The DS had another strong month. Get this, though: The Wii did even better. Way better.
Before getting to this month's numbers, let's review the figures for last month:
June 2007 Hardware Sales (five weeks)
Nintendo DS - 561k
Wii - 382k
PlayStation 2 - 270k
PlayStation Portable - 230k
Xbox 360 - 198k
Game Boy Advance - 113k
PlayStation 3 - 98k
As noted, the June 2007 sales figures encompassed a five-week period. Now, the July NPD reporting period was only four weeks long, so it should follow that hardware sales for the month are a little less, right?
July 2007 Hardware Sales (four weeks)
Wii - 425k
Nintendo DS - 405k
PlayStation 2 - 222k
PlayStation Portable - 214k
Xbox 360 - 170k
PlayStation 3 - 159k
Game Boy Advance - 87k
For the Wii (and to a lesser extent, the PS3 due to its quasi-price drop), that thinking is dead wrong. Not only has the Wii surpassed the sales of the Nintendo DS for the first time, it has done so with a 39% increase of week-to-week sales from the previous month. (The PS3 doubled its sales numbers.) This is impressive not only because of the sheer number of consoles that were sold, but also because, according to the NPD Group, July is usually one of the slower months for the video game industry.
Here's what's even more boggling about these Wii numbers. No major games Wii were released in July (Mario Strikers Charged released on July 30, too late to make a difference), and the only game that could have explained this explosion—Pokémon Battle Revolution, released June 25—is nowhere to be found on the software top ten. Only two Wii games and one DS game are on the list, in fact. Could it be that demand for the Wii is still that high, even ten months after its launch?
July 2007 Software Top Ten (four weeks)
NCAA Football 08 (360) - 397k
Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s (PS2) - 339k
Wii Play w/Remote (Wii) - 278k
NCAA Football 08 (PS2) - 236k
Mario Party 8 (Wii) - 177k
NCAA Football 08 (PS3) - 156k
Pokémon Diamond (DS) - 144k
Transformers: The Game (PS2) - 143k
Guitar Hero 2 w/Guitar (PS2) - 138k
Guitar Hero 2 w/Guitar (360) - 108k
If this pace keeps up, the North American video game industry will be worth as much as $18 billion by the end of the year, says the NPD Group.
