@h2dk,
Your software comparison is out of context. Life of the console plays a big role in sales. Taking sales of one from year 2 and one from year 1 doesn't mean much when you consider that fact that libraries are significantly smaller in the early part of a consoles life and grow as the console ages.
Looking at July of this year and July of last year in the US we see this...
| 360 - July 2006 | Wii - July 2007 | |
| Week 1: | 271,778 | 447,597 |
| Week 2: | 361,896 | 429,278 |
| Week 3: | 566,947 * | 444,818 |
| Week 4: | 305,775 | 457,893 |
| Mean: | 376,599.0 | 444,896.5 |
*This week coincided with NCAA Footbal being released, which acounts for 293,330 units of software for the week for x360. |
I will also point out the extreme amounts of variance in the 360 software sales compared to steady numbers from the Wii. I am not sure what the cause of this is but it doesn't seem coincidental.
In any case, we can even use your comparison to show how this sort of comparison is really not that bad for the Wii, which says a lot by itself...
Lets look at the last 10 weeks....
| | 360 | Wii | |
| 1 | Sept 15th | 731k | 422k |
| 2 | Sept 8th | 872k | 560k |
| 3 | Sept 1st | 767k | 789k |
| 4 | Aug 25th | 934k | 466k |
| 5 | Aug18th | 1011k | 529k |
| 6 | Aug 11th | 305k | 500k |
| 7 | Aug 4th | 348k | 564k |
| 8 | July 28th | 462k | 458k |
| 9 | July 21st | 669k | 445k |
| 10 | July 14th | 369k | 429k |
| Mean: | 646.8k | 516.2k |
Notable (Top 20) Software Releases by Week:
(Blue = Wii, Green = 360, Black = Both)
1) Skate(360), NHL '08 (360)
2) Stranglehold (360), Medal of Honor: Airborne (360)
3) Tiger PGA '08 (360 & Wii), Blue Dragon(360), Metroid Prime 3 (Wii)
4) Bioshock (360), Two Worlds(360)
5) Madden NFL '08 (360 & Wii)
6) Boogie (Wii)
7) Mario Strikers Charged (Wii)
8) NASCAR '08 (360)
9) NCAA Football '08 (360)
10) None
Ok for the analysis of this information: The chart shows that relative to the 360 the Wii is actually doing pretty well considering this is still its first year of release. The library is going to be much smaller and it has had far less time to get its name and its products recognized and get people thinking about them. So in that regards I think this chart is quite favorable to the Wii in terms of sales #'s.
Now when you look at the software release information I provided with the chart to give the chart more meaning I think my point becomes even more clear. The head start the 360 has gives it a nice advantage in the sheer number of releases being put out. In this sample we see the 360 get 11 releases in the 10 weeks while the Wii gets 5 releases in the same time span. Considering half as many new releases and only about 20% less software sales I would call that fabulous. But considering the fact that madden is essentially a 360 release in terms of effort put into the two products, the ratio is more like 3:1 than 2:1.
Now if this time next year the Wii is not seeing similar release situations that would be a cause for concern, but considering the head start the 360 had and the big titles released during this period for the console compared to the titles released for the Wii I would call these numbers very favorable for the Wii in light of the circumstances. The 360 has has a very good line-up over the last 10 weeks and to be putting up comparable numbers against that in its first year is a win in my book. And I am sure MS isn't upset about these sales numbers either =)
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
