Local gaming site xboxgaming has managed to get some figures for the sales of consoles in SA and the results are interesting to say the very least. We obviously have three different categories to look at, which come in the form of last-gen, current-gen and then handhelds. Can you guess who is kicking some major ass? Well, you probably could if you thought about it hard enough. Check out the list of sales figures for all consoles after the jump.
Ok so here are the stats:
PS2 – 810 000 units (63%) PSP – 152,000 units (12%) Xbox 360 – 102,000 (8%) Nintendo Wii – 92,000 (7%) Playstation 3 – 74,000 (6%) Nintendo DS – 48,000 (4%) So from the looks of things the PS2 is still the reigning king in South Africa and it’s no surprise as it still sells decently and has a ton of games for those who still have one. The Xbox 360 is currently dominating the SA current-gen market and it’s a little surprising to see it higher than the Wii, even if the Wii did have a ludicrous price tag. The PS3 seems to be catching up but still has some work to do. As far as handhelds are concerned it was quite surprising to see the amount of PSP’s sold, although it has been out for quite a while but still interesting considering that the DS has such low sales when compared. According to the source article, these stats are up till August and the Playstation 2 stats might not be entirely accurate due to sales going so far back. Now that you have seen the statistics for yourself, what do you think? Source: XboxGaming | 
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3:00 pm
October 21, 2009
3:04 pm
So SA is the only country where:
360 outsells the wii, but PSP outsells the ds.
Very strange place this.
Poor PS3, not even 10% of the PS2 market captured.
October 21, 2009
3:10 pm
i believe these stats.. Ive seen numerous people still buying PS2 games at BT,CNA or heck even Pick n Pay. Freaking diehards :P
October 21, 2009
3:15 pm
next month we should see a change with the Wii and PS3 price drop. Cant believe ppl still buy a PS2
October 21, 2009
4:00 pm
most, if not all, the ps2 sales are parents buying it for their kids (under 12 year old most likely)
October 21, 2009
4:00 pm
I see a lot of parents buying ps2′s for their kids nowadays looking at the price tag and the games library it makes sense for parents to get a ps2 rather than something more expensive.
October 21, 2009
4:09 pm
The fact is that the majority of South Africans don’t earn as much to afford a PS3 even at it’s current price. Neither can most of them afford the Elite. But they can afford the PS2 and the 360 Arcade. Both the 360 Arcade and the PS2 even come with free games or a free controller and memory card. Oh, and games for the PS2 and the 360 are much more affordable in the shops once they drop in price than the PS3′s platinum range.
October 21, 2009
4:11 pm
And let’s not forget how many households are still sporting SDTV’s
October 21, 2009
4:14 pm
I see lots of gamers are upgrading to Full HD LCD monitors rather than HDTV’s
October 21, 2009
4:23 pm
HD LCD monitors are cheap nowadays, I my self sport 2 26inch HD LCD monitors for my PC, one is also hooked to my xbox and to other to my PS3. Convinient, cos i rarely watch TV, cos there’s nt much on TV that concerns gaming.
October 21, 2009
4:27 pm
Yeah but a mother isn’t going to fork out money like that for her 12 year old who wants “tv games”, for us it ain’t bad but we are gamers and are happy to spend the money towards our interests.
October 21, 2009
4:38 pm
go figure xbox leads in this country and we still don’t have live support u suck MS !!!
October 21, 2009
4:58 pm
Another BIG question: How many of the 360′s are Arcade units?
October 21, 2009
5:23 pm
Those figures also include all replacement 360′s, so I think we are looking at about 50 000 to 70 000 actually sales.
October 21, 2009
6:19 pm
“So SA is the only country where:
360 outsells the wii, but PSP outsells the ds.”
just keep in mind that these figures are for lifetime sales, so you need to take into account how long the consoles have been available in SA. The figures don’t show what is currently selling more on a month-by-month basis. If you have like R30 000 or so you can get GfKsa to organise the rest of the stats for you :)
October 21, 2009
6:45 pm
30 000 – 50 000 replacement units? No ways. These numbers to not include units that were replaced by MiD/Powercare, as they are not “sold”
October 21, 2009
7:11 pm
“In the interests of openness, it should also be said that the install base figure includes bricked consoles with that naughty RRoD and other causes of gaming doom.”
October 21, 2009
7:21 pm
I highly suspect that it only includes from when retailers did the swopouts, before MI Digital, later Powercare took over the warranty.
October 22, 2009
8:17 am
What would be more interesting is the software sales between ps3 and xbox360.Pirating games is still very much rife in SA and since there are no copies on ps3, it would be interesting to see the difference.
October 22, 2009
12:08 pm
Remember that those PSP sales are directly on the back of all the bundle deals that popped up: Cellphone contracts came with PSPs, DSTV and gym contracts had PSP options, heck even Telkom offers PSP deals now (maybe so that you have something to do while waiting around for them). That clever bundle marketing made a lot of people go “Well, I can get one without really trying, so why not?”
The DS sales stats are due to its late arrival and horrible support. Buying a DS game locally felt like a crime until a few years ago.
I’d love to see attach rates per console/handheld. That would be awesome.
October 22, 2009
12:30 pm
umm a service bundled with a product is still a sale, you just pay it off over time unaware of the fact that the special deal is not so special.
October 22, 2009
3:32 pm
Im actually surprised the DS sold so many units.