Gamasutra has released and interpreted some (retail only) console game sales data provided to them by NPD Group. There’s a lot to look at, including some pretty charts, but there are two important things to take away from the article. First, over the total life of all three consoles, the Xbox 360 barely oversteps the Wii in software unit sales, and both consoles thoroughly smash the PS3′s numbers. Notably, the Xbox 360 launched a year before the Wii and PS3 did, yet the Wii still only lags behind in total software sale by 2%. In fact, when the 360 was as old as the Wii is now, it had sold 50 million fewer software units than the Wii has now.
The second notable thing is that while 360 and PS3 software sales are still climbing, the Wii has plateaued. Has 2009 simply not been a great year for the console? Did 2007 and 2008 see that many good titles that are absent now? Good first-party titles haven’t been released in a while – Super Mario Galaxy in 2007, Super Smash Bros Brawl and Mario Kart Wii in 2008… Perhaps New Super Mario Bros Wii will be the catalyst for a new surge in sales?
