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After endless months of hubbub surrounding the various next-gen (this-gen?) console launches, complete with fanboys of all flavors proclaiming their console the winner and predicting at least one complete loser, the numbers are finally in. Which console really did the best in its launch period--and which did the worst?

With similar year-end launch windows for each of the three consoles, it seems fair to compare their sales from launch until year-end. In 2005, the X-Box 360 sold 607,000 consoles. By the end of 2006, Sony had sold 687,300 PlayStation 3s for a narrow launch-window victory. But, wait! In the slightly smaller 2006 window Nintendo gave the Wii launch, it sold 1.1 million consoles, vastly outstripping either of its competitors.

Of course, no one likes to be declared the loser in any kind of race, and Sony and Microsoft have been swift to point out a few caveats before taking these numbers at face value. While the Wii was in short supply throughout the holiday season, Nintendo managed to overcome the supply hurdles that kept Microsoft and Sony in the dust. With an infinite supply of each of the three consoles, it's hard to say which brand would have come out the winner. Also, Microsoft's 360 was the top console seller of this holiday season, claiming a 51% market share in North America.

So what do these numbers really mean? I'm inclined to agree with the analysts. It's too close to call. There aren't any clear losers as of yet, and I think it's going to take at least another year to see if Sony ever solves its production problems or if the Wii fans knocked unconscious by wayward Wiimmotes ever recover from their comatose states. So, shut up, fanboys. Or at least start basing your predictions on the market a year from now.

Source: GameSpot

This post has been edited by Tiddles on 11th February 2007 23:22

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Regardless of which console did the "best", they all had strong outings with their sales numbers.

The real winners were the folks who managed to get ahold of one of the damn things.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

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Quote (Hamedo @ 12th January 2007 19:06)

Regardless of which console did the "best", they all had strong outings with their sales numbers.

The real winners were the folks who managed to get ahold of one of the damn things.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all winners, imagine selling such a large amount of Consoles, the income must be enormous!

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All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Broccoli to die.

They all did well, and I though I side with the Wii,the smart thing is to wait for more games to come out for the PS3 and Wii.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Quote (Ganolink @ 12th January 2007 21:22)

Quote (Hamedo @ 12th January 2007 19:06)

Regardless of which console did the "best", they all had strong outings with their sales numbers.

The real winners were the folks who managed to get ahold of one of the damn things.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are all winners, imagine selling such a large amount of Consoles, the income must be enormous!

Um, only Nintendo stand a chance of making profit on the actual console units at the moment... Or just a smaller loss than usual.

Well, it's nothing new really, but selling about double over one when you had about three times the availability isn't exactly a mean feat, nor is selling better than the competition with a year's head start. What is, is cocking up at every turn. Sony must surely win an award for that?

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

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Um, only Nintendo stand a chance of making profit on the actual console units at the moment... Or just a smaller loss than usual.

Well somebody beat me to saying it.

Del S pretty much said everything I wanted to say. So all that's left for me to say is that it came out as i had expected. And I'm impressed.

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

oh, i had no idea that they would actually loose money on a sale like that, i just assumed that it would be like that ;p that only proves that nintendo make games for the players, not for their own profit.

Ive been siding with nintendo all along really, i never really liked Sonys games, except for final fantasy and a few others. Most of the games nintendo made has been good, which is what hooked me up.

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All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Broccoli to die.

Quote (Ganolink @ 12th January 2007 19:27)

oh, i had no idea that they would actually loose money on a sale like that, i just assumed that it would be like that ;p that only proves that nintendo make games for the players, not for their own profit.

What?

All of the companies make games for their own bottom line. Making games for the players is precisely what makes them money, because good games sell well! If Nintendo makes better games than Sony or Microsoft (and I am by no means conceding that fact!), it's because they happen to have smarter developers, not because they love their players more.

Also, last I read, Nintendo makes a little bit of money on each console sold, whereas Microsoft and Sony both lose upwards of $50.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

Hmm, so it's even cheaper to make the Wii? I would have thought that they were like the PS3 and 360 with that, though I guess it helps that a lot of the Wii technology is older stuff.

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Dead Winter. A nice comic.

Quote (Barrylocke @ 13th January 2007 01:25)

Hmm, so it's even cheaper to make the Wii? I would have thought that they were like the PS3 and 360 with that, though I guess it helps that a lot of the Wii technology is older stuff.

If not for the controller, you'd be paying for last gen with bells on IMO. In fact, I personally think all you're getting is a gamecube on DVDs and a funky wireless controller as well as a slightly more powerful engine, not much, but a little more powerful. Mind you, what's under the bonnet doesn't matter half as much as how you use it. You Fiat Punto will get the job done, and the Ferrari will never really be used to it's full potential unless you want to see if it can outrun a police car.

PS3 however gives you an investment in the lower tiers of the next generation of consoles and XBox 360 is the only true 100% 7th gen console released. PS3 is good for gaming no matter what, because it's souped up engine forces the competition to up their game, by doing what they do best. For Nintendo, that's to simply create decent 1st party games along with a handful or more of good 3rd party ones irrespective of console power because it's cheaper to keep it weaker. For Sony, that's apaprently to blunder with every move as of late and hope the next wave of games provides some sort of killer app. For Microsoft, it appears to be just sitting there with the hatch closed popping thier head out occasionaly and waving the turret gun about.

This post has been edited by Del S on 13th January 2007 05:32

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

PS3's gathering dust on shelves while Wii's stay sold out.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

I think Wii would have sold even more if more consoles were available. They may have overcome whatever hurdles Microsoft and Sony had, but they still sold out in many, if not most, locations. I myself have still YET to see a Wii on sale in any store I frequent, yet I would have purchased one if I had.

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Oh sure, I don't have to get kicked in the junk to activate it, but I like it anyway. -- Thief commenting on the difference between Throw and Blue Magic.

Raises an intresting point really. These sales figures probably don't take into account returns for PS3 or Wii (Or for that matter XBox 360). Also further backing that the PS3 launch in general should have been delayed rather than rushed headlong and head to head with the cheaper mass-produced red team...

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Remember the PS3 isn't even out here in Britain. They'll make progress once it is. Also I'm guessing there are people like me who are still accumulating enough money to buy the thing - along with everything else. So I'll predict that PS3 sales remain steady while Wii's will drop eventually. Still it's no suprise that the cheapest console takes the prize when the superior competitors aren't even making games worthly to champion it yet.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

I think, for now, the Wii's technical inferiority actually plays in its favour.

Sony and Microsoft have made a lot of noise about HD content, but the fact remains that most people still have SDTVs and won't see half the graphical improvements the PS3 or 360 bring to the table. It's one thing to decide whether to spend more for better graphics, but if you can't even appreciate much of that improvement, it's quite another matter. In its control system, the Wii's selling point, on the other hand, doesn't require ridiculously expensive, early-generation TV hardware.

Does anyone here know how much the PS3 is costing Sony? According to the January 2007 GameInformer magazine:

Quote ("GameInformer")

iSuppli, a marketing intelligence service, claims that Sony is taking a considerable loss for each PlayStation 3 sold. Their report states that "Materials and manufacturing costs for the 20GB model exceed the suggested retail price of $499 by a total of $306.85. For the 60GB version, costs exceed the $599 price by $241.45."

I find this very believable because the PS3 relies on extremely new technology, like the Blu-Ray disc. If Sony is truly selling this console for barely over half of what it's worth, and they're still not selling well, it may not last very long. I just hope they get out of this hole quick, before PS3 becomes one of those cult consoles.

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Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The same holds true for the rest of your classes.

maybe if sony gets it's act together and stops treating Europe like crap they might do ok,

remember kids:

"Europe has historically shown that they don't mind delays"

"don't mind" umm is that why i ONLY buy American imports now

I don't mind waiting an extra 8 months for the same games with
poorer framerates, bad quality pal with borders, higher prices and sometimes censorship

is this what sony and publishers in general think of our attitudes?

maybe they need taught a lesson

You know, it's funny. Both the Wii and the PS3 fell short of most analysts' expectations for sales (mostly because of overestimated numbers of units shipped), and the bestselling console in the US wasn't any of the big three new consoles - it was the PS2.

So Sony has had some very disappointing launch numbers for the PS3, but did they really lose? I mean, according to IHT, the PS2 sold more units than the 360, Wii, or PS3, four of December's bestselling games were PS2 games, and the only gaming machine that sold more worldwide was the Nintendo DS. And also, the 360, which admittedly has loads more in stock as well as a larger library of games than the Wii or PS3, sold better in December than either of its two major competitors.

So what does this info, along with karasuman's launch window stats, tell us? Zilch. Launch numbers this early in the "console war" (I sort of hate that term, so it's goin in quotes) are useless. We won't know anything about the results of this new generation of consoles until a couple of years from now when the PS4 and XBox and the Nintendo Zii come out, and we can analyze the economic goings-on of this current generation in hindsight. So in the meantime, buy whatever games or systems you want to buy, and have fun.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

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the bestselling console in the US wasn't any of the big three new consoles - it was the PS2.

I contributed to that. Bought mine on December 20th. Retail priced used PS2 110, on sale $90.

Gotta play Guitar Hero II somehow.

This post has been edited by Cloud_Strife510 on 15th January 2007 16:52

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"Have you ever seen a baby do that before?"

What a great start by Nintendo, and now I'm starting to see just how smart they have been. I hope Sony doesn't suffer too much, so many of the games look so good!

Well, the main thing is games are still generally getting better, so can't complain too much.

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'Let that be a lesson to all oppressive vegetable sellers.'

Quote (Cloud_Strife510 @ 15th January 2007 11:51)

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the bestselling console in the US wasn't any of the big three new consoles - it was the PS2.

I contributed to that. Bought mine on December 20th. Retail priced used PS2 110, on sale $90.

Gotta play Guitar Hero II somehow.

Actually, you didn't. Buying a used system isn't going to contribute to the sales numbers.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

Quote (laszlow @ 15th January 2007 10:41)

years from now when the PS4 and XBox and the Nintendo Zii come out...

I gonna go ahead and name the Playstation 9 the winner of the Console Wars: 2078.

Moderator Edit

Topic, plz.

This post has been edited by karasuman on 15th January 2007 21:40

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"