Old-gen consoles easily outselling next-gen
Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 2:02pm by Blake
Due to my love for oversimplified graphs, I give to you old-gen hardware sales compared to next-gen hardware sales in delicious pie graph form. Nintendo should be sending me checks for all this market research I’m doing in support of their strategy. Data was taken from the NPD, North America’s hardware bean counter. Definitions are as follows:
- Old-gen category includes all reported systems selling inferior graphics and processing power namely DS, Wii, PS2, PSP, GameCube, and GameBoy Advance.
- Next-gen category includes all reported systems selling up-to-date graphics and processing power, namely 360 and PS3.
I find the result pretty astounding. Granted, I was unable to produce the same figures 18 months after the Dreamcast and PS2 first launched (data not publicly available), but I’d be surprised if old-gen hardware was outselling next-gen hardware by this much circa the early 2000s. Penny for your thoughts?
May 21st, 2007 at 2:36 pm
well, the wii, ds and psp aren’t really “old gen” they’re the current gen of consoles, the ds and psp being current gen handhelds, and the wii the current gen nintendo home console
May 21st, 2007 at 2:49 pm
These would be better served categorized as “Hi-Powered” and “Low-Powered” since technically the Wii is “Next Gen”.
Someone was noting the other day that all platforms are selling in an inverse of their processing power, with the DS leading the pack and the PS3 bringing up the rear.
To paraphrase a famous political type:
“It’s the GAMES, stupid.”
May 21st, 2007 at 3:10 pm
In many ways it’s not very surprising. This is how the handheld market has always been. The Game Boy always beat the competition (Game Gear, Nomad, Lynx, TurboExpress) even though it was the inferior machine in terms of graphics/power. It won because it was cheaper and had better games. That continued with the GBA and now the DS is dusting the power-superior PSP. And on the console side, the PS2 was inferior to the Xbox and GameCube in power but destroyed both.
So I’m not shocked that this is happening. However, even though I agree with the notion “It’s the games”, right now to me it’s more about the cheaper price the newness of the Wiimote rather than any games, as I find the Wii lineup pretty weak right now. Of course that is nothing new for consoles to be weak for a while after launch, and if we base things on FUTURE games, then it’s easy to see why the Wii is a hot commodity. But even still, it’s very early in the game.
May 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii are all “next-gen” consoles only now they’re current gen. We need to stop using this “next-gen” terminology.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:18 pm
If you are going by inferior graphics and processing power then the PSP should be in next gen. Although it has poopsky games it does have far superior graphics and processing power over the beloved DS.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:36 pm
That’s like saying that Lilydale hotdogs were outsold by all other types of hotdogs ever ever.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Whatever you want to label the categories, here’s how I set them up:
Graphics/power > 5 years old (old-gen)
Graphics/power < 18 months old (next-, new-, current- whatever-gen)
May 21st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Wait. There appear to be way more Old-gens listed than next-gen.
May 21st, 2007 at 4:49 pm
@ Sharp,
Yes, but this data is only last month not life-to-date which old-gen platforms would obviously have an advantage over.
May 21st, 2007 at 5:26 pm
For some reason I feel like DS should be included in the next-gen and not the old-gen since I believe it has more years of development left in the future than has currently passed (I bet it’s not past the halfway point of it’s lifespan.)
May 21st, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Oh yeah.. I wonder why older system with the games and are more afforable are outselling the newer systems that still don’t have anything insanely good and are expensive. [/sarcasm]
The DS and PSP would be next-gen and the Game Boy Advance would be old-gen.
May 21st, 2007 at 6:02 pm
You should label them with something other than ‘Next-gen’
The 360 and PS3 should be called:
‘HD-Systems’
or
‘Monster Truck Engines with a shiny paint job that will cost you an arm and a leg’
( I like the latter, it rolls off the tounge nicely…)
May 21st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Old-gen category includes all reported systems selling inferior graphics and processing power namely DS, Wii, PS2, PSP, GameCube, and GameBoy Advance.
Oooooooooookay, never trust a statistic that you didn’t make?
That’s not just apples and oranges but strawberries too!
DS, PSP, GBA - Handhelds - completely different market.
PS2, GC, Xbox would be “old”-gen.
Wii is “new”-gen, remember?
May 21st, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Unless we had MOTION sensor controls and Wi-Fi on the gamecube, the Wii is not LAST GEN. Its this current, next-gen obviously.
And yes the DS and PSP are not only handheld but current gen systems.
but nice graph btw =)
May 21st, 2007 at 8:51 pm
“Oh yeah.. I wonder why older system with the games and are more afforable are outselling the newer systems that still don’t have anything insanely good and are expensive. [/sarcasm]”
Are you an idiot? Thats like saying “I don’t know why more people choose to buy cars over airplanes even though cars are less expensive and can’t be used regularly.” My point is, what you stated is obviously the reason.
In response to the article though, you left out XBox in old-gen.
May 21st, 2007 at 8:52 pm
With the Wii going so strong, winning month after month in the console sales, and the PS2 in second place(consoles), the so called next-gen machines are screwed.
As for Wii being under the term old-gen… Well, it just doesn’t fits there. The Wii is more in the new gen section… a section we hadn’t seen in a while, till the revolution started.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Eh, it’s flawed, like the people have pointed out. Handhelds aren’t really “old-gen” when it’s the most powerful build for portables at the time. The PSP and DS are “current gen” for handhelds, while the GBA is old gen.
It’s kind of apples to oranges.
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:10 am
Wow, what a dumb graph.
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:47 am
um, this article is misleading. old gen implies old systems. next gen implies new systems. in that case,
old gen
xbox
ps2
game cube
gba
new gen
wii
ds
psp
ps2
xbox 360
i think the 2 categories should be HD and non-HD systems. that is more correct Blake, and i believe many would agree.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:16 am
a bit misleading- handhelds aren’t really considerred consoles are they?
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:50 am
its like this, average consoles are outselling the wanna be high-end pc.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:29 am
shock and awe,6 sub 200$ systems are outselling two 400+$ systems, thank you captain obvious!
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:51 am
Everyone has issues with this chart B. I guess it sucks.
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:03 am
This one feels a bit fanboy-biased. Granted, I’m a fanboy too, but this feels like we are saying a pre-game prayer for our on team over the PA system 5 minutes before kickoff.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:35 am
Developers, like most programmers, tend to do more with less… this is especially true with games!