Top 3 Respond To NPD Holiday Results, Claim Victory

Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have all released responses to NPD's record breaking holiday results report, each claiming their own specific victory over the Christmas sales season. Nintendo, for its part, have claimed a 'red-hot' launch for its new Wii console, as well as noted NPD's confirmation of the Nintendo DS as the best-selling video game device both for the holidays, where NPD said it sold 1.6 million units, and the entirety of 2006, with a sell-through of 5.3 million. Nintendo also reported that consumers purchased "every Wii console available at retail," more than a million, it says in the 44 days from launch to the end of the year. It also trumpeted the very high tie ratio for its The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, with 86% of Wii owners buying the game, which, combined with sales of the GameCube version, brought the game to 1.5 million in unit sales in less than two months. "Millions of players, both hard-core and brand-new, are already enjoying the unique entertainment provided by Wii, but demand for the system remains incredibly high," says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. "So our work is just beginning. We're dedicating ourselves to maximizing both manufacturing and distribution full bore throughout 2007, to make sure everyone who wants to experience the future of video gaming can do so just as soon as possible." Microsoft, too, reported that it had championed the holiday season with its Xbox 360 coming in as the best-selling next-generation console of 2006, easily outpacing the PlayStation 3 and the Wii with 1.1 million units sold for the holidays, giving it a 51% market share. On the software side, Microsoft pointed to Epic's Gears of War, which is on the cusp of selling 3 million copies in the 10 weeks since its launch as the key driver behind "the best year for great games in Xbox history." And finally, Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced that it, too, has "dominated the US computer entertainment marketplace in December," with the highest first-party sales month in company history, as well as the top-selling home system with 1.4 million PS2s sold, a necessary distinction against Nintendo's DS. In its release, SCEA noted a tally of total cross-platform hardware and software sales of $1.61 billion, with more than 2.8 million units of hardware, 22.4 million units of software and 6.9 million peripherals sold, a figure which it says beats the next closest company's sales dollars by 40%. Despite hardware shortages and generally a slower sales month than many predicted for the PlayStation 3, Sony says the console set a new sales record following what it called "exceptional" sales, with more sell-through for the unit in its first two months than the PlayStation or PlayStation 2 before it. Said SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton, "If there was ever any doubt about the power of the PlayStation brand in the US, the December NPD data should quickly quell it. Not only did consumers drive records for PlayStation 3, they also validated the excellent value represented by PlayStation 2 and the entertainment versatility of PSP. These sales figures bode very well for the company heading into 2007."