Japan and Others data up!

[nintendo_fanboy]

Wow. So let's resume the holiday sales:

1. Handhelds:

The Winner was clear already before this holidays started, the question only is, how many records will the DS break? I say a lot. Japan probably won't see such a strong DS year again, although DQIX will get it in other spheres again. Europe and America still have a lot of potential, especially amongst the so-called hardcore gamers. This potential will be used once all the J-RPG's are coming, and maybe we will finally see some serious western support.

While the DS is killing everything, the PSP is still doing fairly well and probably making Sony happy. Selling 30 million without a good library is quite an achievement, although it is worth noting that with those abysmal software sales, most people are probably buying the PSP as a multimedia device and not as a gaming machine.

2. The home consoles

I don't see anything stopping the Wii soon. It is dominating in every region, it has good (although not great) software attach rates, and third parties also can be happy. It will be interesting to see how the sales keep up in Japan after the holidays are over, but I expect them to stay at the 50k range at least. In America and also in Europe, only supply can stop the Wii it seems.

Also the PS3 can be called a winner after this holiday. Fighting against the 360 which has a much better library, a lower price point and a higher install base, it hold up great. The third place seemed pretty much settled for Sony's machine in summer, but it made a decent comeback, selling on par with the 360 all through the holidays. I expect the gap between the PS3 and the 360 to go down to less than 2 million until the end of next year.

For the 360, the opposite of the PS3 is true. With its great library and its almost mass-market price point, the 360 should have been able to clearly outsell the PS3 not only in America, but also in Europe and it should have sold way closer to the Wii in its strongest week in America. Seeing that the guns are pretty much fired now while Sony's are still loaded, I don't see the 360 keeping its second place until the end of the generation.