Nintendo’s wildly popular, revolutionary Wii console leads the console sales again. Wii sold twice the number of Xbox 360 consoles, its nearest competitors, in April. Sony’s PlayStation 3 were outsold 3 to 1 by Wii.
Nintendo sold more than 350,000 Wii, priced lowest of all consoles at $250. In stark contrast, Sony shipped a measly 82,000 units of the PlayStation 3, whose basic model sports a price-tag of a whopping $500. Microsoft shipped 174,000 Xbox 360s at $300 for the basic model.
Microsoft’s Xbox360 holds nearly 60% of the installed base of consoles in U.S, at nearly 5.5 million consoles. Nintendo’s Wii, launched a year later, is fast catching up, and Microsoft is feeling the pressure, especially in markets outside U.S.
Sony, whose PlayStation consoles had won the previous round of console battles, is sliding down, with their sales falling behind forecasts by over a half a million.