29 January 2007

Yep, there's your answer, fishbulb!

Quick post:

A few weeks ago I saw an article online (probably via digg or thebbps) about an EB Games employee who did a test to gauge the popularity of the Wii against the Playstation 3. The test was based on phone calls, as far as I remember. For each call about either system they'd mark down points for each, and came up with a quite large number in favour of the Wii. decided to do this test myself. Well, myself and the other five employees at my store. Over the course of one week (January 20-27th) we did an epic test.

The rules were as follows:

- Phone calls and walk-ins were acceptable.
- Only questions about system hardware were accepted like "do you have any in stock?", "How much does ______ cost?", etc.
- Blanket questions like "Do you have any of the new systems in?" or "My kid wants a Wiistation 360" (sad note: I actually was asked this) were not counted.

And the results:

Playstation 3

Saturday: 2
Sunday: 3
Monday: 6
Tuesday: 6
Wednesday: 10
Thursday: 11
Friday: 13
Saturday: 15


Final week count for Playstation 3: 15.

Wii:

Saturday: 43
Sunday: 72
Monday: 112
Tuesday: 135
Wednesday: 144
Thursday: 170
Friday: 198
Saturday: 216

Final week count for Wii: 216.


Keep in mind that this is a dead time for games (at least at retail), and the World of Warcraft expansion is pretty much the main reason for people to come in right now. So does this mean that the Wii is a better system than the PS3? No, not necessarily. Not at all, in fact. It just proves the staying power of the Wii. Not even this many people were looking for the 360 this time last year. Has Nintendo reached the broader market it promised it'd get? Man, I think so.

Here's a visual of the actual checklist:


Now I'm off to play in the snow. Night kids.