Nintendo sold 2.04 million Wiis to U.S. consumers last month, outselling its nearest competitor, the Xbox 360, more than two-to-one. As good as the news was for Nintendo, it was as bad for Sony.
Click to viewWhile Wii sales more than doubled from the 981,000 units Nintendo sold in November last year, monthly PlayStation 3 sales dropped. Despite commanding a much stronger software line-up, Sony saw PS3 sales decline from 466,000 last November, to just 378,000 this November. The company's previous generation platform also sank considerably, with the PlayStation 2 moving just 206,000 units compared to 496,000 it did during the same month last year.
Microsoft's hardware sales jumped from November 2007, but not by such a wide margin. It sold 770,000 in November last year, with 836,000 this year.
• Wii - 2,040,000
• Nintendo DS - 1,570,000
• Xbox 360 - 836,000
• PSP - 421,000
• PlayStation 3 - 378,000
• PlayStation 2 - 206,000
Total hardware sales amounted to $2.91 billion for the month, up 10% from November of 2007. With the increase in Wii hardware sales alone accounting for almost $270 million, the video game industry as a whole may have Nintendo's little white box to thank for its continuing positive growth.
"The expanded supply of Wii systems at retail was clearly evident in the sales figures this month," Anita Frazier, analyst for the NPD Group noted. "The 360 realized a nice unit sales bump over last November and the PS3 year-to-date unit sales growth is impressive."
Thanks to the NPD Group for providing us with this month's data.