March NPD: PS3 outsells Nintendo......Gamecube

[rjcc]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=151743

HW Sales
Nintendo DS 508K
PlayStation 2 280K
Wii 259K
Xbox 360 199K
PlayStation Portable 180K
Game Boy Advance 148K
PlayStation 3 130K
GameCube 22K
Xbox n/a


Top 10 SW

PS2 GOD OF WAR II 833K
360 TOM CLANCY'S GHOST RECON: ADVANCED WARFI 394K
360 GUITAR HERO 2 W/ GUITAR 291K
WII PLAY W/ REMOTE 273K
PS3 MOTORSTORM 199K
NDS DIDDY KONG RACING 189K
NDS SPECTROBES 165K
360 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL 2K7 165K
PS2 MLB '07: THE SHOW 164K
360 DEF JAM ICON 148K

[wumpus]

Interesting that almost no Wii titles are in the top 10:

360: 4
PS2: 2
PS3: 1
Wii: 1

Didn't Nintendo have a problem in the previous gen where their tie rate was atrocious? As in, people with GameCubes rarely bought more than 1 or 2 games for it, ever?

I wonder if the Wii will be the same way.. mainstream penetration has its downsides; the mainstream gamers stick with "what's in the box" and don't buy many games.

[Ex-S Woo]

Slow month for both Sony and MS...and with April looking pretty barren release wise, I expect even lower numbers for April. :|

[deepruntramp]

I feel bad for all those people who bought Wii Remote (erm, Play). Why the hardware rush when there's still no good post-launch titles (OK, Paper Mario, but that's it)?

[Wholly Schmidt]

Nothing wrong with Wii Play if you needed another controller anyway.

[Rob_Merritt]

Just about everyone I know play Wii Sports and only Wii Sports.

[Shadarr]

Poor Sony, they're getting trounced by everyone including their own last gen system. Although on the bright side, if they sold more PS3s they'd be losing more money.

It would be really cool if PS2 support never dries up and we get a steady stream of new games on the system. A four-way of 360 for graphics, Wii for arm-waving, DS for portability and PS2 for old-skool console gaming would do me nicely for the next five years.

[Qenan]

Wall Street Journal had an article today about how Nintendo is back from the dead and toasting the competition.

[Rock8man]

I guess this means that one GoW 2 developer is going to lease a Maserati.

[Jake Plane]

This is bad news for Sony... They announced HOME. They showed LBP. Motorstorm was released... And the needle did not move.

Microsoft on the other hand I actually thought did well given that I think we're in a dry spell. What was the last major release for the system? Crackdown? Also, since they've been out there longer, their "low hanging" fruit has been picked.

Wii... I'm just shocked. They're not slowing at all.

Two years ago, who would have predicted this?

[whatever7]

Originally Posted by Jake Plane

This is bad news for Sony... They announced HOME. They showed LBP. Motorstorm was released... And the needle did not move.

You really think people pay attention to trade shows? It's not even the biggest trade show.

But they should sell more PS3 on account of Motorstorm.

[rjcc]

Originally Posted by Jake Plane

Wii... I'm just shocked. They're not slowing at all.

not slowing at all?

it sold 338k in February.

I'd say 259k is a pretty good indication of it coming back to the pack. I don't know if it will/won't continue to outsell 360 month by month, but the gap has narrowed. (wii-360 was 338 -227 last month, so the gap there has halved, wii-ps3 was 338-127, so that's nearly halved as well)

[Wholly Schmidt]

Originally Posted by Jake Plane

What was the last major release for the system? Crackdown?

Guitar Hero.

[Rock8man]

.... and GRAW 2.

[runesword forger]

Originally Posted by wumpus

Interesting that almost no Wii titles are in the top 10:

360: 4
PS2: 2
PS3: 1
Wii: 1

Didn't Nintendo have a problem in the previous gen where their tie rate was atrocious? As in, people with GameCubes rarely bought more than 1 or 2 games for it, ever?

I wonder if the Wii will be the same way.. mainstream penetration has its downsides; the mainstream gamers stick with "what's in the box" and don't buy many games.

The attach rate for the GC was similar to the PS2. The thing hurt the GC was that Nintendo fans bought Nintendo games. Third party stuff usually did poorly compared to the other system ports.

It might repeat. But then again, it's kind of a chicken or the egg situation... is there an excellent 3rd party game that isn't selling on the Wii? No.

It will be interesting to see what happens when Guitar Hero hits the Wii... or even a GTA, if one ever comes out on the Wii. Short of that, there should be some decent ports in the 4th quarter.

[Wholly Schmidt]

I don't understand most of what you just said.

[Dave Long]

Nintendo sold everything they shipped to retail during the month. Until there are systems on shelves, you cannot tell if the demand has slowed one iota. People are still lining up on Sundays when systems are available.

[Aleck]

Originally Posted by Dave Long

Nintendo sold everything they shipped to retail during the month. Until there are systems on shelves, you cannot tell if the demand has slowed one iota. People are still lining up on Sundays when systems are available.

While I usually like to disagree with Dave (just pokin' fun, brother!), he's right on this one. Wii sales may be down, but that's a lack of supply, not a lack of demand. I still haven't seen a Wii on a shelf at any store in my area. The damn things just disappear.

We should know in another 3 or 4 months, I'd estimate, whether the Wii is going to stay strong or not. The real story in these numbers is the PS3 and how it's selling (or, more appropriate, how it's not selling!)

[Kevin Grey]

Originally Posted by rjcc

I'd say 259k is a pretty good indication of it coming back to the pack. I don't know if it will/won't continue to outsell 360 month by month, but the gap has narrowed. (wii-360 was 338 -227 last month, so the gap there has halved, wii-ps3 was 338-127, so that's nearly halved as well)

What Dave and Aleck said- you can't really draw any conclusions about whether Wii is slowing or not until there are actually Wiis sitting on shelves. For now it seems that they are still instantly selling out so nobody knows where the true demand is.

Surprising numbers for GRAW 2. There has been nary a peep about that one compared to the discussion that most 360 titles du jour get so I thought it might have come in much lower.

[BDGE]

DS is just a monster...and Pokemon hasn't even released yet.

[Michael Fortson]

I agree with Dave, Aleck, and Kevin about the Wii. That drop means nothing bad so far with regard to their position vs the other consoles.

[rjcc]

I disagree, I think it will follow the 360 last year, after the initial frenzy, when it stopped being supply constrained....the numbers stayed about the same until christmas. I think we'll see the same thing happen for the wii

[Drastic]

Originally Posted by BDGE

DS is just a monster...and Pokemon hasn't even released yet.

One of the funniest parts is thinking back a few years, to various corners of the internets with many proclaiming that the DS was fated to be the Virtual Boy II.

I think it's pretty clear that in another couple years, all of them in circulation are going to activate their wifi at once, form a single neural network, and become self-aware. It'll be Skynet, only all of its terminators will be superdeformed anime children. It'll be the most bright and colorful dark times ever.

[RepoMan]

Drastic, you're freaking me out here.

[Jason Cross]

Man, DS is an unstoppable juggernaut. It's seriously on track to be the most popular video game platform of all time, from a system sales perspective.

That's actually a little bit higher than I expected from the 360...with no "huge" releases and that same $400 price tag I thought it would move like 180K or so.

A large part of why the PS2, Wii, and DS are moving so well is because they're simply affordable, and $400...isn't. At least, most of the people who would pay $400 for one already have it. Same could be said of the $600 PS3. Both systems need price drops - the PS3 a more dramatic one - to get up into those "300K or more every month" in the US numbers. I wonder what the worldwide numbers are like? Every month that the PS3 does not sell 50% more than the 360 is another month solidifying that it's not going to have the same marketshare by the end of 2008. Seriously, that's why Sony has to do - 50% more than MS, worldwide, every month from here to the end of 2008, to have equal installed base.

[Coca Cola Zero]

Yeah, I've said it in various threads before but $400 and up is just TOO MUCH for a fancy toy. Yeah, I own a 360 anyway, but I'm in the demographic of people who are old enough to earn their own money, make enough to have quite a bit of disposable income and don't have the monetary obligations of a family, which is a nice demographic but not enough to get you Wii or DS numbers.

Hopefully the console manufactuers are looking at this generation's results and realizing that the next gen consoles have to release at cheaper price points.

Also, it isn't that surprising to me that the Wii software sales aren't burning up the charts simply because there hasn't been much worth buying. I'm sure this will change as there is bound to be a ton more 3rd party development for the Wii than the GC just based on the install numbers and the DS went through a similar phase as well where 3rd parties just didn't know how to make games for it that were any good. I suspect the sales charts will show a LOT of Wii games come holiday 2007, though.

[Xemu]

I dunno, CCZ, I'm not seeing how the Wii competes in terms of quantity of heavy hitting software releases compared to the 360 even by the holiday.

Wii: Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid... will either of these even make 2007?

360: Halo 3, GTA IV, Assassin's Creed, Mercenaries 2, Guitar Hero 3

I'll bet $20 that December NPD shows as many or more 360 titles in the top 10 than Wii titles. Any takers?

[Angrycoder]

Originally Posted by Xemu

I dunno, CCZ, I'm not seeing how the Wii competes in terms of quantity of heavy hitting software releases compared to the 360 even by the holiday.

Wii: Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid... will either of these even make 2007?

360: Halo 3, GTA IV, Assassin's Creed, Mercenaries 2, Guitar Hero 3

I'll bet $20 that December NPD shows as many or more 360 titles in the top 10 than Wii titles. Any takers?

GTA IV, Assassin's Creed, and Guitar Hero 3 are all multiplatform releases so their sales will be split. Heck, Guitar Hero 3 is even coming out for the Wii. Mercenaries 2 will be lucky to stay in the top 10 for more than a week. Of course, Halo 3 will sell a billion copies.

[Ben]

So that's a yes, right?

[Kevin Grey]

Originally Posted by Jason Cross

That's actually a little bit higher than I expected from the 360...with no "huge" releases and that same $400 price tag I thought it would move like 180K or so.

Well it was a 5 week month, so during a "normal" month it would have done about 180k.

And I don't know about "huge" releases either. I admit to being surprised by GRAW2's sales but 400k is pretty much what most 360 releases that aren't GoW have been doing. And Guitar Hero 2 is certainly a huge release. Admittedly it's not a full month of GH2 sales but five days of sales is quite a lot for a big release that tends to get people into stores in the first day or two it's on shelves.