Alright, here's a surprise -- Halo 3 beat (smashed, clobbered) every other video game sold in the United States for the week ending 29th September, 2007, selling over two-point-six million copies in just four days. Are you swooning? Need some smelling salts? Didn't see that coming when they announced the game a couple years ago?
Take these numbers with a speck of sodium, because they're not NPD and VG Chartz is usually off, sometimes a little, but sometimes a lot. In either case, it's probably safe to conclude Halo 3 is going to perch comfortably at number one on everyone's charts for awhile. I'm also sure Microsoft's doing a nerdy little happy dance right now, because the Xbox 360 finally outsold the nigh-invincible Nintendo Wii by some 25,000 units, though if those VGC numbers are right, the Wii's not-so-little sibling, the Nintendo DS, is still giving the H3-rejuvenated 360 a 20,000-plus unit drubbing, and I'm sure Zelda: Phantom Hourglass which just came out on Monday is only going to extend that lead going forward.
How about that Nintendo DS incidentally? It costs as much as a PlayStation 2, it's been out less than half as long, and it's almost at fifty percent of the PS2's record 120,000 million worldwide install base. It's tough to be surprised by those figures, because speaking anecdotally, I spend more time fiddling with my DS than either my 360 or PS3 or PSP. Well, when I can get it away from my wife, anyway.
Nintendo games have pretty clear staying power, too. In the number two slot, Wii Sports at 45 weeks and five million copies doesn't really belong on these charts because it comes with every Wii (guess how many Wiis have been sold). But the standalone Wii Play is number three with nearly 2.4 million units sold after a healthy 33 weeks on the charts. Walk down the chart past BioShock (Xbox 360, 6 weeks, 825,569), Madden NFL '08 (PS2, 7 weeks, 1.2 million), and Skate (PS3, 3 weeks, 154,286) and you find Pokemon Diamond / Pearl for the DS -- 23 weeks on and 3.7 million copies sold. Skip down to 20th place and you'll spot the two year old Nintendogs, also the current chart record holder for stamina and total sales at 110 weeks and 5.6 million copies sold.
I'm not sure what the margins are like on DS games, but as far as I know, Nintendo's making a profit on all of its hardware (Wii, DS, etc.) and it's probably not bat-crazy to assume production costs are dramatically lower on DS game compared to the crazy Hollywood mazuma-bath companies like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft and Microsoft take to keep one-upping series like Madden and Splinter Cell and Halo.
So when you're reading about how Halo 3 or up and comers like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Resident Evil 5 are kicking game-du-jour butt, just remember -- Microsoft's been selling the 360 at a loss for nearly two years, and the PS3...well, we'll leave the PS3 be, because it's in a rather unhappy spot just now. And Nintendo? They've been in the black with their software and hardware sales from the very start.
