blog..com

Remember the year 2000? When the PlayStation 2 came onto the scene and blew our Sega Dreamcasts out of the water? What about 2005, when Microsoft released the Xbox 360 and ushered in a new generation of game consoles, thus starting the latest round of console wars.

The only thing gaming fans love more than games is to argue about which system is superior. . .

“The Xbox 360 rules!”

“No, the PS3 is so much better!”

“Xbox!”

“PS3!”

“Aren’t you two forgetting the Wii?”

. . .(sound familiar?)  But the numbers never lie.

For Sixth Generation consoles (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube), Sony blows the others out of the water, with almost 140 million consoles sold.  Microsoft’s Xbox had 24 million by late 2007, and, despite the lack of recent sales data, still probably trails Sony by more than 100 million consoles. The GameCube clocks in at a lowly 22 million (as of last summer).

The tides turned, however, with the Seventh Generation of gaming consoles. To date, the Nintendo Wii has sold more than 50 million, the Xbox 360 more than 30 million, and the PS3 almost 23 million.

But even though these sales figures are great indicators of a console’s performance on a global scale, they do not necessarily reflect a gaming system’s worth to individuals. Resale values are much more important to users. Just take a look at these numbers:

As you can see from the above price trend, a perfect 20 GB Xbox 360 is worth a cool $70.

A perfect Wii can be sold for $108.

And a 20 GB PS3 in perfect condition is $119 in your pocket.

Considering that the 360’s original price was $399, the Wii’s was $249.99, and the PS3’s was $499.99, it looks like the Wii has won this round of the gaming wars. But we could have predicted this outcome—without even knowing Nintendo’s massive sales number.

Look at the trends: the average Gazelle offer price for the Wii has stayed remarkably constant, falling only $21 since last October. The PS3 and Xbox 360, on the other hand, have each lost $49 in value. Clearly, time is a gamer’s enemy when it comes to selling those old systems.