Nintendo Wii sales slowing down

Sales of the Nintendo Wii have slowed considerably in Japan in the last month – although the popular family console has moved past the 7 million mark in its birthplace.

The Wii has been a roaring success for Nintendo but Enterbrain statistics point to a 24 per cent drop in sales as it enters its second year.

That is based on figures that show that 5 million consoles had sold by January of this year or around 386,000 average monthly units, but only 2 million since (or 292k a month).

Christmas boost

There has been a rise recently ahead of the Christmas period, and it is a time of year when the family oriented gaming machine has done well in the past.

But with a credit crunch biting into people's disposable income and an already large slice of the market, things are not nearly as rosy for Nintendo.

There is already much talk that the console does not have the appeal of its predecessors for the so-called 'core' gamers, and although Wii Fit's success has shown that people are still willing to splash out on the right game, Wii Music – the latest first party release - has not sold well.

In a competitive market, where sales of consoles are in decline and rivals such as Microsoft's Xbox has come down in price, Nintendo is still sitting pretty, but perhaps not as comfortably as it did coming into 2008.