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Sony Overtakes Rival Nintendo In Console Sales
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in eight years, Sony has overtaken Nintendo on the total number of game consoles sold. Sony sold 18.7 million consoles in the last financial year, compared to Nintendo sales of 16.3 million. Sony's PlayStation 4 has emerged as the bestselling 'new-gen' console. But demand for Nintendo's Wii U — with its touchscreen controller — has lagged far behind the original Wii, which was the most popular hardware of the last generation."
It's worth noting that Nintendo's highest selling console is still the 3DS, with more units sold in 2013 than Wiis and Wii Us combined.
That's possibly why in Nintendo's Frankfrut am Main office, about 20% of employees were laid off.
Oh the flip side of financial news.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I think that it is worth noting that the sales comparison is not lifetime sales, but sales for 2013 only. So, Nintendo's 2012 sales would not have been included.
The fact that the Wii U has been available for longer makes the PS4 2013 sales look even more lacklustre. All the consoles have their best sales immediately after launch (which is why having a good launch catalogue is critical). The Wii U was launched in late 2012, and it is unlikely that 2013 saw the kind of sales that it had in the first few months after launch. However, the PS4 was launched in 2013. So, when you compare sales data for 2013, you are comparing sales data of the latest and greatest that Sony has to offer with the sales performance of a console that most had already panned as being not worth the purchase.
That makes absolutely no sense. The PS4 has had the best console launch of all time. It only took it 3 or 4 months (with major supply issues) to sell what the WiiU did in 1 and a half year, and is now comfortably in the lead.
Mada mada dane.
...and it might still have time to beat PlayStation 4 if the next Mario Kart makes people actually buy it...
This is what's wrong with Nintendo. Oh we'll put out another Maro Kart, then it'll be Super Smash Bros, then Zelda or Maria, then the other one, then back to start. They might throw a Metroid in there to spice things up now and again. They need a whole load more third party games not more of the same first party.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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I think the root cause should be looked at why they have bad marketing. IMHO: the senior management staff is getting old an inflexible. Iwata can't even come to E3 because of health concerns. Nintendo as a whole is no longer flexible enough to meet market demands and users want. When have they release a good game where they truly innovate? It seems like all they want to do is farm out their game to child studio's and have them make just enough changes to sell s few copies. The Mario Kart is the perfect case. Its Nintendo's character riding around a track. From most early reviews its getting a mediocre review because there is nothing really ground breaking. If Nintendo really want to get serious then they need they really need to push the indy developer program again. They need to hire back the 10% of North America marketers they fired. Finally they need to come up with new marketing plan. Sega of America was in teh EXACT same place with the Genesis. What they did was work with SoJ and created a little game called Sonic the Hedge. Then they built a whole new marketing plan to get out of the old tired ways to the Genesis. Ha, to think Sega's history maybe what it takes to save Nintento>
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
But both are gimmick based. The Wii's gimmick was the motion controller. That interested a lot of people, they thought it looked really neat and wanted to try it. Of course you discovered that it wasn't quite as cool as it first seemed, and many games really didn't play that well with it, but it drove console sales pretty well. People liked the gimmick and wanted in, so that sold a lot of consoles at least initially.
However gimmicks are fickle things, and there's no guarantee of what people will be interested in. The Wii U's gimmick is a tablet. That just isn't working out. People aren't that interested. Makes sense, since most people who wish to have a tablet already have one in another form and a game console with a tablet isn't all that interesting.
It also made the price less attractive. That tablet isn't trivial cost wise, so Nintendo couldn't be quite as low priced. That was something else that helped the Wii. It was low cost enough compared to the other two to be interesting to people who didn't want to spend as much, as well as people to get it as an "and a" console in addition to whatever other one they liked. The Wii U wasn't quite as price competitive and so didn't see as much of that.
Basically Nintendo got lucky with the Wii. It was the right gimmick at the right time to catch on and sell a ton. This time around, they missed big time.
I've got a Wii U, and one of the most fun games for playing in a group is an EA title: FIFA 13. Up to five players, cooperative or competitive, all the leagues and players, recognisable faces. What's not to like? Seriously it's great, and the retailer threw it in as a freebie with the console, along with the pack-in Mario/Luigi platformers.
I've got Mario Kart 8 already. It's a lot simpler and more approachable than some of the previous titles (e.g. Mario Kart DS had a far steeper learning curve) - it feels more like the arcade Mario Kart games than previous console titles. It also defaults to more traditional controls than the Wii incarnation. It's very approachable for casual gamers. My wife and my mum absolutely love it.
Will it be enough to sell consoles? It'll probably sell a few, but on its own it won't make or break the platform - Nintendo needs to follow it up. They need a great Super Smash Bros, a Metroid, a Zelda, and maybe an F-Zero or Star Fox. It's either going to be a great time to have a Wii U as the hit parade arrives, or a disappointing time as ti fails to materialise.
I don't own a Wii U or Mario Kart - but a quick glance at metacritic shows it getting reviews ranging from very good to amazing.
Doesn't that make it even worse then? That Nintendo are responsible for making their console attractive... and they haven't yet, 18 months into its life. All the while they're losing ground to the more technically advanced competitors.
The Wii U landed with a thud which wasn't helped by requiring a day-0 5GB patch. It had about 6 months to turn things around before the next-gen hype train started and it couldn't do it. At this point nothing short of a massive price drop, heavy promotion and money hats to 3rd parties could reinvigorate the platform in the West. Perhaps they should focus their attentions elsewhere.
Tell me about it, The Wii sold gangbusters and still no serious developer wanted to touch it. It practically had only first party games and tons of shovelware. Guess what, nobody bought the shovelware. On any other console, publishers would have said, "we are putting out crappy games that no one is buying" but because it is a Nintendo console, they just say, "See, no one buys games on a Nintendo console!" I am convinced that Nintendo could have a 99% market penetration and still no publisher would want to make anything other than the cheapest, crappiest, as-little-effort-as-possible game and then bitch that nobody wants their crap.
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
Phones and tablets play different games. Console games rely on directional input, with a joystick and discrete action buttons. "Mobile" games, on the other hand, use a completely flat sheet of glass as the primary means of input, which is fine for single-button or point-and-click games but not so good for, say, a fighting game or a platformer with any sort of exploration element without a clip-on Bluetooth gamepad that I've never actually seen in use.
In terms of user freedom and flexibility, Android is like a PC and iOS is somewhere in the middle.
Yes, a real failure - 16.3 million, vs. 18.7 million. Definitely a complete flop. Write them off now.
Like you, I think that the Wii U is easily the best of the current generation. Easily. Why? When I get home, my wife and three daughters will be playing Mario Kart, Wii U Party, Nintendo Land, or Just Dance on any other day. Only one of those can be played on another console. On any given day, my youngest daughter will win some of these games (without anyone letting her). There is no first-person shooter, real sports game, or real racing game, that any of them are interested in. And if one of my daughters is playing Wind Waker, and my wife wants to watch TV, then my daughter just switches to the pad, and puts on the headphones. And we bought it because we KNOW there is going to be a Pikmin, a Smash Bros, a Mario, a Mario Kart, a Wario Ware, and hopefully a Zelda and Metroid in the pipeline. And in HD, they will look sensational (as Pikmin, Wind Waker, MK8, 3D World already do).
Every now and then, I would prefer to play some mega-shootin', zombie-killin', big boss fightin' titles. However I'm the only one in the house that would enjoy them. But if I wanted, I can go pick up COD, or Batman. Even Watch Dogs and Bayonetta are on the way. That's options for me too - if I don't feel like playing MK8 or Pikmin (which is rare). That's a bonus.
There are millions of households like this. The other console makers haven't QUITE caught on yet. Bless 'em, I'm sure they will one day! :)
The other consoles are great. Second Son on the PS4, Titanfall on the 'Bone, looking and playing brilliantly. The Wii U is better, in my opinion, and also cheaper.
Nintendo's marketing after the Wii was not effective.
I agree with this statement, but for a different reason. I have a Wii U and a 3DS, and none of the competitors'. Google knows that very well due to searches and through the websites I visit. Yet, I only see ads for the other systems, and PC games (my gaming laptop is more than 3 years old, so every "recent" game has to be on lowest settings to be playable... so I don't play on it).
Maybe they are too full of themselves and think they don't need to make the effort? Maybe they don't really understand how to use the internet? My theory is that they didn't learn how to grow. The industry grew, the competitors came from companies that already knew how to grow, yet Nintendo still works centralizing everying in Kyoto with little human resources to manage a global market. Their strategy of disruption from the DS/Wii era went tot heir heads, now they think they can do it again on a whim (like their new "Quality of Life" strategy... heck, let me sync my Fit Meter with my phone or my 3DS, and make my data available on the web) whenever they get cornered.
The PS4 has Transistor( a ridiculously addicting rpg) and Mercenary Kings (Contra & Metal Slug type game). That alone is worth having the PS4 and should tide you over until the next group of indy games roll out. Major titles will become more available in 2015, but the PSN/Indy scene is going to be killing it in 2014.
like [...] Mario Kart, haven't even released
That one has. It's not even a particularly amazing entry in the series, though it has its moments. Nintendo's main source of innovation has been "same series, same plot, new mechanics", and cart racers, at least, seem to be very low on ideas for new mechanics.
At this point nothing short of a massive price drop, heavy promotion and money hats to 3rd parties could reinvigorate the platform in the West. Perhaps they should focus their attentions elsewhere.
I have read that Nintendo wants to cut the price but can't. The touchscreen pad apparently costs them just as much to produce now as it did at launch.
When the Wii was $250 and the PS3 was $500, that was a real price difference. Now the Wii U is $300 and the PS4 is $400. People are overwhelmingly choosing to spend the hundred bucks to get a much more powerful console with immensely better 3rd party support.
If I can buy a 7" tablet for $30 (and I can) then I'm not sure what Nintendo's excuse for their controller costing so much. I wouldn't put the bill of materials of their entire system to be more than $120. There should be at least some latitude to cut the price more than they have, particularly if the supply chain is filled with surplus stock.