Features// SPOnG's Review Of 2006: December

Back to the recent past, and Sony got cause to chuckle when the PS3 outsold the 360 in Japan in just four weeks. Sony managed to shift 187,836 PS3s in four week, compared to Microsoft’s 178,070 units shifted in 52.

Everything that had come before December 8th was quickly forgotten, however, when the Wii finally got its UK release. We’d had the PS3 pushed back to March as two other territories got it, we’d waited patiently in line behind Japan and America to get Nintendo’s machine, but finally came a day like no other: Wii-E Day! To celebrate, us Northern SPOnGers sat in the local Wetherspoons from 11pm watching Gamestation to see if a queue would form. It didn’t, but we wouldn’t have traded the delights of a Thursday night out in Wakey for anything. We knew that our London correspondent, hobnobbing with C-list celebs at the main event down in London, was secretly jealous. Such was the excitement that when we came into work the next morning we found Gavin, unaware of his own name, still wandering the streets crying “Wiiiiiiiii!!! Wiiiiii!!!”. It was, it has to be said, a little bit tragic. If only he’d bothered to put his name down on a pre-order list…

The news came in the following Monday that the Wii was the first home console in history to shift more than 100,000 units over its launch weekend in the UK, with 105,000 bundles of joy finding their way into gamers homes. By the end of the next day we were unsurprised to find that the Wii had sold out in Europe. We were delighted to find, however, that the actual figure was 320,000, bumping the total figure for its global launch to 1,320,000. We like how all those digits look in a row. Yes, we do.

Sony managed to dodge a proverbial bullet around the middle of the month as rumours started to fly that the March European launch date would slip. It categorically denied this, with Sony’s David Wilson telling SPOnG “For the Nth time, we are on track for March 2007. All other speculation is without foundation.” Tetchy! On reflection, it wasn’t a bullet dodged so much as a foam Nerf bullet taken limply to the chest.

It wasn’t all roses and dollar signs for ’Tendy, however. There was a bit of concern trickling into the open ears of Wiiers when the BBC ran a story claiming Nintendo had recalled 3.2million Wii straps. Turned out it was a load of tosh, though. We made a quick call to Nintendo and found that “In terms of those who have had problems with the actual strap, it’s around 0.001% of users.” Nintendo was offering to replace any straps already purchased with a thicker one if consumers so required, but that wasn’t because they believed them all to be faulty. It did mean, however, that we had to tell Marcus that the two little holes SPOnG now has in its ceiling are his fault, not Nintendo’s. This was more of a problem for us than a faulty strap.

Microsoft did manage to save a bit of face after its earlier Japanese embarrassment when Blue Dragon hit Japanese shelves. The Mistwalker RPG sold 80,000 copies in its opening weekend and waltzed into their charts at number four. It also gave the 360 a much needed sales boost, with 35,453 units sold between the 4th and 10th of December, the first time the 360 has ever outsold the PS2 in Japan.

With this being the month of greed it would have been a little remiss to not mention some of those game thingies that we play sometimes. Pretty much everything that came out on the Wii was significant to us Brits, but the highlights were Wii Sports, Zelda: Twilight Princess, Red Steel and (for this in house comic nerd at least) Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. As all the other platforms didn’t explode the moment the Wii came out we also ought to point out Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2, and the inescapable Superman Returns.

And that was absolutely everything worth any kind of mention that happened in 2006. Let us know how it went for you.

Happy New Year.


Look back at SPOnG's review of November