iPod and Wii undisputed kings of Christmas

Stan Beer
Friday, 29 December 2006 09:24

Your IT - Home IT

Apple and Nintendo left their respective competitors in no doubt as to who was boss over the holiday shopping period of the past two weeks. The iconic iPod and Wii, the new rising star of the games console space, have both demonstrated highly impressive sales results, much to the chagrin of critics and competitors.

In the case of Apple, success has been a doubled edged sword. Contrary to some reports earlier this month of slowing iTunes sales, the online music store has experienced unprecedented high volume traffic generated by new iPod sales and iTunes gift cards. According to a report from the Ecommerce Times, iTunes traffic was up more than 400% on the same period in 2005.

Incredibly, the huge spike in iTunes traffic has reportedly been too much for even the considerable server fire power of Apple's online music store, an ecommerce site specifically equipped to handle large numbers of simultaneous visitors. There have been reports of users being locked out of the iTunes store or not being able to download music at times over the busy Christmas and Boxing Day periods.

Meanwhile, sales of Microsoft's so-called iPod killer the Zune have hardly set the world on fire over the holiday period. Acording to a Financial Times report, Microsoft's highly publicised digital music player has so far managed to carve a less than 2% market share of the digital music player space.

Over in consoles land, a number of reports seem to confirm what many had predicted - Nintendo's Wii stole the show over the holiday shopping season, leaving both the Sony PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 in its wake.

The Playfuls site reports that Wii was the top selling console in Japan for the week 10-17 December, at 108,237 units, compared to PS3 at 70,942 units and Xbox 360 at just 17,168 units.

In the US, the numbers look even better for Wii and bleaker for PS3, according to a Sunday Times report. According to the report, analysts predict Wii sales to top 2 million, while PS3 will most likely fall well short of its 1 million target.

There is no doubt that Sony has been stung severely by its PS3 supply problems, which have seen it restricted to the provision of limited quantities to the US and Japan markets. In contrast, the Wii has been released globally and, although Nintendo is also having difficulty meeting demand for its console, this is because demand has exploded beyond initial expectations.

There have been a few sceptics (this reporter included) who believed that the Wii, with less processing fire power than its two rivals, would have little more than novelty value for serious gamers over the long haul. While it's still early days, Nintendo seems to have to put any doubts to rest that the Wii, with its unique style of game playing, is a force to be reckoned with.