Update on Xbox 360, PSP, DS, and PS2 Worldwide Shipments, Wii/PS3 Forecasts

Sony and Microsoft just announced the latest shipments for their products (PS2,PSP,360), and I think Nintendo may have done so recently too (not sure when, just know there are updated numbers for their systems). These are all from the latest quarters (Sony and MS ended on September 30th IIRC).

I'll be using a combination of the following links for info:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125880
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125779
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11430
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=11441

Nintendo
Here are the latest DS numbers (sold, not shipped, IIRC):

I think they've restated their goal of having shipped 6M Wii systems by the end of their fiscal year (March 2007). Nothing new there.

There are GBA and GC numbers in one of those threads, but I'm guessing most people don't care.

Sony
The latest PSP and PS2 numbers (production shipments, not sold):

PS2 shipments for the quarter were 5.02M, while PSP shipments were at 3.89M (surpassing or close to surpassing GC/XBX LTD numbers at this point). The Games Division posted $366.6M loss thanks to the PS3 mostly. That, together with the battery problems at Sony, really hurt the company's overall profits.

The forecasts for the PS3 are still the same, 2M by the end of 06, and 6M by March 07.

Microsoft
These just came out, so no fancy formatting with regional breakdowns (not sure if MS even gives those out).

The 360 has "sold" 6M units worldwide as of September 30th ("sold" meaning shipped basically). According to Gamasutra, they only shipped (or "sold") 900K 360s during the quarter...which is somewhat surprising (and not in a good way). Shipping 10M by the end of the year might be harder than I thought for the 360. I'm sure it will pick up in the future once Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey and PES/WE come out, but the 360 is really bombing hard in Europe and Japan (and not doing all that great here either).

 

Make sure you're not getting shipped mixed up with sold. Shipping 10M systems isn't much of an accomplishment if 5M-6M of them are in warehouses or in stores.

I believe the Xbox sold ~5.1M systems by the end of 2002 in NA, and ~350K in Japan during the same time (don't know what they sold in Europe at the time...probably somewhere in between). I don't know the number of systems they shipped by then, but I wouldn't doubt it if it was around 10M (maybe 8M-10M).

 

Minor note, but since you brought the name up, I would avoid going to Kotaku for information on game info. It is kind of like the Hoopsworld of video game sites (along with Spong.com). The links to the stories are fine (I even had one of them in my first post), but Kotaku, in general, is trash (as are some of the sites they link to). The site is banned on a couple of message boards I visit, which should give you an idea of what I mean.

 

I'm not exactly sure why (haven't followed the situation closely), but it seems like a number of articles they've posted have been disputed by those within the community. They claim to have PS3 "insiders", and when they post news regarding PS3 development (usually in a negative tone), real PS3 developers will usually respond by saying it is BS (EX: Kotaku says devkits are loud and hot, real developers say that isn't the case).

Kotaku tends to post a lot of negative Sony/PS3 "news," although I've seen them post other things that weren't completely accurate. Back when I didn't know about Kotaku's reputation (or maybe it was better back then?), I posted an article from them that stated how Xbox 360 launch systems were going for much lower than the launch price in Japan (I forget the price). While that was true, Kotaku failed to mention that other devices at that particular store were being sold for far less than their normal retail price, and that other stores were selling 360s at the regular price. Kotaku tried to make it sound as though the launch of the 360 was going so bad in Japan, that all Japanese retailers had dropped the price to some incredibly cheap price a few days after it launched just to get them off the shelves.

A bunch of these small things led some sites to start banning the posting of news from Kotaku. Joystiq has its problems too, but I don't believe they're as bad as Kotaku or Spong. The worst they've done is probably the "secret exclusive info" they had about the Wii a couple of months ago that turned out to be nothing major (just news that IBM had shipped the CPUs to Nintendo IIRC). The info was OK, but the author hyped it up to insane status (and was fired shortly thereafter).

That's why I usually tend to stick to IGN, 1UP, Gamespot, etc., for my game news. They're usually a lot better at reporting correct and relevant info while also remaining relatively unbiased. Again, I’d compare this to some of the sites blocked or ignored on this board. I kind of forgot exactly why Hoopsworld is trash, but I know not to give much thought into what they say, relying on ClutchFans, ESPN, CNNSI, NBA/Rockets.com, etc., for my Rockets/NBA info instead.

 

I think it was a really bad move by Sony to shut down Lik-Sang, and I don't really understand why they're so anal about not allowing people to import systems (or games as well I guess). I've never imported anything from Asia/Japan (nor do I really plan on doing so), but with the PS3's region-free capabilities being promoted by Sony (as well as the capabilities of the PSP of course), I find it incredibly stupid that they'd then try to limit sales of hardware (or software) to the specific regions. I'm not 100% on the facts or the reactions since I'm not really affected by this move, but on the surface, it certainly seems like more negative news for Sony (you'd think they'd try to avoid that at this point?).

Not sure how this relates to my feelings towards Nintendo though. And FWIW, I don't really like the rest of Sony outside of SCEI (the rest of the company always seemed like a bunch of idiots, especially their music division). Ken Kutaragi and SCEI have always seemed to do things differently from the rest of the company, which is partly why I like him and SCEI. It seems like the other divisions (or perhaps the new management?) have started to rub off on SCEI lately though...

I wasn't disputing the numbers. One of the sources for the numbers in the link was the same source I used in my first post, so if I was disputing those facts, I'd be disputing the things I originally said in my first post...which would be pretty crazy.

My point was that people might want to avoid getting their news from Kotaku in the future. The particular story that Oski posted wasn't incorrect or anything AFAIK, but I'm sure even Hoopsworld has had their share of articles with correct info (EX: Shane Battier traded to Houston).