Some of the obvious reasons are price point, innovative controller, and great marketing.
One of the not so obviousreason is that XBox 360 and PS3 are less attractive to people beyond certain targeting groups.
Then we look at perhaps the most important aspect, the games, and the way they are selling.
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=PS2&publisher=&sort=Total
We all know how successful PS2 was and it's still doing very well. Right now, let us take a look at PS2 games that sold a million copies or more. Around 191 games are million sellers, if VGcharts is any accurate. Taking a good look at them, I think over 60% of the games on the list are some what casual, if not totally casual, by system wars standard. Many of these games lack depth and quality, again going by system wars standard, yet they sold very well. Many of these million sellers did well in all 3 major regions, which are US, Europe, and Japan.
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=X360&publisher=&sort=Total
Now we take a look at XBox 360's million sellers. Around 21 titles sold million, not bad at all, but there seems to be a problem from a buniess point of view. Clearly, non of these better selling XBox 360 games sold well at all in Japan, but what's also surprising is that non of these 21 titles sold more under OTHERS (which means Europe, Australia, etc) than under AMERICA. In other words, all of these games sold better in the US than in the rest of the world including Japan. As a matter of fact, most of the sales were generated in the US, it doesn't seem like there's a good balance when comparing sales in the US against the rest of the world, so is it true that just about every single one of these top selling games on the XBox 360 are heavily marketed towards gamers in the US? Is is true that the XBox 360 is a system with games specifically designed for gamers in the US and not so much for gamers who live outside of the US?
I think many of these million sellers also share many similarities in them. Let's look at the top 5 best selling games, they are 1. Gears, 2. COD2, 3. Tom Clancy Advanced Warfighter, 4. Oblivion, and 5. Tom Clancy Rainbow Six. Looking at the bottom 5 games, they are17. Need for Speed Carbon, 18. Tom Clancy Advanced Warfighter2, 19. Tom Clancy Double Agent, 20. PGR3, and 21. Forza 2. Or you can simply take a look at all 21 games, do you think most of these games are very similar in some ways? You decide.
To me, it loooks like XBox 360's core group who bought these games are young adults and teens (males), particularly people in the US, who are more interested in Shooters, Sports, Racers and PC type of games(generally speaking).
All these sounds great if you are one who love Shooters, Racers, etc, I can definitely understand that XBox 360 offers you the best and mostquality titles. But imagine if you are one of the typical gamer in Japan, or say, in France, XBox 360 games great to you? Maybe not nearly as much as some other gamers in the US.
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=PS3&publisher=&sort=Total
Ok, here comes the PS3's only million seller, RESISTANCE. Doing pretty well in the US and OTHERS, not that good in Japan and understandably so. PS2 is not exactly known as a shooter's console, it's known for have many different varieties in games, but things are feeling different with the PS3 atm.
Let's look at some other games that didn't reach a million but pretty well known, such as VF5, Motorstorm, NGS, Madden, etc. So far, not one PS3 game is a major success in all 3 major regions, which is also what happened with MS. However, there is a PS3 Gundam game specifically for the Japnese market, which sold decent, also an Everybody's Golf game being released in Japan, which is a popular franchise over there. Eventhough Sony did worse than expected in Japan so far, Japan is still a country where Sony can claim victory over MS with.
Then we look at some of the more hyped upcoming PS3 titles, such as Lair, Heavenly Sword, etc. Is it just me or most of the more hyped upcoming PS3 games are specifically for gamers in the US, then for gamers in Europe, and very little appeal to Japanese gamers? I can't help but to feel that PS3 is going down the same road as XBox 360, a game like FFXIII isn't in sight in the near future, and that hurts.
http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=&console=Wii&publisher=&sort=Total
Finally, we look at the 8 games that sold over a million for the Wii. Just by looking at the first game, we can say that Wii already acheived something that the other 2 consoles haven't at this point, and that is Wii already has a game that acheived great success around the world (Wii Sports). You can even put Wii Play into consideration, but that's mostly due to smart business move with wiimote pakced in.
Looking at the list of Wii games, it looks like there's a good balance on how the games have sold in different market. Wario Ware for example, didn't sell particularly great in any of the 3 major regions, but the game sold well in all 3 regions. Not only Nintendo did a better job coming up with a new IP that aims at everyone that they can think of., they have also released games that seems to target all 3 major markets almost equally well.
There are also some surprises, Red Steel actually sold better in OTHERS (Europe plus some other countries) than in the US, which is something that XBox 360's top sellers haven't been able to do so far, also Nintendo made a game with European gamers specifically in mind, Mario Strikers Charged, and we know Mario games are always significant as far as sales go.
What does this all mean? Maybe Wii is just a fad with gimicks, and other consoles will go down as great consoles in the history? Nintendo should focus more on hardcoregamers and system loyalists instead of everyone? Industry going to fallen apart or specific group of gamers will suffer? You deicde.
, so these are his personal words.
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