Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Wii sells 600.000 units in eight days



Wii has sold 600.000 units in the eight days since its North American launch on November 19th. The total volume of hardware, first party software and accessories is billed at 190 million US Dollars, Nintendo of America (registration required) announced. They quote their president Reggie Fils-Aime as saying:

Even with sales already in excess of 600,000 units, demand continues to exceed supply, as it's clear this is one of the ‘gotta-have' products for the holiday season. We've shipped retailers several times the amount of hardware the other company was able to deliver for its launch around the same time - and we still sold out. Given the inclusive nature of Wii game play, we're seeing this new form of video gaming is already a huge hit with gamers and newcomers alike. It continues to be a phenomenal launch.

´Zelda: Twilight Princess sold more than 454.000 copies, meaning that a phenomenal 75 percent of all Wii buyers also purchased this game.

EDIT Meanwhile, the Taiwanese DigiTimes reports about a number defects with PS3 units. The cited problems are quite vague, though, and most are already known:

Problems related to overheating and inability to start the machine were reported since the PS3 launched in mid-November. Reports have circulated recently in the US retail market saying that when used with older high-definition (HD) TVs that support only a 1080i resolution, the PS3 displays 720p resolution games at only 480p. Sources at Sony said this problem could be caused by a firmware problem and that the company will resolve the problem as soon as possible.

In Taiwan, some users were complaining that the new game console is not compatible with some PS2 game titles and that the machine would shut down when it overheated, said the sources. After consulting with Taiwan's Consumer Protection Commission and distributors, the Taipei branch of Sony Computer Entertainment Hong Kong (SCEH) agreed to replace consoles found to have serious defects.


Source: Nintendo press server (registration required)
Thanks to: Joystiq, Game Daily

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lets wait until the end of December to see if Nintendo can actually ship 4 million units as they have predicted.

I'm more interested in the UK / European sales numbers. Right now ebay (UK) Wii sales are pretty pathetic, i'm hoping that's not an indication of the anticipation.

Falafelkid said...

Hi Shaun.

Why do you expect strong eBay sales in the UK befoe the launch? Those would still be NTSC systems and it is obvious why next to noone would be interested in purchasing those.

In other news, both systems seem to suffer from faulty software. Glitches have been encountered in both Zelda: Twilight Princess, as well as Genji.

DeepCutstheKnife said...

It seems that Nintendo's market strategy is working in North America. Just this morning Good Morning America was playing Wii Sports. Maybe the Wii will be the revolution. I am interested in the success in Japan and in Europe. I don't expect less success than in North America, but I think some variables will be different.

Anonymous said...

The ebay sales i was refering to are all PAL systems, they are gauranteed preorders, like mine is. Obviously only gauranteed as much as they are within the allocation numbers.

Right now there have been thousands of UK PAL preorder auctions, that's a large proportion of the allocation units, and we haven't even launched.

Since a lot of places have stopped taking preorders, for fear of a backlash like play.com got i would say the ebay sales whilst not as strong as they are going to be on launch should still be higher right now.

Right now though the Wii hype in the UK is very low, it's as quiet as the GC launch was. There's one or two events announced for launch but with not much advertising and with Nintendo's history here (Nintendo are a lot less loved here than the US) they should really kick into gear.

Anonymous said...

wii > all

Anonymous said...

thats probaly because in the pal regions no one really cares well most people about Nintendo they most likely be willing to wait for the ps3 or buy a 360 from what ive seen its really sad really :(

Anonymous said...

lord_darcia: i may sound insane, but i still believe. i'm thinking nintendo decided to let wii take the world by storm as it is now, and will release a hardware addon a year or two down the line.
it sure would be funny if some kind of headgear or projector came out for xmas 08 and all of us conspiracy nut fanboys were like OMFG I TOLD U SO LOLROFLBBQ

also: wow, a post on falafelkid's blog without any ials babble :) what a pleasant suprise :)

-"superfan" tactics.

RGB said...

I think someone has killed him Tactics.

Anonymous said...

Lets hope so!

I am not the IALS wishing for my own demise

Anonymous said...

i hope he didnt kill himself, i would want someone else to have that pleasre.

i semi believe in a final secret, but i think its more likely to be somthing to please the "hardcore" like the expansion back for the N64.
a wiispention pack... needs work but i like the idea ;)

Anonymous said...

wiixpantion pack
(pronounced: wickspantion)
man im good lol

Anonymous said...

Yeah Wii mania is setting in over here. The other day I overheard a mom in circuit city saying that she got her kid a PS3 for christmas, but that now he was saying he wanted a Wii. She was like, "Nope...you're getting what you asked for."

My mom mentioned that she saw that segment on Good Morning America where they were playing the Wii. She said usually they just show short little clips of things like that, but on this occasion they showed about 5 mins. of them just laughing and playing tennis and generally having a blast.

The Wii has won. It's already doing great, and if it's anything like the DS things will only get better and better.

Anonymous said...

http://youtube.com/watch?

v=Sy9iN954_co

TodaysPolls.GooglePages.Com said...

Based on a recent online poll many people are choosing Wii over Xbox 360 and the newly released Playstation 3. Apparantly, people like the control system of the Wii. The Xbox 360 now released an add on for HD. While PS3 comes with Blu Ray as standard.

See for yourself: http://todayspolls.googlepages.com/home4

Anonymous said...

tatics:

that ials guy got owned by that guy named luzion. so yeah its great without his babble

Blizz419 said...

which post did he get owned by Luzion i'd like to read that, must be funny.