Nintendo lets April “showers” do the talking
Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 5:46pm by Press Release
Wii™ emerged as the top-selling console in April, according to the independent NPD Group, which tracks U.S. video game sales. Wii sold more than 714,000 units in April alone, bringing its lifetime sales in the United States to more than 9.5 million.
“Wii sales were buoyed in part by the strong launch of Mario Kart Wii, which sold more than 1.1 million units,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Our belief in appealing to a broad, diverse audience of players continues to resonate with consumers, and we look forward to continuing our outreach to an expanded audience with the launch of Wii Fit next week.”
Other Nintendo highlights from April’s NPD report include:
- Mario Kart® Wii finished as the No. 2 game of the month.
- Six of the top 10 games of the month are for Nintendo systems: Mario Kart Wii (No. 2), Wii Play™ (No. 4), Super Smash Bros.® Brawl (No. 5), Pokémon® Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (No. 7), Pokémon® Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (No.
and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (No. 9). - Super Smash Bros. Brawl crossed the 3 million sales mark in the United States.
- Wii and Nintendo DS™ again finished as the two top-selling hardware systems.
My, that’s a lot of Wiis. Expect even higher ones in May with the release of Wii Fit. Amazing.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
GH3 on Wii is STILL in Top 10? That is amazing to me.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Although I know the reason why, it’s still bizzare to see Wii Play up on the Top 10 list.
(Yeah, I bought it just for the extra controller, too - just to save $40 USD).
May 15th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
lol, i see what you did there joltman
not only was wii fit out this month, but they have been gradually increasing wii production worldwide, starting in april (beginning of new quarter) and topping off in july at 2.4mil a month, 600k over what they were doing monthly in march. so this month i think they will still be doing between 700k and 800k, up to 800k average by july at the least
May 16th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I’m not a fan of NPD Fun simply because their tracking methods have been suspect to me since day one of dealing. I read the report and I should note that if the data was true then Wii would have outsold every platform on the market except for the Nintendo DS COMBINED. Wii only needed about 320,000 units extra to surpass Nintendo DS and basically outsell everyone COMBINED. That is simply nasty and should serve as a wake up call to the hardcore gamer. A system sells 710,000 units+ (only drops slightly) during a dead zone month while PS3 and XBOX 360 sink like stones when the biggest blockbuster game in history comes out (according to the hardcore of course); I would be crying for my mommy right now. And my trusted source: VGChartz.com while they posted lower numbers for the month of April for Wii; the Wii still beats the competition fairly easily in the Americas. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if they looked at NPD Fun’s numbers and adjusted them. I hope not.
And wouldn’t you know it; the experts are now claiming that the XBOX 360 and PS3 are going to increase in the month of May because of GTA IV. Let me make this simple for them: If GTA IV couldn’t raise hardware sales; then the hardware sales for PS3 and XBOX 360 will not rise in May. GTA IV is a front loaded selling title. Wii Fit is not (although if it sold six million units by itself on the first week; then that would be a suitable punchline for all the nonsense the GTA IV hype train created) and I suggest that Wii’s hardware sales will go up. How much? Who knows…The funniest thing about this is that Michael P. seems to be the only one not even trying to rationalize this month’s sales. Maybe he’s starting to feel the heat and realizes the hole he has dug himself into as a result of his predictions being way off. Problem with that is; it might actually expose him further. Lying is one of those things you just don’t do and it creates messes like nothing else.