Monday, December 13, 2010

November NPD

Let's see the numbers again before we get started:
Microsoft: 1,370,000
Wii: 1,270,000
PS3: 530,000

Last year, for comparison:
Wii: 1,260,000
360: 819,599
PS3: 710,400

So the Wii was flat, the 360 was up over 65% (!), and the PS3 was down 25%.

Wow.

For three mature platforms, those are relatively shocking changes. What a huge shift since last year, and let me take this opportunity to eat more Kinect dirt pie. Microsoft really did know what they were doing, apparently.

Okay, here are the NPD sales totals for 2010 through November:
360: 4,893,689
Wii: 4,691,600
PS3: 3,141,800

Year-over-year changes from the first 11 months of last year:
360 +41.4%
PS3 +5.6%
Wii  -18.9%

Lifetime installed base based on NPD:
Wii--31,806,900
360--23,551,389
PS3--14,267,800

Dear Sony Defense Force,
Unspinnable.
Yours Truly,
Reality

Let's move past the this-has-been-happening-for-four-years-now PS3 numbers and move to Nintendo. Look, if Nintendo didn't sell even one more Wii worldwide, the system would have still been the most financially successful console Nintendo has ever produced. It's been a money printing machine since it launched, and while it's undoubtedly past its peak, it's been an epic run.

What the hell does Nintendo do now, though? Look, for all the goofballs saying that the motion control wasn't a big deal, it WAS a big deal., and Wii Sports was a big deal--that's why the console was sold out for over two freaking years.

Where can you go from here, though? It doesn't seem like Nintendo would be willing to copy Kinect, and they can't use the 3DS technology in the next Wii, because it's screen-dependent. The obvious change is to upgrade to HD resolution, but that's not enough to justify an entirely new console.

So there's your $100 question: what's the next innovation from Nintendo? What can they do to make everyone care?

Wait, that's not one question. All right, those are your two $50 questions. Over the next few months, let's figure this out.

Now, let's move on to something I received from a Best Buy employee. Let's call him "Mr. Z.," and since Best Buy is totally paranoid about stuff like this, I'll just say he works in the South. Here's what he has to say:
I just wanted to comment on the sales of the three systems in my corner of the world.

Wii: We have a TON of these in stock, all three colors: black, white and red. We can't keep the red ones in stock for very long though because they come with Super Mario Wii instead of Wii Sports Resort. I see tons of Wii accessories go flying off the shelves as well.

Xbox: This is by far our biggest seller. Kinect and Kinect/Xbox bundles don't last a day in our store. I think they're on limited inventory too so we always get varying numbers in when we receive shipments. We always seem to have a few Xboxes w/ no Kinect lying around (the 4GB ones) but the 250GB ones sell out faster than any other system.

PS3: I've physically seen one person buy a PS3 in the last week, and that's because we have some sort of package deal going on with it if you buy a Sony Bravia television. We have piles and piles of PS3s and accessories sitting around that no one wants to buy.

When the Kinect first came out we had two different interactive displays set up in the gaming department next to each other: one for the Kinect and one for the Move. There would be a *crowd* of people standing around the Kinect display wanting to try it. The occasional person would pick up the Move remote, play for less than a minute, then move on (no pun intended). I think Sony really missed the boat.

I'm interested to see how well the PS3 holds up after this holiday season.

What Mr. Z. has to say certainly seems to mirror the November NPDs.

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