Wii hits 1 million in UK in 38 weeks, PS2 needed 49 weeks, 360

princess (on 19 February 2009)

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smw (on 04 September 2007)

And yet it's still sold out at many places. Nintendo needs to step up production if they want to take advantage of the holiday season.

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mesoteto (on 04 September 2007)

has the PS3 done it yet?

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skunkfish (on 03 September 2007)

Although the PS2 only sold 1M in its first 49 weeks, in the following 8 weeks it sold another 700,000 (in the UK alone).

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skunkfish (on 03 September 2007)

PS2 launched at a ridiculous Â£299 in the UK. Supply was short at launch and there were only a limited number available via pre-order before Christmas 2000. They were going on auction sites for Â£500+. My mate paid over Â£400 for his.

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robjoh (on 31 August 2007)

Good work Nintendo!

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Punisher (on 30 August 2007)

Yay, go Nintendo, GO.

In your face $ony and M$. :p

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TheBigFatJ (on 30 August 2007)

When Nintendo's sales begin to slow and the Wii gets a price drop, it will prove its legs. There is no reason the system couldn't be sold for $99 even today if Nintendo didn't mind taking a very minor loss instead of making a huge profit per system sold, and at that price there'd be almost no barrier to entry to people who try the system and want it for Wii Sports alone.

Hell, many non-gamers and gamers alike who I know that tried Wii Sports are willing to pay $250 for that game alone. But a lot of people who search pretty hard for a Wii are still struggling to get one.

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mitchell (on 30 August 2007)

Well here in ireland (republic) the market is generally the same as the UK in that the demographics are very much the same and console ownership is very high, we like the UK have for the last 2 generations been very much sony terrority, I can finally start to see a change in the market by going into the shops which the gamecube stuff used to be shoved into a corner at the back and now the wii is preety mainstream.

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XanderZane (on 30 August 2007)

By VGChartz own numbers The Wii and the PS3 still have not reached 1 million consoles sold in the U.K.

Console Weekly Total

Wii: 955,182
XBox 360: 1,260,903
PS3: 342,363

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Ishy (on 30 August 2007)

Nice... the DS had sold 3 million in the UK by the end of last year... wonder what it's on now?

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skaa (on 30 August 2007)

sony owned the french market with the ps1 an ps2 .
but the ds does really a great work and resurects Ninty in my country

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FJ-Warez (on 30 August 2007)

^ Lol...
Is time for a change...

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azzer100 (on 30 August 2007)

IF the playstation2 was cheaper then it would have sold 1 million faster, IF the playstation 3 was cheaper it would be in the lead right now.

IF IF IF bloody IF. The fact of the matter is that they werent cheaper and the wii sold 1 million much faster then them both. END OF.

If my tv could make toast it would be a toaster! :p

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daggy (on 30 August 2007)

@konnichiwa

the article was written on 26th of June, then edited on 27th June, you see the dates at the bottom of the article:

" 20Minutes.fr, Ã©ditions du 26/06/2007 - 18h13

derniÃ¨re mise Ã jour : 27/06/2007 - 09h45 "

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konnichiwa (on 30 August 2007)

Euhm whatever of course price is important.

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whatever (on 30 August 2007)

You mean price is important when buying a console?? Go figure.

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KillerMan (on 30 August 2007)

PS2 was almost two times more expensive when it came to UK. That explain why Wii sold 1 milion faster...

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azzer100 (on 30 August 2007)

wow! i had know idea just how big and important the uk was in terms of hardware sales.

Well done Nintendo, you've earnt it! :)

Let me get this straight for a second:
uk population: 60million
wiis sold in uk: 1million
that means 1 in 60 ppl in the uk own a wii. Go nintendo!

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mesoteto (on 30 August 2007)

yeah wii

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konnichiwa (on 30 August 2007)

@Montana you forgot an other big country ITALY!!

@Daggy you are right strange, but it is not two months ago that is today or am I wrong :s.
(Don't see two months ago in the article).

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Takashii (on 30 August 2007)

Well its to be expected because of its price.

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bdbdbd (on 30 August 2007)

@Parokki: Comparing Europe with Japan and USA gives a little wrong impression. More fair way would be to compare Americas, Asia and Europe. Even comparing USA and Japan to EU, isn't exactly correct either, mostly because of cultural and financial differencies between countries. Of course, the EU contract makes EU countries much closer to each others financially and by trade, but still we should wait a couple of decades before EU really is "one region".

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TWRoO (on 30 August 2007)

@erikers
as a lot of the ps2 owners in UK/EU have just 2 or 3 games for it, [usually either DDR/Singstar or GTA series] the Wiis current line up is incredibly good, a lot of people will be happy with just Wii sports at the moment, as that is a great game.
and i believe the ps2 was about Â£250 on release, but i remember it coming down to Â£199 quite soon after launch [though it may have been after 38 weeks], and staying at that price for a while.

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Faxanadu (on 30 August 2007)

tombi123: This is why UK is the biggest video gaming and fattest nation in Europe:)

Damn, I thought us germans are the fattest. Better eat mor bratwurst and drink more beers. Like we say, 8 beers make a full dinner.

Anyways, have to give it to all the other German specialists (Just-Ben) as a fellow Kraut, he is right. Videogames used to have a very kiddie and negative image in Germany. Changing fast though.

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bdbdbd (on 30 August 2007)

Number of children, household size and household age means more than population and its age. Most effect, per person, to games sales has the number of single, or couple, age between 15-30 households, which don't have children yet. More children per household, less games per person sold.

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daggy (on 30 August 2007)

@Montana Hatchet

You're wrong, the Wii has already passed the 700.000 mark two months ago in France alone:
http://www.20minutes.fr/article/166949/High-Tech-La-Wii-dope-le-marche-des-jeux.php

Very soon the Wii will be a million seller in France.

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Parokki (on 30 August 2007)

Some countries just have a larger gaming scene than others. The population of Europe is around 700 million, the USA's is around 300 million, and Japan's is around 120 million.

Last gen the PS2 sold 40ish million in both Europe and the US, but the American console base was larger due to the Gamecube and Xbox actually selling ok there. Japan sold only 20 millionish PS2s, but now the DS is selling way faster than in the rest of the world. These things just don't go according to demographics, or even distribution of wealth.

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reverie (on 30 August 2007)

MontanaHatchet,
This is a good point I haven't thought of before. However, the age difference is less drastic than you describe it. According to my Pocket World im Figures here (2005 edition), the young population (under 15) is 15.6 % in Germany, 18.8 % in France and 19.1 % in the UK.

In total numbers that gives you 12.8 million kids in Germany and 11.3 million kids in the UK. The markets should still at least be equal. Germany is a PC gaming country, both because owning a PC makes you look more serious and you can save â‚¬20 on each game. I think that explains the difference. And like Just_Ben said.

For the Wii, well it's selling phenomenally in the UK, the US and Japan--and quite well in the rest of Europe. Try amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr and amazon.de. Only on amazon.co.uk is the Wii leading the sales charts. In the other 2 countries (fr and de) the Wii is in the top 25 but outsold twice by the DS lite which is counted by colours.

1 million Wiis in the UK is simply amazing. Do you realize that this would equal 2 million Wiis in Japan and 5 million Wiis in the US? The UK is buying Wiis [B]faster than the US[/B] an almost as fast as Japan. Naturally, this was made possible by the huge supply increases of 50 % that Nintendo has realized in Europe in the last quarter. Insofar, this is another indication that Nintendo is not stockpiling Wiis.

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tombi123 (on 30 August 2007)

video gaming is bigger in the UK than the rest of Europe because the UK has been influenced by the U.S.A culture.
This is why UK is the biggest video gaming and fattest nation in Europe:)

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I like Bacon (on 30 August 2007)

wow, go Wii!

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Just_Ben (on 30 August 2007)

@konnichiwa . Culture, simple culture. Germany e.g. is a big PC gaming nation. Console gaming had always some "kid taste", so older gamers won't buy + although a lot of people don't think so, shooter (especially Multilayer) are loved in Germany, but many say the Dual Analog sucks, so they play on PC. But it changes, the console market is growing here, and that real fast. Some expect a 50% growth this year, and it's looking very good that it will happen.

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stranne (on 30 August 2007)

Any guesses for PS3?

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omgwtfbbq (on 30 August 2007)

VGChartz has UK at 955k and 30k per week. So a slight undertracking on VGChartz behalf but not much. Chart Track better look out!

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hunter_alien (on 29 August 2007)

Impressive , though it was obvious and expected . Just like the hype surrounding the GBC just to be soled out for 2 years by the GB . Its only a matter of time untill the world will get the taste of next-gen :)

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fazz (on 29 August 2007)

Wow... no kids at Germany and France... nice, gotta move there :D

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Arkk (on 29 August 2007)

@ Erikers:

When has it ever been any different in the first year of any system? Does it look like the mighty PS3 is doing any better in the games department?

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Sullla (on 29 August 2007)

That really is impressive, reaching 1 million units sold (to consumers that is; a true sell-through) in just 38 weeks. Even 11 weeks (two and a half months) faster than the PS2, which previously set all the UK sales marks. Whether you hate the Wii or not, those numbers are impossible to ignore.

MontanaHatchet, the reason that the UK has higher gaming sales than other European countries of similar population isn't due to demographics, but due to localization. It's relatively easy to bring a game from the American market to the UK - all you have to do is get the PAL conversion fixed correctly. Bringing the same game to France, or Germany, or any other non-English speaking country involves a huge deal of localization and translation work. Smaller companies often won't make the effort, and so games that exist in the UK don't exist at all in these markets. You can understand how hardware sales would be negatively affected if there are (many) fewer software titles available in the non-English markets. Sony did so well in Europe with the Playstation and PS2 in large part because their localization efforts were far better than anyone before them.

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MontanaHatchet (on 29 August 2007)

I'm going to shed some light on why the UK is the biggest market in Europe, with culture and demographics.

Let's take a look, shall we?

Germany's Population: 82 million

France's Population: 64 million

United Kingdom's Population: 60 million

Russia's Population: 142 million

Russia doesn't count, they'd rather play Minesweeper at an Internet Cafe then buy a game console.

Germany's populations is WAY too old to buy videogames. In fact, in Germany, there are more people between the age of 50-60 than 1-10.

France also has the same problem. Despite recent reform and increased child birth, women in France have on average less than 2 children, although immigrants from African and Turkey have far more. Of course, they're pretty damn poor.

In the United Kingdom, 18% of the population is 14 and below, which is still relatively young. Most of the population, 66%, is between the age of 15 and 64 (broad, I know), but the lowest half, say, people up to the age of 40, still buy videogames consistently.

So, it might be a while before the Wii sells a million in the other countries.

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misterd (on 29 August 2007)

Wiiiiii! This is fun!

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Zim (on 29 August 2007)

@ Donwii
I know that in 2005 the ps2 sold 1.2million in the UK. It's been out for around 7years now. So 10million in the Uk wouldn't be too outlandish. I would imagine 2005 would have been a slightly slower year due to the release of psp,ds and 360.
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=17886

Whats especially impressive about the Wii doing selling 1 million in the Uk is I believe the gamecube was around 1 million lifetime sales in the uk. Nintendo absoulutely bombed here with the cube. It always had the least space in all games shops, often at the very back near budget pc games. So to turn it around and go to the wii being the fastest selling is incredible.

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GranTurismo (on 29 August 2007)

Considering that the PS2/360 was priced over twice as much as the wii i'm suprised it took this long.

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trestres (on 29 August 2007)

@FishyJoe

lol fanboy, get away from here, just enjoy this, youll never see this with the PS3

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gebx (on 29 August 2007)

Vgchartz is at 955k... that's 4.7% off!!

Pretty impressive! Or are the Europe Numbers late and Vgchartz even closer?

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konnichiwa (on 29 August 2007)

Hmm I don't get it in fact that the other three big countries in Europe didn't sold so much.
France, Germany and Italy :s.

I guess the Germans fill their evenings more with a lot of great German beer (I Understand that.)

And the French, Italian people fill their evenings with sitting on the beach with those all nice ladies from UK who can't find a boy in UK because their are so many playing with their consoles....

...

Hey I am just kidding.

Still I don't get it why UK sells so more than the other three big countries in Europe.

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leo-j (on 29 August 2007)

I dont know since yesterday when Im looking at youtube vids, Im seeing these comments. But lets not get off topic.

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tk1797 (on 29 August 2007)

Conflicted yet again. I'm glad for the wii but I'm worried about the 360 in europe. I really thought they were doing well.

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Keeper Garrett (on 29 August 2007)

Pretty darn sexy, oh and lol at the Star Wars quoting in the first two posts.

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Shambolic (on 29 August 2007)

I wonder how long it would have taken without supply constraints. You know, I still haven't seen a Wii available in shops yet, I've seen them online but never actually in a store.

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damkira (on 29 August 2007)

The Wii is an unstoppable mega-force. This bodes especially poorly for Microsoft, who up until recently, had the UK in their column.

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erikers (on 29 August 2007)

shams says:
God help us all once Ninty start cranking out 1.5-2.0m Wiis/month. Then the price will drop, and you'll see some REAL sales figures

Yeah shams, hopefully they'll get some games to come out that are good enough to justify even 1/5 of those sales. Anywho, at least people can put down their Wii Sales Game they've been playing for the last 5 months and play metroid for awhile then wait for the next nintendo game to come out.

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DonWii (on 29 August 2007)

Fine. I got my answer.

On Topic: I agree with Konnichiwa

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shams (on 29 August 2007)

God help us all once Ninty start cranking out 1.5-2.0m Wiis/month. Then the price will drop, and you'll see some REAL sales figures.

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oswaldogp2 (on 29 August 2007)

yes DONWii!!!

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oswaldogp2 (on 29 August 2007)

FANTASTIC!!!!! Wii ROCKS!!!!!

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DonWii (on 29 August 2007)

I see that. My question is, has that always been the case? If the PS2 sold, lets say, 30M in Europe, were 10M of those in UK alone?

Thats what I am wondering.

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Parokki (on 29 August 2007)

Oh and Don, even the numbers on this site say the UK is over 1/3 of European sales. Scroll down on the Others Weekly section, and you'll find more details.

(being able to edit these comments would be nice btw)

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DonWii (on 29 August 2007)

@leo-j,

I dont see how, especially since this article hasn't even been dugg.

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Parokki (on 29 August 2007)

Sony owned Europe for the last two generations. We've mostly switched since then.

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MontanaHatchet (on 29 August 2007)

B-B-B-Bullseye!

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leo-j (on 29 August 2007)

Most impressive..

nintendo fanboys are spreading over the net..omg bro.. I just read in you tube "wii is outselling ps3 3 to 1 ps3 suxz ass haha!!" dam... more fanboys... I hate this.

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DonWii (on 29 August 2007)

No need to start and argument...

I find it hard to believe that 1M Wii's are in the UK, especially since the numbers VGChartz has for "others" is around 2.87M.

I may have missed something, or has the UK always accounted for 1/3(or even 1/4) of "Others" sales?

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FishyJoe (on 29 August 2007)

I thought Sony owned Europe...

And yes I know there is more to Europe than the Uk.

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Dolla Dolla (on 29 August 2007)

Many thanks for that konnichiwa, albionus, and tsudo.

And thanks for the article, TheSource.

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Wiitendo (on 29 August 2007)

Pwned.

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tsudo (on 29 August 2007)

obiwan has taught you well

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albionus (on 29 August 2007)

Most impressive.

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konnichiwa (on 29 August 2007)

Impressive.

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