The Nintendo DS continues to remain a dominant figure in the Japanese hardware charts with the handheld continually outselling its rivals by a fair share, even though its successor is expected to launch later this year.
- Nintendo DS: 57,582
- Sony PSP: 36,342
- PlayStation 3: 33,057
- Nintendo Wii: 25,072
- Xbox 360: 5,065
- PlayStation 2: 1,675
A new report from Ibis Capital has shown that the Nintendo Wii took an impressive 47 per cent of the global home console market in 2009.
The report also revealed that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 took a fairly-sizeable 35% chunk of the worldwide home console market in 2009, whilst Sony’s PlayStation 3 only managed to take 18% of the market during 2009.
According to recent statistics publicized by Japanese magazine, Enterbrain, Nintendo have shifted an incredible ten million Wii consoles in Japan alone.
According to Enterbrain, 10,009,736 Nintendo Wiis have been sold, 4,766,408 PS3s have been sold and 1,235,049 Xbox 360s. For comparison sake, it has taken the Nintendo Wii 170 weeks to break the ten million barrier, while the PS2 did it in 131 weeks.
Nintendo have officially confirmed that the Wii has outsold the NES, making it “the best selling Nintendo home videogame console of all time.”
“Family Computer System, called Nintendo Entertainment System or NES in short in overseas markets, had sold 61.91 million units, which was the largest unit sales figure for any Nintendo home videogame consoles.
The cumulative sales of Wii hardware from Nintendo to our distributors and retail customers reached 67.45 million units as of the end of December 2009. It has replaced NES to become the best selling Nintendo home videogame console of all time.
Among handheld hardware, GameBoy series have sold through 118.69 million units in total since the launch, which was the largest unit sales figure among all Nintendo’s hardware products.
As of the end of December 2009, when Wii marked the record LTD sales as the number one selling Nintendo home console, the life-to-date shipments of Nintendo DS series reached 125.13 million units, which has now become largest sales figure among all of the Nintendo’s videogame hardware.
Needless to say, these are just two milestones of a larger journey in our efforts to reach the ultimate goal of bringing one home console for every household and one handheld for everyone.”
- Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata
Jesse Divnich, an analyst for EEDAR, claims that Nintendo will release the successor to the Nintendo DS this year to counter the ongoing threat of Apples iPhone and Sony’s PSP.
One of the biggest reasons for Nintendo’s success in the handheld market is their ability to remove opportunity gaps for competitors to enter. Nintendo’s transition from the GBA to the DS, a year earlier than anticipated, was a brilliant strategy to remove any upper hand the Sony PSP could have by being first to market.
If Nintendo follows the same game plan in 2010, the main reasons will probably not be the release of the PlayStation Portable Go, which is already shaping up to be a disappointment for Sony, but the continuing success of the Apple made iPhone, which is becoming an important platform for gaming on the go. Pushing out a DS2 handheld offering some kind of motion tracking and more multimedia capabilities might be a significant step in reassuring publishers and gamers that the DS still counts.
Nintendo have decimated the competition when it comes to December’s NPD figures with the company shifting a massive 3.81 million Wii units and 3.31 million DS units to consumers.
“Wii, Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi combined to sell more than 7 million units in the month of December alone. Clearly there is overwhelming consumer demand for fun games, motion controls and value.
“This remarkable hardware sales surge presents a tremendous software opportunity for Nintendo and its third-party partners for 2010.”
- Nintendo VP Cammie Dunaway
Nintendo of America’s president, Reggie Fils-Aime has spoken openly to Fox News regarding Wii sales.
Reggie Fils-Aime openly admitted to the Fox news network that it’s hard to beat last years phenomenal sales records, with the third year generally being the peak time for hardware sales.
“The third year in a generation is typically the strongest year. We’re now in our fourth year, and last year was a record year for the Wii hardware business. So, it’s going to be really tough for us to lap those numbers, but we’re having a great holiday season so far.”
- Reggie Fils-Aime
Nintendo’s revised edition of the Nintendo DSi has gone down a storm with Japanese gamers as sales of the Nintendo DSi LL topped 100,553 units during its first couple of days on sale in Japan.
Weekly figures from tracking firm Media Create now show three different versions of Nintendo’s popular DS handheld: DSi LL, DSi, and the DS Lite. Total sales for the DS line during the week were 137,674 units. The DSi LL figures align closely with numbers recently released by research firm Enterbrain.
The DSi LL handily topped sales of PlayStation 3, which have been solid since the console’s price reduction and hardware form factor revamp. PS3 led hardware charts in the two week prior to this week. Last week, PS3 and its handheld counterpart PSP together led the hardware charts.
- Gamesutra
It appears the Nintendo DSi is the console of choice for consumers in Japan as Media Create’s hardware chart for September 28th through to October 4th shows.
Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, has causally informed investors that he doesn’t believe Nintendo need a new console anytime soon.
“Among the 295.6 million active users, 209.5 million people are playing with our products. To tell you the truth, we at Nintendo had set 200 million as an internal milestone, and we already surpassed it this spring!.
“In addition, among 149.5 million of potential users – another room of expansion – there are 86.1 million people who have never tried Wii or DS yet. So numerically there is still a possibility to even double the current user population of Wii and DS.
“Thus we do not believe at all that the expansion has come to an end nor do we need a new console any time soon. So we have not set specific years for the lifespan of current game systems.”
- Satoru Iwata
