Electronic Gaming Summit 08: Wii nets highest software sales during 18 months

Setting new heights for game acquisition standards? You bet. Now while the Japanese gaming giant doesn’t have the highest of critic averages for their games, Nintendo bagged more video game title sales within one and a half years of its launch – even more than the last generation’s PS2 post-launch sales within an equal timespan. More at the full story.

At the Electronic Gaming Summit 08, Nintendo’s Cammie Dunaway told audiences that the video game sales for the Nintendo Wii has peaked at around 50 million in the first 18 months of the Wii’s lifetime – more than the PlayStation 2 has in the same span.

Nintendo of America‘s executive VP of sales and marketing pointed out that number doesn’t even cover Virtual Console sales and the bundled Wii Sports sales – which says a lot.

Dunaway was quoted to have said, “While we appreciate the impact the Playstation 2 had on sales and the industry, perhaps we are even more impactful,” and added that the Wii shortage has been consistent during the Wii’s first 18 months. (Impactful – what’s that?)

The PlayStation 2’s first 18 months yielded an approximate sales point of 42 million titles. For the Microsoft Xbox 360, it’s some 30 million games sold. The PlayStation 3 comes close to 28 million games sold.

The game sales figures were aided, of course, by the larger install base of the Wii, which upon analysis of the first 18 months of each console unearthed an estimate of 9.5 million Wiis in homes, while the PS2‘s reach was 8.5 million.

The Xbox 360 occupied 5.4 million living rooms – just 2 million above the Xbox install base – while 4.2 million gamers were happy with the PlayStation 3s they owned.