This thread got me thinking about the sales trends for Wii games compared to the other 2 consoles. It does seem like the big Wii games (New Super Mario Bros./Mario Kart Wii) follow a different path than the big games on the HD consoles (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Halo, Metal Gear Solid 4, etc.). But I was wondering if those same trends apply to the games on the consoles in general, or if they are only how the more prolific games sell.
So I did a quick little study. I used a random number generator to to pick a month from 2009 (it gave me 2 so February), and then used the random number generator to pick 5 games from the list of games released in that month according to gamrReview.
Sample of Released Games in Feb. 2009 Americas
| Wii | ||||
| Random Number | Game | First Week | Lifetime | First Week % Of Lifetime |
| 10 | High School musical Senior Year | 15,745 | 244,858 | 6.43% |
| 5 | Deadly Creatures | 3,874 | 76,012 | 5.10% |
| 14 | Yamaha Supercross | 2,215 | 45,369 | 4.88% |
| 7 | Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers | 11,810 | 89,219 | 13.24% |
| 15 | Puzzle Challenge: Crosswords and More! | 253 | 12,335 | 2.05% |
| Average | 6.34% | |||
| Xbox 360 | ||||
| Random Number | Game | First Week | Lifetime | First Week % Of Lifetime |
| 5 | X-Blades | 13,150 | 91,399 | 14.39% |
| 6 | High School musical Senior Year | 8,899 | 64,373 | 13.82% |
| 2 | F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin | 83,093 | 346,655 | 23.97% |
| 4 | Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection ( | 24,171 | 438,987 | 5.51% |
| 13 | Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard | 17,112 | 106,901 | 16.01% |
| Average | 14.74% | |||
| PS3 | ||||
| Random Number | Game | First Week | Lifetime | First Week % Of Lifetime |
| 6 | Street Fighter IV | 259,337 | 967,545 | 26.80% |
| 10 | Killzone 2 | 359,354 | 1,194,984 | 30.07% |
| 4 | X-Blades | 3,027 | 46,023 | 6.58% |
| 8 | ShellShock 2: Blood Trails | 3,981 | 41,694 | 9.55% |
| 5 | High School musical Senior Year | 4,805 | 37,739 | 12.73% |
| Average | 17.15% |
I did the same thing for Japan, except that the random gen # was 11, so November 2009 releases.
| Japan | November (11 Rand Gen #) | |||
| Wii | ||||
| Random Number | Game | First Week | Lifetime | First Week % Of Lifetime |
| 1 | Mario & Sonic at Vancouver Olympics | 23,482 | 140,887 | 16.67% |
| 9 | Naruto Shippuden: Ryujinki | 8,996 | 33,167 | 27.12% |
| 7 | Karaoke Joysound Wii DX | 4,637 | 86,196 | 5.38% |
| 10 | Puyo Puyo 7 | 3,511 | 53,052 | 6.62% |
| 5 | Metal Fight Beyblade: Gachinko Stadium | 8,941 | 28,287 | 31.61% |
| Average | 17.48% | |||
| 360 | ||||
| Random Number | Game | First Week | Lifetime | First Week % Of Lifetime |
| 6 | Dragon Ball: Raging Blast | 6,470 | 19,450 | 33.26% |
| 1 | Dirt 2 | 787 | 1,466 | 53.68% |
| 2 | Namco Museum: Virtual Arcade | 3,526 | 12,608 | 27.97% |
| 5 | Tayutama: Kiss on my Deity | 3,854 | 8,820 | 43.70% |
| 10 | Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5 | 13,939 | 31,628 | 44.07% |
| Average | 40.54% | |||
| PS3 | ||||
| Random Number | Game | First Week | Lifetime | First Week % Of Lifetime |
| 6 | Dragon Ball: Raging Blast | 60,699 | 112,976 | 53.73% |
| 3 | inFamous: Akumei Takaki Otoko | 15,992 | 46,222 | 34.60% |
| 2 | Colin McRae: DiRT 2 | 1,804 | 3,561 | 50.66% |
| 4 | NBA Live 10 | 4,413 | 7,366 | 59.91% |
| 8 | Ratchet & Clank Future 2 | 13,817 | 27,969 | 49.40% |
| Average | 49.66% |
I tried to do the same for Europe, but too many games were missing data, so I left it at Americas and Japan for now.
Obviously this is a very very small sample size, but it does seem to indicate that Wii games in general have a higher first week to life time sales multiplier, not just for high profile releases.
Of course that could/probably be due in large part because of the genre's of games, casual titles have a higher first week to life time sales ratio in general, so if the Wii gets more of those games, it will make it's ratio higher. Still the High School Musical game that was released for all consoles in Americas, had the lowest First week/total sales ratio of the three consoles. So there probably are other factors involved with the Wii having a lower first week/total sales ratio overall.
It would be interesting to do a study looking specifically at certain genres (like how do FPSs in general compare to fps on the HD consoles) in first week/life time sales ratios.
I know this wasn't exactly what this topic was about, but since it was what convinced me to look at this I thought I would post in here instead of make a new thread.
