baka on 26 February 2007
DIAR said:
The Wii has been outsold by the 360 in the USA. Go get the numbers.
It's pointless to argue about sales figures at this point. You are correct, the Wii has been outsold by the 360 in the USA. It has been out for more than a year, and would have been a failure as a console were this not the case. For the last two weeks of November and all of December, it outsold the wii month-to-month - primarily due to the unavailability of the Wii in light of its demand. Nintendo did produce a number of consoles prior to launch, so this is quite interesting. The sales of the Wii increased in January beyond both the PS2 and 360, and the ongoing shortage of Wii consoles in retail locations suggests a continuing high sales trend. Given the impending increased shipments due to Nintendo producing more hardware, there's a good chance that sales will increase shortly. I'm sure this information sounds familiar.
We know that the Wii has continuously been out of stock in most venues, much like the 360 was for its launch. The Wii is also being sold largely based on its launch titles. For this reason, the most valid comparison we have at this point would be Wii sales over the past 3 months vs. the 360's first 3 months. That's quite a favorable comparison for the Wii, even given US sales alone. The Wii also contended with the near-simultaneous launch of the PS3, which makes its high sales figures even more interesting. This can be ignored for the sake of this discussion, but it is worth mentioning. (This is not a knock against the PS3, mind you, but a simplification.)