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Radioactive IT In the back straight, the Wii pulls ahead of the pack
Radioactive IT In the back straight, the Wii pulls ahead of the pack | In the back straight, the Wii pulls ahead of the pack |
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| by Mike Bantick | |
| Friday, 24 August 2007 | |
  
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So it goes with the latest generation of gaming consoles, despite providing unique experiences in their own right, there is still a fixation on unit sales. And, as predicted (or perhaps a little earlier than predicted), the Nintendo Wii is now number 1. In the face of continued shortages, the Wii has managed to hit 10.6 million in world wide sales, just pipping the Xbox 360 on 10.5 million. These figures come from the vgchartz.com site purporting to take sales figures direct from retailers all over the world. Of course it will not be completely accurate, but surely accounts for trends at least. The site shows that the third player in the field, Sony’s PlayStation 3 accounts for just 17 percent of the next-gen console market with 4.3 million in world sales. The PS3 was launched at the same time as the Nintendo Wii (late November) in the U.S. and Japan, some months later in the PAL regions (end of March). "In just two years, home console sales for the three major manufacturers have effectively reversed," said VG Chartz in a statement on its website. "This will have a large impact on third party publishers and will undoubtedly influence the decisions they make in the future." Nintendo has lofty targets for the Wii, announcing earlier this year they hope to infiltrate 35 million U.S. homes by 2012 – currently they sit at 4.2 million in that market, so their plans are ambitious at this time, at the current rate Nintendo will be some 10 million shy of that target. But this does not take into count factors such as relieving the shortage of product, further hardware price cuts, and – as they are known for – surprise announcements from Nintendo to add to an already attractive product offering. Of course new must-have games will help as well. |
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