Electric Dilintia

So just because I've become apathetic about the video game industry lately doesn't mean I've turned in my fanboy credentials yet. Far from it! Why, just today I was over at Videogame Charts taking a look at how the console wars are going.

And I noticed something funny.

At the time of this writing, the sales figures for the current generation of consoles and handhelds goes like this:

XBox 360
0.37m Japan
5.82m Americas
3.36m Others
9.55m Total

Wii
1.88m Japan
2.29m Americas
1.56m Others
5.73m Total

Playstation 3
0.78m Japan
1.35m Americas
0.00m Others
2.13m Total

DS
15.73m Japan
11.08m Americas
11.65m Others
38.46m Total

PSP
5.32m Japan
7.94m Americas
7.44m Others
20.70m Total

Given that these numbers are possibly a total crapshoot and their origins may be rectal in nature, take a look at the picture they paint. For every system except one, America has the largest piece of the installed units pie. It's not especially hard to figure out why -- America's a big market for video games. We're nuts about any sort of entertainment that lets us sit on our collective ass and watch flashing colors.

There's one exception: The DS. We take third place for installed DSs. Even Europe has more of them than us.

I've been watching the charts for a bit now, and I don't think I've ever seen a variation in this pattern. America owns more of every game system except the DS, which it owns less of than either of the other two territories.

Now why would this be?

It can't be because America simply doesn't like its portable systems -- we come out on top for PSP ownership. It can't be that we prefer the PSP -- we still have more DSs than PSPs.

I dunno. It's an interesting phenomenon. I just wonder what it means. Maybe I should have paid more attention in my statistics classes.

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