The game’s just begun
WHILE NINTENDO’S Wii has been grabbing headlines – thanks to reports of gaming leagues springing up in old-age homes and the motion sensitive controllers being used for training of surgeons at medical schools (this news doesn’t come from YouTube, but the respectable journal New Scientist), not to mention hype worthy of Apple iPhone – the final battle in the console wars has not been won.
The Wii sells 2m units in a good month worldwide by attracting consumers outside the hardcore gamer demographic and since launch the Japanese manufacturer has been unable to match supply with demand, selling everything it produces. Industry researcher Screen Digest says, in total internationally, the Wii sold 11,5m consoles, Microsoft’s moved 10,9m of its Xbox 360s and the Sony PS3 found 4,6m buyers.
Forecasts for next year will see Sony close the gap on the Wii significantly, thanks to November’s price cut (and another in the offing, bringing the price down from the frankly mispriced R6 500), plus a raft of new titles. In 2009 the PS3 will reach cumulative unit sales of 42,3m, against 52,1m for the Nintendo machine and the Xbox 360 at 30,4m. The Wii was launched almost simultaneously with the PS3 in November 2006, roughly a year after Xbox 360’s debut.
However, those figures only tell half the story. While Sony and Microsoft lose money on every console they sell (it’s all about the installed base), Microsoft has been able to outsell its rivals in software titles. That’s where the real money is. For example, in SA you can buy an Xbox 360 unit for as little as R3 500 but individual games sell for as much as R600. The same logic applies at the other two manufacturers.
Overall, the video game market has had a record-breaking year, considering figures from the US – the biggest market. The industry earned US$17,9bn in North America in hardware and software sales in 2007, says the NPD Group, which represents a 43% leap over 2006’s total of $12,5bn. That gaming is bigger than Hollywood has been true for most of the decade.
What could shift the momentum back to Microsoft and Sony more than anything else is the fact that the consoles have become much more than just gaming machines.
Microsoft’s online business – called Xbox Live – has surpassed the 10m-user mark and charges a subscription service of around R70/month (it’s not yet available in SA or in a number of other countries).
Apart from being able to play against remote opponents, users can download additional games and the service is also fast becoming an online social interaction place, à la MySpace. Sony is readying an online service accessed via the PS3 similar to the popular virtual world Second Life. The next generation consoles are also fast turning into digital media hubs for photos, music and video content.
Finweek
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