While 2008 saw
investments wiped out,
institutions falter, and
record job losses, the house that Mario built chugged its way back into the record books. According to NPD Group statistics, Nintendo sold a record 10.17 million Wii consoles to US Americans in 2008. That trumps Nintendo's own record of 9.95 million consoles sold in the relatively healthy 2007 economic climate. Nintendo added to its money pile by hawking 9.95 million DS handhelds for the year compared to the 8.52 million sold in 2007. Those tallies represent 55% of all consoles and 72% of all handheld consoles sold in the US. Daaaamn.
P.S. Want to see what Nintendo's 2008 dominance looks like in the form of a pie chart? Check the amazing graphic after the break.
[Via
GamesIndustry.biz]
posted Jan 16th 2009 6:28AM
the economy is shrinking?
Yes, it is Sid. As things get worse and people have less money to spend they're making the choice to get a wii and have fun as a family. In the long run video games provide many more hours of excitement and entertainment per dollar spent than any other form. when you think that it costs a family of four $50 bucks to go see a two hour movie without popcorn, an interactive "fun for the whole family" wii sounds like a much more economical option. Especially when you consider Wii sports and wii play can be played with for months on end.
Get a PS2! half the price of the Wii and 60 times more games. #1 selling CONSOLE EVER.
@GOOMAN - The PS2 has been out for quite a bit longer... but the numbers are in the PS2 favor for now... but not by much...
PS2 = 140 million total sold / 8 years (came out in late 2000) = 17.5 Million Per Year on average.
Wii = 34.55 million total sold / 2 years (came out in late 2006) = 17.28 Million Per Year on average.
@Matt Smith
The Wii may beat the PS2 one day in total sales, sure, but that reasoning makes no sense. The sales per year are not uniformly distributed, PS2 was not selling nearly as many consoles for the last 2 years as it was for the first years of its life cycle, furthermore I don't think the Wii will remain relevant for 8 years simply because it was not designed for that purpose.
That is defined as - Dominance.
Go Mario Go!
Rampage!
Dominating!
Unstoppable!
Godlike!
Wicked Sick!
In that order.
I see someone plays dota.
Haha nevermind, I remember they're origially from Unreal T
M-m-m-m-m-m-monster kill
3240986b yea - Dota has a different order
I want that monopoly kit.
ha, I thought the same thing :D
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Monopoly-Parker-Brothers-MN005135-Collectors/dp/B000EXDOKQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=toys&qid=1232106795&sr=8-1
Wait a minute, I don't even play monopoly any more.
People would play it on the Wii!!
I just want that Mario hat
That's the hat in M64 that turns you into a metallic lead weight, and allows you to walk on the ocean floor.
Ahh sony, you shoulda released a PS2 with a TV remote and made it ipod colour and then put adverts on TV of mum and dad playing videogames...
Wait...
It doesn't matter anyway because SONY has SOLD THE MOST CONSOLES EVER IN North America with 50+million units. screw nintendont. The only good thing they really got is the wiimote by itself.
Gooman that was last gen. What do you have to say for the PS3?
gooman,
Nintendo expects to pass 50 million units sold in the US in March 2009. That's 2 months from now. What will you say then about the PS2?
US Americans...thank you miss teen s.c.
haha
Haha, I was going to say the same thing. Glad they designated it was US American's because I thought they might have sold these systems to the other United States!
north americans, south americans, central americans. but hey, keep the intelligent comments coming!
Good I read the discussion before taking a pi*s off the US Americans... :)
And to think everyone laughed when they heard Nintendo was releasing something called a Wii.
Who's laughing now, eh? 0_o
Nintendo is.
All the way to the bank.
But the guy from Sony said the PS3 was going to dominate until the end of time and that i should get s second job to pay for it!
You, with the links and the crap comments: GTFO
Nintendo's using the Super Star to invincibly defeat all it's competitors in a race to the finish... but what happens when it wears off?! :O
Damn, look at that pie chart.
LOOK AT IT.
Such glorious light!!! AHH!!! IT BURNS!!!
Will this copious Yen mean that Nintendo will again take the technical lead in the next-gen hardware wars, as it once did? That is the question.
Or will it continue thinking 'outside the box' with cheaper, less advanced tech, given new twists? Or a bit of both?
Right now they must feel pretty invincible, but I think the next-gen will require some major technical leadership in addition to thinking outside the box.
I wondered about that too. Since the SNES/Famicom, Nintendo have been in the lead when it came to hardware capabilities; that is, until they released Wii. The put it simply, the N64 was better than the Playstation, the Gamecube was better than the PS2 and only now we have Wii not being better than the PS3.
Going on past experience, it is hard to guess what Nintendo might do in the next round of consoles. If we are basing it on their past strategies, then they'll either go with the most powerful system or the most revolutionary. Either way, the market is Nintendo's for the taking and rightfully so.
Check out the pull-quote on http://www.whattheyplay.com/blog/2008/09/30/new-wii-due-by-2011/
Nintendo spent over 10 times as much on R&D last year than they did in 2003, when both the DS and the Wii were in development. Something's cooking, and I for one am excited.
angille, informative link! Something *is* cooking!
The unrelated "UPDATE" bit at the bottom of that article incorrectly states the DSi has a 3 megapixel cam, tho. I think they mean 0.3, but that's unrelated to this.
I've just checked on:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/index.html
"Earnings Release: Six Months Ended September 30, 2008"
Their cumulative forecast for R&D (to the end of March this year) translates to about 400 million USD when converted from Yen. I'm assuming they're not spending that on new Mario action figures :p
So, is Nintendo hiring?
It's a Pac-man's 419 (that's a dead body in case you're wondering)
Name: Pac-daddy (also known as: paxboxedation the 3rd)
DCC: 360 days ago (Date Crime Committed)
COD: Suffocation.
Descriptions: Nintendo's invasive market share expanding wrongdoing drove Victim's mouth to a near close state, caused victim's face turned blue by oxygen deficiency, and victim consequently fell down on the floor, struggled for air for nearly a year, and finally died, stargazing style.
That pie chart is a mite misleading. Everything must add up to 100%, but if you're talking about Revenue Growth, other companies could have had negative growth and Nintendo COULD have had 200% of overall Revenue Growth. How would you show that with a pie chart?
But no doubt, Nintendo is the economic champ.
with two pies for nintendo and the torn remnants of an empty pie plate for the competition.
lol @ AMiSH PiRATE
Nintendo is pacman apparently!
Daaaaaaaaaaamn thats alot of consoles
That is a bit misleading.. its just growth not overall sales, which according to the article was nowhere near 99%
$3Bn growth is nothing to sneeze at though. It's pretty damn good particularly given that everyone else is stagnating.
I wouldn't call it "misleading" I mean no business is really "growing" right now.
I seem to be on a Kriss Kross lingo kick today, so I am going to go out on a limb here is say that for the time being Nintendo is the miggity miggity miggity miggity mack.
On the one hand, you have to hand it to Nintendo for being successful.
But on the other hand, looking at the games that are actually out there for the Wii, I have to say, WHO CARES??? There's nothing there I want to play, certainly not enough to get me over the five game mark.
It would be like my DS: Great hardware that gathers dust most of the time.
Unless YOU are 99% of the game consoles industry's growth.....stfu.