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PlayStation 2 showing plenty signs of life even in its silver years
Out with the new, in with the old

Sales of the new video game systems cooled slightly, according to sales numbers released by NPD for the month of March. Sales of Nintendo DS nearly doubled that of anything else, selling over a half-million units.

Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime, clearly pleased with the results, said, “The message delivered by both Wii and Nintendo DS is the same one; Innovation is compelling both current gamers and new gamers to experience a new way to play. Nintendo is bringing gaming back to the masses.”

The PlayStation 2 demonstrated impressive staying power at second place at 280,000 sold, outselling each of the new consoles. Wii came out on top of the new consoles once again with 259,000 units, well ahead of the Xbox 360 at 199,000. The PlayStation 3 lagged behind both the PSP and the Game Boy Advance at 130,000 units sold.

Interestingly, the PS3 was the only new console to see an increase in sales for the month. Wii sales were down 22 percent and Xbox 360 down 12 percent.

SCEA’s Dave Karraker offered to us his roundup of the Sony products: “According to NPD data, March 2007 showed a 24% increase in retail dollars generated year-over-year for the PlayStation brand in North America with total sales of $447 million, due in part to the addition of the PS3 platform as well as the strong launch performance of God of War II for PS2 at retail.   While PS3 saw a month-over-month increase of 2% with sales of 129,638 units, we continued to find ourselves supply constrained in March due primarily to the shift in manufacturing focus to the PS3 PAL version to support the launch of the system in Europe.  PSP also witnessed gains in March, up 2% over February with sales of 179,796 units.”

The ranking of consoles by sales are as follows:

1. Nintendo DS - 508K
2. PlayStation 2 - 280K
3. Wii - 259K
4. Xbox 360 - 199K
5. PlayStation Portable - 180K
6. Game Boy Advance - 148K
7. PlayStation 3 - 130K
8. GameCube - 22K

The strong sales of PS2 may be attributed to the release of God of War II, one of the year’s most critically acclaimed games yet, which was the top selling game of the month.

“In short, it was another outstanding month for the video games industry,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier to GameDaily. “With all categories realizing impressive gains versus last year, even when you take into account that the first quarter of this year includes an extra week as compared to last year.”

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Where is the Wii
By Mitch101 on 4/20/2007 10:33:54 AM , Rating: 2
Has Nintendo said anything about trying to supply the demand for Wii's?

I wonder if Nintendo took a conservative manufacturing process because they would compete with Microsoft and Sony causing what feels like a shortage of Wii's.




RE: Where is the Wii
By Mitch101 on 4/20/2007 10:35:17 AM , Rating: 2
I certainly feel the Wii Would have outsold the PS2 if you could find one.


RE: Where is the Wii
By javiergf on 4/20/2007 10:40:07 AM , Rating: 3
I think the Wii will cool down in one year, from a technical point of view is not much better than a PS2 or a gamecube with a fancy controler, just look at the latest Zelda versions for both Gamecube and Wii, they almost look identical. The moment you start having many multiplatform games and they don't look the same as in the PS3 or Xbox 360, things may change a lot.


RE: Where is the Wii
By Mitch101 on 4/20/2007 10:47:42 AM , Rating: 4
I think that decision is in the numbers:

Nintendo Gamecube - ???K
Wii - 259K Just last month
Total ??? Million.

If they make the game work for both platforms which means it was probably designed for the Gamecube and Enhanced for the Wii they can sell millions more copies.

I ahave a theory that a lot of games are develped around the weakest console then tweeked for the higher end ones. This allows you sales across all 3 platforms. Unfortunately the PS2 sales as so high that Im sure a lot of games are written with a PS2 release still in mind which really screws the people with newer consoles because those machines wont get their full abilities utilized.


RE: Where is the Wii
By sprockkets on 4/20/2007 11:01:11 AM , Rating: 2
well yeah, it was developed for the gc and ported to the wii for its controller, not for the graphics.


RE: Where is the Wii
By wallijonn on 4/20/2007 11:05:28 AM , Rating: 5
quote:
just look at the latest Zelda versions for both Gamecube and Wii, they almost look identical


That is because it started out as GC game. Since the engine was already in place, it was just ported over to the Wii. The next Zelda game will supposedly be built on the Wii platform, which should see better visuals.


RE: Where is the Wii
By Verran on 4/20/2007 11:19:12 AM , Rating: 5
I disagree. The "lacking" technical aspect of the Wii means as little now as it will in a year. When are these hard-cores going to realize that the average Wii-buyer probably doesn't even know what a GPU is? They don't care how many cores the CPU in the Wii has, or whether or not the L2 cache is shared. They just want a fun game, and they don't want to have to "save up" to get it. Yeah cross-platform games will show the Wii's technical "weakness", but what do you expect for half the price?

With the Wii, you're not making a gamble on some long-term investment. PS3 would have you believe you'll still be using their hardware in 10 years. I beg to differ, but I think you'd have to agree that that statement is arguable at best. But with a $250 Wii, even if you only get a few years out of it, you're not going to be that hearbroken, because something better will probably hit by then anyways.

Anyways, I think the PS2 sales numbers in this article are a -perfect- example of why the Wii can hold up. Good games sell. Period. God of War is pushing PS2 like crazy, even though the hardware is severely lacking by most people's standards. A perfect example of why hardware alone can't push a console platform. That's something that Sony (and to a lesser extent M$) doesn't understand.


RE: Where is the Wii
By javiergf on 4/20/07, Rating: 0
RE: Where is the Wii
By encryptkeeper on 4/20/2007 1:47:46 PM , Rating: 2
Anyways, I think the PS2 sales numbers in this article are a -perfect- example of why the Wii can hold up. Good games sell. Period. God of War is pushing PS2 like crazy, even though the hardware is severely lacking by most people's standards. A perfect example of why hardware alone can't push a console platform. That's something that Sony (and to a lesser extent M$) doesn't understand.

I couldn't put it better myself.


RE: Where is the Wii
By artemicion on 4/21/2007 12:03:31 PM , Rating: 2
Just for the sake of argument . . .
1) Although Zelda: TP was designed for the GC and ported to the Wii, it doesn't change the fact that hardware wise, the Wii isn't much more powerful than a GC. Cost of production is proof of this. Nintendo actually makes a profit selling Wii hardware, Sony and MS take losses selling their more expensive hardware, so obviously the hardware in the Wii is going to be less sophisticated.

2) The whole "graphics don't matter" argument has been made since the SNES days. What makes it more true now than it was before?

I like my Wii, but will be the first to acknowledge that I didn't buy it for the graphics. It's just a different approach to gaming. People who insist that Sony and MS are "wrong" do irk me though. As if they have a vested interest in selling more Wiis. /shrug


RE: Where is the Wii
By encryptkeeper on 4/20/2007 1:28:48 PM , Rating: 2
I like how you reply to yourself as if it was two people holding a conversation.

Just messing with you. But I do think it's funny that people are cheering about a 2% increase for the PS3, when it's a 2% increase in a loss. That just makes me laugh. And with a 15% price cut on the PSP, they should have seen more sales increase than 2%.


RE: Where is the Wii
By awer26 on 4/20/2007 10:38:22 AM , Rating: 4
Hopefully they won't wait too long or else the demand will decrease as people get tired of waiting and get something else. I was lucky enough to get the Wii w/in the first 2 weeks but very few of my friends have one yet, which lessens my experience as well.


RE: Where is the Wii
By Mitch101 on 4/20/2007 10:42:35 AM , Rating: 2
Im in the same boat I have 4 friends looking and only 1 of my buddys about 2 weeks ago finally found one.

Now we have to listen to him brag about his Wii. I should mention he is also a Giants fan and boy they never shut up. You would think they won the super bowl every year and need to tell you about it constantly.


RE: Where is the Wii
By hobbes7869 on 4/21/2007 9:58:02 AM , Rating: 2
No kidding, My wife and I spent 1.5 months searching for a Wii in different several different cities. None could be found. Even Best Buy had no Idea when their next shipments were going to come in. I went to one walmart that had an advert out for wiis, well when I went there and keep in mind this was in March 2007, there was a line outside of about 20 people waiting for them to hit the shelves at midnight. Insane! Finally got one on Friday of this week, my wife spotted the last one on the shelves at a walmart. I do enjoy pointing this fact out. There were PS3s availble at each and every store we searched at. No shortage of those. Just my observations


RE: Where is the Wii
By SiliconAddict on 4/21/2007 12:01:08 PM , Rating: 2
I know I was. I was literally a week away from getting a 360 (The PS3 and its price point damn well better give me a blow jobe before I spend half a grand on a console.) I gave it one more shot at a local TRU. Got there at 8AM on a Sunday. 23rd in line out of 30 consoles. Got it. But barely.
Nintendo has to do something. Most if not all the parts in the Wii are off the shelf components. There really is no excuse for this shortage other then over extending them selves for their global launch.


You just have to give credit to Nintendo!
By jrb531 on 4/20/07, Rating: 0
RE: You just have to give credit to Nintendo!
By GreenEnvt on 4/20/2007 1:41:56 PM , Rating: 4
I don't know why people insist on saying the Wii is just a GC with "some sligtly updated versions" of GC parts.
The Wii is an evolution of the GC hardware yes, but powerwise it is twice as powerful as the GC. The GC was already a strong performer in the last gen, slightly less powerful then xbox but more powerful then ps2.


RE: You just have to give credit to Nintendo!
By jrb531 on 4/20/2007 2:50:20 PM , Rating: 1
It's not twice as powerfull. Maybe 20% at most. Even Nintendo themselves admitted that the Wii was basically a repackaged Gamecube.

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/miya...

-JB


RE: You just have to give credit to Nintendo!
By GreenEnvt on 4/20/2007 3:54:20 PM , Rating: 2
That says the hardware is compatible, but doesn't say it's only slightly faster. A C2D will run the same software a Pentium2 will, but that doesn't mean the C2D is just a P2 will slightly improved parts.

We all know the Wii has no where near the power of the other two current consoles, but it's also not as weak as many people make it out to be.


By jrb531 on 4/21/2007 11:18:00 AM , Rating: 2
If you read the link to the actualy interview you would have seen the talk about how the Wii is basically a repackaged Gamecube with the latest versions of the same hardware the gamecube has.

I did not say it... Nintendo said it and I suspect they regret the statement now.

-B