Wii Ahead Of Xbox 360 In Hardware Sales?

Sounds like sour grapes, my friend, upset that Wii is in the lead?

Sounds like denial to me. The Wii is a cheap console that people are buying as a party toy or for their kids/girlfriends & mums. There are no real games(no I don't want to see a list of Wii software) and the control scheme isn't best suited for proper games.

Nobody is denying that it's a games console I'm saying it isn't in direct competition with the 360 or PS3. The price point, spec and features set it aside from the SONY and Microsoft's offerings. Example: Ferrari and a KIA both manufacture cars but they certainly aren't in direct competition.

I am merely stating the obvious.

No sour grapes, I'm fine with the Wii's lead. Why wouldn't I be, I have Nintendo shares!

I am simply disappointed that people are using logic that doesn't stack up to defend a site whose statistics are obviously incorrect.

VGChartz is either overestimating sales of Wii or underestimating sales of 360 when compared with other figures. People here are saying that its numbers are lower than elswhere because they deal with units sold to consumers, not units shipped. That logic does not explain with why their Wii figures are higher than elsewhere.

People are saying that VGChartz uses NPD data. That is a uniquely geocentric view, NPD data only deals with the United States of America... fewer than 5% of the world's population. NPD is panel based. It does not monitor all sales. It monitors a statistically significant sample, and extrapolates from there. The inclusion of NPD data in a global sales figure is not a guarantee of accuracy.

No one but the platform holder has definitive accurate figures for a console's global sales, and for commercial reasons, it is not in their interests to state them clearly. VGChartz is guesstimating. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as they are clear that that is what they are doing. If they present their figures as definitive, they are lying. People here and elsewhere who take their (or any) figures as gospel are fooling themselves.

So MS has released figures for SOLD units instead of shipped? Well, that's a first!!!

If not, then VGchartz is probably not too far off... again.

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I think each platform has carved a niche deep enough that the numbers game is longer as important as it once was. Wii has a massive fanbase of hardcore, casual, and soccer mom players that is not going away, period. The 360 has the college, online gamer demographic that spend half their day in Halo 3 matchmaking. And of course with Blu Ray's extra storage the PS3 will always be a contender for a wealth of exclusives (and the name recognition certainly doesn't hurt any).

The bottom line is that at this point, unless something drastic happens, nobody is going anywhere...

"The fact that it has the 360's total at the end of 2007 at just over 16 million, however, shows that VG Chartz figures need to be taken with a pinch of salt."

Why the heck would you say this? It's like you're assuming that Microsoft's sales figures should be treated as the gospel. Do you not take into account that the 360's figures represent units SHIPPED to retailers, whereas the Wii figures represent units SOLD to customers?

It seems like any moron is allowed to write an article these days.

As if any one needs additional confirmation that this is SHIPPED, you can go to http://www.microsoft.com/ces/, wait for Robbie Bach to speak, and hear it straight from his lips.

Maybe spong should do some research before posting news reports. This is irresponsibility at its finest.

I thaught it was already established in October that the Wii was the new market leader, if not, certainly by November, if not by then, certainly by December...you know because it has been outselling the Xbox360 in those three months worldwide by half million units per month if not more.

but whos sells more?, Kia or Ferrari? there for Kia has a bigger install base, imagine if regardless of your car the petrol was what controlled the handling and the speed etc it wouldnt ,matter what brand car you had but what brand fuel?, again this points out it doesnt matter what console you have its what you can play on it, people dont buy the Wii for its asthetics they buy it for its brand of fuel! and right now im filling up on Mario Galaxy 4 star! and i chose that game over a 360 game that week (cant remember which) and so does that not show i effected xbox 360 games sales because of my Wii and therefore created direct competition?

People buy the Wii 'cos it's cheap and for party games not for it's huge selection of quality AAA games catalog.

Oh wait... sorry, the Wii has the poorest selection of games of the three current formats, it doesn't have a huge selection of AAA games.

You can try to spin it which ever way you want, Microsoft is selling more games than Nintendo. You're wrong, sorry.

Something called a DS disagrees with the last statement. No matter how anyone tries to spin it, the DS is actually the real winner in this format war. It has more games that sold over 5 million copies then Xbox360 has games selling over a million copies. Who's selling the most games then?

You could also say that the Wii has the most AAA fun (remember fun?) games, while the Xbox360 has the most AAA formulaic games and it would be true as well.

What has the DS got to do with home consoles? My last statement has no relevance to the DS whatsoever. The DS is the cheapest portable console with the best and widest variation of proper handheld games, nothing like the Wii.

Nobody is disputing that the DS has sold more units and games worldwide, however the DS isn't in any sort of competition whatsoever with home consoles.

The simple fact remains that the Wii isn't shifting the same amount of software as the 360 despite the Wii having the larger installed userbase. The Wii is selling more consoles because it is cheap and a good party toy. It is appealing to more casual gaming consumers. Have you got it through your thick skull yet?

It's not as if any of this matters anyway. Does it stop any 360/PS3 owners enjoying their system by knowing that more people have bought a Wii, I really doubt it.

Wrong again, its not direct competition `ala a home console`, but it takes sales away from other consoles when purchased and builds brand awareness for nintendo with pokemon, mario, big brain academy etc....



You are screaming from the top of your lungs Nintendo Hater, the fact of the matter is nintendo is shifting units of Wii and games, look at japan, 1.9 million Wii Sports sold, 1 million wii fit sold in first week, but on the flip side Mario Galaxy bombed, and that was a AAA title!, regardless of whether its AAA or not is selling software and lots of it, it is appealing to the casual gamer, and as i get older and have less time, as i prefer to spend time iwth my family and have to work longer hours, i dont always want bioshock, or Mass Effect (yeah i do but not all the time) and as such i have a need fulfilled with casual games, and time with family, but i dont pick up mario galaxy or metroid and think oh gimmicky party game! and i think its you with the very thin skull thats being damaged due to your sony.microsoft fanboyism, why cant you enjoy all three, if you dont own all three you shouldnt comment until you do!.



Not at all, and no one but you has pointed this out, you found the need to enjoy your PS3 and 360 Less because you are here slamming nintendo! have you any sense at the end of the say they are a business and out of Sony, MS and Ninty whos making the money whos is deffinatly going to be here next gen?? will you be happy if the wii 2 is 4xHD with 400 cores and a petabyte of ram? or are you looking forward to the games?

If you dont like the fact that casual gaming is becoming the dominent form of gaming, then tough because games are changing (better or worse?) and you better accept it or you will be very very sad for a long time to come, after all do you think microsoft and sonys next console will just be for the hardcore? they are already marketing it to families.

MS and Sony want nintendos success and they will follow suit in tehir own way.

I own all three consoles, dumbass. The Wii is a great console and great fun but I only use it with friends for party games, then it gets put away in it's box again. It doesn't get used as my main gaming machine and I have many friends whom use theirs in the same manor.

Nobody has "slammed" Nintendo. Nobody has stated casual gaming is bad. You really are thick as pig s**t, can you even read?

All that has been stated is that the PS3 and the 360 appeal to a different type of consumer than the Wii and they aren't really in direct competition.

Sony and Microsoft have great support from hardcore gamers and they'd love to sell more to the casual gamer, nobody has disputed this.

Nobody has insulted your precious Nintendo, if you could read and comprehend basic English you wouldn't be getting so upset.

What is it with you guys all foaming at the bit over VGChartz? It takes data from NDP, which is generally known to be a bit, well, s**t. How big is NPD's sample? Which retailers? If it don't cover like 95% of retailers then its just a big stinking bag of extrapolation that can only ever be used as a rule of thumb.

And all you clueless girls talking about SHIPPED versus SOLD - do you not understand modern supply chain logistics? Only a foolish retailer would buy stock for it to sit on a shelf in some god forsaken depot. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, whoever might want to stuff product into the supply chain pipe to inflate figures, but retailers aren't going tie up capital for something to sit in a warehouse going unsold.

The small retailers buy what teh know they can sell because they haven't the resources to waste on a hunch. The big boys track stock levels and premeptively buy base on projected shortfalls - it's called "just in time" Go figure.

Then explain to me how at one point the PSP had so high shipped numbers but compared to the sold numbers almost a third of all shipped PSP's was sitting in stock...in stores! Also Microsoft at the beginning of the year admitted they overshipped the Xbox360 by a million or more units. That doesn't mean Microsoft had a million Xbox360's sitting somewhere, it meant a million Xbox360's where spread across the world, sitting in some store's stock.

Also what's with people saying Mario Galaxy bombed? It's almost at a million in Japan and sold almost two million in the US. Worldwide its at around 4 million. Sure the game didn't sold bonkers at launch, but it has legs. I think Nintendo at this stage really likes that its games has legs ( like how NSMB had legs too, you're going to call that game bombed too because it didn't sold that good at launch but its up to 10+ million units now?). Bah, with the DS, Nintendo probably expects all its games to have legs.

It's true that Xbox360 has a higher tie-in ratio but it has been out longer too, giving people two years time to buy games (i think you have more games after two years then after one). But what is interesting, the Wii does have a similiar tie-in ratio as the PS2 in the same stage...and the Wii is being pumped out at the same rate as the PS2 in its high days. Nostradamus would go crazy man!

Also, the DS has a very big impact on the consoles. It creates cash-flow for companies who need the cash to fund their over-complicated games for the PS3 and Xbox360 (like Square-Enix). Hell, without the DS the game-industry in Japan would have crashed and it would have shrank in 2005 world-wide. That's a very big impact.

If you're going to confuse this further by dragging the DS into the argument, then surely Sony is the winner with it's continuing sales of PS1 and PS2 software.

Whose sold figures? NPD's extcrapolated nonsense?



How do you overship? Did MS just push out an extra 20% for laughs, expecting the retailers to say "Yeah, no problem. We only ordered 500 but 600 were delivered and billed."

As if. Retailers manage their orders from distribution, and any dork that over orders to the point where product is languishing in the backoffice is likely to see the door.

There's always going to be discrepency between shipped and sold because of retailed requiring stock and the lag between stocking and selling. And sometimes retail massively over orders a dud product. But all these people crying foul on the use of shipped vs. sold, I don't buy it. I think they're just fanboys desperately looking for something to smack the enemy down.

Let me put a bit of perspective on it for you.

The retail pipeline is made up of manufacturers, haulage firms, distributors, retailer warehouses and retailer stores. Some retailers use their distributors as their warehouses, but most of the big chains do not.

So Microsoft sell into Gem (their distributor in the UK) who sells to Game (high-street B&M store for those that don't know) who put consoles and games into their warehouses and then distribute them from there to their stores.

Each of Game's stores will have an amount of back-room stock and a limited number of display or shelf models. Each of their warehouses will have enough stock to re-supply all daily sales in their stores and a margin to fully re-supply any store that has a run on the product.

Gem will have enough stock to re-supply all of the retailers it sells into in the UK. Re-supplying their warehouses remember, so enough to cover the UK's 360 sales for a couple of days.

Microsoft will have a large number of 360s on boats travelling around the world getting consoles from factories to distributors. Sometimes, like in Europe, they will need haulage firms to hold stock in order to transport the consoles between a central port and the country or region specific distributors. Most of the time this process will be organised by the distributors themselves, but that's still a lot of lorries and yet more warehouses with "unsold to consumers" consoles sitting in them.

All of this stock that is in store rooms, warehouses, containers, trucks and ships is the difference between shipped and sold figures. This is known in the retail trade as stock "in channel".

The only way that shipped and sold figures could ever be the same is if Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo could teleport their consoles into store back-rooms when you walk up to the counter in your local shop and ask to buy one. Otherwise there is a huge logistics operation with stock buffers at each step along the way that holds or transports stock between the factories and the stores where we buy the consoles.

Let's try some figures. Please note that I've done a hell of a lot of estimating here, but you can see how quickly figures can mount up with a few reasonable estimations.

Chart Track estimate about 7,750 retail stores in the UK belonging to the retail chains they track data from. If each one had 5 360s in stock, ready to sell on a morning, we'd have 38,750 in stores. Double that to cover retailer warehouses and we have 77,500 360s in retailers' hands.

Let's say an extra 3/4 of that for Gem, that gives us 135,625 in the UK. And double the total again for haulage and ships giving us 271,250 consoles allocated to the UK. The UK is roughly 30% of the EU/PAL region as far as sales go, so we get 904,167 ish consoles allocated to Europe/PAL.

Let's say that Europe/PAL represents 30% of the world market, now we've got about 3,013,889 360s "in channel" between Microsoft's factories and consumers' hands across the world. And all of that is based on the estimate that there are only an average of 5 consoles in each store across the world.

When you're talking about total shipped figures of just under 20M, a difference of 3M is quite significant.

All of the above is, of course, why it's difficult to get enough stock in place to satisfy everybody at the launch of a new console. It also contributes to the problems Nintendo has with getting Wii stock in front of consumers. It also explains whey there was such an almighty panic a few years ago when the Suez canal was closed for a while, delaying shipments of Xboxes and PS2s bound for the UK.

Sure, why not. I like to have total pictures, not wranged down "but if you only count this and this actually company X won!". That's utter bull.

NPD does extrapolate indeed getting it's numbers from 40% in retail, but did you know they used only 250 families to compute tv-ratings. The fault of NPD doesn't lie in that does't track everyone, it lies in the focused tracking of the big retail chains. Even so you can still extrapolate some kind of minimum number with a 5-10% fault margin.

NPD isn't accurate or precise but it does aim to give us large numbers and in that regard they probably aren't very off the mark. however, it could be that sometimes the number 1 is in reality number two. In the real bigger picture it doesn't really matter. NPD can give a good marker how good stuff sells in terms of quantity. The top tens and so forth they make afterwards should not been seen as the most important part.