65 Million Wii Remotes Sold in the United States

[Greg Tito]

65 Million Wii Remotes Sold in the United States

Nintendo said that over 63 million Wii Remotes have been sold in the United States, shattering the stereotype of gamers playing alone in the basement.

When the Holiday season begins, Nintendo's competitors will both have entered the motion control game, with Sony's Move coming out this past September and Microsoft's Kinect dropping Nov. 4th. In an effort to grab some positive press for its 4-year old console, Nintendo wanted to impress us with some numbers to say that it has been doing something right this whole time. The 65.3 million Wii Remotes sold translates to an average of 46,000 Wii Remotes purchased every day since the Wii launched in 2006. That's pretty impressive, given that only about 30 million of those controllers were bundled with the actual Wii console. Nintendo says that means that a lot of gamers play the Wii with other people.

"This demonstrates that Wii owners like to play and they like to play together. They're not the stereotypical gamers playing alone in their parents' basement," the release from Nintendo stated.

Nintendo also mentioned that as of November 7th, the "standard" Wii controller will be the Wii Remote Plus which includes the Wii Motion Plus technology within the controller itself. The new controller will be bundled with all Wii console sales from that date on, but you can also buy it separately for $39.99.

Here are the complete statistics of Wii controllers sold in the U.S. as supplied by NPD:

30.41 million included with the Wii hardware
12.92 million sold with Wii Play
18.56 million white versions sold separately
2.44 million black versions sold separately
467,500 pink versions sold separately
465,200 blue versions sold separately

It's not really a fair comparison, but I wonder if, in four years, Sony or Microsoft will be able to boast that their motion systems sold as well. My bet is no.

Permalink

 

[RandomMab]

It'd most likely be twice as many if they launched the Wii in pink.

 

[Delusibeta]

How many PS2s did Sony sell in four years in the US? I've got no idea, but I would guess about 50 million.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

By gamers...you mean housewifes and the like.

The best Wii games to play with friends are ones with optional non-motion controls. Like Tatsunoko Vs Capcom and Super Smash Bros Brawl.

I've never actually seen anyone use the Wiimote controls for Brawl. I tried them myself...but never saw anyone else do it.

 

[mjc0961]

"This demonstrates that Wii owners like to play and they like to play together. They're not the stereotypical gamers playing alone in their parents' basement," the release from Nintendo stated.

To be completely fair though, Nintendo, your online system is so damn bad that people generally don't have a choice but to play together.

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

This demonstrates that Wii owners like to play and they like to play together. They're not the stereotypical gamers playing alone in their parents' basement

If this is stats dfor ALL the motion controllers, then I seem to remember the number of REPLACEMENTS that were purchased in the first few months of purchase due to controllers flying out of peope's hands. It still doesn't make the BIGGEST dent in this, but we couls easily say that alot of XBOX 360 or PS3 controllers were bought and so it demonstrates the same thing

 

[Nimzar]

Product marketed toward a certain demographic for a certain purpose succeeds in reaching that demographic for that purpose. Buh-whaaa?

Of course you sold a lot of controls for you platform... you put the multi-player thing on a pedestal! It is what you point out in almost every ad! That is were your console SHINES!

...this is not really news.

 

[Mr.Petey]

The Wii does something that the PS3 and 360 fail to do. It bridges the gap between non gamers and gamers. The popularity of the DS and Wii in the hands of average people who've never played an FPS and aren't fussed with getting deeply involved in a deeply complex game is evidence to this.

When I first tried the Wii, I found it had that pick-up-and-play charm that lacks as of late with other systems. If people enjoy this system then kudos for them as I've never appreciated other people for giving the Wii stick (pun intended) for being an all round family friendly machine.

 

[Cadapalo]

The Wii does something that the PS3 and 360 fail to do. It bridges the gap between non gamers and gamers. The popularity of the DS and Wii in the hands of average people who've never played an FPS and aren't fussed with getting deeply involved in a deeply complex game is evidence to this.

When I first tried the Wii, I found it had that pick-up-and-play charm that lacks as of late with other systems. If people enjoy this system then kudos for them as I've never appreciated other people for giving the Wii stick (pun intended) for being an all round family friendly machine.

Well said Mr.Petey, I felt the exact same way when I first tried out my friends wii. Its true that my wii doesn't get a whole lot of use right now by me but the rest of my family use it everyday and they aren't really "gamers".

 

[Vyress]

"This demonstrates that Wii owners like to play and they like to play together. They're not the stereotypical gamers playing alone in their parents' basement," the release from Nintendo stated.

To be completely fair though, Nintendo, your online system is so damn bad that people generally don't have a choice but to play together.

Not saying that you're wrong about the bad online system they have ^^ but uhm... what's so bad about playing together? o.o

If you ask me it's one of the things that make this console generation feel worse than the previous one; it has become impersonal. They are used so much online that you don't really meet up with people anymore to play because you just don't need to. And some games like BlazBlue for example - love the game - but playing online against someone is just as personal as playing against the CPU. No light punching or drinking games when someone lost and so on...

Sure you play against someone out there (and that person plays differently from the CPU) but what difference does it make without the real life interaction after someone won or lost? ^^ Not saying online play is bad by any means and I am also not saying the Wii did good by having a bad online service x3
But it certainly isn't a bad thing that people tend to play together in the same room on the Wii according to this article.

 

[luckycharms8282]

Nintendo wii is not for hardcore gamers. The majority of its games are things you could have more fun doing in real life (Wii sports)

 

[Jumplion]

Well that is, indeed, a fuckton.

Gotta give props where props is due;

conglaturations Nintendo !
you have created a greet consul
and prooved the justice of our culture
Now go and rest, our heroes !!!

While I personally haven't touched my Wii in months, if not years, I, and neither should anyone else, deny it's impact on the gaming industry for better or for worse. It'll be interesting to see what future generations will take from this.