The final numbers are in, and in terms of unit sales, the Wii is the unquestioned winner of the holiday shopping battle, with estimates claiming that Nintendo’s console is outselling the PS3 at a rate of two to one.
“Nintendo seems to have stolen the high ground in terms of playability and entertainment value. Nintendo seems to be surfing this wave of public interest and this idea of accessibility that they started with Nintendogs and these brain games,” said Forrester Research analyst Paul Jackson.
Although Sony had critical problems in production of the console, lackluster reviews and the obtrusively high price also impeded holiday sales. As the Wii continued to gain buzz over the PS3, online discussions of where to find Sony’s console became overshadowed by parents desperately trying to discover where to buy a Wii for Christmas, in addition to gamers looking to get one for themselves.
And this isn’t solely a supply issue, as even people who were able to buy a PS3 are trading them at a loss to get a Wii!
When the Sony PlayStation 3 console launched it was met with lines of people which camped outside of stores for days and days to get their hands on one of Sony’s next-generation behemoth consoles. It seems like the tide has turned because many people out there actually want to give away their PlayStation 3 for a Wii.
This isn’t just a few people but a lot of PlayStation 3 owners who are trying to get rid of their PS3 for a console that is less than half the price since the PS3 is $600 and the Wii is $250.
Now not only are there fewer PlayStation 3 consoles on the market but now even PS3 owners are jumping ship and leaving Sony for a Nintendo Wii.
Woah. I must need some sleep. I could’ve sworn I just read that Nintendo’s beating out Sony.
Nintendo simply had more available units for sale than Sony had, so therefore the Wii out sold the PS3. You don’t have to be a marketing genius to figure this out.
The price difference between them both is moot, since both units completely sold out, so people were willing to buy them regardless of the price. Nintendo just had more to sell than Sony.
2. “You don’t have to be a marketing genius to figure this out.”
Failure is a failure. The fact is that Nintendo was able to out-sell the Sony by two to one. Why is that fact diminished because Sony also failed to produce adequate quantities?!
The Wii is an absolute blast to play. The game play far excedes the graphics. We have had people at our house all week playing, it’s very addictive!!! I only wish I had bought more than one extra Wii remote, as trying to find a store with supplies is difficult. Kudos to Nintendo for one of the best consoles I’ve ever played!!!
Yesterday I was visiting my local Best Buy store. They had a PS3 on display for testing. No Wii in sight. Of course this is just an anecdote and hardly statistically significant, but my conclusion is that the Wii is so hot that they cannot even afford to put one on display as a demo.
I used to believed this idea the new generation game machines needed to also be entertainment centers. Then I bought a DVD/DivX player for $38 and realized that my game machine only needs to play games.
Nintendo seems to have figured that out.
#2 consider this, maybe the Wii is more appealing then the PS3. It’s something different, something fun and hey its cheaper. Sony simply added HD and blue ray. Sony mostly rested on its laurels and assumed consumers would blindly line up and shell out $600 for a game console, while Nintendo actually did something new.
And John you should really fix the you can only post one comment every 15 seconds message.
Every time I play the boxing game in my wonderful Wii I have to take a bath, for I end sweating like a pig… perhaps this is the biggest change in game console they could have possibly made. I decided to buy it when I started reading reports about people getting sore muscles after playing it and boy, am I happy!
9,
Sony has always acted like that. In fact, it’s where Apple get’s their ‘tude from… Unfortunately, the Sony Halo has tarnished…
And good point about the Kind-a-Captcha 15 seconds. If JCD’s computer could count to 15 seconds it wouldn’t be a problem. But it seems to count on west coast time…
@3: Sony still moved over one million PS3’s in a month – every console they manufactured was sold. That’s not failure.
@5: Incorrect. Only some Best Buy locations seem to have Wii displays. On the other hand, every EB Games i’ve seen has one, and a lot of malls have Wii kiosks out in the hallways manned by Nintendo staffers for demonstration purposes.
@11: “Apple get’s their ‘tude from”. “West coast time”? It’s nice when people make it that obvious that their opinion is meaningless.
I.T.T.S.: It’s the software, stupid.
Considering the hardware sony is providing for the money, I have no problem with what they are charging, but how could they NOT put out a game that blew every other current game away. Just one game to show the potential.
If there were 10 times as many ps3 each and every one of them would be sold. motion sensing isn’t new, but getting 10 times the detail of regular television and true next gen hardware i think is far more innovative. plus what good is the console if all the games are mario games for 8 year olds?
I was in my local EB Games the other day and they had PS3s in stock but no Wiis since no one is buying Sony’s system, according to the sales staff there.
The Wii has set a higher standard in usability, and might take the crown for it. The advertizing (especially), games and price are well designed for mass market appeal, likely due to their experience with the DS, and so I don’t find this too surprising. Of course, I might be biased, as I am, in fact posting from a Wii.
Called it.
Now, here’s the next prediction: In two years the Wii will not have enough decent games out and slowly die off, while Sony will keep the PS3 alive long enough to get two million BluRay players out the door.
Sony will keep the PS3 alive long enough to get two million BluRay players out the door.
Too bad they will be as useful as the Betamax.
Gee… I wonder why…. 🙂
The Xbox 360 and the Sony PS3 both provide cutting edge technology and bleeding edge graphics. They are packed with serious wow factor, the most serious console games ever developed, and a serious price tag.
Nintendo chose to go a different route. They made the games fun and the console cheap.
Thanks Nintendo 🙂
The ignorant PS3 fanbois sure seem to have been quieted lately…the ps3 will trudge on, much like the mac, but it will be deemed largely irrelevant by the mass of people.
Why someone would buy a ps3 with its lack of games when one can buy a 360 and a Wii for essentially the same price is beyond me.
Great job, nintendo, for putting out a fun and affordable gaming system, something sony completely missed the boat on.
More of the long, slow decline that is Sony’s world. This company is going nowhere, folks.
12,
You know when the end is here when clowns like you show up and start defending your favourite corporation. Really, does anyone care? People buy what they like, or what they want. Sometimes they buy what they need. But hey, if you need to dissect comments to correct the injustices to Sony, be my guest. But that doesn’t make you or your comments any more prescient. In fact, by trying to be helpful on such vital matters, you really show you’re more meaningless than my playful tete a tete with gquaglia… which I try to engage in more often.
Anyhoo… enjoy your fanboism… You might grow up one day and it will just be a pleasant memory.
the PS3 certainly didn’t sell out. Sony can say it sold out because they sold all their units to stores.. that’s not quite the same thing.
Anyhow – I honestly don’t know anyone that wants one, and also any games that look that good. All the good ones are on both the xbox 360 and ps3, and the graphics on the PS3 aren’t enough better than the 360 for anyone to care.
The Wii is different. It’s not only a broader appeal, it’s also a second console – I’d buy one AND a 360 if I could.
There are 15 PS3s in the paper this morning. I suspect a lot of the people whom bought them thaught they could make a killing reselling them. There were no wii’s for sale.
#20, PS3’s and XBox’s are made for dead-ender, single, childless 30 year-olds living with their parents — who have a lot of disposable income and heaps of spare time by not having real lives. Sony and Microsoft love to milk them for all it is worth and produce games that no mainstream, productive, middle-class person would ever have time to finish.
Nintendos are made for normal people with families. The games are often casual, easy to learn and replayable.
Nintendo rocks!
#18 – No disagreement from me on that one: Wireless content distribution is the way forward… these next generation DVD formats are more of a stop-gap than a true, long term solution.
Hell, at this point, the worst case scenario is ripping an HD-DVD or BluRay disk to a hard drive… if online distribution can’t improve in quality over the next couple of years.
#21 – Very unintelligent. First, the PS3 fanboys have been quiet for over a year… when it became clear in the gaming community that the PS3 wasn’t going to be dominant from day one. Second, the Mac is hardly ‘trudging’ along: It is gaining market share, and continues to be the ‘hot’ brand from a marketing perspective. The PS3 has not captured this momentum the way the PS2 did and the Mac has.