Not much of a surprise, really. Several big factors contributed to the Nintendo's success; it's the holiday buying season, the Wii is new and appeals to all kinds of people, Sony dropped the ball (big time), and the DS is still a hit. I'm really enjoying my Wii, but there are a lot of kinks to work out, specifically with the online service. I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'm waiting to see if the Wii fizzles out once the novelty is gone, or if it sells through like the DS.
For video gamers, it was the month
that was -- November 2006, the first time all three new home systems would be
available to consumers, along with three established portable game devices.
(Logo:
http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin
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It was a month that belonged to Nintendo.
According to independent sales data from the NPD Group, Nintendo sold 55
percent of all video game systems in November, led by the launch of the
Wii(TM) home system and the incredible continuing success of the Nintendo
DS(TM) portable.
In only the first seven days of availability after its Nov. 19 launch, Wii
sold nearly half a million systems in the United States alone (as reported
previously by Nintendo, total sales of Wii in the Americas reached 600,000 in
its first eight days of availability).
While Wii sold through at a rate of more than 70,000 a day for the seven
days represented in the data (substantially higher than any other game
device), November's two top sellers of any type were the Nintendo DS, at
almost 920,000 units, and Game Boy(R) Advance, with nearly 642,000 portables
sold. With Wii and Nintendo GameCube(TM) totals included, Nintendo sold
through more than 2.1 million of the 3.9 million systems purchased for the
month.
The data also reveals that the Wii title The Legend of Zelda(R): Twilight
Princess achieved sales of 412,000, representing 87 percent of all Wii
purchasers, the highest industry rate of sale for any launch title since
introduction of Super Mario(R) 64 with the Nintendo(R) 64 a decade ago.
In addition, despite the inclusion of Wii Sports software with every
system sale, Wii buyers also purchased an average of two additional games,
compared to approximately one game per system for the installed bases of
either competing new home system.
