Thanks for this, although I don't really know what a news article about a single week after a major price drop has to do with sales of a year as a whole. I'm sure it'll level out soon and both will be in shame of the Wii's christmas sales.

How on earth van that chart be understood
and yeah the X-box far more popular in Britain than the ps3
wii dominates yet another market

The chart is a year-by-year graph of the revenue brought in by all hardware and software for a particular system...To show how much the video game industry has grown in the past 13+ years.

Each generation's revenue is defined by a different color - Purple is the PS1/N64 generation, Blue is the PS2/Xbox generation, and light blue is the Wii/PS3/X360 generation.

The white lines define the total revenue share of a given system's products (games and software) compared to the other titles, and by a larger picture of generations.

So if you look at the PS1 generation, the biggest share is PS1 products, follow by (I assume) N64 stuff. Likewise, each line in the PS2 generation are different products, dominated by the Playstation 2's revenue for games & hardware - Even in 2007, you see a huge bit of the market taken up by Playstation 2 products.

On down the line, you see in 2007 that every system brought in a very similar amount of revenue - Wii, DS, X360, PS3, PS2 and PS3 products all brought in very similar numbers (although the PSP/PS2 share were shrinking). That's very interesting given the fact that the PS3/X360 alone are selling more product than the PS1 generation did at any given time in it's lifespan.

The final amount to be in awe at, is the market jumped from $1,2b pounds in 1998 to just under 3,2b pounds in 2007. Not to mention the fact that there has already been more hardware sold this generation in the UK, than there was in the entirety of the Playstation2/GBA/Xbox/GCN era of gaming.

after you have read this article, how could you have possibly thought that?! they have sold the EXACT same amount since last august, only difference is 360 had a year head start. xbox isn't far more popular. it has a higher install base but they have the same popularity, and that's only due to it's head start

DOATS1 - Technically, I'd think the console with the higher install base = more popular, regardless.

well, technically that would be correct. but it's not about being technical now, is it?

plus, he said it was far more popular, which it isn't. both get near enough the same lime light with the 360 just edging it due to it's igher install base from it's head start.

cool....thanks I understand it now.

Yeah thats what made me think the graph was wrong....just how better Ps360 are doing than the Ps1

mrstickball said: BKK2 said: Very interesting chart to see how much the market has grown since the mid 90's. I wonder if such a flow chart for the US and Japan exist?

I have seen similar for both, but they're several years out of date unfortunately.

Anyway, here are some of the LTDs from previous generations, Gamecube LTD through 2005 (it's sales were next to nothing in 2006, I have total LTD at 1.2m) really puts Wii performance into perspective. Again, the original Xbox sales in 2006 were very low too (I have it at 2.2m LTD), so 360 has now passed it's predecessor.PS2 should be around 10m by now.

Based off of various sources I have reasonably decent Chart-Track estimates for the following systems:

Sega Dreamcast: 0.6m
Nintendo 64: 1.7m
Sega Saturn: 0.4m

For 16-bit gen the data isn't as accurate, but based off Chart-Track (formerly Gallup) and other data I have the following estimates:

Sega Mega Drive: 3.1m
Super Nintendo: 1.6m

8-bit is even sketchier, but from a combination of Gallup (now Chart-Track) and EA internal estimates along with a small estimation for end of life sales I estimate:

Sega Master System: 1.6m
Nintendo Entertainment System: 1.4m
Sega Gamegear: 1m

Unfortunately the data is less accurate the further back we go, but they should serve as decent ballpark figures:

Estimated UK Console LTD Sales based off of Chart-Track and other sources:

PS2: 10m
PS1: 7.2m
Wii: 3.6m
SMD: 3.1m
360: 2.3m
XBX: 2.2m
N64: 1.7m
SFC: 1.6m
SMS: 1.6m
PS3: 1.4m
NES: 1.4m
NGC: 1.2m
SDC: 0.6m
SAT: 0.4m

Estimated UK Handheld LTD Sales based off of Chart-Track and other sources:

NDS: 7.1m
GBY: 6.6m
GBA: 5m
PSP: 2.9m
SGG: 1m

Edit: PS2 LTD

Here is a North American picture of the same chart. The same results too, just about.

Mind you, it's for hardware only. Since VGC only has data going back to 2004 for SW, and it's an impartial picture...I just went with hardware. VGC has the North American market at around $17 billion in 2007 assuming normal prices, and $5 under MSRP per software title sold.

thats some good work there lou, now we need to adapt those graphs for doughnut costs