Wii, DS Dominate February Hardware Sales

Gamasutra has the NPD numbers for last month, which shows a continuation of Nintendo's sales dominance. Overall the new consoles have again meant that industry sales were up, some 28% over last year's same-month figures. Hardware sales were up some 98%, with much of that performance attributable to the DS and Wii. Here's the breakdown: "Turning to hardware, the DS headed overall hardware sell-through with an impressive 485,000 units, followed by Nintendo's Wii, which sold 335,000 units despite continued issues with shortages. The Xbox 360 sold through a reasonable, if not spectacular 228,000 copies, and the PlayStation 3 slumped to a disappointing 127,000 units, despite no apparent shortages. Elsewhere, the PlayStation 2 moved a still impressive 295,000 at its relatively cheap current price, and the PlayStation Portable sold 176,000, markedly behind the DS. Finally, the various varieties of the Game Boy Advance sold a not unreasonable 136,000 units."

Comments

That was a heroic effort

[voice_of_all_reason]

PlayStation 3 slumped to a disappointing 127,000 units
the various varieties of the Game Boy Advance sold a not unreasonable 136,000 units.

I've not seen such bravery.

Re:That was a heroic effort

[pipatron]

Well, the Game Boy Advance is 6 years old.

Re:That was a heroic effort

[Chris Burke]

127,000 units sold of your brand new console is dissapointing.

136,000 units sold of your extremely old, obsolete console is not unreasonable.

295,000 units sold of your old, obsolete console is impressive.

Where is the bravery? Recognizing context? Understanding that different numbers mean different things for different situations?

Here's another example of how similar numbers could be either impressive or dissapointing, depending on context.

"Florence Joyner ran a dissapointing 11.4s 100m dash in a 1997 time trial..."

"Stephen Hawking ran a truly incredible 12s 100m dash yesterday..."

not completely surprised ...

[Frag-A-Muffin]

... although all i have is anecdotal evidence.

Every time I take my Wii to a friend's house, not only do they love it, but their (female!) spouse love it! It goes beyond that too. Often times, the parents will join in, and they love it too!

The only people I know that don't really like it are the uber-hardcore gamers. I know plenty of "hardcore" gamers that love it fine, but complement it with a dose of the 360/PS3.

So let's think about their target market now. The uber-hardcore don't like it. Fine. But the hardcore like it and ... <drumroll> ... the rest of the world loves it :) That's a big market. Much bigger than the old target market. When sales data like this comes out, it just reinforces the notion that Nintendo got something right this round.

Congrats Nintendo!

Re:not completely surprised ...

[Konowl]

I took it to my parents house, where my 78 year old GRANDMOTHER was playing Wii Tennis.

My grandmother walked into the living room, saw us playing tennis and started laughing - I told her to grab the controller. She said "I can never play videogames". "Grandma, it's easy" I said.

She proceeded to play... to even jump to make smash shots. Most comical.

Also, my mom phones me once every couple of weeks to bring over the Wii.

It may not be the most powerful system, but it's definately opening Nintendo up to new demographics.

Re:not completely surprised ...

[drinkypoo]

Every time I take my Wii to a friend's house, not only do they love it, but their (female!) spouse love it! It goes beyond that too. Often times, the parents will join in, and they love it too!

Yeah, I have that experience too. One note: make sure to draw the blinds before whipping out your Wii, or you may get busted for indecent exposure. Especially if you're sharing it with an entire family.

Re:here to stay

[Rude Turnip]

I can already envision Mario banging his shoe on the podium at the next E3.

Japan's Hardware sales

[MeanderingMind]

I've totaled up the Japan numbers for as close to the same time period as I could (Feb 5th through March 4th). Here are the results:

NDS: 581,483
PSP: 233,046
GBA: 7,305
 
Wii: 278,646
PS3: 107,422
360: 17,583
PS2: 62,553

Sources:
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7480
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7499
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7518
http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=7553

Re:Nintendo must be kicking themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

The control is a bit awkward and worst of all the 99 lives trick at world 3-1 can not be done (yeah I know how to do it, I do it every time I play SMB in the NES).

You don't know how to do it very well then. It works - I've done it.

I figured they'd have fixed the Minus World in the SMB download. Even *that* is still there. I couldn't do that myself, but I got a friend of mine to come over and he was there in five minutes.

Sorry that you suck.

Blame developers and hardcore gamers

[MMaestro]

If theres anyone to blame for the glut of mini-games being passed off as full games, blame third-party developers and anti-Nintendo zealots. Don't forget, during/after the Gamecube's lifetime you had developers whining about rising costs and greater risks, then choosing to jump onto the PS3 bandwagon because the 360 looked weak and the Wii looked risky. Then you had gamers trashing on the Wii all over the internet mocking everything from the graphics, to the name, to the motion sensor, to the hardware weaknesses, to the radical features announced, etc.

When it finally looked like the Wii was going to smash through the video game market, developers were caught with their pants down being raped by PS3 development costs, blind-sided by Xbox Live Arcade's runaway success and the Wii's "we're Nintendo, we will ALWAYS have a profit" guarantee. What you see is simply the net result of such behavior.