Japan: WiiFit outsells PS3 in six months
Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 10:11am by Jack
Before you jump on my back, know that this post is speaking more to the power of WiiFit than it is demeaning the PS3. Believe me, the system doesn’t need my help in that department.
As you can see from this screengrab of Malstrom’s Hardcore Gamer Suicide Watch page, WiiFit surpassed the PS3 in Japan. Not the Wii, mind you, but a Wii peripheral. Oh, and I still vehemently maintain that the WiiFit is no ordinary accessory. It’s still more of a console or platform in my book, and I’m sticking to it.
I’ve been balancing and lightly exercising on my copy of Wiii Fit for the past day and a half. I’ll have my thoughts on it later today. Initial impression/tease: “Hey, you know what? This thing actually works.”
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
Sadly; VGChartz’s numbers indicate that the joke known as PS3 will have to wait a little longer. However; this looks to be academic now.
Never mind that Wii Sports and Wii Play have already surpassed PS3’s hardware sales (OH SNAP!). Never mind that PS3 has yet to have a five million unit seller. For that matter; it hasn’t happened yet for PSP despite being on the market for around the same time. DS has nine five million unit sellers; Wii has four (five if you include the pack-in Wii Sports) and flirting with four more. Plus the titles are a pretty diverse cross-section of genres. Sony’s ten year plan is an absolute joke and no amount of Pachter spin will change that. Sony changing it’s business plan might; but I think it’s already too late. They are stuck in a moment and cannot get out.
Mr. Malstrom is looking less like a viral marketer the more I see him writing.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:57 am
Oops; forgot to mention that when I talked about five million unit sellers; I mean worldwide. Still; PS3 has no one million unit sellers to this point in Japan. They don’t even have a 500,000 unit seller (Dragon Quest Swords; a B-listed third party title sold over 500,000 units on Wii!) PSP has three; but they are all named Monster Hunter. Ironically; this is how Game Boy Advance got the majority of it’s software sales which is from Pokemon. DS has 22 in Japan (including three five million unit sellers in Japan! OUCH! And they are Brain Age 2, Mario Brothers and Pokemon) and it’s a diverse lineup to say the least. Wii has six (with Mario Galaxy limping to become #7) and it’s diverse as well.
For Sony; MGS 4 cannot come fast enough.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:21 pm
It’s the dreaded third generation slump. The console maybe technically great (N64, Saturn), but the marketing/price/cost of development is just way, WAY outside what reality dictates it should currently be.
It happened before, and it’ll happen again (look out Microsoft), and the only company who’s so far been able to pull themselves out is Nintendo. And to be fair, that was only due to their domination of handheld sales outside their home console marketing.
If anyone’s up for a little laugh, check out this BBC news articles entitled “Playstation 3 will reclaim lead” : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7387628.stm Where Kaz Hirai claims the PS3 is just biding its time and will reclaim the lead (reclaim? it was never in front).
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
@Yorrike
I don’t know if I agree with that statement about Nintendo pulling themselves out due to handheld domination. Although the N64/Gamecube numbers were quite poor compared to the NES and SNES, they were still profitable systems. Nintendo were never in any danger of going out of business. Nintendo going third party was just fanboys ranting. Sega was losing money bigtime before they stoppped making consoles. Even without the gameboy, Nintendo were never in that situation.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
@Gausser Though it’s true that Nintendo know how to make money on their consoles, you need a lot of cash to develop and market a brand new home console. Though Nintendo has a lot of liquid assets, I doubt they could have kept losing market share at the rate they were, without needing a major rethink of their strategy. Turns out that’s exactly what happened.
But then again, I’m not basing my opinions on anything concrete, so I’m likely wrong.
May 23rd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
@Gausser: Perhaps; but Nintendo made the switch to a disruption business model because the model they were using during the N64/GC era was going to be ultimately fatal to the company since they were losing their fanbase. If they kept throwing and pleasing the hardcore elite to the point of being a whore with the outrageous costs of technology and development like a Sony too; they would ultimately suffer losses. Maybe not nearly to the point that Sony and Microsoft suffer losses (which is a combined $8 billionn now); but it would be enough for Japanese investors to take notice. And I don’t believe Japanese investors (which Nintendo answers to) would be as forgiving as American investors (which Microsoft and Sony (to a lesser degree) answer to.) would be when it comes to losses.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
What is hurting the PS3 the most is the fact that it acts as a PC and over there the PC gaming scene isn’t even close to the console one for good reason. So far the only market left for the PS3 to take over is the xbox 360 market. The UK just wanted a console from japan period because they want games from japan it seems. Those guys are operating off the fact that the PS3 still has japan developers on board. Yet they are producing and change their games to be more PC like.
SONY has raised the bar too high for the consumer and the publisher this time. They will get away with this but 3rd may be all they get. Lots of people believe the PS3 still has incredible power left in it but it will not escape the same power level of the xbox 360 due to them both using similar ways of rendering. They are both direct x 9 parts. If you want lighting like killzone2 you just write a shader for it it’s that simple and if epic really wants to piss on SONY’s parade they will just include such tech on the final levels of Gears of war.
The same guys who have bought the system are the ones saying it going to be sony’s year. They do have some games coming out yet they are more of the same or either a stab at being more PC like than arcade or console like. Yet they fall short of truly being PC like because of controls. If you remember GC fans said the same thing and even before that people where told to be patient. It’s clear the HD age has not matured into being console viable right now. Game companies right now are geared more at making FPS thanks to epic.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:49 pm
L O L @ SONY !!!!!