Wii Sales Close in on Xbox 360

After only 9 months on the market, the Nintendo Wii has amassed sales of 9.27 million worldwide at the end of June 2007, compared to 11.6 million for the Xbox 360, which has been on the market now for almost 20 months. What exactly does this mean? More after the jump...

All of this means that Nintendo's strategy of pushing for the mass market -both in game design, hardware innovation and pricing, has paid off immensely. It means Nintendo is going to sweep the floor with both Sony and Microsoft in the next-gen console war.

Microsoft's Entertainment Division are struggling to break even; battling law-suits over the chronic Red Rings of Death Xbox 360 syndrome, and facing down a US$1.2 billion bill for extending the 360's warranty to 3 years. Sony have just limped to their first million Playstation 3 sales mark, and although things are on the upturn for June and July, it will be a long while yet before Sony recoups anything from the massive investment gamble that was the PS3.

Meanwhile, Nintendo have the enormously successful DS, and the rampaging success of the Wii still to unfold. With Sony realistically out of the race for the next six months, how do things look between Nintendo and Microsoft?

The latest figures exhibit a difference of 2.33 million units between the two consoles. The Nintendo Wii retails for $250, while the most inexpensive Xbox 360 configuration sells for $300. Hard drive-equipped models sell for $400 and $480. To date, PlayStation 3, which recently dropped in price to $500 in the US, has sold around 3.38 million units worldwide. Global sales of the DS handheld hardware stand at 47.27 million units. Nintendo today announced net income of 80.3 billion yen ($668 million) for the quarter ended June 30, 416 percent year-over-year increase. The firm in effect raised full-year net sales forecasts to 1.4 trillion yen from 1.14 trillion yen.


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