Nintendo Wii reclaims top sales position during October

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Sony's introduction of the $300 PlayStation 3 Slim landed it a top spot in September's console sales, ousting the Wii. Things have turned around for Nintendo, though, as the Wii reclaimed the number one sales position last month, according to research conducted by NPD.

During October, the Nintendo moved 506,900 Wii consoles (up from 462,800 in September), and 457,600 DS handhelds (down from 524,000). Sony trailed, shipping 320,600 PlayStation 3 units (down from 491,800), and Microsoft sold some 249,700 Xbox 360s (down from 352,600). Sony also managed to sell 174,600 PlayStation Portables (down from 190,400), and 117,800 PlayStation 2s (down from 146,000).

In all, year-to-date sales for January through October are down 10% over the same period in 2008, with only the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS seeing an increase. NPD notes that falling hardware sales accounts for a bulk of the game industry's 19% revenue decline from October 2008. Hardware-related revenue for the year is at $380.74 million, down 23% from $496.96 million last year.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/36960-nintendo-wii-reclaims-top-sales-position-during-october.html

 

[Kibaruk]

Well, the handheld DSi from Nintendo had a great boost because it was a new and improved portable console, I don't know how much more would they sell as first that many many users changed their DSl (lites) to DSi.

I was part of a nintendo DS community and there was a big fuzz, that didn't last long.

 

[Guest]

@Kibaruk:

What? There is no proof that DSi is the big booster; NPD must have mixed both the 'i' and the 'Lite'. I don't know if either 'i' or 'Lite' must have done the DS lead; what I do know is the Lite still has backward compatibility for GameBoy Advance games, while the DSi does not.

DSi has all the extra trivial features, and the DSi XL (known as DSi LL in Japan) will be coming soon to replace the DSi, not the DS Lite.

DS Lite and DSi still co-exist and are in production at the same time. Nintendo will not discontinue the GameBoy Advance backward compatibility from Nintendo DS just because it is no longer supported by current existing game developers. In fact, Phoenix Wright series was popular back in the days of GBA only in Japan; there must be existing GBA physical copies in eBay. Are there any more notable GBA games still played? Don't say Pokemon... it faded away and would not come back - ever!

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

Next month 360 will be over the ps3 because 360 banned 1 million hacked consoles and instead most of them are probably going to run out and buy a new 360....Nice marketing Microsoft! to bad the ps3 is still better... Im thinking all sales increase for Nov-Dec holiday rush, with the Wii on top, ps3 2nd, and 360 dead last.

 

[Puiu]

I'm just waiting to see how well the new PS3 Slim is going to sale during Christmas.

 

[Kibaruk]

@Guest:

Oh it sure is, read a lot of news in the time that as soon as it came out million of sales where made, it was out of stock everywhere and it became THE most selling portable console of all times leaving the original gameboy behind.

Has better wifi connectivity, bigger screen, better sound, external memory support out of the box (No need to buy a flashcard to hear MP3s or play video or homebrews), mp4 avi mpeg and ogg video support (I don't recall so I might be mistaken with MP4), organizing tools included to make it palm-like, camera for movement based games, etc etc.

IT IS a replacement, they might still sell DSlites because it is a lot cheaper and reaches other segments (With $50 difference becoming almost 2/3 of the dsi) of the market.

The ability to play GBA games... mmm I think it's one of the good things the dsl and the original ds has, but it is a no point comparison to all the goodies dsl brings (And I think that thanks to the hardware of the dsl you can play them from a flashcard now without having to have an 3-1 expansion, if you own the original it's not illegal, but I'm not entirely sure, sold my ds a long time ago and haven't participated in forums).