Nintendo Wii shipments surpass 50 million units
updated 11:55 pm EDT, Wed March 25, 2009
Wii 50m shipments
Nintendo's Wii shipments have surpassed 50 million units since the console was launched several years ago, according to Reuters. "Frankly speaking, before the launches of the Nintendo DS and Wii systems, almost no one expected them to reach the current level of mainstream acceptance," company president Satoru Iwata commented at the Game Developers Conference. "It's even beyond what we possibly hoped for."
"The market has expanded as video games have been accepted by more consumers than ever before," Iwata added. He also noted that Nintendo has sold 20 percent of the Wii consoles to households that did not previously own any other video game system, helping drive sales past competitors' products such as the Xbox 360 and PS3.
The company recently announced that its DS handhelds have reached 100 million shipments as of March 6th. Sony shipped 50 million PSPs in roughly the same time period, while 83 DS game titles have sold millions of units and seven titles have passed 10 million.
The company faces stiff competition from the iPhone and iPod touch in the portable market, however. Games for Apple's devices dominated the finalists at the Mobile Game Awards. In a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference, Ngmoco co-founder Neil Young said the iPhone was going to "enable incredible things for gaming." He also considered the device "better than the DS, better than the PSP."
