Nintendo ruled 2007 despite shortages of popular Wii console

Neil Davidson, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - Despite shortages of its popular Wii system, Nintendo enjoyed a banner year in Canada in 2007.

Nintendo's portable DS was the best-selling system in Canada with 696,500 units sold, ahead of the Wii at 567,000. Together, the DS and Wii (1,263,500) outsold the combined total of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and 3, and PlayStation Portable (1,227,700), according to the NPD Group, which tracks the industry.

"Last year, what we saw was that consistently the Wii was a top-seller in the market. It wasn't just a holiday thing . . . It became a product that everyone was out searching for and people were still lining up to get the product," Darrel Ryce, director of the NPD Group Canada, said in an interview Monday.

"It was a good year to be Nintendo."

Nintendo has raised worldwide production twice since last April, the last time to 1.8 million units a month.

Still, Nintendo's rivals also did well. With the Wii hard to find, the Xbox 360 was the top-selling system in December in Canada, with the PS3 in second place.

In 2007, the Xbox 360 sold 385,200 units in Canada followed by the PlayStation 2 (324,000), PlayStation 3 (265,500) and the PlayStation Portable (253,000).

PlayStation sales benefited from price cuts and some attractive console bundle options, which Xbox also utilized to attract consumers.

Total video game sales in Canada, including, hardware, software and accessories, totalled $1.531 billion, up 56 per cent from 2006 ($933 million).

Some $396 million of that came in December, up 35.2 per cent from the same period a year ago.

Hardware, which includes consoles and portable systems, rang up 2007 sales of $652.8 million, up 77.6 per cent over 2006. Software finished the year at $697.7 million (up 38 per cent) while accessories totalled $180.3 million (up 66.3 per cent).

Bumper numbers were expected after Canadian video game sales for the first six months of the year were reported at $498 million, up 61 per cent over the same period the previous year.

Last year represents the first full year that all three next-generation consoles (the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360) were on the market.

Ryce sees software leading the way in 2008.

"I would anticipate that in 2008, as we start to see more titles for those systems come out, that software sales are going to be the drivers of growth," he said.

"It will definitely be about the games in 2008," he added.

"Grand Theft Auto IV" for the Xbox and PlayStation system, and Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros Brawl" are expected to be among big titles this year. The "Guitar Hero" franchise and "Rock Band" also are popular items.

Nintendo accounted for 10 of the top-20 selling games in Canada in 2007 - three for the Wii, including Nos. 1 and 3, and three for the DS. The Wii "Play" game, which came with a remote, was the No. 1 game of the year, consigning "Halo 3" for the Xbox 360 to second place.

"Halo 3" was No. 1 south of the border but Ryce says Canadian consumers were taken by the Wii remote that came with the "Play" title.

PC gaming, which NPD does not count in its total video game sales number, accounted for sales of $116.4 million in 2007, down four per cent from the previous year.

© The Canadian Press, 2008