Hitwise: Nintendo Wii More Popular Online Than iPod And PS3

Authored by Bill Tancer on November 28, 2006 - 1:24pm.

The stats are in for the much-hyped Cyber-Monday and compared to Cyber-Monday in 2005, the Hitwise Retail 100 Index is up 13.3% for yesterday (11/27/06). As we've seen for the fourth year running (as represented in the chart below), Thanksgiving Day remains the peak day for retail traffic in market share of visits.

Comparing Cyber-Monday 2006 to Thanksgiving Day this year, the index was down 33.87% and down 26.29% compared to Black Friday 2006. One of the theories that we've subscribed to as to why Thanksgiving Day continues to be the busiest day for retail traffic in market share of visits is that consumers use the Internet to research Black Friday sales the day before venturing out to bricks and mortar stores.

Indeed, our rankings data reflects that on Thanksgiving Day, Walmart.com and BestBuy.com held the #1 and #2 slot for the Retail 100 Index (the #1 spot is traditionally held by Amazon.com), by Cyber-Monday, Amazon is back in its #1 position. Furthermore, as shown below, on Cyber-Monday six of the top fifteen sites in the Retail 100 Index are online pure-plays versus three on Thanksgiving Day.

In other news, weekly search terms driving traffic to the Shopping & Classifieds category indicate that the Nintendo Wii is pulling ahead of Playstation 3, possibly due to the scarcity of Sony's game console.

Note: This post originally appeared on Bill Tancer's blog here. Bill is the General Manager, Global Research at Hitwise. His bio can be viewed here.

Related Links:
Nintendo’s Wii a Testament to Innovation
Nintendo: 600,000 Wii Consoles Sold in First Week
Real Demand for Sony’s PlayStation 3 will be Revealed After Black Market Cools

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Comments

Repeated everywhere...

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on November 29, 2006 - 6:15am.

I love this quote, almost all sites say this: "indicate that the Nintendo Wii is pulling ahead of Playstation 3, possibly due to the scarcity of Sony's game console."

My question is, how available is the Wii? Everywhere I go they are sold out too and no can seem to get them unless they get "lucky".

Now I know there are more available, but that doesn't mean they are any less scarce. If you can buy what you want, you can buy it period.

Also, if you notice by this chart, the Wii actually took spots #1 & #3, that is a HUGE margin over the PS2 @ #5.

Now, I did get my Wii, I camped out overnight for it on release day, first console I ever did that for. My wife who is NOT a gamer and I can never get to play anything, is starting to really like it.

I talked her into playing Tennis for the first time two days ago, she said one "Best of 3" and then she was going to read. Well we did three "Best of 3's", I hit the ceiling fan, she hit the lamp and we were laughing our asses off and had A LOT of fun. I have never seen her laugh and get into a game like this before.

I think Nintendo REALLY hit on something here. On a side note, she said last night she wasn't ever going to play the Wii again, because her arms where so sore. hahahaha

In truth, my shoulder is a little sore too, but the "man" in me would never tell her that.

I know you don't have to play that hard or swing that big, but it truly is THAT immersive that you get sucked into the game and just have a great time. For the first time ever, we have setup a party in two weeks with friends to come over to play video games.

Again, we are not gamers by any stretch of the word, we are in our mid-30's. I grep with Space Invaders, Zaxxon, Donkey Kong, etc.... Yes I have already downloaded DK and can't wait for DK Jr.

We are Nintendo's target market and it's going HUGE!

I am not dissing the PS3, but I really believe Nintendo has a winning combination here and it's just not because they have more consoles at the current time.

Time will tell, but everyone I talk to are talking about the Wii.

Wii > All

Submitted by Aly (not verified) on December 13, 2006 - 3:54am.

The Wii is definitely the best game out there. I, myself, do not own one, but my friend does. We play that damn thing 24/7. I don't get how people keep bitching about the controllers breaking. Listen, it's simple. Put the damn wrist band on. It's really not that hard.