4 ms·

This also rings false to me: Nintendo, meanwhile, dominated the generation with the Nintendo Wii. What was interesting, though, is that 3rd-party suppo

This also rings false to me: Nintendo, meanwhile, dominated the generation with the Nintendo Wii. What was interesting, though, is that 3rd-party support for the Wii was still lacking, in part because of the underpowered hardware (in contrast to previous generations): the Wii sold well because of its unique control method — which most people used to play Wii Sports — and Nintendo’s first-party titles. It was, in many respects, Nintendo’s most vertically-integrated console yet, and was incredibly successful. The Nintendo Wii did have excellent sales initially, but those sales fell off fast, as everyone who wanted a Wii for e.g. Wii Sports or Wii Fit got their consoles within a couple of years, and the severely underpowered hardware meant that the majority of games were released on the XBox 360 first, the PS3 second, and the Wii never. Meanwhile, Nintendo's normally strong first-party games struggled to integrate motion controls, so aside from gimmicky tech demos like the aforementioned Wii Sports, there really wasn't much reason to buy a Wii. It was a slightly better GameCube, that's all. If any console "dominated" that generation, it was the XBox 360.

ketzo 4y ago
The Wii outsold the PS3 and the Xbox 360 by about 15 million units. [1] [1] https://www.ign.com/articles/best-selling-video-game-consoles-nintendo-playstation-ps5-xbox https://www.ign.com/articles/best-selling-video-game-console...
smcl 4y ago
In terms of units sold, it's actually correct. From the wikipedia page "List of best-selling game consoles"[0] I've taken the three from that generation: 1. Wii: 101.63 million 2. PS3: 87.4 million 3. Xbox 360: 84 million It's possible the Xbox 360 dominated within your friend-group or even your locale (fwiw I didn't know anyone who had a 360, my friends who had a console had a PS3) but in terms of raw sales it's edged by PS3 and obliterated by the Wii. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...
- de_keyboard 4y ago
  The 360 launched first so it was probably at a higher units sold for a few years at least.
- someNameIG 4y ago
  Local is the biggest impact, to my understanding Xbox doesn't have much of a market share outside the English speaking world, Playstation does. Xbox 360 was a bit ahead of the PS3 in the US/Australia/UK, but not in Asia and congenital Europe.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Ahhh that makes sense - haven’t been in the Anglosphere during the period in question.
  - tmtvl 4y ago
    I seem to recall reading that the XBox doesn't sell well in Japan due to it's name: X (battsu) being bad, wrong, or "no". It's why in Japanese PlayStation games circle is confirm and x is cancel. congenital Europe Oh my.
    - debugnik 4y ago
      > It's why in Japanese PlayStation games circle is confirm and x is cancel. Not anymore as of PS5.
    - someNameIG 4y ago
      > congenital My terrible spelling and macOS autocorrect hates me lol
      - smcl 4y ago
        as a congenitally European person, I chuckled :)
- NovaVeles 4y ago
  360 had a two things going for its image. #1 was that the previous generation of Xbox was not the biggest seller, this made the 360 look really good by comparison. #2 having that 1 year head start, combined with the high price of the Ps3 initially gave it a huge lead. Sony did manage to claw back the user share but it took years to do it.
syntheweave 4y ago
The Wii captured a fundamentally different market from its competition: that was the whole "blue ocean" strategy Nintendo had in mind, building on success with the DS. The 360 and PS3 sold "convergence" devices instead: they did a little bit of everything home-entertainment related. Enthusiasts with the cash to spare would end up with multiple consoles for the exclusives, but in that generation the software barriers to exclusivity were starting to come down; the PS3 had a more unfamiliar architecture than the 360, but regardless, cross-platform releases running the same engine and assets, vs a completely recoded game with different assets, were now becoming the norm across both consoles, so it was not like the old days of Sega vs Nintendo where you could have a totally different view of gaming by getting one or the other; the high end was actually getting a bit commoditized, and it was just the first-party exclusives that added differentiation. But the broader market was in unexpected places like senior centers, where Nintendo's offering found an ultra-casual niche. For those markets, it never had to do anything more than play Wii Sports, and was a profitable hardware sale from day 1, where the other two banked on loss-leading for market share and making it up with a high attach rate. Definitely a fad, but also one that printed money. All three did well enough to keep going, but they're really apples and oranges stories.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  This is how I remember it as well. Nintendo was public about dropping out of the console fight and doing their own thing, which is still true to this day with the switch.

ketzo 4y ago

The Wii outsold the PS3 and the Xbox 360 by about 15 million units. [1] [1] https://www.ign.com/articles/best-selling-video-game-consoles-nintendo-playstation-ps5-xbox https://www.ign.com/articles/best-selling-video-game-console...

smcl 4y ago

In terms of units sold, it's actually correct. From the wikipedia page "List of best-selling game consoles"[0] I've taken the three from that generation: 1. Wii: 101.63 million 2. PS3: 87.4 million 3. Xbox 360: 84 million It's possible the Xbox 360 dominated within your friend-group or even your locale (fwiw I didn't know anyone who had a 360, my friends who had a console had a PS3) but in terms of raw sales it's edged by PS3 and obliterated by the Wii. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_consoles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...

de_keyboard 4y ago
The 360 launched first so it was probably at a higher units sold for a few years at least.
someNameIG 4y ago
Local is the biggest impact, to my understanding Xbox doesn't have much of a market share outside the English speaking world, Playstation does. Xbox 360 was a bit ahead of the PS3 in the US/Australia/UK, but not in Asia and congenital Europe.
- smcl 4y ago
  Ahhh that makes sense - haven’t been in the Anglosphere during the period in question.
- tmtvl 4y ago
  I seem to recall reading that the XBox doesn't sell well in Japan due to it's name: X (battsu) being bad, wrong, or "no". It's why in Japanese PlayStation games circle is confirm and x is cancel. congenital Europe Oh my.
  - debugnik 4y ago
    > It's why in Japanese PlayStation games circle is confirm and x is cancel. Not anymore as of PS5.
  - someNameIG 4y ago
    > congenital My terrible spelling and macOS autocorrect hates me lol
    - smcl 4y ago
      as a congenitally European person, I chuckled :)
NovaVeles 4y ago
360 had a two things going for its image. #1 was that the previous generation of Xbox was not the biggest seller, this made the 360 look really good by comparison. #2 having that 1 year head start, combined with the high price of the Ps3 initially gave it a huge lead. Sony did manage to claw back the user share but it took years to do it.

syntheweave 4y ago

The Wii captured a fundamentally different market from its competition: that was the whole "blue ocean" strategy Nintendo had in mind, building on success with the DS. The 360 and PS3 sold "convergence" devices instead: they did a little bit of everything home-entertainment related. Enthusiasts with the cash to spare would end up with multiple consoles for the exclusives, but in that generation the software barriers to exclusivity were starting to come down; the PS3 had a more unfamiliar architecture than the 360, but regardless, cross-platform releases running the same engine and assets, vs a completely recoded game with different assets, were now becoming the norm across both consoles, so it was not like the old days of Sega vs Nintendo where you could have a totally different view of gaming by getting one or the other; the high end was actually getting a bit commoditized, and it was just the first-party exclusives that added differentiation. But the broader market was in unexpected places like senior centers, where Nintendo's offering found an ultra-casual niche. For those markets, it never had to do anything more than play Wii Sports, and was a profitable hardware sale from day 1, where the other two banked on loss-leading for market share and making it up with a high attach rate. Definitely a fad, but also one that printed money. All three did well enough to keep going, but they're really apples and oranges stories.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
This is how I remember it as well. Nintendo was public about dropping out of the console fight and doing their own thing, which is still true to this day with the switch.