Core Gaming revealed some interesting South African sales figures at the recent launch of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. This data, provided by GFK Statistics, gives us a clearer indication of how the console race is being run in SA.

Total gaming and Home Market Share

Let’s start by taking a look at the total gaming market in SA. Home consoles led the charge in Quarter 4 of 2007 with 87% while handheld consoles trailed with 12% and the remaining 1% was allocated to other. Quarter 1 of 2008 saw handheld consoles gaining slightly with 15% but home consoles still dominated at 83% and other remained at 1%.

Moving ahead to Quarter 2 of 2008, home consoles still lead with 74% while handheld decreased to 10% and other increased to 15%. Matthew Grose, General Manager of Core Gaming Systems, speculated that the other category could include mobile gaming.

Turning now to consider the Home Market Share related to second generation and third generation consoles (called previous generation and next generation consoles for the purposes of this article), it is clear that the next generation consoles lead the race and that their lead is increasing each quarter.

Quarter 4 of 2007 saw the previous generation and next generation consoles facing off pretty equally with the previous at 48% and next gen at 52%. However, by Quarter 1 of 2008 the next gen consoles had pulled away with 58% in comparison to previous gens 42% and Quarter 2 of 2008 saw next gen increasing this lead to 65% while previous gen trailed with 35%.

3G and Handheld Market Share

The third generation market share is probably what you have really be wanting to learn more about, that is how the next generation console (between the Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3) race is shaping up. Despite the Wii being launched in South Africa in late September 2007, Nintendo dominated Quarter 4 of 2007 with the Wii at 46% followed by the 360 at 29% and the PS3 at 26%.

Quarter 1 of 2008 saw the Wii increase its lead to 51% while the PS3 remained at 26% and the 360 dropped slightly to 24%. However, Quarter 2 of 2008 saw the PS3 lose a bit of footing at 21% while the 360 increased to 26%, but the Wii still lead the charge at 54%.

The handheld race has also been heating up over the past few months. Quarter 4 of 2007 saw the DS at just 6% while the PSP dominated with 94%. However, after Core Gaming relaunched the DS in SA in February this year, Quarter 1 of 2008 saw the DS decreasing the gap with 39% with the PSP at 61%. Quarter 2 of 2008 sees the DS increasing further to 42% while the PSP has dropped marginally to 58%.

The results for Quarter 3 of 2008 will be interesting: will the DS continue to gain on the PSP in the handheld race; will the Wii keep up its domination of the next gen consoles; and will the PS3 or the Xbox 360 emerge as the runner-up?