Software market share charts 1995-2007 based on NPD
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
I'm unsure why you singled out nintendo, they haven't actually been the leaders in software sales in the last 7 years. Activision could do even better this year with an SC2 release.
Because I just assumed they were far and away #1..I did not know they had not been #1 for 7 years. Though I guess through Gamecube it stands to reason.
Sega had a bigger share of the software market in 2000 with the Dreamcast then they they've had since. 2001 and 2002 were also good years (well, relatively, going by these figures) but since then they've been much less significant - perhaps a reflection of the crap they seem to have churned out since then.
Since dumping hardware they've been doomed to obscurity and they still haven't been able to stop losing money.
Since dumping hardware they've been doomed to obscurity and they still haven't been able to stop losing money.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Which is what some of us stated a long time ago. 
They should have gone the Nintendo route, kept their games on their platform and allowed the hardware to operate at a profit. Just catered to the 10 million Sega fans out there at the time.
Instead they ended up sending their fans to different platforms, screwing up which IPs should go on which platform, ended in competition with bigger players on the various platforms, etc...
Bad move. Peter Moore was right.
They should have gone the Nintendo route, kept their games on their platform and allowed the hardware to operate at a profit. Just catered to the 10 million Sega fans out there at the time.
Instead they ended up sending their fans to different platforms, screwing up which IPs should go on which platform, ended in competition with bigger players on the various platforms, etc...
Bad move. Peter Moore was right.
I'm suprised Nintendo are as high as second, after all they only release there games on Nintendo consoles. Companies like EA and Activision ect release multiple versions of the same game on all sorts of systems. I'm sure if this was a chart of profit from those game releases Nintendo would be top, but I wouldn't expect them to be top on software market share (in Japan maybe, but not the US).
Is anyone else surprised by just how small some of what I would have considered being the 'big hitters' really are? Specifically I'm talking Namco, Square and Capcom. In general when I think of console gaming, these three always right near the top of the heap... and yet, they're also tiny when compared to so many others.
And Sega... oh, Sega.
And Sega... oh, Sega.
Remember these are US numbers. I'm sure those developers would all move up if you included the Japanese market.
Nintendo's domination of the Wii continues to be both its platform's biggest strength and its biggest weakness. Right now, strength, definitely! But it remains a significant risk also. Though not really to Nintendo right now, as financially the Wii platform has already succeeded and soon they'll have a very healthy budget to build and bring the next platform to the market, software included.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I'm surprised that you're surprised Teasy. After all the Wii is huge right now and third party software barely sells on it. That naturally means Nintendo must be selling a lot of their own software.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Not really. The Japanese developers have been mostly irrelevant for years in the US market. Many of us have been pointing this out to deaf years for almost as long.
Seriously, the charts are dominated by EA/Activision franchises, GTA, GT, Halo, Nintendo and little else. It's been that way for years.
Occasionally, a game pops up like MGS or FF for a month or two, but then everyone goes back to the usual Madden, Guitar Hero etc...
Quite a few 3rd party games have done pretty well, actually. Every game rating over an 85 on Metacritic has been commercially successful, and a few others below that rating (No More Heroes, Carnival Games, Sonic & the Secret Rings, a few others) have been successful as well. I know that you think that if a game doesn't go platinum, it's a failure, but the publishers don't feel the same way. It looks like 3rd parties are gradually figuring out how to move software units on the Wii.
