Nintendo Corp is celebrating the removal of Sony Corp’s PlayStation from the top of the sales charts, but Sony claims it is still hanging on. Figures from Port Washington, New York-based NPD Group Inc have games for the Nintendo 64 console at the top of the charts. It was open to question how successful the 64-bit games system, based on the MIPS Technologies Inc RISC chip – was going to be after delays in its launch and the question over how much further the games market could affordably expand. But Nintendo has captured the hearts of America’s youth by putting the 64-bit version of Super Mario above Electronic Arts’ Madden 97 and Namco’s Tekken 2 – both games for the PlayStation. Strong sales were validated from retailers and the Toys R Us chain attributed much of its 60% rise in third-quarter net income to strong Nintendo 64 demand. Based on early sales, it looks like this system will be a winner, promised Ryan Brock of NPD. This could really impact the industry as video games increasingly go head to head with the new generation of entertainment software that’s available for the personal computer. It’s a very positive development, particularly given the timing, as we’re heading into the holiday season. According to the NPD report, which tracks sales of console systems, Nintendo 64 took a 51% share of the 32 and 64-bit console market in September and 37% in the year to date. That’s for a system that went on sale only three months ago.
Sega loses the race
And poor Sega of America Inc seems to have lost the 1996 race. For October, PlayStation had 27% of the market, Sega’s Saturn had just 6% of the market and 1% of the market was attributed to other systems. In the year to date, Sony has 49% and Saturn 13%. But the Port Washington, New York research firm is adamant that this does not mean an overall win for Nintendo. PlayStation still accounted for six of the top ten games in the US; Nintendo 64 has just two – Mario at the top and PilotWings at number four. Sony says its Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc distribution arm in Foster City, California is having to rush more PlayStation games consoles to North America to keep pace with overwhelming consumer demand. Even with manufacturing at a rate of 1m machines a month, it seems it can’t get the things to retailers fast enough. In November, Nintendo eased shortages by shipping an additional 450,000 units to the US. The company had originally forecast only 500,000 units by the end of the year and another 500,000 units available for the first quarter. But Nintendo says it now expects to be able to deliver 1.2 million systems to the States by the end of 1996.
