Nine. It’s a simple number. But that’s all it took apparently. In nine short months the underdog of the video game industry - the oldest and most in tack of them all - managed somehow to sell over 10 million video game consoles to quickly and gracefully steal the lead from competition that had the market to itself for 12 months prior. It is perhaps the greatest upset of the industry in years if not decades. Not since the split of Atari and Activision has there been such unexpected success for a brand new idea. And this happened with all three machines on the market for that whole nine months.

Of course, we saw a massive shift when Atari collapsed and Nintendo stood up, or when Sony came to market with the newest magic bean by launching the PlayStation, hurting Nintendo and near on destroying Sega. There has even been a brand new player in Microsoft jamming its foot in the door with the Xbox. But there is a significant difference this time around.

Nintendo just needed to provide security to retail outlets and provide good titles to have the market handed to it from Atari. Sony made all the right decisions regarding the PSOne, including the use of compact discs. And Microsoft, practically throwing billions of dollars out the window, much to the dismay of shareholders, wasn’t going to take no for an answer until they managed to have some of the video game pie.

But this time, there was nothing in favour of the underdog. Nothing. Nintendo faltered with the GCN. It had a poor launch with relatively unknown titles and developers began to withdraw support very early on in the piece. It didn’t appear to make things better when the company announced that its newest console would be two to three times more powerful than the GCN, when successors to the Xbox and PS2 would be between 10 and ‘35’ times the capability of their respective predecessors. Developers held off with a wait and see approach. Nintendo’s newest console was shrouded in mystery and secret. Before the last generation even ended, it was no longer a three man race; all of the focus was on Sony and Microsoft.

This ‘focus’ carried over to this generation, especially in the 24 or so months leading up to it. Everyone wanted to know what was going on with the 360 and PS3. No one wanted to know what was going on within Nintendo’s camp. Nothing, that is, until E3 2006. Everything changed. Nintendo had the longest lines, the busiest booth in the history of the exhibition. All of a sudden the underdog had become a supreme dark horse. Web sites, magazines and even newspapers and prime time current affairs programs lit up with the three letter name: Wii. The piss pot, lame arse jokes had passed, the dust had settled, and a three man race this new generation had once again become.

Nintendo, with their ‘never die’ attitude and resourceful development teams whom are always keen to try new ideas changed things in such a dramatic way. We’d seen the addition of multiple audio channels, new dimensions and beefed up graphics. And even though we had also seen improvements to controllers with the addition of analogue inputs, nothing had been this dramatic. A two piece controller with ‘unconventional’ motion sensing capabilities, not better, high definition graphics, has achieved this ‘paradigm’ shift in interactive entertainment,- and leadership. With the handheld market mimicking the home console arena in the way the PSP upped the graphics, the Nintendo DS, with its ‘all new way to play’ was the scout. It was a test, a test to gauge the reaction to such ‘unconventional’ ways to play. And its success, nearly 50 million machines in almost three years, has paved the way for the road Wii is set to follow.


This same success has been felt at home;


In fact, the success of Nintendo’s ‘new generation’ machine has been so overlooked that developers have been left behind, now in insane rushes to move support from one of the other platforms in an effort to cash in on Nintendo’s success. EA, from the get go, said that their primary focus would not be with Nintendo and their Wii. A short six months later and the tune had dramatically changed, with EA saying that they are now 100% behind Nintendo’s platform.

Ubisoft, fortunate enough to be let in on the revolution earlier than most other third parties, has had substantial success with profits this past financial season, because they supported Wii. The story in the east is no different. Capcom rushed out yet another version of the once GCN exclusive Resident Evil 4 with tacked on Wii controls and all the additions of the PS2 version in an effort to garner some dosh. And Nintendo’s financial balance sheet for its financial year ending March 31st was the best the company had seen for many years.

Now, with more support heading their way, things have never looked better. Even with the struggles to maintain supply, Nintendo aims to sell 16 million Wii units this season by March 31st, 2008. And it’ll happen. But what’s even more amazing? In just 16 months from November 2006 to March 2008, with their quota filled, Nintendo will have sold an extraordinary 24 million machines, more than 2 million more than the GCN’s five year effort of nearly 22 million. It is the fastest selling machine in the history of videogames the world over, and here in Australia, where the device sold 32,000 in its first four days of sale.

According to Vgchartz.com, the changeover happened on August 23rd, and this is how it looks;


Now these figures are refutable. But well documented sales covered by NPD, Enterbrain and Magic Box, European sales trackers and the like have the machine at very near 10 million machines, and if the changeover hasn’t actually occurred within the last couple of days, it most certainly will in the next 28 days. At a rate of 2.3 machines per 360 sold, it’s more than inevitable, it’s actuality.

And at home? Sony attempted to gain some sort of accolade a couple of months past making the outlandish statement that the PS3 was the fastest selling console in Australian history. Although it did outsell the Wii for a period by 1,000 units shortly after release, figures released by GfK last week refute such a claim.


In fact, for the month of July, the Wii sold an amazing 31,654, far ahead of the Xbox 360 (13,495) and PS3 (11,775). However credit should be given where it is due, and the current top selling system is in fact the Nintendo DS, followed by the PS2, as described by GfK.

In the United States, it’s a similar scene. Nintendo moved almost double the amount of consoles compared to the next best selling machines in each the handheld market and the console market. NPD states that Wii moved 425,000 units while DS moved 405,000. These figures are the binding agent of Nintendo’s newly cemented success.

Times are changing. The dark horse is no longer a distant third but the leading edge. And they did it by bringing gaming back to grass roots action; fun, affordable gameplay on a home console rather than a crippled, over priced PC wannabe. Sony is still making it proclamations, because of course, the PlayStation Eye will undoubtable change the way we play games, just as the PSP became the walkman of the 21st century. All the while Microsoft’s games division is still losing money by the bank loads. Nintendo, with record share prices and unprecedented console and handheld sales is fast rebuilding itself as the leader in interactive entertainment. One thing is certain, within the next generation, er, that is the one after the PS3, 360 and Wii, this talk of motion sensing unconventionality will be a thing of the past; motion sensing has become the new convention.