February NPD: Two in a row for the PS3...the battle's just beginning

[Perversion]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6186077...stnews;title;0

Hardware sales weren't the only thing shrinking last month, and Nintendo's longtime lead on its competitors was similarly slimmed. The Wii once again took the system sales crown, but by a much narrower margin than in previous months--and with a new challenger nipping at its heels. In a month that saw significant advances for the PlayStation 3's chosen Blu-ray disc format, Sony's system ran nearly neck-and-neck with the Wii, selling 269,000 systems compared to the Nintendo console's 275,000. The third-place Nintendo DS racked up 251,000 system sales, while the PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360 brought up the rear, selling 230,000 units each.

One of the guys I talk to at Gamestop on a regular basis has a theory that Microsoft is trying to artificially create demand for the 360 by shipping very small quantities to retail to try to emulate Nintendo's winning formula with the Wii. He MAY be onto something, as neither that Gamestop nor my work has received many, if any, 360s since Xmas. He says they are shooting themselves in the foot, though, if this is indeed their plan.

When people come in looking for a Wii, and it's not there, they do not buy a PS3 or a 360. However, he told me that when people come in looking for a 360, and there are none to buy, a majority of the people end up purchasing a PS3 instead. Looks like Sony's turnaround might finally have started.

[gray]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

i better throw some chicken bones to make sure!



no sense playing a system without data to back up how awesome it is




might end up playing n-gage

[Jeroak Nelave]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

Its nice to see the PS3 start to get some credit. It has got a decent lineup of awesome games. Developers are starting to show that multiplatform PS3 games can be as good, if not better than 360 games.

Now they just gotta get rid of some of the stigma they have, and show that the PS3 is a good value for what you get instead of the 360 and they can get back some of that market share they have lost.

[Valkysas]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

The Wii's sales in january were affected a great deal by the reservation tickets they allwed gamestops to sell in december. by paying full price, you were guaranteed a Wii in January. So those sales counted for December, not January, and it took a bunch of consoles out of the january supply/sales.

So nintendo basically traded january sales for december sales. this helped their holiday numbers a whole hell of a lot though.

I believe that's a BIG reason for the Wii and PS3's sales in january were close.

There's no denying demand for PS3s has gone up though. The system had a terrible first year (not as bad as the PS2's first year though). but 2008 is shaping up to be a killer year for the system. Now if sony would just hurry up and get an SKU with backwards compatability back on the market, their sales would speed up pretty damn good. I know plenty of people who want PS3s that are waiting to buy one until they put backwards compatability back in. I can't fathom why they'd discontinue the 80GB system, it was selling great. Too many options confuse the consumer, we learned that with the 360. Sony needs to cut that multi-SKU crap out. now.

[The_Real_Crunk]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

Everybody bought a 360 and Wii for christmas, and all thats left are PS3s, so people are buying them.

[Red Dragon]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

Hoo boy, I hope this topic doesn't turn into dumpster.

[Duel]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

Not only that, MGS4 and Killzone on the PS3 side.

[Valkysas]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

Everybody bought a 360 and Wii for christmas, and all thats left are PS3s, so people are buying them.

I know that's a joke, but it's probably a bit true. the 360 and Wii were both extremely hard to find after christmas, and people who got money for christmas and wanted a new system probably did get a PS3 since they were in pretty damn good supply. Sony profited off Microsoft and Nintendo's shortcomings.

[Kire]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

I'm personally in awe of what a freaking juggernaut CoD4 is.

1) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (360, Activision) - 331,000
2) Wii Play with Wii Remote (Wii, Nintendo) - 298,000
3) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Wii, Activision) - 240,000
4) Rock Band (Xbox 360, MTV Games) - 184,000
5) Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Xbox 360, Activision) - 183,000
6) Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, Nintendo) - 172,000
7) Burnout Paradise (Xbox 360, EA) - 144,000
8) Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat (PS3, Activision) - 140,000
9) Mario Party DS (DS, Nintendo) - 139,000
10) Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS, Sega) - 133,000

[Perversion]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

Hehe...I know NPD threads are usually your territory, Kire, but I thought I'd make this one. Also, it semi-amazed me that Wii Play is still in the top ten a year after its official release. Granted, this is of course due to the included Wiimote, but still.

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

Everybody's down from last month, PS3 just dropped less than the others. Mostly because they were at the bottom last month.

[Red Dragon]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

I'm personally in awe of what a freaking juggernaut Wii Play is.

Fixed


But still...

Guh.

[Toaster]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

It's gonna become the greatest selling game of ALLLL TIMMMMEEEEE.

[Perversion]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

I hate the "cheat" involved in keeping Wii Play as a steady seller. It seems as if Nintendo purposely packages more Wiimotes with Wii Play to prop up its sales in software than they do by having the Wiimote packaged by itself. Software sales tend to look better than accessory sales in charts like NPD data. It sucks for me, because I get a higher commission on accessories than I do on software at work, and I've already sold 2 Wii Plays without realizing that we had stand alone Wiimotes.

Plus, Wii Play would never sell as a stand-alone game. I just do not see why, when the Wii comes bundled with Wii Sports, and then the majority of people buy their second Wiimote with Wii Play, that people still feel the need to buy any number of the terrible third party minigame compilations....enough that the third parties are still dumping this shovelware on the system.

My hope is that eventually Wii owners are gonna get burned on buying crappy third party shovelware once too often, and will stop buying it. Then the third party developers will realize that they might actually need to make something resembling quality in order for it to sell. In the interim, though, all of the first party stuff will sell like hotcakes, because even the casual gamers will realize that they want to play quality games after a while. Better third party stuff will slowly trickle out, but will be pretty much ignored by the masses in favor of Nintendo-produced software, and after an initial 2-3 years of mass hysteria over the Wii, it'll end up becoming the Gamecube Redux.

But I think I'm living in a dream world to hope for those results.

[Valkysas]

Re: January NPD:PS3 nearly ties Wii, surpasses 360 for first time.

There are some damn nice looking games on the way for the Wii. Fragile is one that's getting a lot of attention, and Deadly Creatures is another one that was just announced today.

Developers ARE finally starting to take the Wii seriously.