WiiNintendo

I believe that they are fairly accurate.

What would you call a real statistic?

Besides, when I said numbers talk I was referring to the sales.

The numbers do talk if they're real statistics, not ones you chopped up from the world population. =/

Personally I'm not only amazed with Nintendo's success this round but am pleased that they've opened the flood gates to a new expanded market. I just find it too cool that families can finally play these things together and people are no longer anti-social or uber-nerds for enjoying video games. Also as I've gotten older, I've found the endless value of multi-player titles and of course the system caters primarily to that demo.
Just like numbers are relative, so is opinion and success. As my comments speaking volumes to one they also say nothing to another. On a completely economic stance, Nintendo is probably doing better than ever, becoming one of the greatest industries to come out of Japan. Sony and Microsoft can just about do nothing to shake that. Gamers should be pleased to see that Nintendo, a company exclusively concerned with gaming is still kicking and conquering giants of tech whose game sales account for blips on their maps.

I see what you are saying, but I just believe numbers talk. But, each to his own, right?

Those are very detailed statistics. But I'm not saying they HAVE to double the 360's sales. The Wii's doing just fine accelerating at its speed. And hell, it probably will reach over 40 million hardware sales within 6-10 years. I mean, I once heard a statistic that there were over 100 million PS2 sales (although there is some debate regarding multiple purchases, and the fact that they re-released and what-not).

This article is slightly misleading, though. The author implies that because the Wii has almost caught up to the 360 means that it MUST have higher quality games. I tend to disagree with that. Sales doesn't measure equity or quality.

I don't really want to debate about that though, as it is somewhat subjective.

HandKannon;
The world population is near 6,602,224,175
They can be divided into a few subcatergories....

0-14 years: 27.4% (male 931,551,498/female 875,646,416)
15-64 years: 65.1% (male 2,174,605,518/female 2,124,494,703)
65 years and over: 7.5% (male 217,451,123/female 278,474,917) (2007 est.)

Literacy affects the ability to play games...

Literacy: definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 82%
male: 87%
female: 77%
note: over two-thirds of the world's 785 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Egypt); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, South and West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Arab states, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate (2005 est.)

Ok, so we cut down that percentage...

Approximately....

0-14 years: (male 931,551,498/female 875,646,416)
15-64 years: (male 1,891,906,800/female 1,635,860,921)

I didn't touch the 0-14 catergory yet...

So, we know for a fact that there are NOT billions of gamers in the world... there are many countries that don't even have gaming consoles. Let us cut that measure down to 1/10

0-14 years: (male 93,155,149/female 87,564,641)
15-64 years: (male 189,190,680/female 163,586,092)

Ok, we still have hundreds of millions of people here...

Females are less likely to play games. Let us imagine that only 1/20 of all females (15-20)in that figure are likely to play a game.

Let us also cut the 0-14 range down to 1/20 on account of people too young to play.

Let us cut males (15-64) down to 1/10

0-14 years: (male 4,657,757/female 4,378,232)
15-64 years: (male 18,919,068/female 8,179,304)

Starting to look more realistic. Let us add this figure all into one ball...

We have 36,134,361 potential gamers here.

Now, for Nintendo to DOUBLE 360's sales, which would continue to grow along with the Wii (though slower), they would eventually have to get near 40,000,000 sales.

Sure, reaching into the non-gamer catergory makes this possible, but not reaching that goal means nothing. They are not required to win people over that are not gamers in the first place.

With that, I take my leave.

---SirVenom---

I'm not doubting Nintendo's success. At all. I'm just saying that the news of the Wii catching up to the Xbox 360 doesn't impress me. If they had double the sales, yeah, then I would be impressed. Actually, if they had 1.5 times as many sales (which I honestly believe they might be able to achieve it within another year) I would be impressed. I just through a number out there.

The 360 isn't all about graphics, by the way. It has some of the highest rated games of this generation... And most of them aren't sequels, and (even better) there's still plenty to come.

I own a Wii (which is why I frequent this site) and I can't wait for it's good games to come out. But I mean so far, most of the games aren't critically appraised or appeasing to me personally.

The 360 being priced double doesn't change a thing about Nintendo's success.

If you want to look at it like that, then the 360's been out for a year longer than the Wii, and the Wii has been out for less than a year.

If they were sold simultaneously, my bet would be that the Wii'd have sold more than 2x as many consoles as the 360.

w0rd, Matt...keep on posting away! I'll let you know if you need to fix anything... ;-)

Oh, that "gum" analogy is incomplete. Here's the last bit.

If anyone came along and saw that the other person's lower colored, lower cost gum was outselling my higher colored, higher cost gum, they'd say the lower colored/cost gum was winning the gum war whether it was selling double the amount or not (at least, they'd say that if they knew anything about economics ;)). Therefore, the Wii does not have to double the Xbox 360's sales to win the war.

ScottyF311:
Ah, so you were more meaning "Did any of US doubt the Wii?" than "Did anyone doubt the Wii?". Carry on. Oh, and you have me beat on the "being around" bit, although I was more referring to the speculative game sales arena than the "being a gamer" arena.

HandKannon:
Woot! Our first naysayer! Come all, let us beat him with sticks and logical arguments! :p

First, I'd like to point out that this whole "double the sales" point is silly. Imagine that I am selling a stick of high quality gum with great coloration and great flavor for 20 cents. Some guy comes along and competes with me by selling one stick consisting of less coloring but equivalent taste for 10 cents. If the other person out sells me by even three sticks of gum, he's won our little pricing war. He doesn't have to double my sales to win, he merely has to sell more. Now, replace colors with graphics, taste with gameplay, and gum with the Xbox 360/Wii respectively. What's this? The Wii DOESN'T have to double the Xbox 360 sales.

Second, cheaper products do NOT necessarily sell more than expensive products. If this was true, the Gamecube would have won the last generation. It was always priced cheaper but it still sold less due to not having the GAME support or the install base.

Consider your argumental straw men burned. Good riddance!

WOW!! The Wii has almost outsold the 360 in unit sales!!! Incredible! This must mean that it is far superior to the Xbox 360!

Oh, wait, hold on... What's that? The 360 is worth almost TWICE as much as the Wii? WHOOPS. I guess your numbers don't prove anything... Well, except that cheaper products sell more than expensive products (which is what basic economics would teach you).

Now if the Wii were to DOUBLE the sales of the 360, I would be impressed. Let me know when that happens, guys.

Josh:
I aim to please :P

Many of us knew this was going to happen. Just to be fair I'd like to add that it was more than game play that got Nintendo where it is today and I'd easily include innovation, price point, and open-mindedness to explain the numbers we are seeing. Though I don't find it hard to believe that the Wii is selling like gang busters I do question the numbers provided by VG Charts. When Nintendo last reported the official numbers VG Charts was significantly over-estimated. I think the 9.8 million figure is closer to the truth. Don't mistake it though, I'm betting the 360 is overtaken after the launch of Metroid but before the launch of SSBB.

SirVenom, what you said is very quote worthy. I'm still laughing.

Wii sold 10.1 units? Ten and one tenth units? I feel sorry for the guy with one tenth of a Wii...

Hologram:

Au contraire: I knew my target audience, I know no one reading this doubted the Wii or, well, they wouldn't be reading this.

I've been around forever my friend...come over, we'll play some Intellivision. Or Atari. Or freakin Pong.

ScottyF311:
You obviously weren't around (or weren't paying much attention, I wouldn't have if I wasn't bored out of my mind all the time :p) during the run up to this generation. People were betting on the Wii selling no more than ten-twenty million in it's lifetime and were saying the PS3 would dominate. Even the professional "analysts" underguessed the Wii. Heck, people on the internet are still saying the Wii won't last. The underestimation of the Wii is why there aren't many great 3rd-party games, everyone was expecting another Gamecube instead of the phenomenon we have on our hands.

In all, I'm ecstatic to see the Wii in striking range of the Xbox. I have seen 360s and PS3s sitting in stores every time I go out but I have only seen three Wiis sitting around and those were snapped up within a day. I'd bet my house that the Wii will be winning the hardware wars by January '08.

Meanwhile microsoft will just keep trying to push itself into new areas of your anatomy.

must have my wiicrackrocks...
im happy since nintendo will continue to push video games
into new areas and keep it fresh...

Actually the truth is that Nintendo has installed virtual crack rocks into its newest system, while Microsoft is still using candy.

Yeah! It means the Wii's super-cool! :D

wow......this has to mean sumthin

No problem Andy.

I wrote that this morning real fast.
and thanks. I needed to fix that.

no not a week

Not to be an ass or anything, but it's "butt," not "but" (last line) and "you're," not "your" in the fourth line.

Oh, and give it another week...the Wii will overtake the 360!

Did anyone really ever doubt the Wii?

Go Nintendo. Damn the man!