The NPD has reported their sales figures for December and creative marketing has taken control. Each console developer has found a way to make the statistics fall into their favor.
"Nintendo Records Best Holiday Selling Season in U.S. Video Game History"
This is Nintendo speak for "we did good folks." Nintendo also stated, "Throughout the November/December holiday shopping season, Nintendo accounted for more than half of all videogame hardware systems sold in America"
How did Nintendo win the war? By combining sales of their GBA, DS, and Wii sales figures into a single big number. The real statistics:
- Wii: 604.2k units sold
- DS: 1.6M units sold
- GBA: 850.7k units sold.
Basic addition easily shows how Nintendo dominated sales! However, easy math doesn't determine a market winner. Remember, Nintendo said they'd have 4-million Nintendo Wii's to the market by the end of the year and NPD is reporting 604.2k units sold - far from the 4-million mark. Nintendo's defense? NPD doesn't count units shipped off their loading dock, so in-transit figures are not counted.
To the gamer, in-transit sales shouldn't count because thousands of gamers want a Nintendo Wii but cannot find one anywhere but eBay. We only care about the facts, and the facts are "you are short on shipments Nintendo - get working!"
"Sony Computer Entertainment America dominated the US computer entertainment marketplace in December, scoring its highest first-party sales month in company history, as well producing the top-selling home system."
Top selling home system? Yeah, basically they know the DS Lite made their PSP look like a "novelty" this holiday. Even with the reduced prices on the PSP people wanted a hand-held gaming device, not an all in one swiss army knife of media.
How exactly did Sony take the win when the PS3 was not seen on shelves until January? Strong sales of the PlayStation 2 - that's how.
- PlayStation 3: 687k units sold (more than Microsofts December sales in '05)
- PlayStation 2: 1.4M units sold.
Although Sony did well with their PlayStation 3 sales despite all odds, they padded their "score" with a cheap last-generation console. Similar to what Nintendo pulled off with their 850.7k units of Gameboy Advanced system. Who still buys that thing?
Sony's product may have had fairly decent sales figures in December with the hype and craze of the season. We're waiting to see if those sales figures increase in January and February now that the product is on shelves in some areas of the US.
"Xbox 360 Outsells Wii and PS3 This Holiday"
Microsoft claims that "consumers have cast their votes and Xbox 360 was the best-selling next-generation console of the 2006 holiday season in the United States, outselling the PlayStation 3 and Wii combined in December." Microsoft sold 1.1M units in December - better than both the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii combined.
So, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 beating out the, now, current-generation system does that make them the winner? It depends on how much of an Xbox 360 fan you are because Microsoft doesn't have a hand-held system and they refuse to acknowledge they created the old Xbox in any sales figures or press.
Microsoft did sell more current-generation systems but they didn't sell as many current-generation system than Sony sold last-generation systems. As a matter of fact, the Microsoft sales figures aren't too far over the sales of the Nintendo's GBA.
Obviously, the cost of a 360 exceeds that of a GBA or PS2, but sales are sales, and when you talk revenue and customer adoption it's hard to say Microsoft won the battle with those other guys making sales of a full line of products.
So, who won? Perhaps the consumer won. They've got plenty of awesome hardware and video games to play.
source: 1up.com
