Japanese Gamers Love Them Some DS/Wii
- Scribbled on June 29th, 2007 by Derrick Schommer
- Filed in Casual Gaming, Industry News, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Platformer, Sony PSP, Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3
It’s funny to see Nintendo gaining so much traction in Japan. Granted, Xbox 360 isn’t really a factor but Sony should be a huge problem for Nintendo. Yet, they continue to build Japanese-centric games that become instant hits or so it seems.
But Microsoft aside, Nintendo makes Sony look bad in their own country. The DS Lite sold 163,888 units by the week ending in June while the Wii sold 65,582 units. Sony’s PSP rolled in third at 32,984 units sold and their last-generation console marked 11,962 units.
More than likely the PlayStation 3 is going to push out some hot titles for the fall and holiday season which should directly impact sales figures, globally, and Nintendo is going to have to work to hold their numbers, right? Nintendo must know they don’t have a “free ride” forever. At this point, they’re competing with a high end (high cost) system which lacks a great deal of games.
Eventually, this problem will resolve itself as developers finalize (stablize?) video games and start shipping something of value to their customers. I’m wondering if Nintendo has a battle plan or marketing hype for when this event occurs. Like, perhaps their holding back some great multi-player game, some neat accessories or anything to steal the thunder of PS3 once they release titles like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear and others.
One thing is for certain, games like Assassins’ Creed and Metal Gear Solid might not be exclusives anymore but the other system that you can find them on is the Xbox 360, not a popular Japanese console. So, in effect, these titles are exclusive to Sony in the Wii vs. PS3 battle. Will that change the sales counts in months to come?
(Thanks, casualgamerchick)
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