Since its launch in 2006, the Nintendo Wii has managed to consistently outsell the PS3 and Xbox 360 in terms of hardware and software sales around the world.
Despite this, the Xbox 360 still leads software sales. According to Gamasutra, the Xbox 360 has managed to sell 3 million more games in its longer life span than the Wii.
Lifetime console software sales
1. Xbox 360 – 143million
2. Wii – 140 million
3. PS3 – 59million
While the Xbox 360 holds a slight lead over the Wii, it has been available for around one year longer. The Wii and PS3 have both been out for around 35 months, while the Xbox 360 has been around for 47 months.
At the same point in its life span, the Xbox 360 had sold around 90 million units, illustrating that the Wii has sold games at a much higher rate than both the Xbox 360 and PS3.
On average, every Xbox 360 owner has bought 8.8 games. On Wii the figure is 6.5 and the PS3 enjoys a “tie ratio” of 6.8.
According to this graph published by Gamasutra, 2009 has been a good year for console software sales. This is expected, because as more people own consoles, more games are sold, naturally.
Both Microsoft and Sony have seen gradual increases in console game sales in the period Sept 08 – Sept 09 compared to the same period in the previous year. The same is not true for Nintendo, who has sold almost the same amount of games, despite the Wii’s user base growing.
This indicates that as more Wii consoles are put in homes around the world, relatively less people are buying new games for the console. This data could also simply reflect that the first half of 2008 was particularly strong for the Wii, with titles like Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii Fit all selling very well.
This year has been fairly quiet for the Wii, with not many big scale titles being released.
This has allowed Nintendo’s competitors to continue to grow while its own software sales have remained stagnant. Often in industry, when sales figures flatline, they decrease shortly afterwards.
Whether this will be the case with Wii software sales remains to be seen.
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