Tue, Aug 12, 2008 | 14:49 BST
Microsoft: “The Wii third party game story is not a pretty one”
This GI report casts aspersions on Nintendo’s claim that third-parties fair best on Wii, with senior Microsoft PR bod David Dennis saying that, “No matter how you slice it, the Wii third party game story is not a pretty one.”
Microsoft reckons, quoting NPD data:
- Total third party sales for the Xbox 360 since launch is currently 67,929,999 units, followed by the Wii at 33,394,311 units and the PlayStation 3 at 19,976,325 units.
- Third party sales for the Xbox 360 since the launch of the Wii and PS3 is 54,065,728 units, still almost double the Wii’s 33,394,311 units.
- If you take the total number of units sold and divide that by the number of titles released since November 2006, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are selling more units per title on average than the Wii. This puts the Xbox 360 at 217,252 units per title, the PS3 at 156,065 units and the Wii at 132,517 units.
More through the link.
8 comments
#1
Psychotext
11/08/08, 2:03 pm
It’s pretty clear that the Wii’s third party numbers are made up through sheer number of shovelware titles (and Sonic / Mario Olympics)… but this doesn’t stop this particular spin looking particularly desperate.
Especially the “Third party sales for the Xbox 360 since the launch of the Wii” stat. Idiots.
#2
Blerk
11/08/08, 2:05 pm
Microsoft sticking up for Sony in an official press release. It just feels…. wrong!
#3
trav
11/08/08, 2:37 pm
It must be a slow PR month, everyone is just getting the boxing gloves out.
#4
No_PUDding
11/08/08, 3:22 pm
Holy christmas, why don’t they stop bashing every other hardware manufacturer and actually prove what the others are doing wrong, by makign theirs better.
#5
OrphanageExplosion
11/08/08, 3:26 pm
They are proving they’re ‘better’… they’re saying that the owners of their console buy more games. In a business that depends so heavily on the games actually selling, the stats are important; crucial even.
That said, comparing 2.5 years of sales with 1.5 years on the other consoles isn’t particularly fair (to PS3), but with Wii basically neck and neck with 360 in terms of installed base, MS is right in that the ‘third party picture’ doesn’t look that nice.
#6
No_PUDding
11/08/08, 3:34 pm
And it still wasn’t really a necessary dig. He could have pointed out the progress Microsoft is making, in comparison to the competition.
Not… “Ohhh the Wii is down in the dumps 3rd party”
#7
Hero of Canton
11/08/08, 4:43 pm
What I don’t get is why they’re dividing the *total* figure by the number of games released since Nov 2006. Because surely that’s going to skew the figures.
#8
FireFly
11/08/08, 6:18 pm
They should show some first-part sales. See how that’s going…