To steal a term coined by Kotaku, I put together the above charticle juxtaposing the first six month console sales of Wii, 360, PS3, PS2, Xbox, and GameCube. First, the Wii has sold better than the mighty PS2 after the first six months. Amazingly, both the PS3 and 360 sold worse than the GameCube for the same period (!). Cumulative first six month totals in units sold are as follows:
- Wii (2,470,000)
- PS2 (2,200,000)
- Xbox (1,900,000)
- GameCube (1,540,000)
- Xbox 360 (1,384,000)
- PS3 (1,271,000)
So do people want “next-gen” or “different-gen”? Nintendo says they want the latter and so do initial U.S. console sales. Assuming history repeats itself, the 360 and PS3 will end up in a distant second and third place with Wii perhaps outselling the PS2’s unprecedented 115 million worldwide units. What does it all mean? It means fans of motion-controls can expect to see a boatload of good games with fewer titles gracing “real next-gen” platforms. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!
Remember, however, that the original Xbox didn’t favor near as well as the above graph indicates, so take historical trends with the cliche grain of salt.