How They Stand

The Financial Times has reported that the Wii has overtaken the Xbox 360 in the ongoing console war. Excluding sales from August the totals have the Wii at 9 million units sold compared to 8.9m Xbox 360s and 3.7m PS3s.

Additionally and more recently VideoGameChartz, a website that tracks the number of consoles and games sold around the world, are reporting that the Wii has overtaken the Xbox 360 in the ongoing console war.

This week, the Wii has currently sold (according to the site) 11.54 million consoles compared to 10.95 million Xboxes. It terms of percentage that is 42.6% against 40.4%, not forgetting the PS3 trailing at a miserable 17%.

In fact, the Wii was also ahead overall last week and Nintendo have increased their lead by a whole 1% in the next generation war. This increase and August's official sales of 403,000 for the Wii and 276,000 for the 360 shows signs of no slowing down for Nintendo. This will hopefully continue to be a trend over the coming months including the ever vital Christmas period.

Adding even further to the Wii success, is this the fact that both the 360 and PS3 have had their prices cut. It shows that the numbers sold are not only to do with the Wii being the cheapest system.

It's important to note that the overall sales reported by VideoGameChartz are not official but rather a sales report estimated by adding the number of sales by retailers across the globe. Even so, they do show roughly the standings and what we have all known for a long time: the Wii is a system that appeals to a wide audience and innovation rather than graphical prowess is vital. The news has left Nintendo's disappointing sales of the Gamecube behind, and is the first time since the SNES that they have been on top.

Nintendo still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do so must keep this momentum by satisfying both the casual and so-called “hardcore” markets with inspiring games.

[source ft.com, via vgchartz.com]