Despite of the fact that Nintendo Wii outsold all the other non-portable game consoles combined in the U.S. retail market in April, Microsoft Corp. believes that it is too early to consider the latest video game system from Nintendo as the winner of the new-generation game console war.
“This is only the third year of our [X360] existence and only the second year of Sony [PS3] and Nintendo’s [Wii] existence. Are we just amusing ourselves by trying to declare a winner and loser while the customers are still out there deciding? […] I think it’s way too early… When somebody’s well on their way to reaching 100 million units [that would be the time],” said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, in an interview with Wired web-site.
According to some estimates, Nintendo Wii life-to-date sales are about 26 million units worldwide, whereas Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 sold-through figures are at 19 million and 12.8 million, respectively. Even though many industry observers consider such data inaccurate, the figures outline some general trends worldwide: Wii has outsold PlayStation 3 by over 100% and Xbox 360 by more than 35%.
According to the head of Microsoft video game development arm, there may be no clear winner in this generation of video game consoles at all.
“The winner of the last generation [Sony] was the winner of the previous generation. They were building off that kind of success. The winner of last generation isn’t the winner of this generation, they’re in third. So now you’re talking about a completely different company, a very good company but not a company that has won a generation in quite a long time. Will they get to expand beyond 35, 40 million to 100 million? Will anybody? I mean, that’s going to be an interesting thing to see: Will there be a clear-cut winner like there has been in the last two generations?,” asked Shane Kim.
The most recent figures released by NPD market tracking firm showed that with 714.2 thousand video game systems sold in April, Nintendo Wii outsells all the other non-portable game consoles available today, Microsoft Xbox 360 (188 thousand), Sony PlayStation 2 (124.4 thousand) and Sony PlayStation 3 (187.1 thousand), combined. Analysts believe that pricing of Microsoft’s and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.’s game consoles is to blame for such sales results. In fact, Robert Kotick, chief executive of Activision Blizzard, late in 2007 called Microsoft and Sony to drop pricing of their consoles to $199 level as soon as possible from $279 for the cheapest X360 and $399 for the most affordable PS3.
Comments currently:
7
Discussion started: 05/22/08 03:15:17 PM
Latest comment: 06/22/08 02:27:57 PM
[1-7]
1.
micorosft are jeleous they suck
the wii is awesome
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Posted by: kay21
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Date: 05/22/08 03:15:17 PM]
2.
MS is in denial over the success of the Wii. MS is also in denial over their own success. Let's look at year over year sales increases shall we?
XBox 360:
April 2007: 174K
April 2008: 188K
Sales increase year over year: 8%
PS3:
April 2007: 82K
April 2008: 187K
Sales increase year over year: 128%
Wii:
April 2007: 360K
April 2008: 714K
Sales increase year over year: 98%
XBox 360, averaging less than 50K in sales per week, is long overdue for a major price drop!
Thanks Anton.
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Posted by: EndPCNoise
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Date: 05/22/08 04:11:38 PM]
3.
MS killed any chance of improving sales of the Xbox 360 due to the abysmal failure rate of the initial release
People do not forget so easily after shelling out so much for a console and word of mouth is the best advertising available
[
Posted by: alpha0ne
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Date: 05/23/08 12:42:04 AM]
4.
Somebody tell these fools at microsoft to rectify the three rings of death first.
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Posted by: Stalker
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Date: 05/23/08 03:06:38 AM]
5.
Software sells Consoles. Not the Hardware.
Wii sells because of Nintendo games.
Nintendo built a Franchise Empire that saved it from ruin in the N64 days.
It is this Empire that sells Wii and it is this Empire that lets Nintendo keep selling it's product regardless of 3rd party support or not. History has proven it.
Nintendo Reversed the console crash of 1983 with a fat plumber.
Can Microsoft repeat the feat with Halo? (I'm not implying that Halo is Bad. But Halo can't stand against all the franchises created by Nintendo)
Today is 2008 and past the halfcycle of a console generation.
Nintendo doesn't look like it's slowing down with Wii and Microsoft knows that. They already played their aces with Halo (and in some sense Nintendo too).
No use in fighting for supremacy in this generation.
So instead of Microsoft being in denial why not plan for the next generation and learn from Wii.
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Posted by: huh
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Date: 05/23/08 07:16:29 AM]
6.
Drop the price? PS3 sales have been just as good as the PS2 sales in the same time period and the PS3 is more expensive this time. I think in PS2 first year they only sold half a mill in the US. When Sony drops the price of PS3 to $299 there will be panick buying and Sony will not be able to supply the demand. This will probably continue till Sony releases a slimer model, well then you'll see customers fighting for it in the stores. A slimer model will also help sales in Japan just like the PSP is doing ever since that lost weight. There's going to be alot more PS3's in circlulation than 360's in 5 yeras time. Microsoft probably know this and are desperate to get out another successor in a couple of years.
Microsoft will never see 360 reach 100 million sales, IMO I don't think they'll reach 50 million because at the moment the only big sales we're seeing are in the US, to reach huge sales figures world-wide you have to be selling console world-wide. No one in Japan is buying them and in EU the sales have dropped considerably even with the price cut. Their exclusive software line-up isn't going to help either as for the next few years they have Gears 2 and well thats it as they've lost their other big 2 exclusives. Bioshock 2 will no doubt come to PS3 knowing that the prequel has come to PS3, and EA don't do exclusives, now that they own the publishing rights to Mass Effect expect the franchise to come to PS3. Even Gears 3 in the future isn't a dead cert for 360 as Microsoft only have the publishing rights for the first 2 games.
We're also seeing devs using the PS3 as the lead development platform more and more and with the way PS3 sales are going, it won't be long before the sales surpass 360 and PS3 becomes the lead platform for most devs, which will lead to more exclusives, even from future franchises i.e. Devil May Cry 5 etc.
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Posted by: divs
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Date: 05/27/08 06:31:43 AM]
7.
i agree. PS3 will sell evn more than PS2. all we need is time. and i can bet anything there will be a HUGE increase in PS3 sakes in june due to the release of one of the best games ever made. yep im talkin abt MGS 4 which dethroned GTA 4 from the top. it may even outsell Wii...
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Posted by: nick
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Date: 06/22/08 02:27:57 PM]
[1-7]
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