... or according to this source it has. A report issued by the Financial Times states that to date, there have been 9 million Wiis, 8.9 million Xbox 360s, and 3.7 million PS3s sold worldwide. If it is true, Nintendo is once again at the top of console ladder, for the first time in almost 20 years.

This time last year, I don't think anyone was predicting things to turn out the way they have. Congratulations to Nintendo.

CONGRATRATION, NINTENDO! YOU NEW KING OF CONSOLES.

I actually kind of thought this would happen, what with all the excellent adverts they had been doing and the overall quality of the system. Of course, I will concede to the main point of the post that none of my local friends thought I was right in the head.

So here is to an "old-school" victory of sorts. For now, at least. X-Box/Microsoft can rebound, of course, with the numbers so tight at the moment. At least the fragging PS3 is tanking, and that's the important thing.

Oh, I'm rambling now. Never mind, I'm done.

Those soccer moms sure have some buying power.

Glad I hear it. That means Nintendo can still be competitive. It never lost any console war. It was just lurking in the shadows waiting to make its move (forget I said that). Still it's too early. People who own a PS2 will definitely buy the next gen Playstation just like the ones who own an Xbox will buy Xbox 360 (even fanatics could change sides though). But especially for the PS3 prices need to drop before this happens. So we'll see how Wii does in the long run. I hope it holds its place. I don't care about PS3 as long as Final Fantasy XIII and Versus are released within the next 2 years and I also don't care because I know that PS3 fans are die hard fans. For the Xbox 360 I'm not sure. To tell you the truth I always saw Xbox as Bill Gate's vanity to rule in yet another department namely the gaming industry. Yeah I know that's not what you would call objective but...well whatever... Anyway Nintendo rules for now and that's all that matters!

Nintendo has been making money and fun games all the time! For me Nintendo has not been lurking anywhere.

But my Wii console is lurking somewhere - it seems to be almost impossible to get US version of Wii :-(

lasse wrote: Nintendo has been making money and fun games all the time! For me Nintendo has not been lurking anywhere.

I guess it hasn't BUT where I come from most of the people I knew owned a Playstation. Most of the stores in my town were PSX only related. When the PS2/Gamecube era came most people were focusing on buying a PS2 or an Xbox. I never heard anyone inside my circles or outside talking about Gamecube or Nintendo. I believe I was the only one who new some of its releases and news. In my country I believe that Nintendo fans are only the 1/3 of PS fans. It's just an assumption but I bet my SUBLIMELY MAGNIFICENT MASTER GAMING SKILLS LEVEL IX that this is how it is. And that is why I said Nintendo was lurking in the shadows when I saw the numbers.

Still forget the numbers. The power of Nintendo can be seen in the following dialogue that took place more than many times in the past.

Friend:Playstation RULES!
Me:Yeah whatever...
Friend:Why did you buy N64 and not PSX?
Me:Because...
Friend:Games at PSX are the best!
Me:If you say so...
Friend:My Playstation is 10 TIMES BETTER than your N64!
Me:Sure thing...
Friend:Why don't we go to play ZELDA?
Me:?!


Yeah that's what happened. Oh and lasse I really hope you find a US version of Wii as much as I want the price of Wii to drop here in Europe. There is a Zelda game waiting in one of my shelves!

This warms my heart as a long-standing Nintendo loyalist (a.k.a. fanboy).

How's this for a sure sign of the apocalypse: On a recent visit to the Sony Metreon in San Francisco (sort of a Sony-themed entertainment mall), there were enormous banners for the Nintendo Wii draped from the ceiling.

I'm not surprised. In Norway it has been reported that many of the Xbox 360s doesn't work at all. Maybe the same thing has happened around the world?

only about a third of them 8)

I personally find it great, because maybe the success of Wii will finally help to separate "simple fun" games, which I usually prefer to call "video toys" from the "experience games", where the choice/consequence stuff usually take the lead role and the fun you receive from th game is not of a such direct kind.

I agree, I phrased it a bit poorly. But I hope you got the idea.

I find it great as an obstacle thrown in the arms race to judge how great a games console is by how many millions of polygons it can render simultaneously. Well yes, that makes it a formidable supercomputer, but there are gameplay considerations that shouldn't be overlooked in its shadow. Maybe it will mark an end to bloated, conservative development teams (what? we can make games in 2D again for non-handhelds?) and, uh, the need to go platinum just to break even... hence we can enjoy smaller, cheaper games with less overhead (those motion-capture technicians, texture artists and shadow engineers all need to get paid!) and more freedom to explore new or under-represented genres and themes.

I knew I would be misunderstood. Of course, I am not arguing the possibility Nintendo console holds for breaking the rules of "conservative development teams" as you call them. And applaud Nintendo for making such an important step. And I haven't even begun talking about graphics.

I just stated that Wii apparently has become a perfect place for those developers who are more interested in games with the inventive physics-reflexes-based controls. The games that are immensely fun but obviously lacking any depth. Which they don't even need, since that depth will only stand in the way of enjoying them properly.

And that kind of segregation definitely helped a lot of new gamers to decide what kind of gaming experience they actually prefer. The family fun of Rayman Raving Rabidds or seclusive tear shedding of Final Fantasy.

That is a bit oversimplifying. However, it is just a general outline of things as I see them and it's not supposed to cover every game for either of the platforms in question.

I knew I would be misunderstood.

I didn't miss your point, I just ignored it and used your "what I think is great about this" to launch my own "what /I/ think is great about this" and grind my own favorite axe 8)

Oops. Sorry, then.

The numbers that particular story uses are incomplete. Here is a topic on another forum I hang at that tries to keep closer watch on things like these. Sales nerds use what information we get from various trackers in various countries, and try to estimate the areas/times we don't know as close as possible. Those estimates will vary a bit from person to person, but as far as numbers go that are frequently updated and don't hide their sources or heavily guess, I think it's about as good as they come.

Are we sure it's reliable? Because personally I'm more inclined to trust a professional publication than a bunch of anonymous nerds online.

The nice thing about it being a bunch of nerds in a forum is they'll tend to source what they're working with, and how they came up with estimates for the rest; it doesn't have to be a matter of trust. For instance, if previous numbers indicated that 35% of Wii's European sales came from the UK, and we then learn of Wii selling 20K/week there, we could estimate it sold 57K/week throughout Europe for that period until a better source comes along. Data for the US, Canada, and Japan is pretty easy to get, and UK data comes not infrequently, so there's more we see than we don't see.

That Financial Times story just doesn't match with the known data for the period. I'll source another NeoGAF post that sums it up:

U.S. + Japan + Canada through the end of July:
Wii - 7.24 million
360 - 6.77 million
PS3 - 2.75 million

We have a press release from Nintendo in mid-June that said they had sold over 2 million in Europe. SCEE reported sales of 1.2 million in their territories by E3 in early July. The numbers plain don't add up.

That'd still need at least 2.5m 360 sales outside US/Canada/Japan to put that ahead of the Wii, which seems unlikely. The PS3 figures are pretty close together too.

It's nice to see Nintendo doing well - the Wii and DS have both brought something new, rather than trying to have as much processing power and cinematic niceties as possible. They've attracted a wider audience, and the underlying hardware can be used for genuinely new concepts (though probably including some more serious/'mature' ones than Nintendo would like). It's good to see a specialist videogame firm beating multinational/multi-industry monsters.

If only good ol' Sega was around to throw their hat in the ring. Granted they never did all that great, I still miss them. =(

What the fuck. I'm supposed to be the only Nintendo fanboy in this forum. That's all a forum needs is one fanboy per console.

So where were all you people when I was predicting this stuff back in '06? I don't remember many people taking my side when I said that Nintendo was gonna kick ass way back at E3 '06.

But yea, ironic, now that its out I haven't played the Wii for like months, but I play a 360 nearly every day. And I don't even own one! But yea, 360 is my new personal preference for this generation. I like the Wii's controller but only first-party titles can even use it right! The only good games are Nintendo licenses. So go figure.

Relax, there's still plenty of haters like us here. I say Nintendo owes its current success more to the DS than to the Wii.

I've been a Nintendo fanboy for years, I just haven't been responding to many threads.

However, despite that, I was not predicting nearly this much success. Even though I really liked the idea I thought for sure it would be commercial suicide (everything I like usually is!) I still think it will be a while before we see what the machine can really do, it'll take some time and experimentation; there will probably be plenty of complete flops before 3rd party developers really figure out what they can and can't do.

If it will keep the "Console Wars" topics to a minimum, I'm all for it.

As it is... I can't find a platform on Mobygames that doesn't have something I want to play. Even CD-i... though I have to admit I've already played the games I thought might be fun there...

So far back in the past, huh? That Nostradamus guy was a fag :P

Anyway, I do remember you predicting this; now, I won't swim back into the archives to check it, but I'm pretty sure I never doubted you were right. Then again, we have a saying down there that goes something like "Eat shit, millions of flies can't be wrong!". The Wii can outsell the Bible itself for all I care (are Bibles sold or do they just hand them away for free? Bah, it's way too late to think of a better analogy now), I'll still hate the thing's guts.




So, are we saying that the revolutionary new controller we've heard so much about gets old in a couple of months and then you just feel like playing really fun games again? Well, that's sort of a funny thing to read :P



Oh, and also ...


BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! >:(

Flame wars are the friggin' foundations upon which the entire internet is built, man!!!!

So, are we saying that the revolutionary new controller we've heard so much about gets old in a couple of months and then you just feel like playing really fun games again? Well, that's sort of a funny thing to read :P

You misread, Doctor. While the controller is still fun to play with, the problem is the game selection. At this point it seems first party titles are the only good titles out for the system. At the same time, the 360s game selection is much larger, having been out for a year prior and having most big time developers use the system's graphic engine.

I never said the Wii is not fun to play. It's fun as hell. But it just needs more games.

it just needs more games.

That's what the virtual console is for 8)

Cept I already own all the original copies of the VC games. :-P

So we are buying next-gen hardware to play 10 year old games?

we are buying next-gen hardware to play 10 year old games?

Consider it an inexpensive time machine to an era when games enjoyed a wider diversity of viable genres 8) Do you only watch new movies on flatscreen televisions or music by new bands on fancy new stereos?

Hehe. Good point. I got nothing against retro gaming tough, its just that I understood from your post that pretty much the only value you've got in the Wii after you finish Zelda and the upcoming Mario is playing NES games and well.... I question the logic of paying good money (the Wii, classic controller & internet) for games that you already own or can emulate on a multitude of machines.

paying good money (the Wii, classic controller & internet) for games that you already own or can emulate on a multitude of machines

But finally you can use them all legally and legitimately, if that sort of thing is important to you (or important for you to demonstrate to your kids)... you can do it without rooting around fruitlessly at flea markets for the right power adaptors and carts that may or may not work... and you can get it all done with a single machine. It's already understood that nostalgia is a powerful compulsion to spend -- it's just rare that it's the original company prepared to be in a position to leverage that nostalgia so many years later.

Of coss, as with the Zelda and Mario you mention, the other reason to get the Wii is to play hypothetical new games from those long-running traditional franchises (eg Metroid) whose games will only ever appear on Nintendo consoles.

I understand where you are coming from, and I don't mean to get into the whole abandonware issue. But if I have my cart of super metroid stuffed somewhere, you can bet your ass that I'm not going to pay for it again, and just download a rom and emulate it on my pc. But that's just me. Damn, we are going further OT with this, but anyway the point i tried to make was that paying 250 plus for a brand-spanking new Nintendo console just to play the original Metroid and 3 new games or so (mario, zelda, metroid, pokemon? :) is not exactly my idea of value. At least not the one that justifies these kind of sales.

Edit: I do agree that its a swell idea from a major publisher.

*bursts out laughing*

*bursts out laughing*

Hey, sometimes stepping into the shoes of a hypothetical moral person makes one say some pretty peculiar things 8)

Personally I'd flame wars were the foundations of human socialization period. But most people don't know how to "counter-spell".

God, I feel lame now.