Home Gaming Interesting Console Sales Figures

Interesting Console Sales Figures

1 min read
29

I was browsing GameTrailers looking for some news on a slow day and came across a forum posting about the console sales figures.

Now I am sure these stats haven’t been audited but they seem close enough and give us an interesting view on the sales so far.

So according to the posting (and VGChartz) we have the following:

Nintendo Wii

35 million units sold in 24 months
1.46 million sold per month
$8750 million in gross sales

Sony PS3

17 million sold in 24 months
0.71 million sold per month
$8483 million in gross sales

Microsoft Xbox 360

22 million sold in 36 months
0.61 million sold per month
$6358 million in gross sales

So if we simply look at the base figures we can see that the Wii is still miles ahead of anyone else with the PS3 coming second and the 360 languishing in third place.

What I would really like to see but most probably will never be given access to, is how much net profit has each company made. My current guess is that Nintendo are making a huge profit, Microsoft is still in a negative overall but are climbing out of it, and Sony are still losing money month on month.

Source: Gametrailers

Last Updated: December 1, 2008

29 Comments

  1. darthdad

    December 1, 2008 at 15:30

    I’m sure I read somewhere that MS have sold over 25 million units.

    Reply

  2. Milesh Bhana ZA

    December 1, 2008 at 15:46

    what amazes me about the Wii (from an SA perspective) is how the price tag is not scaring people away from it.

    CHEAP, casual fun my ass… the new prices have just come out R4000! for a Wii now. WTF???!!!?

    I wonder how many parents are going to opt for a 360 Arcade when they realize that the Wii is now almost the price of a PS3/XBOX Elite.

    Reply

  3. Syph1n

    December 1, 2008 at 15:46

    mmm. in what world is 22 million less than 17 million?

    Am i missing something here?

    Reply

  4. ninex

    December 1, 2008 at 16:04

    units sold per month is the base figure

    Reply

  5. Syph1n

    December 1, 2008 at 16:09

    PS3 (17 million) coming second and the 360 languishing in third place (22 million)..

    Does no one else see problem here?

    Reply

  6. Bacon

    December 1, 2008 at 16:12

    It also says 17 million in 24 months and 22 million in 36 months

    Reply

  7. Yeti

    December 1, 2008 at 16:14

    Units sold per month seems to be the comparative figure.

    Reply

  8. Mac

    December 1, 2008 at 16:16

    Look at gross sales! Believe it or not companies stay profitable by sales in $ not sales in quantity. To determine which company is making more of a profit we would need to know what its gross margin is i.e. how much is cost to make $8483 million

    Reply

  9. Mac

    December 1, 2008 at 16:20

    This shows that if the PS3 came out the same time as the 360 it would be 4 million units AHEAD of the 360, giving merit to the argument that the Ps3 is infact catching the 360 and will surpass it!

    With playstation still able to take price decreases and the xbox not really able to cut its margin anymore i predict the 360 is in for a whipping sooner rather than later!

    Reply

  10. baba

    December 1, 2008 at 16:44

    How about this theory:

    Xbox is more reliable, which means less units bought to replace faulty consoles?

    Reply

  11. Fox1

    December 1, 2008 at 16:47

    The real money is made with selling the most games.

    Any guesses which console has the highest attach rate? :mrgreen:

    Reply

  12. SlippyMadFrog

    December 1, 2008 at 16:55

    I realy think nintendo is becoming the bastards of gaming. R4000 for a Wii is theft!

    Reply

  13. SlippyMadFrog

    December 1, 2008 at 16:57

    Faulty units get replaced for free, no need to buy a new one.

    Reply

  14. jinja

    December 1, 2008 at 17:00

    hahahahahahahaha @ more reliable

    Reply

  15. easy

    December 1, 2008 at 17:01

    lol
    but it does bring up an interesting point, they need to look at how much ms has spent on the rrod problem, which i am sure has knocked their bottom dollar a bit.

    Reply

  16. Werner

    December 1, 2008 at 17:02

    Also “0.71 million sold per month” (PS3) is higher than “0.61 million sold per month” (XBox 360). So, as Lazy said the base figure PS3 is 2nd and XBox 360 3rd.

    Reply

  17. easy

    December 1, 2008 at 17:04

    for sure, but i don’t see how ubisoft, ea and the likes give sony and ms all the profit off selling games?
    hardware and accessories are both ms and sony’s main game, and they use games to push the hardware…

    Reply

  18. RivaZA

    December 1, 2008 at 17:14

    There is noway I would pay 4k for what basically is a overclocked GamCube with shittier games.

    Reply

  19. Scotty777

    December 1, 2008 at 19:28

    ahh… but that’s the genius of it… you see, what happens is sony, nintendo and m$ all change a fee on every game that’s released on each console… which means the more games they sell they more cash they make… why do you think they want to push games? they spend tons of money on games because they know if the game does well, they earn some serious cash…

    you see, lets say sony makes R100 off every game sold… and we just take COD4 which sold 3.75m, so that means they get around R375000000 or $37500000 which is a nice little bit of cash!

    Reply

  20. Werner

    December 1, 2008 at 20:10

    I’m not so sure about the charging a fee per game… rather that they sell the SDK’s to make games for their systems. And then a license that needs to get re-new every year.

    Reply

  21. Fox1

    December 1, 2008 at 21:00

    💡 Consoles are sold at a loss and the money is recovered from from the sales of games. Thats why console games are so expensive. Also consider that an ATI 1950XT costed about R4000-R5000 when the 360 was launched 😉

    Reply

  22. BHW

    December 1, 2008 at 21:31

    So assuming these figures are correct and not making allowances for xbox increased sales post price cut and the Killzone 2 effect (which is a lot like the LBP effect just better) the ps3 will catch the xbox in 50 months with xbox selling an additional 30 mio consoles in the process.

    So bottom line both consoles look set to be around for a while

    Reply

  23. easy

    December 1, 2008 at 21:37

    but you talking about specialist hardware. you will not find 22 million people rushing out to by the latest gfx card. you can’t compare.
    and yes consoles are sold at a loss initially, but as they mature, they rake in massive amounts of profit… ps2?
    and yes they make money out of games, but the attachment rate does not make the console a money maker… initially that is.
    anyway, what does it matter if sony or ms are making a loss or profit? does that decide whether or not you buy a game?

    Reply

  24. Wolfy

    December 2, 2008 at 08:04

    its stupid for Sony to sell a Console if they know its a loss per unit sold doesnt make sense

    Reply

  25. LazySAGamer

    December 2, 2008 at 08:28

    Actually the Wii is the first console ever to make a profit straight of the assembly line. Since all three companies get royalties from the software sold it is normal business practice to sell the console at a loss.

    It’s a business model made famous by Gillette, you get the razor cheap and get taken for a ride with the blades

    Reply

  26. baba

    December 2, 2008 at 09:55

    Yes, only for RROD, what about optical drive failures, they are not covered by the 3 year warranty. And pretty much everybody I know with an xbox had as much problems with the optical drive as with RROD

    Reply

  27. baba

    December 2, 2008 at 09:58

    Not even to mention ink cartridges for printers!

    Reply

  28. SlippyMadFrog

    December 2, 2008 at 11:05

    True but you can get your drive repaired for a fee, you don’t need to throw it on the rubish dump.

    Reply

  29. SlippyMadFrog

    December 2, 2008 at 11:05

    Are you implying the hardware revisions did nothing?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Check Also

No More Heroes 1 and 2 are coming to PC

Let’s be real, Travis Touchdown doesn’t exactly feel like a “one system” kinda man, does h…