Sullla said: OK, let's step out of the realm of "yes it will" versus "no it won't" and look at some actual numbers. I've yet to see anyone aside from the topic creator actually do that. As said initially, the Wii is currently 2.32m units behind the 360. That's quite a lot of consoles to make up, even for the Wii. Whether or not it will pass the 360 by the beginning of April will depend heavily on what happens in the next two weeks, before 2007 comes to a close. I'm still waiting to see whether or not the Wii numbers are quite as massive for this week as many are hoping. Still, let's assume for the sake of argument that the Wii can make up a full million units before the end of 2007, leaving it only 1.32m units behind. (I actually don't think it will do quite that well, but go with it for argument's sake.) With that assumption in mind, will the Wii pass the 360 before the beginning of April? Here are the comparison numbers from Q1 2007: VGChartz Hardware data for the period 07th Jan 2007 to 01st Apr 2007: Console Wii PS3 X360 America 1,094,229 533,585 780,924 This is for America only, obviously. Here's where the numbers I get don't stack up with the numbers of the topic creator. According to VGChartz, the Wii only outsold the 360 by about 300k units in the first quarter of last year. In order to meet the sales target we're discussing here, Wii sales will need to more than quadrule that margin of victory... and that's assuming that 360 sales don't see any increase either. I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing that happen. So IF the Wii makes up a million units on the 360 in the next two weeks (that's make up a million, not sell a million!) and IF 360 sales stay level and IF the Wii sells DOUBLE what it did last year in the first quarter, then yes, it will pass the 360 in America before April. Unfortunately, there's a lot of "ifs" in there. The Wii is definitely going to pass the 360 in American sales, but it's probably going to happen during the late spring or early summer. Think May/June 2008.

You're forgetting that Wii production has been seriously upped.  Even if NA only got 1/3 of Wiis made during that time, that's only 1mil Wiis per month.  Nintendo is obviously making a lot more than that now.

my 533 number was Jan and Feb only for last year- Also the Wii's production was upped by 80% so I guess I could have just multiplied the last years by 80%... but last year was really inconsistent.. so I did what I did.

I actually believe it is possible for the Wii to pass the 360 in late Feb, but all the rights things would need to fall in place. That is why I said April 1.

leo-j said: It will never pass it just my opinion on the TOPIC.

 the wii sold about 80% of what the 360 slod in two years but the wii did it in one year. 08 sales are going to be better. so buy the end of 09 the wii sales will be up about 200% of what the 360 sold in America alone.

 

 

tokilamockingbrd said: Ok so right now the Wii is behind the 360 by 2.32 million in NA right. So after the Wii Sells 1.1 million and the 360 sells 390k in NA next week the Wii will be behind by 1.221 I am going to be conservative with the next week and the Wii only outsells the 360 by 100k So going into January the Wii will be behind by 1.121- Lets say the 360 does the exact same as it did last year and sells 533k. NA should recieve 50% of the total shipments combined with Brawls release will sell 1.8 million in Jan and Feb. If this holds true the Wii will pass the 360 the in the last weeks of Feb. and will actually have a 146k lead on March 1st. The reason my prediction states April 1st is because the 360 could sell more or NA could get less than 50% of total Wii's produced.... BUT, Nintendo may be able to crank out MORE than 1.8(I believe they are right now) So here it is. The Wii will be ahead of the 360 in NA on 4/1/08

I think April 1 is about right.  The 360 is going to sell more in Jan-Mar 08 than in Jan-Mar 07, for the simple reasons that it is cheaper and has many more quality software titles that have been released in recent months.  Still, it will not be able to keep pace with the Wii, which still hasn't exhausted the people who wait in line for it on Sunday mornings.

360 has GTA IV in early 2008.  Wii has Brawl, Wii Fit, and Mario Kart (possible delay on MK).  360 has done very well in the second half of this year, but IMO the only reason it hasn't already been passed in NA is because there aren't enough Wiis to go around.

I had originally predicted December but the 360 holiday was not nearly as big as I thought. I was asuuming 1 million more than actually sold. THat said Nintendo is not catching up another million in two weeks. I know it seemed huge last Sunday but my guess is closer to 900,000 with the 360 somewhere near 400,000. The last week will see very few Wii available in NA so the 360 will outsell it by 100,000. So I think it will still be almost 2 million behind starting 08.

tarheel91 said: You're forgetting that Wii production has been seriously upped.  Even if NA only got 1/3 of Wiis made during that time, that's only 1mil Wiis per month.  Nintendo is obviously making a lot more than that now.

Oh, I'm aware of that, believe me. But as I explained in the previous post, even assuming VERY generous sales over the next two weeks to finish 2007, the Wii would still need to double its North American sales in Q1 2008 to pass the 360. That's simply not realistic. None of the consoles are going to see gigantic increases in sales next year; they should all sell about the same as this year, or possibly a little better.

More numbers for what the Wii would need to do to pass the 360 by April:

1.32m behind entering 2008 + 780k (projected 360 sales in Q1 from last year) = 2.1m units needed

2.1m / 13 weeks in Q1 = 162k weekly sales (America only)
2.1m / 3 months in Q1 = ~700k monthly sales (America only)

Those numbers might look doable, if you're only thinking in terms of holiday sales. But go back and look at non-holiday sales data from the old charts here. The Wii wasn't even remotely close to 700k monthly sales (again, America only!) at any point in time this year until November. Try looking at some of the old NPD data for a good comparison. I'd dig it up myself, but I don't have the time.

I'm quite bullish on the Wii myself, just trying to keep things in perspective here. Assuming that the Wii will continue to sell 700k per month, in America alone, is not very likely to come true in January and February.

Did anyone else notice that the TC's date for the Wii overtaking the 360 was April Fool's Day? Just an observation.

Foozar said: Did anyone else notice that the TC's date for the Wii overtaking the 360 was April Fool's Day? Just an observation.

 I think we all noticed it.

tkjinak said: 100 dollar gta price cut and the 360 stays ahead till the next ms console is out.

100 dollar price drop in less than 6 months of a 50$ price drop? MMhmm... that's generally a sign of desperation and shows weakness to any potential stock holders which they don't want to do. You gotta recall Microsoft is a company that does more then games investors might see instability in one division as instability in the whole company.. They can't just go "we're dropping the price!" there's a lot of stuff that must be done first... maybeee a 30 or 50$ price drop but if the 360 needs to be the same price to compete it'd be just as simple for nintendo to go to 200$ at this point.. Edit: I think it's not only possible but very likely the wii will overtake the 360 in America sometime in 2008. I'm going to go with a little closer to 6/30 though. Yes there's good games coming to the 360 I agree but don't underestimate games like Mario Kart, Wii fit and Smash bros they all have potential and who knows what else is coming Nintendos been pretty quiet about later months in 2008.

If you argue that the Wii cannot double its sales in Q108 versus last year, you are essentially saying that Nintendo cannot keep selling those 1.8 million consoles per month after Christmas at all.

I don't think that the Wii will catch up anymore in the US this year. I would expect that the gap between Wii and 360 will be around 2.5 million by the end of the year. In the first quarter it's very certain that the Wii will catch up by more than 1 million units (given how long the lines still are now), though exactly how much is really up in the air.

The releases of GTAIV or SSMB probably won't move a ton of extra hardware. A 100k spike is the best you can expect from a AAA gamer's game, and if this game improves the library of a console, in the long run, the average weekly sales of that console may go up permanently by a few k. Wii Fit on the other hand is a new genre (or new market, whatever), so if it's successful it could really influence sales.