Irrelevant unless you think PS4bone software library is not going to increase in range, quality or quantity over time.

The reason the 3DS is down compared to last year is obvious: Competition.

The 3DS last year didn't have to deal with so much hype of the new consoles, and in 2013 it has to deal with not just hype, but their existence on the market. The PS4 is selling like hotcakes and the XBone isn't doing too badly either.

Yes, 3DS is a handheld. But there's truth to the fact that sometimes people skip out on other kinds of products that they want when they see one they want even more - People who might want both a 3DS and a PS4, for example, might only get a PS4 because getting both is too much on their budget together.

3DS is doing great considering the far heavier competition for the green inside people's wallets this Christmas/Year. It needed the support it got this year to deal with it's competition.

And as for the XBone, it's going to sell like crap in Japan. Saying "But XBone isn't released in japan yet!" is a useless argument because even if it were, it would most likely fail like the 360 did. Nintendo wins in japan just like XBone wins in US, there's no difference. It's legitimately worrying for the XBone to be selling less than the Wii U either way. Japan isn't relevant towards Microsofts console sales, it never was. And it certainly isn't flying off the shelves like PS4.

Xb one has better long term potential in Europe with price movement. Xb one Nth America+Japan should over the course of a year > Wii U Nth America +Japan, unless PS4 steals a large chunk of the 360 user base, which is possible. But I do think it should be acknowledged that it's possible Xb one might sell globally in the Wii U range. But also given I think this gen will have lower combined sales to last it's possible PS4 sales may also not be that much higher over the long term. We cannot judge long term sales based on this launch holiday.

Also given ioi's recent comments about how to interpret numbers a 12k difference on sales over 300k is statistically insignificant. It just says Wii U and Xb one got about the same sales. I actually like the idea someone gave in another thread that the sd should be given at least for the hardware number.

As irrelevant as some people claim Nintendo is in the EU, Microsoft wishes it were that irrelevant in Japan.

Good week all around. It looks like all systems are (reasonably) healthy somewhere, and hopefully the extended variety leads to more competition, better games and higher sales.

On to 2014!

True, we can all be thankful for that. Even the U and Vita have found a home in Japan and Europe, respectively.

In terms of price movement i believe Nintendo could still drop the Wii U price lower. The console itself is underpowered compared to the others, and the gamepad, which drives the cost of the console up could eventually have manufacturing costs lowered. Im not sure how much Microsoft can manoeuvre on price with built in Kinect, unless they release a basic model. Another thing to factor in is software, Wii U has games on the horizon that could boost popularity in its weaker markets ie Europe. Then again the same could be said for Microsoft...interesting times ahead, if Sony do dominate the battle for 2nd place between Microsoft and Nintendo could be a very close affair and certainly very interesting :)

God dammit i have think about this.

It will be clear the most people buy a game in a quarter and the ps+ make it possible to play every month a game. That will destroy a lot of sale nummbers for the softwaremaker. And the worst the free to play stuff. Dont forget free to play gamer pay nothing ,only 8 percent of this guy pay what for the game. That will become a big problem.

It will be not a great Future for the Third Party.

To everyone surprised at the 3DS; this is all unfolding precisely like quite a few people predicted quite some time ago, it has nothing to do with PS4 and One or Wii U, especially not Vita, but everything to do with mobiles/tablets.
It was obvious all along that dedicated handhelds would start to decline and likely go away almost entirely in time, in the face of this revolution, no matter how comforting a lot of people seem to think that denying it is.
The Vita has been all but murdered since it focuses more heavily on non-gaming features and attempts to sell on touch functionality, the 3DS will sell a lot more and live longer but it will never attain the same numbers as the DS, not even close (it wasn't too long ago that people were still chanting about the 3DS selling 130-140-150 million or even more).

As for the rest of the consoles; post-holiday adjustments will be cruel as usual, everyone should hold their horses a little bit longer. And the post-holiday drops will likely be terrifying.

Damn typo, sorry, I meant YTD.