Wii win: Nintendo snatches January from the competition
- February 21, 2007 00:00 AM PST
According to recent U.S. sales figures, Wii took tops in next-gen console sales, followed by Xbox 360 in second and PlayStation 3 in third.
By Eugene Huang
New sales statistics from The NPD Group state that, of the three next-gen consoles, Nintendo's Wii took the top spot in U.S. sales for the month of January with 436,000 units sold. Microsoft's Xbox 360 came in second with 294,000 units sold, while Sony's PlayStation 3 took a close third after selling 244,000 units in the first month of the new year. The marketing data comes directly from Microsoft, and has not been verified as of yet by NPD.
Nintendo attributes their success so far to the Wii's broader user base and lower price. "I do think that we're selling to additional and different customers," stated Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo's VP of Marketing. "We've had an incredibly healthy start and we think there's going to be a pretty long tail on this product." She also stated that the sales figures would have been even greater, had Nintendo been able to keep up with consumer demand by producing more units.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is enjoying its higher-than-expected sales figures, which are up 18% up from sales in January 2006. The company claims that their success last month is mostly thanks to strong games sales from titles like Gears of War and Lost Planet, which was the top-selling game for the month.
For Sony, it was good news and bad news. While the media giant is lamenting its third place position, sales of its PlayStation 2 actually exceeded both the PS3 and Xbox 360 at just under 300,000 units sold in January. However, Sony expects PS3 sales to gain momentum as Blu-ray continues to encroach more and more upon the digital media market.
