14 DAY TRIAL // It's obvious that only one gaming console manufacturer can have the biggest sales and the best revenue. For September, as with all the months of 2008, Nintendo is the clear winner, with the Nintendo Wii coming first in sales and the Nintendo DS second, leaving a trail of dust for the third placed console, the Xbox 360.
Cammie Dunaway, vice president of Nintendo sales and marketing department, said that “The four Wii games in the top 10 all feature controls just not possible on other video game systems. The Wii Balance Board and Wii Wheel give players new ways to interact with their games, while the Wii Remote controller transforms into a pool cue, table tennis paddle or lightsaber”. The focus on talking about games rather than hardware shows that Nintendo is settling in its leader position and the new focus is on making game developers see the potential of their console.
Microsoft also talks big saying that the “Xbox 360 is the preferred stage for this holiday's hottest music games. New music tracks for popular games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero extend every music experience so every party feels like a new party”. The company also pointed out that the Xbox 360 is the cheapest home console, “half the price of the PlayStation 3”.
Sony arguably came out worse of September, with the PlayStation 3 selling around 100,000 consoles less than the Xbox 360. Jack Tretton, president and Chief Executive Officer of SCEA, declared “We remain confident that our footing is solid as we enter the holiday season this year. If the impressive pre-sale numbers and ratings for LittleBigPlanet, SOCOM: Confrontation, and Resistance 2 are any indication, we anticipate hardware and software sales to continue to lift in October as we officially kick off the broadest and deepest software line-up this holiday, including LittleBigPlanet, SOCOM: Confrontation, MotorStorm: Pacific Rift and NBA ’09: The Inside”.
The big thing to watch in the following weeks is how Sony will deal with the success of the reduced price Xbox 360, because the manufacturer cannot afford to be outsold on this scale for the rest of the year. Oh, and there will certainly be more spin coming. Count on us to make sense of it.