Nintendo Domination System?

This week's hardware numbers for Japanese console sales are in, and due to the release of the second Wi-Fi DS game (Mario Kart DS), the sudden changes in sales numbers are worth noting. Here are the latest handheld console sales:

Nintendo DS 299,328
PlayStation Portable 86,403
PlayStation 2 45,893
Xbox 360 43,970
GameCube 12,212
Game Boy Advance SP 10,456
Game Boy Micro 8,326
Game Boy Advance 396
Xbox 164

It is the first times for several months the Gamecube sales have managed to hit the 12,000 unit mark, nice to see. The Xbox 360 launched in Japan at the beginning of this week, and it has grabbed a healthy share of console sales, though no enough to dominate the home console industry (still a little behind PS2). It's also the first time the Micro's dropped behind the GBA SP in sales, with a small difference of ~2000 units.

Here are the numbers for handheld sales, representated in a pie chart:




You'll see that Nintendo DS sales have really gone bezerk in the last 7 days, this was thanks to the release of Mario Kart. Sales have increased by over 100,000 units compared to the previous week (check my last stat post). Currently, Nintendo are dominating about 79% of the handheld market, and Sony have the other 21%. The gap has widened by a fairly impressive margin since last week. Hopefully this rise will continue into the start of 2006, and be further boosted by the launch of the (long awaited) Metroid Prime.

Here is a quick look at console performances in the States:

1.) GBA / Game Boy micro - 819,733 (+194%)
2.) PlayStation 2 - 535,000 (+112%)
3.) Nintendo DS - 369,012 (+172%)
4.) PSP - 353,434 (unknown)
5.) Xbox 360 - 325,902 (NEW)
6.) GameCube - 272,000 (+166%)
7.) Xbox - 197,000 (+ 79%)

Ha! The Xbox 360 was beaten by 4 consoles, despite it's new release! Just goes to prove that you can't relay on marketing for console performance, only the actualy sales numbers. The Gamecube's overtaken Xbox, guess that's not a suprise thanks to 360. Xbox is officially coming last in console wars in the States, and MS doesn't seem to be performing very well at all. The 360 and Xbox's total sales still can't top the GBA's, or even PS2 for that matter.

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