March PS3 sales trump Wii… in Japan
It’s not exactly the major coup Sony needs to become a gaming leader once again, but surpassing Nintendo Wii console sales in a market like Japan — even for one month — is a pretty big deal. Fueled by new game titles such as Resident Evil 5 and the PS3 exclusive Yakuza 3, Sony managed to outsell the dominant Wii box by nearly 50 percent in March. No, seriously! According to Enterbrain, a Japanese game magazine publisher, Sony sold 146,948 PS3 consoles in March while Nintendo managed to hawk a mere 99,335 Wii units. For comparison sake, Microsoft shuffled out 43,172 Xbox 360 consoles. No, the Earth isn’t exactly reversing on its axis just yet. While we applaud Sony for a solid month and for topping Wii sales in Japan for the first time in nearly a year and a half, big exclusives aren’t going to be coming around every month to help push units out the door. In order to right this ship, at least where gaming is concerned, the company still needs to find a way to bolster sustained sales growth — surges aren’t going to help in the long run.
good job sony
Is it possible that most people in Japan who want one already have a Wii?
Wow, put out a good game and people start buying your console….who knew!
In long run, a PS3 has better value and more interesting than a Wii.
I haven’t touched my Wii for almost a year.
@tom…I would disagree and as evidence I submit my kids and their friends as reasoning! lol…I do prefer my 360 over the wii though…
@tom
The point is 95% of Wii owners are not gamers in the traditional sense. The new House of dead is pretty fun at a party and Nintendo owns the casual gaming market now.
PS3 needs a few more solid months and this success will not matter in the states at all. I don’t see any title coming out that will matter. If a Metal Gear doesn’t bring gamers to the console I don’t think GOW 3 and a sequel to a launch franchise will. Sony needs a price cut but due to already bleeding money and not able to cut the cost down fast enough they are stuck with the most expensive console and a marginal game library.
Sony wanted Blu-Ray a standard and that is all PS3 provided them. Tough trade off to set a format that might only last another couple years.
It’s actually two months in a row, now, according to this source:
http://kotaku.com/5197417/playstation-3-outsells-wii-in-japan-for-second-month-in-a-row
PS3 is amazing! I also like the Wii, but I prefer the PS3 hands down.
I prefer the Wii to the PS3 by far for gaming purposes, but I never owned a PS2 either so I know my opinions aren’t exactly the mainstream.
Really, I wonder how many more Wiis realistically can be sold, as let’s face it- at some point everybody interested is going to have one. I’d imagine that point would be reached quicker in Japan than in the US, too.
I own both and I’m sure my PS3 usage has far exceeded my Wii usage. I haven’t sold the Wii yet to be able to play some older GC games and a select few Wii titles. I don’t anticipate buying another Wii game, perhaps ever.
Well since nearly everyone in Japan already owns a wii, it only makes sense that they buy other consoles….
What’s a Wii? Is that like WiFi?
Ok, lets be fair here. What has Nintendo released in the last little while in Japan that has been a PHENOMENON and might, just might, decrease Wii sales??? Oh yea, the DSi.
The Nintendo Wii is more intuitive and certainly wins the “Cool!” factor. While the game selection verses Sony Playstation 3 or Microsoft Xbox 360 is somewhat lacking, hits like Mario and other family friendly titles have been pushing Nintendo along for a while now.
Nintendo has certainly stepped up to the plate with a heavy hitter in the Wii, given its bluetooth and infrared Wiimote and all the other cool wireless goodies available for the Wii. It’s going to put a lot of pressure on the next generation consoles to up the game a bit more or fall victim to “last year’s” technology.
Lol Wifi…I like this and I hope it continues cause Sony needs it. I need it!