Vgchartz Cumulative Worldwide Data: Wii passes Gamecube LTD Sales* on 2/10/08
Jacob Mazel
February 14, 2008
Wii Sales Pass Predecessor
Nintendo’s latest console, the Wii, which was released in November 2006 in North America, and December 2006 in the rest of the world will surpass the lifetime sales of the Nintendo Gamecube by February 16, 2008. Through February 9, 2008 Wii has sold 21.490 million consoles, while Gamecube had sold 21.515** million consoles. Worldwide, Gamecube has been selling fewer than 500 units per week lately, while Wii has been selling several hundred thousand units per week. Using the week ending February 9th, when Wii sold 447,000 units in one week as an estimate rate of increase (~64,000 units sold worldwide per day) for the week ending 2/16 Wii lifetime sales caught and surpassed Gamecube lifetime sales on February 10th, 2008. Even if Nintendo only ends up selling 175,000 Wiis for the week ending 2/16/08, Wii passed Gamecube on February 10th, 2008. Considering Nintendo sold nearly 300,000 Wiis just in the Americas and Japan for the week ending February 9, 2008, it is very unlikely Wii has not already passed Gamecube lifetime sales as of the writing of this article (February 14).
- Figures can be seen here http://vgchartz.com/weekly.php
The Decline from NES to GC
Prior to the release of Wii, subsequent Nintendo consoles since the NES have seen falling sales. Lifetime NES shipments hit just over 61 million, but SNES shipment totals declined to 49 million. After the SNES, sales fell further with Nintendo 64 lifetime shipments about 33 million. GC lifetime sales declined further still: the console will never reach 22 million boxes shipped. In the wake of Gamecube though, Nintendo has a console likely to be the most successful in the history of the industry - a console that continues to reach sales milestones faster than PS2 over a year into launch. At worst, Nintendo has a console that reversed the trend of declining sales following the NES. In either case, Wii is a success story for Nintendo.
What the Future May Hold for Wii Sales
It is also worth noting that while Wii sales have now surpassed Gamecube sales worldwide, and that while Wii sales have already passed Gamecube sales in Eurasia, Gamecube lifetime sales remain a few million ahead of Wii lifetime sales in the Americas. Wii will not pass Gamecube lifetime sales in the Americas for at least six months, although it should happen by the end of October.
In the next month to six weeks, Wii sales will surpass Xbox sales. Following that, Wii sales are on target to pass Sega Genesis sales and Nintendo 64 sales by August. Toward the end of the year, Wii sales will likely approach or surpass SNES lifetime sales.
When using the first launch date of each console (Sept 01’ for Gamecube in Japan and Nov 06’ for Wii in the USA) to compare when sales milestones were reached, the difference in timing to reach 21+ million units is quite striking. Put simply, Wii sales worldwide in 15 months are equal to Gamecube sales in 77 months. One way to interpret that is to say Wii is selling five times faster than Gamecube since Wii needed 1/5 the time to reach the same number of sales Gamecube has attained. Assuming the trend of Wii topping Gamecube shipments by 5:1 continued over the entire lifetime of Wii sales, worldwide shipments would hit 110 million in 77 months.
- Lifetime sell through, not shipments. Shipment data is released from Nintendo every three months. Gamecube shipments are 21.72 million through December 31, 2007, and Wii shipments are 20.13 million through December 31, 2007. Nintendo’s Wii shipment target from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008 is 18.5 million, which means over 24 million Wiis will be shipped lifetime on March 31, 2008 if Nintendo hits it goal, since 5.8 million Wiis had been shipped through March 31, 2007. Nintendo’s most recent shipment data can be seen here http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2008/080124e.pdf#page=8.
Contact Vgchartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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