Tech & Biz

Happy Birthday to the next generation of video game consoles

by Blue Crush | November 20, 2008 at 12:49 pm

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Nintendo's Wii has just celebrated it's second birthday, with sales of it's family-friendly games still going through the roof. For those of you who haven't tried it yet, you'll find that their interactive games allow kids to be more active, and can be quite fun and invigorating for us parents as well. I have Wii Fit on my Christmas list, it replaces tons of bulky exercise equipment, and it actually works!

On Tuesday, their head honcho, Reggie Fils-Aime promised more to come, for the hardcore gamers. "Nintendo has always had a vision on community," he says. "The issue is that we define community differently than our competitors. ... Our consumers do want a sense of community, and we're going to deliver that - but in a way that is unique to Nintendo." So, while most CEOs are getting mighty nervous about the holiday season, Fils-Aime is quite relaxed about it.

The Wii, Nintendo's seventh-generation game console which competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 turns two years old on Wednesday November 19th.

Earlier this week, on Monday November 17th, the PS3 Sony also turned two years old and this Saturday November 22nd, the XBOX 360 turns three years old.

As of September 30th, 2008, the three video game consoles have combined to sell more than 70 million units worldwide since they first launched.

The Nintendo Wii claims almost half of those sales with more than 34.5 million units sold. Next up is the Microsoft Xbox 360 with 22 million units sold and finally the Sony PS3 with 16.8 million units sold.

Although the number of next generation video game consoles sold seems huge, the truth is they all have a long way to go to equal the top three game units of all time which have each sold over 100 million units.

The following lists the top fifteen selling video game consoles of all time and how many units they have sold worldwide. (Source: Wikipedia)

Sony Playstation 2 - 140 million

Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Colour - 118 million

Sony Playstation - 102 million

Nintendo DS - 84 million

Nintendo Game Boy Advance - 81 million

Nintendo Entertainment System - 62 million

Super Nintendo Entertainment System - 49 million

Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) - 41 million

Nintendo Wii - 34.6 million

Nintendo 64 - 33 million

Atari 2600 - 30 million

Sega Mega Drive/Genesis - 29 million

Microsoft Xbox - 24 million

Microsoft Xbox 360 - 22 million

Nintendo GameCube - 21.7 million