Way back in May, I thought that, like every other blog that regularly talks about the videogames, 61FPS should cover the NPD sales numbers every month. It seemed like a no brainer until I realized the truth: who gives a damn about sales? We are not gamblers here, throwing crumpled dollars in a circle, cursing each other out over how many copies of Wii Play might sell in a four week period! We are aesthetes, which is to say, we are pretentious as fuck. Waxing philosophical about emergent narrative is how we roll, and sales numbers should be beneath our concern! Harumph and such.
I’m kidding. Well, half-kidding. We’re not snooty berks. We just like videogames a lot, and we like thinking about them even more. Today’s an important day to mention the NPD numbers because they are, to turn a phrase, meaty food for thought. Sony sold just under four-hundred thousand Playstation 3s in November, and just over four-hundred thousand PSPs. Micrsoft sold eight-hundred thirty-thousand Xbox 360s. And Nintendo sold two-million, forty-thousand Wiis. Nintendo also sold one-million, five-hundred thousand DS Lites. Three and a half million people bought Nintendo consoles in the United States. In one month. That is a lot. A lot a lot.
It doesn’t mean Sony is doomed and that the Playstation 3 is going to disappear, Gizmondo-style, before 2009 is out. It doesn’t mean that Microsoft is going to announce an Xbox 360 follow-up in six months that introduces some novelty device and even more cutsey avatars for Xbox Live in a bid to get a piece of the new mainstream pie.
These gargantuan numbers mean that Tuesday’s announcement of Dragon Quest X for the Wii, like Monster Hunter 3’s transition to Wii last year, is the first of many such announcements. From here on out, it won’t be a smattering of hardcore games and an ocean of minigame-collection shovelware on the Wii. From here on out, the very best developers in the world are going to be put to work on Wii development kits by publishers. Because that’s what people own to play videogames. It also means that the extended console lifecycle for the current crop of consoles is all the more likely. HD games aren’t going anywhere, but the talent has to start making Wii games if they want some of that Nintendo money.
Two million Wiis. In a month. That is insane.
(Link: GameLife)
(Image: © Sebastião Salgado/ AMAZONAS Images: With the men away in the cities, the women carry their goods to the market of Chimbote. Region of Chimborazo, Ecuador, 1998. "Migrations: Humanity in Transition," Aperture, New York, 2000, p.276-277.)
Related links:
NPD Wrap: The Times Are a Changin’
If Sales Numbers Mattered, LittleBigPlanet's Commercial Would Be Appealing
Capcom to Date, By the Numbers
Nintendo's Paint Change