The Nintendo Wii took the #1 spot in eBay’s 2008 tech toys and gadgets top list, with over 2 million related items sold on the site. The Xbox360 was next at 1.3 million, followed by the Sony PSP and iPod touch.
The full list is below.
1. Nintendo Wii: 2,056,866 related items sold
2. Microsoft Xbox360: 1,297,903 related items sold
3. Sony PSP: 350,591 related items sold
4. iPod Touch: 281,361 related items sold
5. Nintendo Wii Fit: 266,584 related items sold
6. Apple iPhone 3G: 212,837 related items sold
7. BlackBerry Pearl: 207,688 related items sold
8. BlackBerry Curve: 193,788 related items sold
9. Sony Playstation 3: 103,333 related items sold
10. Guitar Hero III: 98,159 related items sold
11. Halo 3: 91,067 related items sold
12. Grand Theft Auto IV: 43,005 related items sold
13. MacBook Air: 12,423 related items sold
14. Guitar Hero Aerosmith: 3,749 related items sold
15. Rock Band 2’s: 1,650 related items sold
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With 28 million Nintendo Wii consoles sold around the world it is no longer possible to declare its success a fad. But can Nintendo sustain its phenomenal momentum?
Nintendo’s global president Satoru Iwata is humble enough to admit that even he had been surprised by the epidemic-like success of the Wii console.
He told BBC News: “It was so fast. We knew the Wii was the right direction for the company. But the question was always how many years it would take to find success.”
The answer was two years. In that brief time Nintendo has dramatically altered its fortunes in the home console business, while at the same time maintaining, and even improving, its dominance in the handheld gaming space with the DS.
Play time
The change of fortunes began when Mr Iwata took over as president of Nintendo in 2002, only the fourth man to hold the position since the company was founded 109 years ago.
Speaking to BBC News at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) In Los Angeles, he said: “Five years ago when I was appointed I thought that if we didn’t do anything but took the same route there would be no bright future for the entire industry.
“So we decided we needed to increase the number of people gaming.
“We started thinking about people who weren’t playing games and asked ourselves why they were not interested. And why had some people stopped playing despite playing in their youth?”
The solution was not a rush towards a high definition games platform targeted at the hard core gamer but remembering the simple pleasures of playing with family and friends.
The Wii console introduced a mass market of gamers to motion-sensitive play, replacing the button-laden controller with a wand that could direct action with the flick of a wrist.
Within weeks of the Wii’s launch people were taking their new console around to the homes of friends and family, and word of mouth quickly spread.
“It was so fast because those who appreciated the new attractions of Wii must have been those who used to play video games. And these people were telling friends and family about the console.
“People who first started playing with the Wii were so excited that they had to spread the news.”
History lesson
The success came after the perceived disappointment of the GameCube, which finished its lifespan behind the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in terms of global sales, selling 22 million units over seven years.
Nintendo had tried to compete directly with Microsoft and Sony and failed.
Its resulting and ultimately successful move was to realise that the market of people who could play games but were not was much bigger than the market of those already playing games on a regular basis.
“It was somewhat out of the boundaries of common sense for the time,” said Mr Iwata.
“From the perspective of people from outside the industry it might have looked like a gamble. But I do not think it was a gamble at all.”
One of the original criticisms of the Wii at launch was that the underpowered machine would increasingly suffer in comparison to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as the machines went through their lifecycle.
But Mr Iwata dismissed talk of a console lifespan as nonsense and somewhat irrelevant.
“After all, the primary concern is not to let consumers purchase hardware but to enjoy software,” he said.
Future fun
But that did not mean Nintendo was not already thinking about life beyond the Wii.
“However hard our software developers try to create new and unprecedented titles with great ideas eventually there will be a day when devs will say they have no more means with that hardware.
“That’s exactly the time we need to introduce people to new hardware. We do want to be flexible about this,” he said.
“We just don’t want to decide upon a fixed lifecycle of any platform.”
Addressing another criticism of the Wii, Mr Iwata said it was a “misunderstanding and misconception” to say that the console was struggling to attract support from developers outside of Nintendo.
“The number of third-party titles for Wii is actually more than what is available for other platforms.
“And in the initial launch platform period for any platform, the third-party software titles for Wii are outselling any of the third-party titles for other platforms.”
Nintendo remains the home for some of gaming’s most enduring franchises and icons, from Mario to Zelda and the success of the Wii has ensured they will remain part of the landscape for some time to come.
But there were no details of any new Mario or Zelda titles given at the recent press conference held by Nintendo to highlight its plans for the months ahead.
“At this E3 we had to focus on software for the mass audience and software that will be sold in this year or next.
“This one of the rare opportunities to reach out to mass audiences around the world.
“In order for us to create a new Super Mario game or Legend of Zelda game that can cater to the strong demands of core gamers around the world it takes two to three years.”
While its competitors battle to become the multimedia hub for the digital living room Nintendo is determined to continue on its course of “putting smiles on people’s faces”.
He said: “All we have got to do is carry on. People are going to get tired of new proposals. We have to offer them new proposals before they do.
“We really want to keep surprising people,” he said, then added: “It’s not easy at all.”
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Wii might be scooping up all the sales, but the game lineup for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is just as strong as for Nintendo’s fun little console. And not just because of Halo 3: Games for every kind of player surface this month. Here’s what we’ve been playing.
The Orange Box
Valve’s The Orange Box, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, is crammed to the gills with value. There’s so much content that I couldn’t devote more than a few hours to each of the three games in the box.
Storytelling is the strength of Half-Life 2, a critically acclaimed shooter originally released in 2004 and making its debut on Xbox and PS3 in this collection.
From the opening moments, when you step off a train into the grip of a prison city controlled by an Orwellian dictator, Half-Life 2 builds its world and characters in a realistic, subtle fashion that makes most other game narratives seem ham-fisted. It doesn’t hurt that the shooting action is also excellent, or that the package is completed with physics-based puzzles (stacking up bricks on a seesaw so the other half supports your weight, for example).
I sank even more time into Portal, a brilliant experiment in game design included in The Orange Box. In this first-person puzzle game, you get from place to place by creating portals that warp the fabric of space and time.
Retraining your brain to think outside the boundaries of physical space is a fascinating and often challenging concept, supported by a hilarious comedic story line.
If it’s multiplayer action you’re after, Team Fortress 2 is where you’ll spend the most time. Like most squad-based online games, your team has to take over the enemy’s base or capture their flag. But here, you can choose from nine totally different character types every time you respawn.
Do you want to lug around a massive gun and blow away the opposition? Fine. But you can also be a battlefield medic, healing your friends. Or (my personal favorite) become a spy, don the enemy’s colors and infiltrate their base without them even knowing.
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