Wii Are The Champions
By Steve on Saturday, August 25th, 2007 at 5:35 AM PST In Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Nintendo
… My Frieeeeeend!
Stats? Wee! We all love stats don’t we? After all, don’t stats make games more fun?
If your line of thinking is just that, then the latest statistics from VG Chartz will have you believe the Wii is the most fun console on the market in years.
“Vgchartz.com data, which is based on sample data from retailers all over the world indicates that the week ending August 23rd Nintendo’s Wii (which was released one year after the Xbox 360 in November 2006), currently standing at 10.57 million consoles sold, passed Xbox 360 lifetime sales of 10.51 million units, making Nintendo the new market leader in both the home and handheld videogame console businesses.”
You see, VG Chartz takes pride in their statistical gathering. They claim their statistics are more accurate than the big three; accusing them of always including boxes sitting on the store shelves as part of their sales figures. Like…Duh!
“As weekly data from vgchartz.com shows(**), the console outsold Microsoft’s Xbox 360 by a margin of 2.3 : 1 worldwide on average each week since its release, selling at an even faster rate than the most successful console ever created, Sony’s Playstation 2, despite still being sold out in most major markets.”
“Speed of lightning, roar of thunder. Fighting all who rob or plunder. Underdog! Underdog!”
“This is the first time that a company has been market leader in the home console and the handheld market since 1994 when Nintendo’s Super NES and Gameboy dominated worldwide.”
Nostalgia FTW!
OK. Sarcasm aside, this bit of news isn’t really all that surprising. We pretty much knew the Wii was selling strong due to its “flying off the shelf” factor earlier this year. But, do these statistics really mean anything to the consumer? Or is it just magnificent fanboy rocket fuel?
Regardless, I think it’s great to see Nintendo doing successful. It’s always fun to root for the underdog, no? But truth be told, all three major console makers are doing well right now. I think the important thing to draw from these statistics is that the console & gaming industry are kicking butt and taking names. I could care less who is beating who. As long as console sales are bringing more fun into more households, then it’s contributing to that one big statistic known as Win. Good times ahead…
Via vgchartz.com
I think your last paragraph is correct, who’s winning is not nearly as important as the fact that all three (and the industry in general) are/is doing very well. July numbers as a whole were pretty impressive all things considered.
And no, most consumers don’t know or care which console has sold how many units. But like you say, this is fanboy rocket fuel in a big way. Looking at most sites publishing this stat, its common for fanboys to pop their heads in and attempt to disparage the VGcharts numbers. They will claim VG chartz “make up” the numbers or some similar nonsense. We all know they are simply estimations and not meant to be 100 percent accurate, but that doesnt matter to some people, who think that if VGchartz has ever had a poor estimation, then we should disregard the numbers altogether as if somehow that means that Wii isn’t selling like crazy.