Wii hits an unofficial eight million sold
by Jason Wishnov 
{ Jun 14th 2007 at 9:50AM }
Start your engines, fanboys. According to vgchartz.com, which is where we go to hang out when we're bored, the Wii just yesterday surpassed eight million units sold since its November 19th launch in North America. That's fast. That's really fast. Check out this graph with the option "align launches" enabled; it's staggering.So, here we go. By the end of year, Nintendo Wii sales will most likely have surpassed the Xbox 360's one-year head start to become the current generation leader, and heck, we might just "win" this thing. Who'd have thought such a turnaround was possible? And why the hell didn't we buy NTDOY stock? Dammit.
Bask in the glory, guys. Most likely, one of those eight million is yours.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
B-Ry @ Jun 14th 2007 10:23AM
Proud member of the wiiArmy now 8 million strong
for free wii points http://www.ezyrewards.com/?id=161820
Billy_McBong @ Jun 14th 2007 10:57AM
the Wii is kickin ass
WOOTS!!!!
vidGuy @ Jun 14th 2007 11:00AM
I'm less surprised by the Wii dominance than I am surprised by the fact that the PS3 is pretty much tied with the 360's numbers after 7 months. Sony would have done just as well (poorly) if they restricted supply like that of the 360 launch.
What'll be interesting is if the Wii can keep the steeper slope throughout its life than the other two; hopefully it doesn't just flatline at some level of market saturation.
I wish this graph had the ability to plot out the lines at their current growth rates. By the looks of it the Wii will surpase the GC's total sales only 18 months into its life.
The real deciding factor will be this next holiday season, I think, since all 3 consoles will (should) be readily available. Although if there is still a Wii shortage in December, you might as well crown Nintendo then.
The_Boo @ Jun 14th 2007 11:14AM
If what I see on this chart is true, if you align the release dates the Wii is outselling every console on that chart, it could be poised to be the best selling console ever. It's not a huge surprise though, my family has 3 total between myself, my sister and my parents.
gekkonidae @ Jun 14th 2007 11:39AM
As much as I want to cheer the Wii's success, people need to stop quoting VGchartz, you're legitimizing a website that just makes up numbers! Look, it'd be nice to have official numbers for all regions, but we don't. VGchartz makes up numbers for Europe. Plus, since they have started doing weekly numbers for North America, they've been shown to be WAY off once the actual NPDs come out.
Part of being a journalist is checking your sources. If we want video games to be a legitimate industry we need to call out those that use deception for their own gain.
DonWii @ Jun 14th 2007 12:07PM
@gekkonidae
They were only way off the first month. April proved to be very close to NPD, and May numbers come out today. All you are trying to do is tell people that the numbers are made up because you dont want to believe them. The fact that people quote it is proof enough that the ESTIMATES can be very legitamite.
pablo @ Jun 14th 2007 2:05PM
I'm with DonWii here, that site has been doing nothing but getting better and better lately. For a while it was just a fun little time waster, but they've really stepped up. The numbers are only getting more accurate. Give them a chance and you'll find them a lot better than the naysayers want you to think.
Mr Khan @ Jun 14th 2007 2:40PM
I have faith in VGChartz because they seem to have the most to back up their claims, as opposed to, say, nexgenwars
But i don't think there ARE any reliable sources for purchases across the EU yet, although they may be able to pick up data by the individual nations
thebigfatj @ Jun 14th 2007 3:56PM
I've been following VGChartz for a while, and they only switched to their own data gathered by their own accord and only a weekly basis because the NPD claimed that the pre-public NPD numbers coming out of VGChartz were too close to their own, and they thought they were effectively posting NPD numbers before public disclosure.
Their methodology is explained and their ops are available for discussion on the issue. They gather data from retailers on their own to get their interim results and update it with the most accurate available information as information becomes available.
Just recently, Sony claimed they reached 1 million units sold outside of the US and Japan. VGChartz had the PS3 at 950,000 units sold outside of the US and Japan as of one week prior to Sony's claim of 1 million, suggesting that VGChartz very closely agreed with Sony's own assessment. They have since updated to 990,000 outside of the US and Europe.
Sony's numbers are, of course, also estimates. Sony doesn't *know* how many PS3s each retailer sells, only how many PS3s each retailer buys from them. Since Sony sells PS3s to retailers, not customers, they will often quote the number of PS3s they've sold to retailers as "units sold". However, the VGChartz numbers are, like always, surprisingly accurate when compared to any trusted authority's numbers.
NexGenWars, on the other hand, does seem to make up numbers at random and admitted that they used Xbox 360 shipped numbers vs Wii and PS3 sold numbers. When people point out that their numbers aren't broken down by region and don't even make sense. They've consistently bumped their xbox 360 numbers down because they will estimate *more* than Microsoft shipped.
NexGenWars literally bases their reasoning on the flawed assumption that "stores don't order them if they won't sell them" and therefore shipped numbers are close enough which is why shipped numbers are used in the case of the Xbox 360. Never mind that Microsoft stuffed the retail channel during the holiday season to achieve 10.4 million shipped for its investors. That is a terrible assumption, of course, and they're literally trusting that Microsoft defines 'shipped' as 'sold to retailers' before retailers pay for the units and Sony defines 'shipped' as 'moved away from a factory'.
They're obviously biased for Microsoft and a few years down the road fudging 1 million units one way or another won't make a difference because the gap will be so huge.