The Xbox 360 did pretty well for itself in October, selling 371K units following price cuts for all three models. The Wii, however, did far better, selling 803K units and leading the industry to $1.3 billion in sales. Thanks to the Wii sales spike, the Nintendo console now has a U.S. installed base of 13.4 million units compared to the Xbox 360's 11.6 million (despite the fact that Microsoft launched a full year earlier).
As you can see in the chart below (courtesy of Deutsche Bank), the Wii blew past the Xbox 360 back around July of this year and the momentum clearly has not slowed. The PS3 meanwhile still has a long way to go in order to catch up to either the Xbox 360 or Wii. Sony's console sold just 190K units in October and now has an installed base of 5.7 million units in the U.S.
While the Wii's hardware sales have been practically untouchable, the Nintendo console's software sales can't match the Xbox 360's. Microsoft is often heard touting its attach rate for the system, and for good reason. The Xbox 360 has sold about 94 million units of software compared to 73 million units of software for the Wii (see chart below, courtesy of Deutsche Bank).
Reader Comments (2)
The Wii won't win by interaction. It'll win simply because of it's lower price point and novelty value. It's appealing to an entirely different market than the PS3 and 360 are. It will "win" in the same way the Nintendo DS "wins" by being the largest selling video game system. Nintendo has the under 13 market nailed down, that's who they're appealing to. Young kids and families. I currently own all three consoles and of them, the Wii is the only one I rarely turn on. It's mostly used to entertain at family events. When I want to play games it's not even an option. The Wii serves one specific market and purpose, but it's not directly competing in anyway with the overall gaming market. It is, for good and bad, existing in it's own world.
the wii might be for kids ,but by the look of ps3 nor xbox 360 is gonna win console of the year the wii will the wii may have so many kid games such as mario,crash,endless ocean and many more, besides the ps3 and xbox 360 both have great games like fall out3,gears of war,but all those games have nothing to do with it!!!!! it is the fact THAT THE WII IS INTERACTIVE AND IT MAKES YOU MOVE.with the ps3 and 360 you JUST SIT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!! the wii will win by its INTERACTION!!!!!!!!!!