Wii will rock you: How Nintendo's Wii is beating out Sony and Microsoft

[avaya]

Well that's a rather snarky comment with no basis in reality.



PS1 sold around 110m consoles. PS2 sold around 120m. Dunno if that's necessarily the case avaya. I'd argue that it held onto its core market and slightly added on to the last generation's totals.

I don't mean to be snarky about it! Sorry! but any relaitonship with such a low sample size (I'm not talking about years since that is actually irrelevant in my opinion, the event in question is a generation switch)) can produce spurious results. So although the conlcusions drawn from the observations can be logical, it doesn't mean to say they are accurate.

I think breakdowns per region are more useful than anything else. The only reason PS1 reahced >100mn was because Sony opened up EMEA/PAL, IIRC it is still the highest growing market. If you look at NTSC, PS1 didn't really do anything that wasn't seen before. Same with PS2, it's extreme marketshare dominance is built on EMEA/PAL. I'll try and dig up some numbers on this...

Moreover PS2 has not stopped selling....while PS1 shipments only ceased a year or two ago.

That's what I refer to as non-cores. Those people who in the prior paradigm would not consider a certain product who are now buying.

In the west CD based players were already on the decline with the advent of MP3, the iPod is simply the new Walkman but with superior brand equity. It is important to add that listening to music has no social stigma attached to it!

I'll say again, I don't believe Wii is expanding the market in any region except Japan, there is simply no hard evidence to the contrary at the moment.

 

[Natoma]

I don't mean to be snarky about it! Sorry! but any relaitonship with such a low sample size (I'm not talking about years since that is actually irrelevant in my opinion, the event in question is a generation switch)) can produce spurious results. So although the conlcusions drawn from the observations can be logical, it doesn't mean to say they are accurate.

It's all we've got. Frankly I think 5-7 generations is enough to form an accurate sample size, and there's really no evidence to state that it isn't. But c'est la vie, we'll have to disagree on this point. At least for another 30 years it seems before we can get another 7 generations in.

I think breakdowns per region are more useful than anything else. The only reason PS1 reahced >100mn was because Sony opened up EMEA/PAL, IIRC it is still the highest growing market. If you look at NTSC, PS1 didn't really do anything that wasn't seen before. Same with PS2, it's extreme marketshare dominance is built on EMEA/PAL. I'll try and dig up some numbers on this...

Not completely true. PS1 doubled the size of the NTSC market from SNES from 20m to 40m. In the NES days, the NTSC market was roughly 25m.

Moreover PS2 has not stopped selling....while PS1 shipments only ceased a year or two ago.

Well that's not unexpected. The NES officially sold for 12 years (1983-1995), and the SNES officially sold for 9 years (1990-1999).

In the west CD based players were already on the decline with the advent of MP3, the iPod is simply the new Walkman but with superior brand equity. It is important to add that listening to music has no social stigma attached to it!

Still, there were MP3 players on the market long before the iPod came out. Many were actually "better" overall (more features, et al), but none achieve the stratospheric heights that the iPod has achieved.

I'll say again, I don't believe Wii is expanding the market in any region except Japan, there is simply no hard evidence to the contrary at the moment.

Rate of sales is the evidence that we have to support this imo. Again, no console in history has sold like this, particularly consoles with as much baggage as the Wii brought with it into the launch, as I detailed several posts ago with the bolded headers.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Not completely true. PS1 doubled the size of the NTSC market from SNES from 20m to 40m. In the NES days, the NTSC market was roughly 25m.

The NES sold 35 million consoles in the USA and around 19 million in Japan. The PS2 has sold 48 million in the USA and 25 million in Japan. That's not such a monstrous increase, not when the NES had to compete with Genesis since 4 years after its launch in both regions. PS2 got a good six years in with very little competition. It had a little competition from the Xbox in the USA, but not much and not often. And if it weren't for the Wii, we could possibly bump that up to seven or eight years. That's all according to here:

http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=14452
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11055

Steve tends to keep pretty accurate numbers. Also, note that the population of the USA increased by 21% between 1985 and 2000 (just going with launch populations, you could use end-of-cycle populations, but we'd have to wait for Sony to quit making PS2s). Sony sold 37% more PS2s than NES's. Doing a little math, Nintendo managed to sell .15 consoles per person, and Sony managed to sell .17 consoles per person. That's not terribly impressive, if you ask me.

 

[Natoma]

The NES sold 35 million consoles in the USA and around 19 million in Japan. The PS2 has sold 48 million in the USA and 25 million in Japan. That's not such a monstrous increase, not when the NES had to compete with Genesis since 4 years after its launch in both regions. PS2 got a good six years in with very little competition. It had a little competition from the Xbox in the USA, but not much and not often. And if it weren't for the Wii, we could possibly bump that up to seven or eight years. That's all according to here:

http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=14452
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11055

Steve tends to keep pretty accurate numbers. Also, note that the population of the USA increased by 21% between 1985 and 2000 (just going with launch populations, you could use end-of-cycle populations, but we'd have to wait for Sony to quit making PS2s). Sony sold 37% more PS2s than NES's. Doing a little math, Nintendo managed to sell .15 consoles per person, and Sony managed to sell .17 consoles per person. That's not terribly impressive, if you ask me.

Steve's not right at all. Sony's official website: http://www.playstation.com/business.html

Shows the PS2 selling 41.82m consoles and the PS1 selling 40.78m consoles in the USA with 23.27m and 21.59m consoles in Japan respectively, well below the 48m and 25m figures for the PS2 that he states.

In every link I've read on the NES, http://www.megalong.com/games/platform.asp?pid=14 for example, states that it sold 20-25m consoles in the US. The remaining 35-40m being split between Japan and Europe.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Steve gets the numbers in that particular thread from official company reports. Either it's a typo, or Sony changed the number. Note that the chart you link shows Sony selling zero PS2s between March 2005 and March 2006. NPD says they sold about 5 million in the USA during that time period. I'm gonna guess that someone made an error on that website.

This says 36 million, NES lifetime:
http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/ninvid/index.htm

This says 31.7 million by 1991:
http://www.gamingw.net/articles/91

Any knowledge of the accuracy of those numbers?

 

[Natoma]

Steve gets the numbers in that particular thread from official company reports. Either it's a typo, or Sony changed the number. Note that the chart you link shows Sony selling zero PS2s between March 2005 and March 2006. NPD says they sold about 5 million in the USA during that time period. I'm gonna guess that someone made an error on that website.

You were looking at the PS1 graph, not the PS2 graph. Between March 2005 and March 2006, US figures went from 35.35m to 41.82m for the PS2.

This says 36 million, NES lifetime:
http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/ninvid/index.htm

This says 31.7 million by 1991:
http://www.gamingw.net/articles/91

Any knowledge of the accuracy of those numbers?

That I'm not sure of quite honestly. The discrepancy begs the question, why has Nintendo officially published SNES NA figures, but not NES NA figures.... Hmm...

 

[fearsomepirate]

You were looking at the PS1 graph, not the PS2 graph. Between March 2005 and March 2006, US figures went from 35.35m to 41.82m for the PS2.

So I am...but Steve's numbers are still right. That graph ends at 2006. In March 2006, Steve reported 41.82m. His 47.68m figure is for March 2007, which isn't on the graph you linked.