New stats confirm what many holiday shoppers already knew: Nintendo’s Wii was the most popular game console of the season, with 1.35 million flying off shelves. Its popularity provided a huge boost to the industry, said theNPD Group, which issued the report.
In 2007, the video game industry hauled in a record US$17.9 billion in sales, 43 percent higher than the $12.5 billion record set in 2006.
December, in particular, was a great month for the industry, with Microsoft and Sony also benefiting from consumers’ avid interest in gaming. In December, 1.26 million units of Xbox 360 and close to 800,000 units of PlayStation 3 were sold.
All together, U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 28 percent in December compared with the 2006 sales stats.
Breaking It Down
Not surprisingly, given the cult status it has attained, the Wii proved to be the most popular game console in the U.S. in 2007, selling nearly 6.3 million units. Gamers purchased 4.6 million Xbox 360 units last year and nearly 2.6 million PS3s, according to NPD data.
December’s top selling game was Activision’s “Call of Duty 4,” at nearly 1.5 million units sold. At No. 2 was Nintendo’s “Super Mario Galaxy,” at 1.4 million. “Guitar Hero III” for the PlayStation 2 came in third, with 1.25 million units sold. The fourth best-selling game was “Wii Play,” which accounted for more than 1 million sales.
The year ended with Microsoft’s “Halo 3” reigning as best-selling title for 2007, with more than 4.8 million sold in the United States. “Wii Play” and “Call of Duty 4” followed in second and third place, with 4.1 million units and 3 million units sold, respectively.
How Long?
It was a good year for Nintendo, thanks to the Wii’s popularity, but it is likely to go downhill from here, Yankee Group Director Mike Goodman told the E-Commerce Times.
“Yes, the platform is wildly selling, but no one is playing games on it,” he contended.
Sooner, rather than later, third-party publishers are going to abandon it, Goodman predicted, or least throw resources toward other platforms as well.
When price points for other consoles come down, gamers are going to move in their direction, he said. “You really have to question what kind of legs [Wii] will have when it sells out the Nintendo market.”
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These articles have been running since the Wii came out, none of the so called experts thought that the Wii would sell so well but it’s into its second year and is still the best selling console.
If it’s the case that current software sales are an indication of a consoles lifespan then PS3 must be doomed as it has much lower software sales than Wii. Even its exclusives are not selling well with PS3 owners buying more movies than games.
2008 has big games coming for the Wii with SSBB, Mario Kart and Wii-Fit. There will be plenty of people playing those for sure.
Unless I AM missing some, but none come to mind I have 20 games for Wii
Wii Sports
Excite Truck
Legend of Zelda : TP
Rayman Raving Rabbids*
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
Wii Play
SSX Blur*
Super Paper Mario
Pokemon Battle Revolution
Resident Evil 4*
Mario Strikers Charged
Metroid Prime 3
Batallion Wars
Fire Emblem
Link’s Crossbow Training
Super Mario Galaxy
Zack & Wiki*
Resident Evil: UC*
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2*
Scarface*
so 20 games, 7 3rd party… or 35% of my games are from a 3rd party developer, and next week I will definently be at 21 total and 8 3rd party when I grab No More Heroes
Clearly I have a few more games than the "average" Wii customer, but of all those games I still like the Nintendo made titles best as their level of polish is just that much more,they spent more time with the games and it shows, the only exception I would give to that is RE:4 but when you are on your 3rd version of the game it should be awesome without exception.
If 3rd parties are upset because more Nintendo games are selling on the Wii, it’s their own fault, make better games and then market them, why should nintendo prop up another business but giving them marketing cash? they shouldn’t. And seriouly 3rd parties shold not complain because they are competing with Mario, that’s a simple and easy cop-out on their part.. it’s like Sidney Crosby’s Line mates compaining that they don’t get the limelight when the star player has the puck… step up your game and get over it.