BusinessWeek.com has a quick financial recap and forecast of the current console wars. Nintendo sold 1.1 million Wii consoles between its release in November 2006 through the end of the year coming out numero uno in console sales. Sony on the other hand, only sold 687,000 PlayStation 3 units.
Though this isn’t surprising, I find it hard to believe that Sony wouldn’t have out sold Nintendo if they had just had more PS3s available. BusinessWeek doesn’t mention the Sony shortage as a contributing factor to the weaker sales, just that the Wii’s price is roughly half the PS3’s. A launch-comparison side note—Microsoft sold 607,000 Xbox 360 units when it launched in November 2005 to yearend, 2005.
And probably the least shocking bit of news from the story, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is leading in sales with 10.4 million units as of the end of 2006.
As for forecasts, Clyde Montevirgen, the S&P Equity Research analyst BW spoke to, says there will likely be two winners because hardcore gamers have gotten older and there are more casual gamers that don’t care about hardcore features. He doesn’t say which two will win, but my personal opinion steers me towards PS3 and the Wii.