Japanese hardware sales, April 13 - April 19: Complete edition

I don't know. It all depends on how Sony plans to retain the FFXIII influx.

After all, in Japan it's not uncommon to see people buy a console just for one game then turn around and sell that game, and the console, when they are done. I think FFXIII will be a significantly larger spike for about three weeks and after that, it will all depend on other releases. If Sony was smart, they'd start trying to court some exclusive RPG franchises. Especially since Nerd Rage over Vesperia going to PS3 is spiking in Japan right now.

I guess anything is possible but this is just a demo for the game bundled with a Blu-Ray. I think hardware sales will be exponentially higher when the actual game releases in JPN. If the game turns out to be the best thing since sliced bread you can expect PS3 sales to be pretty high for a month or so and possibly beyond if (as Wong says) Sony is smart with their JRPG release schedule. I believe FF 13 is exclusive to the PS3 in the (JPN) region. It'll certainly be interesting to see if Sony can capitalize on the FF momentum as the year moves along.

The question is whether the bulk of Square Enix fans have a PS3 or not. Tradition would imply that they would, but Square's surprising lack of PS3 support so far would suggest otherwise

How much they sell depends on whether or not the fanbase is there already.

I love how Nintendo winning by so much throws them into the same category as Scrabble. Threatened much?

"and for anyone who throws nintendo into the mix, let's face it, they're more in competition with Tae Bo and Scrabble than other game consoles."

Isn't Scrabble a game, and the Wii plays games? Your logic confuses me as I dare type...

WRE

Nintendo kind of brought that upon themselves by stating they weren't competing with the PS3 & 360. Now, the surrogates are just picking up where Nintendo originally left off. The PS3 has been at or above the Wii for a good long while in JPN.

He's got a point. I know lots of old people who don't play video games but did by a Wii as a yoga machine or a Wii Sports machine. Wii console sales are high but software sales are not. Good thing for Nintendo they're the ones who actually make a profit from sales of their (overpriced) console.

WRE

I actually own a wii man, so you can stop your hostile attempt at flaming, because it's a waste of your time.

Nintendo sold themselves out to a crowd that doesn't appreciate what made them. Whenever customers come in asking about wii games, 60% of the time it's some fool who comes in asking about wii fit or wii play that doesn't even know what zelda is or what it's about.. if you don't see that as sad for the path nintendo is going, then perhaps you should take your wii and skip happily ever after alongside deca sports

Sir, I enjoy my PS2 BC and loved having the option of buying one, but offering a BC-less model alongside a BC PS3 of the same HD space would have been fine.

Yeah, you're right Infinitenine, I did even feel that was a bit too far of a statement, but they should've definitely offered a version without it for equal (or very close) of a price that Microsoft asked for the 360

Sony's marketing was just non-stop fail at first, finally showing some signs of improvement... Still waiting for them to announce FF7 being downloadable in American upon release of Advent Children Complete, but I guess that's getting my hopes too far up

M@stershake (great name & great show)

I know it was recently announced that FF7 would be on the JPN PSN storefront. Hopefully it's announced sooner rather than later that it will be available in other territories. If SCEA, SCEE & Square Enix are masochist then we can expect to see poor sales reflect poor decisions outside of Japan. But, if they like that sort of sick stuff then it will be right up their alley and the game will never be released outside of Japan.

agreed... i could go on for days about all the ps1 classics that the JPN psn store has

resident evil 1, 2, 3
metal gear solid
brave fencer musashi
xenogears (if you want to buy this for your ps1 it averages about 150 bucks new. my 2nd fav. rpg of all time btw)
crash team racing
Persona
Ehrgeiz

its just getting a little ridiculous how much they're torturing their American fans. And then they wonder why people are hacking their PSP's and pirating games

WRE

Nintendo said that they were NOT competing with Sony or MS. Before the WSM launch.

Anyone who sees the Sahara sized difference in horsepower knows the same thing.

The WSM is a 21st century board game for families and parties.

Bring on E3.

Yep, Nintendo said it first. Undeniable. But now who's saying it? That's right, Sony and Microsoft. But can you blame them? I would be too in the face of such an overwhelmingly embarrassing ass-kicking...

WRE

That kind of sounds like you want it both ways. Nintendo is the one who came out and said it first before a Wii was ever sold. How are sales totals relevant when Nintendo themselves pre-emptively said the same statement? Sony & MS are really just echoing Nintendos sentiment. That's enough to tell anyone that Nintendo wasn't confident in it's own product before it launched and wanted to temper expectations.

If we are all being honest here it's also a true statement thats still relevant. The three of them really aren't competing for the same consumer and market share. While they are all game consoles they couldn't be more different and are all trying to reach a different consumer.

I tend to agree that it gets a little out of control when MS & Sony higher ups act as if the Wii isn't even a gaming console. But, there is still an element of truth to the fact that it's geared at a completely different market.

Ahh, an anti-Wii revisionist.

Take some time to observe the revisionist in their natural habitat, warping reality to suit their needs.

ah, a defensive wii owner..

observe the defensive wii owner in his natural habitat, which is at your local video-game retailer looking for a good game to buy, but alas there are none! Looks like he has to beat Madworld for the 5th time

Musicians changing their tempo/style isn't anything new. Look at Yoko Kanno, the composer for Cowboy Bebop/Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex/Macross Plus/etc. The reason why such musicians do well is because of their lasting appeal on their fans/audiences.

That said, I don't particularly mind Nintendo's innovation in introducing a highly intuitive control interface. However, I do mind the fact that the Wii is very much underpowered. Edge recently did an article on "The Making of PlayStation" and one of the points it discussed was the impact of software sales on profitability. Sony understood very well that there is always a limit to how much hardware you can make before the market moves on and forces a hardware producer to retool and repeat the process. The article even mentioned that the more "conservative" Sony executives were essentially silenced when the PlayStation division was bringing in 90% of the company's income.

While Nintendo can gloat over its massive sales record for the Wii, what happens after the market reaches saturation? That is my biggest concern for the Wii because 3rd party developers are essentially having a hard time making anything worthwhile for the Wii. They basically have to do something interesting like MadWorld or Oboro Muramasa (aka Muramasa: The Demon Blade) and even then, there's no guarantee that they will be well-received by the consumers. (The same has happened for basically every console in existence but for the sake of the discussion, let's talk about the Wii.)

What I'm particularly worried about right now is that Nintendo might repeat the same mistakes it made with the N64 and GameCube. Sure, there are number of excellent titles in Nintendo's history but if you look at Nintendo's recent history, a lot of those games are 1st-party "Made by Nintendo" games. And Nintendo fans were basically starved for good games throughout both the N64 and GC periods. While Nintendo may have made profits during both the N64 and GC periods, most of those profits went to Nintendo itself; 3rd party developers/publishers weren't able to get much out of working on those platforms.

What we are seeing with the Wii right now is, ironically, the same situation with the N64 and GC periods; very strong Nintendo sales, somewhat lackluster sales for just about everyone else. That doesn't go well with any game development community because it means that they basically trying to sell bananas in the backyard of an angry 800-lb gorilla.

That is basically the problem I see with Nintendo's strategy. I believe that Sony and MicroSoft have also noticed this problem and are obviously trying to capitalize on it, hence the somewhat true but poorly-phrased remarks coming out of both of them.

PS- I hate JoyStiq's comment system.

Mahouneko, sn't your avatar of a character whose practically monosyllabic? Irony ~de arimasu.

Everyone seems to miss the fact that software sales on the Wii are great. You don't get chart toppers, but you get consistent sellers, and only fanboys and spin doctors really care about the difference

@Blank-Mage:
I fail to see what a server-side error on my avatar has to do with my statement regarding Nintendo. Why don't you take a look at this:
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/1046/stuff.jpg

That said, even the server default avatar of Mario isn't exactly monosyllabic: Ma-ri-o.

Which basically means that you're either trolling or being an idiot. Go to sleep.

@Mr Khan:
Consistent chart toppers such as?

I mean, whenever I look at the weekly/monthly sales charts for the Wii, all I ever see are Nintendo-published games like Wii Fit or Mario-something. While I don't deny the brilliance of Nintendo's game developers, I do wonder about how the rest of the industry perceives Nintendo's games being consistently at the top of the heap. Some developers are already very vocal about their disdain for developing games on the Wii not because the platform is hard to code for but because development on the Wii tends to be self-defeating from a commercial standpoint.

Obviously, there are ways around this such as avoiding a 3D engine or going with something sprite-based like Oboro Muramasa. Heck, I don't fully understand why game development costs are increasing but it doesn't seem like Nintendo has been helpful with 3rd party developers; at least not in the same degree that Sony and Microsoft have.

It's like Nintendo is waiting for a mass extinction of Wii customers or something.

Um, it was Wilhelmina from Shakugan no Shana, not Mario... Or rather, it was at the time. And still is, in that picture you have up. It's not trolling, I just like replying to people who share my love of anime. But ow, my feelings... (And to be fair, Tiamat was the monosyllabic one, but they're pretty much the same person. Kinda.)

@Blank-Mage:
Ah, sorry about that.

Mr Khan completely ignored my whole point lol

who cares if wii sales are good if they're taking the cheap way out... Sony's sales would skyrocket if they released a PS4 that cost 250$ and had nothing but gimmicky party games... Uncharted: Island Bash!! Imagine the next Xbox with Spartan Fitness; you can actually get in shape like Master Chief

Nintendo's new audience doesn't even really like video games. I work at gamestop and I can promise you that 40% of wii owners don't know what metroid, zelda, or super smash bros are.

I've heard that nintendo is planning to release a "real" system and still keep the wii in rotation because of the new crowd it spawned... aka make a system for the hardcore gamers and let the wii thrive as what it is... if that is the case then i would say more power to nintendo and their wii, but if the wii is as good as it's gonna get from nintendo then shame on them