Nintendo sells 6 million Wii units in three years, making it the fastest-selling console in British history.
Chart Track-GfK, the UK's main music, video, software performance, and sales tracking
company, has today reported that since December 8, 2006, the Wii has sold over 6 million units in the UK, as of 28 November 2009. This officially makes Nintendo's little white box the fastest-selling console on UK record.
Nintendo consoles have dominated this year's market. Figures released by UK retailer Game in April of this year show that the DS has managed to shift upward of 8.8 million units since its UK debut. At that time, the Wii install base was hovering around the 5 million mark, showing that not even the lack of UK price cut was able to deny the Wii the required 1 million sales, earning it record-breaking status.
However, it cannot be forgotten that the Wii's earnings took a hit earlier this year. Nintendo reported that sales fell 34.5 percent during the first half of 2009, forcing Nintendo president Satoro Iwata to publically acknowledge that, "the Wii has stalled."
Given the Wii's impressive performance in such a short period of time, it looks like Nintendo could be gunning for the PlayStation 2's UK sales record. Sony's sophomore console hit the 10 million sales mark earlier this year, officially making it the best-selling console in history. Having already beaten the PS2 in terms of sales-per-minute, can the Wii keep consumers interested for a couple more years and steal the overall top spot?
You forget the Wii is still selling loads. I work for an electrical retailer and they are still flying off the shelves. They aren't selling out, but neither did the PS2 in the second half of its life. As for Wii games, we have Galaxy 2, Red Steel 2, the new Wii Zelda and many others. Sales will remain steady thats for sure @NAWAF005. Well done, nice to see you've gotten an early Xmas present.
Unfortunately for the Wii, it still has 4 million to go before it reaches the PS2, and it is already on the gentle downward trend, which I think will continue in 2010. 3-4 years into the PS2's lifecycle, you had price cuts (and a good economy), and a very good range of games coming out all the time, month after month (GTA:SA, MGS3, Jak 2/3, Ratchet & Clank games, SSX games, Burnout 3 to name but a few) which accelerated the speed of PS2 buying. It could happen, but I'd be surprised.
Nintendo has already a solid installed base.. just put a lot of really good third-parties titles on the market, and you will see the Wii catching the 10 million mark..
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