Merry Xmas, Video Games
Author: AF Duncan
January 13th, 2007
The two hooks of this article are: 1) Nintendo sold 100K more Wii consoles over the 2006 Christmas season than Sony’s justifiably maligned PlayStation 3, and 2) video game sales were huge overall.
But further along in the piece are even more interesting tidbits. Apparently the XBox 360 was easily the best selling of the three next gen consoles over the holiday season, but the top selling consoles overall were the Nintendo DS and Sony’s PS2, which appears to be having a decent last gasp thanks to “Guitar Hero II,” “Madden 07,” and maybe “Final Fantasy XII.” “Gears of War” was the best-selling game overall.
Somewhat tellingly, PC sales numbers aren’t discussed.
Overall video game and hardware sales were $3.7 billion in December, up 28 percent. Overall sales rose 19 percent in 2006 to $12.5 billion, NPD said.
Game sales, not including titles for personal computers, were up 5.4 percent to $1.7 billion and hardware jumped 59.2 percent to $1.6 billion, fueled by sales of consoles like the high-end PS3 and Xbox 360, which retail for $600 and $400, respectively, in the United States.
NPD receives data representing about two-thirds of U.S. retail sales and makes projections for the remainder of the market based on a sampling of consumers. The figures do not include Canadian sales or those to “mom and pop” retailers, and are among the numerous data points used by analysts to measure the health of the video game market.
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6 Responses to “Merry Xmas, Video Games”
January 14th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Begun, this console war has.
January 16th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Despite the fact that the PS3 has been maligned by all corners, what I think is amazing is that it still sold only 100,000 less units than the Wii. It’s really not fair to compare sales on these two machines as they will attract different audiences, but I think the bigger story is the fact that the PS3 could actually sold as well as it did.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Man, that’s a really good point about different audiences. It’s pretty amazing that video games have come so far that there are enough people playing them to support both hardcore AND casual consoles.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Well I’m not so sure that the Wii is any less hardcore than PS3 or 360 — it’s just that the controller makes it more accessible. Zelda is a hardcore videogame — it’s 60+ hours! — just like GTA and Gears of War. So is Red Steel. Super Mario Galaxy will be a game for the “hardcore.” The difference is, Wii lacks certain 3rd party support that the others have, but I don’t think that makes it just a casual system. It’s just something that will hurt them in the long run.
January 16th, 2007 at 11:11 am
I disagree. I think the whole point of the Wii is that it’s less hardcore than PS3 and 360, and Nintendo has benefitted huge from positioning and marketing the machine that way. It’s priced cheaper and the games look simpler and more easy-going, more based on “fun.” They’ve made a point of targeting the more casual gaming market. You’ve mistaken calling the Wii more casual a negative criticism, when it’s meant as anything but. I think it’s an inventive and brilliant move by Nintendo. Before the Wii, I don’t know if I would’ve said there was a casual gamer demographic, but now I would.
Right now, the bottom line is the Wii is better for kids, families, and folks who don’t devote their lives to video games. Whether Nintendo can keep the console from being a short-term novelty is one thing — it’s possible that the other two more powerful consoles might have more legs in the long run because they’re more HD-friendly and like you said they have more third-party support — but right now the Wii looks golden.
January 17th, 2007 at 7:31 am
>>You’ve mistaken calling the Wii more casual a negative criticism, when it’s meant as anything but. I think it’s an inventive and brilliant move by Nintendo. Before the Wii, I don’t know if I would’ve said there was a casual gamer demographic, but now I would.<<
I’m definitely a Wii supporter, but I think the jury’s still out on this one. While most of the people buying PS3s this Christmas were buy it-sell it jerks, Wii was pretty much bought by gamers. And by gamers, I mean hardcore gamers. Zelda sold on practically a 1:1 ratio with the system — casual fans weren’t driving those sales.
Wii had tons and tons of positive publicity — most importantly, from mainstream media outlets with reviewers who weren’t gamers before — which is a sign that Nintendo is definitely onto something. But I’m not sure if their target audience are buying the system just yet.