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Some of the Latest Video Game Goings-On

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Lately, I’ve been neglecting coverage of the video game industry on this blog. I think that since I’ve become a casual gamer (like most people in their late 20’s and older) and began looking at video game publishers more as companies to invest in versus companies to buy games from, I just haven’t followed the industry as much. I do go looking around one video game site the other day just to see what was going on with the Nintendo Wii and there were no big surprises.

The Wii still dominates the market with 48.5 million units sold worldwide which is almost double the nearest competition. XBox 360 comes in second with some 29.5 million units worldwide with PlayStation 3 bringing in the caboose at 21.3 million units worldwide. And in terms of handheld units, forget about it. The Nintendo DS has over 100 million units sold worldwide, which is more than double the PSP. It’s not even worth calling a competition any more in that segment of the market.

I read an update about the Wii now being able to handle up to 32GB smart disks and a change in the core technology to allow users to download software directly to their smart disks. That’s a welcome relief for many gamers who were running up against the internal limits of their Wii machines and other gamers who went out and purchased smart disks when they bought their system and have had yet to use them! It always seemed odd to me that the smart disk technology would be so ready available for use with the Wii, but that there would be no game-specific uses for it upon the system’s launch. Talk about a dumb move – but at least it’s been fixed now.

And apparently there are going to be more Final Fantasy downloads coming from the WiiWare system thanks to Square-Enix’s support for this feature. That can only be welcome news as there will always be a void in Nintendo’s line-up with no first-run games from the core Final Fantasy story.

Anyway, just thought I’d share some information that I picked up when running around the website linked above. Enjoy!

Who Won The Console Wars in 2008?

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Thanks to Martin Hawrysko of WithReason.net for sending me this link to a Yahoo! news article talking about which home video game console won the war in 2008. According to the article, many people thought that the PlayStation 3 would be the big winner in 2008 (Really? Who thought that?), but as you might imagine it was the Nintendo Wii that dominated the competition last year.

And not only did the Nintendo Wii win the home console wars, but the Nintendo DS continued to destroy the Sony PSP in the handheld video game market. The year-end tallies at VGChartz.com shows that, to date, Nintendo has sold some 94.7 million DS units worldwide while Sony has only sold 42.3 million PSPs. Granted, selling 42.3 million of any product is nothing to scoff at, but when your competition is doubling you in sales you have to wonder if you’re even competition any more.

The Yahoo! article gives a somewhat bleak outlook for Sony in the new year:

As for Sony, well, they just can’t catch a break. The company scored a major coup when Blu-ray officially trounced HD-DVD in the hi-def format war, but few believe the technology will catch on with consumers. Strong sales of big-time exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 were promising, but the troubled launch of their ‘Home’ network coupled with relatively weak holiday sales (only Resistance 2 cracked the Top 10 list in November, all the way back at number 9) cramped their style. The once-promising PSP is getting whomped by both the DS and Apple’s surging iPhone. Did a witch cast a spell on these guys or what?

Many people forget that the iPhone is out there and competing in the handheld space. Further, the iPhone directly competes with the PSP since both are generally purchased by the “core” users of high-end electronics. The same group of core gamers are currently stifling both XBox 360 and PS3 from breaking out and really competing against the Wii. Nintendo is laughing its way to the bank!

Finally, VGChartz.com shows 43.8 million Wii consoles being sold worldwide (with more than 20 million in the United States alone). This compares, worldwide, to 26.5 million XBox 360 units and 18.8 million PS3 units. Yeah, you might say that Nintendo is firmly on top of the console wars!

Nintendo Wii Still Breaking Records

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Last week, USA Today posted an article talking about how the Nintendo Wii is still selling a record number of units – even two years after its initial launch. Here’s a little fun fact from the story:

Nintendo’s sales mark represents the most game systems sold in any month since November 2002, when Sony sold 2.7 million PlayStation 2 systems (priced at $200), Frazier says. The PS2 has gone on to sell about 43.2 million in the U.S.

A quick jump over to VGChartz.com shows us that Wii has sold 18.28 million units in the United States, which is a little less than 4 million more than its nearest competitor, Microsoft’s XBox 360. This number is also about 12 million more than the PlayStation 3, which would have almost certainly been cut as a product if Sony lost the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war with Microsoft.

Anyway, the point here is that it is remarkable that the video game industry has only been marginally rocked by the market tumult. And it is even more impressive that Nintendo has managed to build a juggernaut system without the use of an internal hard drive or high definition graphics. Add in that the bulk of the games available for the Wii are family-friendly and generally leave the hardcore gamers out in the cold, and you have a real phenomenon in the video game industry.

As a guy who is financially invested in the successful outcome of at least one video game software company (which has not been mentioned in this post), I hope that the good news keeps coming in!

Nintendo Wins Off Sony & Microsoft’s Confusion

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The big story with video games these days is how Wii is dominating the competition. Sure, the XBox 360 is selling well and has sold over 8 million units, but Wii was launched only a few weeks ago and has sold over 1.2 million units worldwide.

That’s a crazy amount of Wii’s in a short amount of time!

These numbers, compared to the paltry 360,000 PlayStation 3 consoles sold show a very interesting story. With all of the horsepower and all of the hoopla around the PS3 debut, the system just isn’t that appealing to the gaming masses. But wait, you say. What about all of these people dying over PS3s and what about the fact that they’re sold out? Well, the biggest use of PS3s right now is NOT in people’s home – it’s reselling them. EBay is packed with PS3 packages and the game is sold out in the stores for this reason – people are buying the consoles simply to turn around and sell them.

While this is also happening with Wii, there are many more stories about how much fun the Nintendo system is – which means that people are buying the system and playing it, not reselling it. In any event, the recent surge of Wii sales shows the huge confusion that Microsoft and Sony have about video gamers.

Yes, there are gamers out there who will buy the PS3 and the XBox 360 because of the high definition graphics and the ability to watch high definition DVDs. And yes, there are people who will buy XBox 360 because of their enormous game library and who will buy PS3 just because it’s a PS3. But when you listen to what the marketing guys from Microsoft and Sony are saying to try to sell these systems, they’re completely confused.

Recently, one Sony employee said that the PS3 is on track to become so much more than a gaming machine. Well, that’s the problem! We don’t want to buy a video game system to do our daily e-mailing on – we want a video game machine that is a lot of FUN to play! Hell, we’ll even take graphics that aren’t that great if the game is fun! Don’t believe that? Go to any old-school arcade and tell me that you don’t love playing The Simpsons video game from the mid 1990’s. Or sit down with any PS2, GameCube, or XBox and tell me that playing a good Mortal Kombat or Sonic the Hedgehog or Final Fantasy game isn’t sweet.

That’s what gamers want – FUN! You can keep your “home entertainment centers” – we already have a desktop or laptop PC!

XBox 360 Holds Steady as PS3 Falters

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Some information was sent to me by the folks over at Compete.com:

XBox 360 is holding its own in terms of popularity despite the recent launches and abundant press for the other two next-generation gaming systems, according to the Compete.com blog. XBox was not left behind as demand spiked for the newer systems, and both the 360 and the Wii have recently passed PS3.

Interesting information, huh? Click on the link above to check out Compete.com’s numbers analysis.