The Numbers: April 2008

Posted by Gary Hodges at 8:00 PM May 16, 2008

No foreplay, let’s just rip dem britches down and get right to into those figures!

Hardware:

Nintendo Wii - 714,200
Nintendo DS – 414,800
Sony PSP – 192,700
Microsoft Xbox 360 – 188,000
Sony PlayStation 3 - 187,100
Sony PlayStation 2 – 124,400

…and software:

Platform – Title – Units
360 – Grand Theft Auto IV - 1,850,000
Wii - Mario Kart w/ wheel – 1,120,000
PS3 – Grand Theft Auto IV – 1,000,000
Wii – Wii Play – 360,000
Wii - Super Smash Bros. Brawl – 326,000
PS3 - Gran Turismo 5: Prologue - 224,000
DS - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness - 202,000
DS - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time - 202,000
Wii - Guitar Hero III - 152,000
360 - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 141,000

Click through for analysis, commentary, and rants!

Next month will be the big GTA4 month, where we’ll see once and for all how the game is doing and which console – PS3 or 360 – is benefiting most from the release, at least in the short term. Of course, next month will also see the release of Wii Fit, which is sure to bump Wii sales from merely stratospheric to somewhere out there in the Kuiper belt - so May should be a good month for everyone involved.

I’m interested in the fact the PS3 is within striking distance of the 360, less than 1,000 units difference. On paper, PS3 should be selling less: it’s more expensive and has a weaker game library. Yet it’s gaining on the 360… Why? Maybe a better question to ask is: is the PS3 gaining ground (Blu-Ray slowly taking off, GTA4, price drops starting to work), or is the 360 losing ground (hardware problems marred the brand)? As with all things, it’s probably a little from column A, a little from column B, and then a lot from a column C we haven’t even identified yet.

While I’m disappointed Gran Turismo 5: Prologue even placed, it’s a relatively meager amount in the big scheme of things and restores my faith that at least some people recognize a bad deal when they see it. Expect to see Gamestops and the like flooded with used copies of the $40 demo.

Lastly, it looks like whatever bump the PSP got from God of War’s release has run its course.

Gary’s Monthly Wii Rant

What’s interesting to me is that two major Nintendo releases over two months in a row (SSBB and Mario Kart) created no meaningful bump in Wii sales. Admittedly, maybe they’re as high as they could be, but I think there’s more to it than that. Bear with me…

I suspect there are two sorts of Wii owners. The vast majority – many millions – are the dabblers and so-called “non-gamers” who bought the Wii for its “It factor”, intrigued by the accessible novelty of the console and wanting to be part of the fad (Figure 1). That being their motivation, most either never buy a game again (content with Wii Sports) or if they do, pick up Wii Play or some novelty peripheral game (Guitar Hero, Rock Band, the upcoming Wii Fit).

Figure 1: Absurd, shameless generalization of Wii majority.

Then there’s a minority group among Wii owners, and ironically it’s the Nintendo faithful (Figure 2): longtime Nintendo fans with purchasing habits similar to those they had with the GameCube, they buy the latest big-name Nintendo release en masse on Day One and more or less ignore everything else. Of the about 10 million Wii owners in the States, I would mark the Nintendo loyalist number at about 3 million, or 30% of the lot.

Figure 2: Very accurate and representative photos of Wii minority.

How do I come up with that number? It’s roughly the number Super Smash Bros. Brawl has sold, 85% of which was in the first month. And judging by history (Super Mario Galaxy’s and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess’ patterns), SSBB will drop off the charts entirely next month; meanwhile, Wii Play continues to outsell the lot.

Think about that. When a big Nintendo game hits, it sells very close to its lifetime total in the first 60 days then drops off a cliff, despite the fact Wii consoles continue to sell by the millions. To me, that suggests most “traditional” Nintendo fans have already bought a Wii, and their numbers in the overall Wii population is steadily shrinking – the minority becoming evermore minor.

That’s just another reason why I think Wii’s “expanding of the market” is just a bubble like any other. The only audience guaranteed to buy Nintendo’s next console is that core minority that faithfully buys every Nintendo console just to play Mario, Zelda and Metroid. The majority of Wii owners – the fad chasers – they can hardly be bothered to buy another game for the console they have; why would they buy a whole new one?