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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

January NPD Numbers

Nintendo Wii sold 436,000 units in January according to NPD, with Xbox 360 selling 294,000 units and PlayStation 3 hitting 244,000.
-- Next Generation - Interactive Entertainment Today, Video Game and Industry News - January: Wii Triumphs; 360 Up; PS3rd

Some discussion on the PS3 being third. I can't tell if I would expect the 360 to be more right now or the PS3 less. The 360 now has an established library, lower price point and better supply chains. Beating the PlayStation 3 - which still has stock issues, a lackluster library and a centerpiece of technology still unproven (Blu-Ray) by only 20% doesn't see like much to crow about.

Clearly, Sony has a lot of work to do. The question is - how much work does Microsoft need to get done? Perhaps that overhauled 360 that keeps coming up in rumors will be what MS needs for the summer.

The Wii is just being a powerhouse right now. If anything is really beating out expectations, it's the Wii and right now I'd say the only company who can claim a truly successful launch is Nintendo. Unlike the other two - they are blowing away their estimates while not being able to keep stock on shelves. As opposed to saying - "we must be selling well, otherwise you could buy it!" - Nintendo has the numbers to hack the facts.

2007 should be interesting.



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2 comments:

Unknown said...

My take is that the Xbox 360 is sucking pretty bad. It was a 5-week month in 2007, a 4-week month in 2006. In 2006 you couldn't get an Xbox 360 because they couldn't supply them to stores. And now they're only up 18% with the advantage of full supply and an extra weekend of sales?

As a Sony user, I wish the PS3 numbers were higher. I think they need to flood the PSN with PSOne games, make them PS3 compatible (in addition to working on the PSP), start the PS2 game downloads, and fire up the movie service.

March Euro launch, with supposed huge update to the PS3, will be interesting in the near term.

Josh said...

I think the biggest problem Sony's price point has made is that it's going to be harder to spur the major studios until they get their numbers up. So it's becoming a chicken and egg scenario - they need a Triple A title to sell boxes, and they need to sell boxes...

Which is why I completely agree. Much smarter for Sony to lean on one of it's greatest assets - its ginormous library of media wealth. I would dump as much PSOne and movie content into the marketplace as possible for as cheap as possible.

The way the 360 has been selling - I'm positive we'll see a revamp this year. Maybe this black 120GB version. Maybe it will have HD-DVD and sell for $500?

At this point I just wonder if Nintendo execs are smoking dollar bills yet.