Take My Word For It

According to popular gaming website VGChartz, sales of the Nintendo Wii increased by 44% for the week ending August 1, 2009, selling more than both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 combined (which is not unusual at all).

Nintendo Wii: 343,467 (+44%)
Xbox 360: 109,109 (0%)
PlayStation 3: 84,137 (-4%)

Saying that the Wii outsold it’s competitors combined is true, but doesn’t give the most accurate depiction, as it almost sold more than both of them combined two-fold.

Much credit goes to Capcom’s Monster Hunter Tri, which boosted the sales of the Wii in Japan by over 300%, and sold over a half million in just a couple days of shelf-life.

How much longer can the Wii hold up against it’s HD competitors? It’s clear that the Wii is going to be first place this generation, but it can only go so far before Nintendo is forced to take action. There haven’t been many big titles released in 2009 yet from Nintendo, but the holiday line-up is looking nicer and nicer. Wii Fit Plus is going to be absolutely HUGE, and there is no denying that. In fact, Wii Fit has sold over 21 million units, almost as much as the PlayStation 3, and comparing a game to a system always seems unfair, but on a weekly basis, this “game” continues to outsell the PS3 every single week. Nintendo has made statements saying that the balance board is almost like another game platform altogether, as there have been dozens of games that use it, and it has a userbase of 21 million.

August is always Madden-month, and the Wii has never been the platform-of-choice for Madden players. With rumored price cuts for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, August could be a turning point, but that’s a long shot. Even if Nintendo sales plummet, it is almost impossible for the Wii to lose this generation, as stated before. The Wii has already gained too much ground on it’s competitors, and has went almost three years without a price cut. Even at launch, the Wii was turning a profit on each console sold, while Sony sold it’s PS3’s for more than $200 less than what it was worth.

Price cut for Nintendo? It is bound to happen eventually. The Gamecube was selling for only $99.99 not even halfway through it’s lifespan, and yet Nintendo still turned profits. The Wii is not much more expensive to manufacture, and Nintendo could probably drop the price to $149.99 without touching red. It would be interesting to see what would happen in the event that Nintendo did take such actions. The competitors would be forced to follow suit with some major price cuts, as the Wii would be sold out everywhere just like it was for over a year after it’s launch.

Nintendo is in a great position right now, being the world’s largest hardware manufacturer. They have a lot of options, and being that they have always been a conservative company, I do not see them lowering the price of the Wii until they think they absolutely have to.

NFreak News Games, Sales, Wii

Nintendo will be launching Wii Sports Resort bundled with it’s newest peripheral, Wii Motion Plus, tomorrow in North America. This game has already sold well over a half million copies in Japan, and it is up to North America to determine whether or not it will truly be a success. If Nintendo can distribute this new peripheral to the majority of the Wii’s installed base, we will see a lot more games that take advantage of it.

With one-to-one precision, and full motion control, it would be a great thing to see Wii Motion Plus roll off those shelves. There’s an estimated 2 million of these motion adaptors that have been sold so far across the globe, with over 1 million in Japan alone. With the launch of Wii Sports Resort, it is likely that we will see over 5 million sales of the peripheral within the next month, as this is the first major game to support it within this territory.

Only time can tell, but realize that there could be huge changes in this industry if this advanced peripheral is a big hit.

NFreak Games Sales, Wii

On a worldwide scale, sales of the Nintendo Wii have surpassed 50 million units, far more than either of it’s competitors, and almost more than both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 combined.

The Wii has about 49% market share at this time, and is doing well in all territories with the “maybe” exception of Japan, in which it has slowed down a lot from previous years. While the Wii does have over two-thirds of the market share in Japan, it has been doing significantly worse this year, as the Japanese are in a gaming recession. The Wii sells around 20,000 units each week in Japan, while the PS3 maintains 10,000 and around 3,500 for the Xbox 360.

In the handheld market, the Nintendo DS has sold over 100 million units at this time, making it the best-selling handheld system ever. It is very likely for it to reach 150 million before the end of it’s lifetime, exceeding the Playstation 2’s 140 million record.

NFreak News Sales, Stats, Wii

The ninth installment in the Dragon Quest series was released yesterday in Japan, and it is very plausible that it sets a new record for weekly Japanese sales, beating Final Fantasy VIII in 1999 with sales of about 2.6 million in it’s first week.

Square-Enix shipped 3 million units just for day one, and over two million copies were pre-ordered before release. It has been estimated that 2.8 million copies have already sold through, and if that is the case, then the weekly record has been beaten, after a decade with the title belonging to Square-Enix’s own Final Fantasy VIII.

If you check out videos on YouTube, you can see the excitement in Japan, as it was a huge day for gaming, and came unexpectedly as the country has been in a gaming recession for quite some time. Is this what Japan needed to kick them back into gaming gear? Monster Hunter is launching for Wii on August 1, and Wii Sports Resort was launched a few weeks back. With all these titles coming one after another, Nintendo is seeing large boosts in hardware, and cementing their number one position, ensuring that they will not be beaten this generation by either Sony or (laugh) Microsoft.

While handheld sales are fairly strong in Japan, console sales have been doing awful, with the Wii selling an average of 15,000 on a weekly basis for the past couple months (beating the PS3 at 10,000 and the 360 at 4,000). The past few weeks saw increases with the release of Wii Sports Resort, which pushed Wii hardware to 23,000 last week. With Monster Hunter launching as a bundle with the console, it will be interesting to see how much it affects hardware sales, and if the Wii can finally start outputting normal hardware levels of 60,000 each week.

I’ll keep you updated.

NFreak Games DS, Games, Japan, Sales, Wii

A few months ago NFreak bought the game Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii. It’s cover may make it look like a game for pre-schoolers, but it is so entertaining and addicting it is fun for people of all ages. The object of the game is to make your house and town the best it can be. There is always something to do or buy.There are also neighbors that are always looking for somebody to talk to. They sometimes even ask you for favors, and they usually give you something in return.

There are many ways to make money including fishing, collecting shells, digging up gyroids or fossils, hitting the money rock, selling items, picking fruits off of trees, and so many more. You can upgrade Tom Nook’s shop by buying certain amounts of things from his store.

You can make your house better by adding “special” items, or having items that are included in a set, also in some months there are themes that will award your house more points from the Housing Academy. You can also upgrade the size of your house by paying back your mortgage to Tom Nook. You start with a really small one story 4 x4 house, but by the end you can have a three story house with 16 x 16 squares in it.

Once your house is completely payed off you can work on making your town a much better place. You can do this by donating money in town hall. You can even get a fountain for your town! There is no end to the variety of possibilities in this game. It is a very addicting and fun game for everyone!

Loddeykins Games Games, Wii