Rich Fiscus
28 Jul 2007 7:29
If you're a regular visitor to this site you're probably already aware that Ninendo's Wii has outsold both the PS3 and Xbox 360. What you may not realize is that it's not Nintendo's best selling system.
Sales figures for the first half of 2007 put the Nintendo DS as the top selling system, followed in order by the Wii, the PS2, Xbox 360, Sony PSP, and finally the PS3.
Interestingly, neither of the consoles designed around so called next-gen technology even comes close to the sales of the technologically inferior Wii. The Wii outsold the Xbox 360 by a factor of more than 3:2 and outperformed PS3 sales by nearly 3:1.
The venerable PS2 even outsold the PS3 by a nearly 2:1 margin. It's possible this is simply the result of Sony and Microsoft pricing their newest consoles out of the reach of some consumers who don't want to buy a Wii. This would seem to indicate that one or both of those consoles may eventually benefit from future sales to this group.
Sales of the PS3 have been up since Sony dropped the current US model to clearance prices, but they've said they expect those models to be gone soon, replaced by a new version that's the same price ($599) that left the current model sitting on store shelves prior to the discount.
Nintendo isn't just selling hardware either. Out of the top 20 games sold in June, Nintendo holds nine slots, including the top four positions. Their games also account for six of the top ten games of the year so far.
If Nintendo is the clear winner, Microsoft is certainly the loser. While Sony at least has PSP and PS2 sales to lean on while they attempt to establish the PS3 as a viable product, the Xbox 360's poor showing has put them firmly in last place.
So far this year Sony has sold nearly three times as many units as Microsoft, and Nintendo nearly four times as many.
Source: Ars Technica