Sony and Nintendo are in trouble. In spite of the forthcoming PSP Go and Wii Sports Resort’s recent strong showing, both the PS3 and Wii are taking a battering, with sale of both consoles falling through the floor in recent months. So what’s thde al? And how can two of the planet’s biggest gaming types turn things round? Read on to find out.
These are not fun times to be selling top notch games consoles. New figures show that both Sony and Nintendo are struggling to sell anything near as many PS3 and Wii consoles as they were this time last year.
The Sony PS3 shifted just 1.1 million units in the three months to June, down from 1.6 million in the same period last year. But the Wii has been hit hardest. In spite of ruling the games charts, Nintendo’s console sold 2.23 million in the same period. Sounds good until you realise they relieved themselves of 5.17 million in that quarter last year.
That means that both Sony and Nintendo are seriously out of pocket and in need of new ways to get punters parting with their cold, hard, happy paper. The new PS3 Slim, coupled with a tasty price cut, could easily solve sales issues, although Sony’s head honcho has said that’s a cheaper model is not happening.
While the Wii remains the best seller, a Wii HD with stacks of extra content to rival Sony and Microsoft is overdue. Here’s hoping these figures give both players pause for thought.
Sony and Nintendo (via GamesIndustry.biz)
“Sales for the PlayStation business, which also includes Viao PCs, were down 37.4 per cent year-on-year, to JPY 246.8 billion (USD 2.571 billion), “due to lower game and Vaio PC sales,” said the company.”
In other news, Microsoft’s Enterainment division profits drop 60%…
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/corporate/microsoft_q2_2009_by_the_numbers.html
Cheers for your comments. It’s no surprise to see MS in trouble as well. Everyone’s feeling it. I think the Wii figures are the most telling. Everyone’s going to struggle. If Sony can come up with that Slim PS3 and maybe even drop the price just a smidge, I’m sure they’ll clean up at Christmas.
Not surprising to see poor sales from the PSP Go! While DLC is nice, you can’t go PURE DLC – people like tangible things, stuff to hold, and with Sony being very Mum on how it’s going to treat those who own (and can still buy, btw) UMD’s, a lot of people are feeling iffy with the PSP Go!. I detect this will be another flop, unfortunately, but the PSP in general was a flop vs the DS – then again anything Nintendo does in the Handheld market is a force to be reckoned with.
@ Joe, if it’s no surpise to see Microsoft in trouble, why did you completely leave them out of this report?
Of course Sony are also being affected by the constant speculation about a price drop and slim model – this is the exact same thing that happened to Microsoft in their 3rd year (ie last year) before they dropped the price, at the start of the year it was all doom and gloom about it being outsold month on month by the PS3 and having worse sales than the previous year, then in September they drop the price and sales rocketed!
People forget these consoles are at different stages of their production lifecycle, it’s easy for Microsoft PR to spin stories that their unit sales are up at the start of this year, because at the start of last year they hadn’t done the price drop and sales were way down. Just like next year Sony will be able to pump out equally pointless press releases that their Q1 2010 sales are well up on Q1 2009 if they too cut the price/release a new model by the end of the year.
And then motion controllers kick in, then another price drop, then another AAA exclusive, in other words these year on year comparisons are pointless because they never compare apples with apples…
http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/game-industry/360-only-sold-0-1m-more-than-ps3-in-q1-fiscal-2009-$1315307.htm
The Xbox 360 only sold 100,000 million more units globally than the PS3 during the first quarter of fiscal 2009-10.
Considering how cheap the XBox is, how little Microsoft make on it, and the fact they have their pricecut out the way, and Sony are still commanding a premium price for the PS3, who is the fool?
Microsoft are the ones coming out of all this the worse, they have cost cut their console, and it’s only just outselling the much more expensive PS3. LOL….
that should have said 100,000 units (not 100,000 million!!!)
I know it’s fashionable (well it was in 2007) to hate Sony, but look at this:
Microsoft SHIPPED 1.2m units.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY09/earn_rel_q4_09.mspx
Sony SOLD 1.1m units
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=axhzsmkpSGp0
Even if you ignore the obvious twisting of numbers on Microsofts part, Sony managed to come within 100,000 units (and most likely much closer than that), at a much higher pricepoint. Sony have managed to maintain their premium sales price, and Microsoft needed to make price cuts to even come close to the PS3 sales.
So who is REALLY doing badly in all this? (Consider Sony also have PSP and PS2 sales to turn revenue and generate profit)
[...] Nintendo Wii is already taking a pounding on the high street. And with the DS and DSi also said to be struggling [...]
[...] (Via Electricpig) [...]
So home comes nobody is reporting Microsoft’s problems? They have even bigger problems than Sony or Nintendo.
I know it’s fashionable (well it was in 2007) to hate Sony, but look at this:
Microsoft SHIPPED 1.2m units.
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/…/earn_rel_q4_09.mspx
Sony SOLD 1.1m units
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…080&sid=axhzsmkpSGp0
Even if you ignore the obvious twisting of numbers on Microsofts part, Sony managed to come within 100,000 units (and most likely much closer than that), at a much higher pricepoint. Sony have managed to maintain their premium sales price, and Microsoft needed to make price cuts to match PS3 sales.
So who is REALLY doing badly in all this? (Consider Sony also have PSP and PS2 sales to turn revenue and generate profit). The fact that all the news sites are posting the same news almost word for word are simply ignoring how badly Microsoft are doing and just going off into the usual Sony hate rant is shocking. It’s as if there is one single source of news, and every site just posts what they are told to post.
In addition it seems the PS3 is rather profitable for Sony these days.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/35223/PS3-manufacturing-cost-down-70
Microsoft are not making much at all on the 360, after having to make serious price cuts to compete with the PS3 at the high end, and the Wii at the low end.