still have to get my arcade stick to work on the ps3, but w/ a ps2 to usb converter, I should be able to get it to work.
Which just further illustrates the gap between the hardcore gamers playing a PS3/360 versus the Wii when it comes to accuracy in input. I've a custom built arcade stick w/ top of the line parts. Why would I want to take a step backwards and have less control over the action in my games?
People also need to stop touting the Wii as a fitness machine, since I highly doubt it'll develop into that. If fitness games sold, the one that came out for the eyetoy would have sold much more. More than that, the last thing I personally need is to burn calories, considering that no matter what I eat, I'm can't gain weight. I don't think the overweight gamers are really going to use the Wii as a way of losing weight, and the casual and new gamers who enjoy physical activity would often rather go outside (where one can find games w/ such features as fresh air and sunlight), and the wii will get use when that's not available.
"btw, which of the WII racing games would people recommend (NFS, Excite Truck, 4x4 Monster or others)? I think the next game I'll get is a racing game (I am looking for a game with GOOD entertaining one player mode)."
Excite Truck, hands down. The two-player game is weak, but the one player game will have you unlocking stuff for weeks. Highly recommended if you like arcade racers (as opposed to real-life sims).
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Ironic isn't it that the 360 is a similar architecture to the Wii? I'm Not making that up. The 360 and the Wii should be considered (technically) in the same family. Like cousins or something. Both run on IBM Power PC chips, with ATI GPUs... and though The PS3 could be included also since IBM was a partner in the CELL design (along with Sony, and Toshiba), they would be considered the black sheep since they aren't actually being made by an IBM fabrication plant.
"Wii2 would probably just be a faster, more powerful Wii"
In theory that could happen, but I would doubt it. I'm sure Nintendo will dream up something to enhance useability above 'just more power'.
Just wait until SOCOM 4 comes out for PS3, you'll see a jump in sales, and not to mention the price will be lower by then. People talk sales figures but the wii costs like what? $2.00? PS3 makes much more money, I could sell the most consoles in the world if I priced them at 5 cents